New Explorer Unit

A new Explorer Unit has been established by Guildford West in partnership with St Nicolas 9th Guildford Scout Group. The unit was formed on Good Friday with Guildford West’s DESC and District Commissioner in attendance. The District Commissioner and GSL of St Nicolas 9th Guildford invested the new unit’s Explorer Scout Leader, who in turn invested the first two members of the Unit. The Unit now has six invested Explorers with a pipeline of Guildford West Scouts looking forward to joining.

The Unit is just starting out on its adventure. An adventure that’ll be outdoors focused, challenging, exciting and great fun. It’s focused on supporting its Explorers to work towards Bronze and Silver DoE alongside the Chief Scout’s Platinum and Diamond Awards. The Explorers week-by-week Scouting will be their DoE activities.

The Unit will meet almost exclusively at weekends, filling a niche for those Scouts who find weekday evening activities difficult to fit in but can do things at weekends. It means the District is providing more options and new ways to access Explorer Scouting, and more ways to retain an even greater proportion of Scouts into Explorers.

The Unit held its first activity recently will all Explorers completing an off-road cycle tour of the High points of the Surrey Hills across Leith Hill and Holmbury Hill. By tradition of course it rained. Afterwards Explorers said “that was hard work” and “never seen so much mud in my life” and “Wow”. During the ride, two new Explorers were invested on the top of Leith Hill.

Next the Unit is cycling on the South Downs Way, so the Explorers can decide if they want to do their Bronze DofE expedition by bike, tackling a lightweight expedition on the south coast and is off to Gilwell24 in July.