Cotswold Outdoor Weekend

Taking over the shop floor at Cotswold Outdoor

We spent this weekend with Cotswold Outdoor in Coventry, who are one of Scouting's corporate fundraising partners. They kindly let us take over their store to run a Christmas stall for the Unit funds and to do some Unit bonding.

The Unit came in waves across the weekend to spend some time together for the first time since they found out they made it into the Unit. We took some paracord and the guys did a brilliant job of making bracelets and keyrings to sell alongside the cakes that some seriously talented parents made specially for the weekend.

It took serious self-control to not eat these ourselves

Big Jamboree love to Cotswold Outdoor and Leekes for housing us for the weekend, and to all the parents for supporting us. It was great to see the guys from the Unit and we can't wait until we get you all together properly again!

Welcome to Unit 42

Welcome to the world, Unit 42!

Massive congratulations, excitement and general Jamboree loveliness to Aiko, Aisling, Ben, Celestine, Charlie, Dan, Dillan, Dom, Dylan, Ellie, Ethan, Geena, Grace, Hannah, Harriet, Helen, Holly, Iona, Jaiker, James, John, Jordan, Katie, Lily, Lois, Matt, Matt, Mattie, Matty (whose silly idea was that?), Mike, Niamh, Ollie, Becca, Skye, Tristan and Zoe.

We'll be calling you all Dave until we've learned all your names.

Selection Weekend

In the cold but beautiful weather at the end of November we had our selection event to choose the participants for our Unit.

116 Scouts & Explorer Scouts from all over Coventry and Warwickshire came to Rough Close campsite over two days to take part in a series of challenges from which we hoped to be able to choose our perfect Unit. We didn't make it easy for them.We had them building pioneering projects and crawling through mud; we had them trying to communicate with people they'd only just met through the walls of a tent, and we put them on the spot to amuse us with long histories of random objects they picked out of a bag.

The patrols for the day got to know each other very quickly with our icebreakers

Every single Scout who came to the selection day was fantastic - it got to the point that I was considering refusing to choose only 36 and just trying to sneak an extra 80 people onto the plane in July 2015. How hard can it be?

Everyone really got into the spirit of the weekend and embraced Japanese culture to the extreme

We saw 116 amazing young people that weekend. Coventry & Warwickshire Scout Counties hold an incredible amount of potential and if we'd had more places we would have happily agreed to take everyone to Japan. 

Eventually, at half past ten on Sunday night and with the help of Dave and the rest of our selection staff (whom we love very, very much), Unit 42 was born. 116 had been painstakingly narrowed down to 36 who were then sorted and organised and stacked every which way we could think of to make sure that we had a perfect, balanced Unit. 

We'll be meeting as a Unit for the first time in January but, for the lucky 40 of us, the adventure starts now. 

To everyone who made it into the Unit: we can't wait to get this started with you.

To everyone who applied, but wasn't successful: don't give up. It was great to meet you and you made our decisions that weekend very difficult. There are so many other fantastic adventures to be had in the future. 

To our selection staff: thank you so, so much for giving up your weekend. We couldn't have done it without you. We owe you!

And finally, to Ben: the next time event shelters need putting up first thing in the morning, you're doing them all by yourself.