The past year has been one of the most challenging in the Groups 80+ years of existence. Not only have we not been able to hold any face-to-face activities, we have not been able to hold any of our fundraising events, and have had no income from letting out our HQ.

We normally raise around £7,500 per year from events such as the Pantomime, Gang Show and Christmas Fayre. We have also not been charging termly subscriptions for our 100+ Young People for nearly a year. Due to the fact that the HQ is assessed as part of the Church premises, the business rates exemption means we are disqualified from applying for financial support from the local authority under the various business and charity support schemes that are open to other Scout Groups.

Despite this, we have still had significant outgoings, there is a fixed membership fee which the Group still has to pay for each child every year. There are also utility bills and costs related to the upkeep of our premises. We expect our overall outgoings for this current financial year will total approximately £4,000 for HQ running costs and approximately £5,000 for membership subscriptions.

As we have not been charging termly subs recently, we would like to ask parents/carers and group supporters, if they are able, to consider making a voluntary donation to the Group to help cover our annual costs. We are very aware that this year has seen many families face financial challenges and so if you are not in a position to make a donation this will not affect your child’s membership of the Group.

We have set up a donation facility below via our secure PayPal account.

If anybody is interested in donating but would rather do so via another method, then please email treasurer@23rdbromleyscouts.org.

You can keep up to date with our donations by visiting our donation page.

We would like to give our heartfelt thanks to everyone that makes a donation. As an organisation we are reliant on fundraising, donations and subscription payments. All donations will allow us to continue to provide high quality Scouting for Young People in the local area.

Best wishes

Jenny Owens and Sandra Goodwin

Group Scout Leaders

It has been a challenging last 11 months for the group, not only have we not been able to meet in person, but we haven’t been able to carry out any of our usual fundraising activities.

The group were therefore delighted to have been contacted by a family member of a former member (and one of our first ever Queens Scouts!) who gave a generous financial donation to the group. We receive no funding from other organisations, and rely solely on subscription payments and money from fundraising. This donation will go towards helping the group to continue to provide Scouting for the young people of the local area.

We appreciate that others may wish to make a donation to the group, and are working on plans for this, watch this space…

Happy New Year to all of our Young People, Parents/Guardians, Leaders and Supporters.

What a year its been for the 23rd Bromley! It started off well in January with another entertaining Pantomime which raised £2,600 and a very kind donation from Sir Robert McAlpine which allowed us to purchase a wide range of new camping equipment. February saw Spitfire Beavers hold an awesome Hogwarts themed sleepover at Wilberforce, before the Explorers become Scouts of Steel champions in early March.

In the middle of March we were faced with the suspension of face-to-face Scouting for the first time in the groups history, but despite this we have still been busy. From April onwards we have:

• Held over 50 virtual section meetings
• Awarded over 200 badges to our Young People
• Assisted vulnerable local residents with food shopping
• Camped from our homes/gardens with Camp at Home and Camp Out for Kenya
• Raised over £530 for BBC Children in Need and Comic Relief by Hiking to the Moon
• Carried out our first ever virtual investiture
• Held our first ever virtual AGM
• Supported a virtual Remembrance Day service
• Collected over 30 bags of donations for the Bromley Brighter Beginnings’ Christmas Hamper Appeal

We would like to thank everyone who has supported us over the last 12 months, in what has been one of the most challenging years for the group. We expect there are still a number of challenges ahead of us, but we are hoping to get back to some form of normality in 2021.

Well what a year 2020 has been, it started well with lots of great things happening in the group and then in March face to face scouting stopped and that is where we still are unfortunately.

Although we haven’t been able to meet up as we would normally all the sections have been keeping in touch with all their young people and there has been some great things happening on Zoom.

We are preparing our risk assessments and although it will be different we hope to be returning to face to face scouting sometime in the new year, obviously Government guidance, Scout Association rules and local risk levels permitting.

Lastly, Sandra and I would like to say thank you to all the leaders for carrying on through these very difficult times and to thank all the parents and supporters for your continued support.

We wish everyone a happy Christmas and hope 2021 brings more normality.

Best Wishes
Jenny Owens
Group Scout Leader

Our friends over at Harambee for Kenya are making a number of festive figures as part of a Christmas fundraising campaign for the charity. The large reindeers cost £12 and are about 13 inches tall, and the small snowmen cost £6 and are about 7 inches tall.

To place an order, please send us a message on Facebook, or email admin@23rdbromleyscouts.org, with your name, an email address and details of what you would like to order. We will then email you with details of how to arrange payment.

If you would like to order one then please place an order with us by Saturday 12th December – the items will be ready for collection from around Saturday 19th December.

The proceeds from the sales will go towards supporting the boys at the safe houses in Kenya. More details about the charity can be found at: https://harambeeforkenya.org/

Do you have 30 seconds to nominate the group for a £1,000 donation?

We have been given the opportunity to enter the Group into a prize draw to win a donation of £1,000. The last year has been challenging for the group, so funding opportunities like this are now more important than ever.

To help our chances of getting a donation, please click the button below and complete some basic personal information:

The more nominations our Group gets, the greater our chance of winning, so please spread the word…

Huge thank you to all our supporters who donated items to the fantastic Christmas Hamper Appeal this week for Bromley Brighter Beginnings – we collected over 30 bags of donations!

The charity have asked us to pass on their thanks to everybody for their kind and generous donations.

And another thank you goes to @23rdBromley who have donated so many lovely things for our #Christmas2020 #hampers that it has filled my house! Amazing achievement, what a wonderful advert for the #values of #scouting @UKScouting @BearGrylls pic.twitter.com/kGV7KDMo5o

— Bromley Brighter Beginnings (@BrighterB) November 13, 2020

Despite not being able to hold our usual Remembrance Day Parade today – we still wanted to take a moment to remember all those who paid the ultimate sacrifice

#WeWillRememberThem

#LestWeForget

#RemembranceDay

Congratulations to the winners of our Bromley Brighter Beginnings Christmas Hamper Appeal Poster Competition.

Jessica from Spitfires was crowned winner for the Beaver section, whilst Rachael from Kim Pack picked up the award for the Cubs section.

Thanks also to the volunteers from Bromley Brighter Beginnings who looked at all the submissions and chose the winning entries for each section.

We are still planning on collecting donations next week for their Christmas Hamper Appeal – keep an eye out for further details next week…

Please see below a letter from Jenny Owens, our Group Scout Leader, about the return to face-to-face scouting at the 23rd Bromley.