Donations - SC Johnson and the Well-Travelled Clinic (Liverpool)

A massive thank you to both SC Johnson and the Well-Travelled Clinic (Liverpool) for their kind donations! 

 

SC Johnson have donated their DEET free version of Autan (insect repellent) to us which will hopefully keep us free of mosquito and tick bites. www.scjohnson.co.uk/

 

The Well-Travelled Clinic has donated a sterile kit for our First Aid requirements. This is one item we definitely intend on bringing back unopened but are glad to be able to take with us.  We've also been making good use of the clinics in Liverpool and Chester for our essential vaccinations. 
http://www.welltravelledclinics.co.uk/

 

Both of these donations will be extremely helpful and will help to reduce the cost of the trip. Thank you!

 

 

Forest Camp 8th-10th March

The Youth Contingent - Hannah, Vanessa, Sophie, Olivia and Emily

We arrived on the 8th, excited to see each other again despite the bad weather! We went through the camp rules, set up all the tents and our sleeping bags, and sat down to discuss what we would be doing that weekend.  Then we began to make our first craft: thread Easter eggs filled with a chick and chocolate. This was good fun if immensely infuriating at times! After that we had a hot drink before getting ready for bed.



On the 9th (Saturday) we got up at 8.30 and collected wood for the fire. Although difficult to light, the fire was eventually got going and we had breakfast before heading off to do the low ropes course, which was a lot of fun! (Congratulations to Sophie for having the most number of falls!) We then had lunch and started to make our sock puppets for the "Alternative Camp Fire". By this stage we were getting very cold and so the decision was made not to camp on Saturday night and instead sleep in a nearby Scout hut. We took down the tents and relocated there. Once we had arrived we made Friendship Knot Badges and Monkey's fist key rings to sell as part of our fundraising. Dinner was served, after which we discussed the Group Charter and got ready for bed.

Sunday morning found us all a lot warmer than on Saturday!  We had breakfast before continuing with our crafts and having our 121 chats with Alison and Naomi. After lunch we discussed the Pax Lodge weekend which is planned for April. The time for home came quickly and we said our goodbyes before setting off, looking forward to seeing one another again soon.

 

Friends of Eastern Siberia Grant

Thank you so much to the Friends of Eastern Siberia, who have not only made this whole trip possible but have now also given us a massive grant of £200 each towards our group total!

Thank you to everyone who is part of the Friends of Eastern Siberia team, especially Marina Dancy who has been extremely helpful in giving advice about our trip from selection day!

To find out more about the Friends of Eastern Siberia, please click here:

Co-operative Community Fund Grant!

We'd like to give a huge thank you to the Co-operative Community Fund for giving us a grant of £500!

£200 of this will be spent on vaccinations, which we'll all be starting soon and are quite nervous about!

£300 will then go towards our camp fees.

The Co-operative Community Fund gives money towards projects in local areas. Thank you once again for giving us such an important grant!

To find out more about the Co-operative Community fund, click here:

Food for Thought 09.02.2013

On the 9th of February we had our second meeting as a team - this time in Pizza Hut! We chose a more relaxed setting so that we could get to know one another a bit more, as well as discuss some more serious business.

The meeting started with an announcement of two new members of the team. Unfortunately, Amber can no longer go with us, however Naomi Tagg is our new first aider and Olivia Whiteside has also joined us! We're really happy to welcome them into the team!

We discussed fundraising- everyone seems to be doing very well! Our Challenge Badge pack will hopefully be ready soon, which we're all very excited about.

With Forest Camp in less than 2 weeks, our thoughts turned to that and the activities we might do whilst we're there. This will be also be Alison's outside camp licence assessment and so is very important! We're keeping our fingers crossed for nice weather whilst we're there.

On the subject of camp, the weekend at Pax Lodge was also discussed. It looks like we'll be able to fit in some London sightseeing around our planning!

The Group Charter was next on our minds, with each of us given a sheet in order to have an input into what will be drawn up.

With 5 months to go  excitement is continuing to grow!

Finally, congratulations to Vanessa for eating the most expensive meal!

Check back here for updates soon!

Meeting the Team! 09.12.2012

It was with no little excitement that we all arrived at Pettypool activity centre. This was the first time that we were all to meet as the team selected to travel to Siberia in Summer 2013: Hannah Cusworth, Vanessa Holt, Emily Johnson, Sophie Barlow, Amber Burrows and Alison Boag-Munroe (the final two our leaders). Amber has been to Siberia on a previous trip and it's fantastic to have someone with experience on the team, especially as she had brought her photo albums to show us.

We discussed everything from fundraising ideas (including a challenge badge and bag pack) to dates for meetings to, arguably one of the most important things, group uniform. We also talked about life in Russia and our roles both at home and away. Alison and Amber are eager for everyone to be involved and so here are our roles when we arrive in Siberia:

Blogger: Vanessa
Photographer: Sophie
Documenter: Hannah
Finance monitor: Emily

We're all extrememly excited for the trip, so check back here for updates on fundraising and other events as well as the actual trip this summer!