16th Reigate Scout Group

Number 197

May 2005

I have been trying to check up on how the funds we donated to various organisations five years ago have been spent.
We had confirmation long ago that the donation to Westnell Nurseries ( of which Mark Patchett was Chairman ) to buy chairs for the school in Lima, has indeed been used for that purpose.
We also know that the money given to three different Mountain Rescue units was spent on equipment to help them in their valuable work. We bought radio equipment for the Brecon group in central Wales. We paid for wet-weather clothing for the Kendal unit; and financed oxygen bottles used by the Langdale group, also in the Lake District.
We expected our donation to the Scouting work in Uganda to be spent fairly promptly on some IT equipment for the school in Mityana. However, there have been delays because the organisers have been offered an alternative site for the school. So the money is in the funds, - not quite what we intended, but things move slowly in Africa.
Our contribution to the 1st Burstow Scout Group, rebuilding their HQ after a fire, was intended to furnish their kitchen. They have also suffered delays, but the building is now complete, and they had an opening ceremony on Sunday 29th May. I represented us there and was able to inspect a substantial brick building in its own plot of land. In the kitchen, there is a plaque acknowledging our donation, though the stove it is funding has not yet been delivered.
We also made a donation to Tim Formoy’s Group in Hertfordshire towards re-furbishing their kitchen. We have not heard how they are progressing.
We donated £ 2000 to the RNLI to fund GPS equipment for ‘The Scout’ lifeboat, which we were told was stationed at Hartlepool. The secretary of that lifeboat station has confirmed that GPS has now been fitted to their ‘inshore’ boat. However, he also told me that ‘The Scout’ was decommissioned in 1997 ( before our donation ! ), and is now in service in Argentina. In 1996, (just when our Group was going into hibernation ), the Scout Association was raising money for a new lifeboat, and my enquiries about this are on-going.

My trip to Australia ( January / February ) was a great success. I stayed with Tim St.Pierre for a few days, and saw the sights of the Fremantle / Perth area. While strolling along the river bank, I came across the Headquarters of a local Sea Scout group. They have obviously been well endowed over the years, having a two-storey main building, several boat sheds, and numerous canoes, sailing dinghies, and two or three motor launches. They are so lucky to have safe boating water literally on their doorstep. I was able to read on their notice-board a copy of the letter they send to parents of new Scouts, and it was clear their approach was very similar to ours. There was also a card addressed to the Scouters, from two old members who were hiking in Vietnam. They had found a good camp-site, and had GPS’d it for future reference. A new verb for me !
After a couple of days visiting Uluru and the Olgas in central Australia, I spent a week or more with Ross Letten in Brisbane. He is very much into sailing, owning three boats, including a trimaran called ‘Trillium’. He took me on a five-day four-night trip among the coastal islands down to Southport. The wind was nearly always in the wrong direction for easy sailing, but fortunately the vessel had a motor, as well as GPS with a chart displayed, an echo-sounder and automatic steering. It was fascinating navigating the well-marked channels.

Ross has sent another e-mail telling of his more recent travels; - you will need to get out your atlas!
“ Over Easter, my regular crew and I did the Brisbane to Gladstone multihull race in ‘Trillium’; flat calms interspersed with 35 knot winds and waterspouts ! Afterwards, we swapped the racing gear for the cruising gear, and Shez and I headed north in company with two large cats and spent three delightful days at Yellow Patch, a beautiful spot just around the corner from Cape Capricorn, named by Captain Cook because of its proximity to the Tropic. We carried on north to Keppel Bay on our own, under just jib and screacher, until we fell in with a Prout Snowgoose 38, crewed by a couple from New York, doing a circumnavigation. Interesting people, and an electrical engineer, who was able to help me with some charging and nav light problems. We then got caught in Pearl Bay by strong SE winds and swell for six nights, but eventually continued the cruise, finishing up at Mackay, which is just below (sic) the Whitsundays. We then trailed the boat 1000 kms back to Brisbane. With the wings folded, ‘Trillium’s’ beam is 9’8”, so it was not a very relaxing drive, but we were able to cruise at speeds of 100 kph into the teeth of strong south-easterly trade winds.
We are presently (16/05/05) in Darwin staying with English friends we met in Phalaborwa in South Africa, and we are joining a group to ‘do’ the Kimberleys in the north-west of Australia. There are six couples in the group, and we fly from point to point in a Cessna Caravan, because the vast distances and limited infrastructure mean that driving in four wheel drives would take for ever. Will tell you how we get on.”

Colin Wels has been in touch with Aubs, and sent a potted biography which I summarize here:
He was in our Scout Group for three years ( 59 – 63 ), - a ‘life forming experience’ he said. He moved to East Grinstead Grammar School, where he passed his O-Levels and A-Levels, and went on to Bristol University where he read Biochemistry, following it with a PhD in ‘natural product metabolism’. After two years on penicillin metabolism at Nottingham University, he worked for five years at the Wellcome Research Laboratory in Berkhampstead. He then ‘drifted slowly’ into management training, and more recently into business coaching. His son Daniel had a daughter in 2003, so he is now a granddad, and living happily in Oxford.

Richard Todd has written: “I read the latest newsletter with interest and found more names than usual that I recognised. The request to send future copies by email prompted this reply. I was intrigued to see so many people talking of retirement, I am now in my fourth "career" having spent sixteen years as a manufacturing engineer, thirteen as a consultant and trainer in manufacturing systems, four as Business Improvement and QA Manager for part of ICL and almost three in the current role. There is some thought that we might retire sometime. I now work with my wife Jo in her business supporting people with processing differences (hidden disabilities) in the workplace and consult on the Disability Discrimination Act in business and education. Jo and our two children have dyslexia and all of them have turned their difficulties to their advantage.
Please give my best regards to Aubs; I think of him gratefully more often than is logical for a forty year gap.
Please send the newsletter to this email address in future.”

Graham Richardson e-mailed just too late for the January News-Sheet to tell us that, while in South Africa, he had got engaged to Ellen Sofie, a Norwegian girl. He duly married her in February, in All Souls Church, Langham Place.
Congratulations and best wishes, both.

Chris Pook was almost the only Old Scout at the School Reunion on 7th May. He returned from his posting in the USA last summer, where he was with the FCO. He is now in the DTI, which was about to be re-named the Department for Productivity, Energy and Industry. However, a paragraph at the foot of a page in the Business section of ‘The Times’, written by Robert Cole, confirms that they have wisely decided not to make this expensive change.
Chris is back at 7,Somerset Road, Redhill, RH1 6LS, 01737-224844, and is happy for us to publish this, and: pook.family@virgin.net .

If any of you who receives the News-Sheet by Royal Mail is able and willing to get it on e-mail, please tell us, - to save time and postage. All recent News-Sheets are on the School web-site; type: http://www.reigategrammar.org/scouts/index.htm.
We are not allowed to publish addresses, phone numbers, etc. on the web-site, without the owner’s permission, but we can reveal them ‘privately’. So if you send us any news, please indicate whether we may print your details.
Also, please try to remember to tell us if you move, or change your e-mail address.

To contact me, try: robin@reigategrammar.org
Or at 39, Monks Walk, Reigate, Surrey, RH2 0SS. 01737 – 248135.