This week we visited the Bristol & West Progressive Synagogue in Easton. Keren and David were very welcoming of the cubs and led us in a lively discussion – sharing their space, faith and food with the cubs.

Our cubs outshone themselves, sharing their knowledge of the comparative theologies of Christianity and Judaism! They were able to get up close with the portion of scripture being read at the moment from a very special scroll of the Torah. They tried on many Kippah and enjoyed a morsel of plaited Challah bread.

Many Thanks to David and Keren for hosting us and Iris for baking the delicious bread.

Dr Charles Gamble, an electrical engineer from Community Power Solutions, and Karl Davis, a mechanical engineer from Empire Engineering, visited the 167th Westbury Baptist Cub Pack on Monday to share inspiration from their careers in driving forward renewable energy supply for the UK.

The cubs started off with a treasure hunt for images of different energy sources and a discussion in their Sixes:

• How do they work
• Are they renewable or non-renewable?
• Which type of energy is better?

Moving to a look inside a wind turbine, we were all enthralled by the scale and intricacy involved in wind engineering:

Charles followed up by sharing some of his history from seeing his desire to be a coal miner as a child transformed in to a career in renewable energy. He shared how wind turbines preform the magic alchemy of turning invisible wind that blows past our faces in to invisible electricity that powers our homes.

The cubs had a active kinesthetic break putting together three foot tall wind turbines in a Lego-style assembly. Followed by taking them outdoors to catch the wind and charge up the internal battery. With the battery charged, the turnine could be repurposed, with the help of a few extra parts, in to a small electric vehicle.

Karl wowed the cubs with a sense of the scale and challenges of offshore wind. Heads were twisting as he helped cubs imagine the size of the foundation pole, comparing its diameter to the length of the church hall in which we meet.

Thank you to Charles and Karl for inspiring our cubs and to cub leader, Chill (also known as George Jamison from Clarehill Associates), for organising the evening.

Next term we will be visiting the tallest community owned wind turbine, which is also the only turbine built in England in the last year!

On Monday 16th October the cubs were delighted to welcome John Chambers to HQ to give a talk on his life as an underwater camera operator.

But to get things started we first had a fun game of “climb the rigging” – sadly, no photos exist of “shark attack” as your photographer was busy issuing orders!

You will however be pleased to learn that your cubs appear very well versed in “scrubbing the decks” should you ever have any jobs for them to do on your yachts or even just at home. Next, we had a relay race with a twist. We had to get into scuba gear and race, (I mean walk very carefully as per the risk assessment) having struggled into ill-fitting fins, mask and snorkel & carrying a very heavy lead weigh belt. Thankfully, no toes were smashed in this fun game. Unsure which team won as Baloo joined in at the end.

Scuba Relay Race

John felt this game was a particularly good approximation of his day job.

Then we all sat down for the talk by John about his work as an underwater cameraman filming on a wide variety of shows including: Blue Planet, Planet Earth, Film set and rumour has it even Top Gear’s very own Stig. While we sat quietly and listened we also all got plenty of opportunities to ask John thoughtful and interesting questions eg favourite place, favourite animal.

John also showed us a cool video clip of an octopus fighting off a pyjama shark!

We were also lucky enough to get a close look at some of the Scuba and camera equipment used. As well as try on a very heavy BCD with Tank ! And helpully explained what to do if you are facing with a Great White Shark while swimming (“look ‘em straight in the eye”)  and what not to do while diving under very thick ice (“do not get lost”).

Search and Rescue / find the buried treasure hunt

Having sat still for a while it was time for another great game inspired by John’s tales of getting lost under thick ice,  our venerable leader, Baloo made a search and rescue game on boards with shopping trolly wheels

After some scary Jaws theme music, the cub with the most thought provoking question (as chosen by Scuba Man) was Tom – who ably assisted by Eloise, carefully unfuled the tarp covering a wild beastie on the stage: Jacob the Orca.

Great night and all the cubs sat down and paid full attention. John was very impressed. We all enjoyed it very much and we were delighted to have him in.

I hope these pictures give an idea of what we did.

If not – ask your cubs !

Tune into Planet Earth 3 this Sunday (22nd October 2023) on BBC1 at 6pm to see some of John’s work – including flying fish.

This news article is written by the 167th Cubs’ very own reporter & photojournalist.

16 of the Cub Pack enjoyed a morning in the harbour today sailing dinghies. The wind was set for an exciting sail with a strong and gusty blow.

We have a had a fantastic time at Pack Camp last weekend. We had no rain, no accidents … and no sleep!

The Cubs outshone themselves in the activities and in the free time. Here are a few of the things we got up to:

• Pitching Camp
• Wood Fired Pizza Supper
• Night Hike
• Fishing
• Gutting and Filleting Fish
• Cooking fish over our fires using an American Indian technique called ‘ponassing’
• Whittling ponassing sticks
• Making Shelters
• Camp fire smores
• Building homes for Solitary Bees
• Making Rope

I’ll let the photos speak for the cubs!