e-BatchWord

The Batchworth Sea Scouts Newsletter

November 2009 2nd Edition

If this email is unreadable, please click here for the online version.

For membership details or general enquiries contact our Group Scout Leader, Simon Theobald on simontheobald@compuserve.com or telephone 07850 337903. For newsletter related items email batchword@yahoo.co.uk. Please forward this newsletter on to anyone you think might be interested in joining Batchworth Sea Scouts.

22^nd WORLD SCOUT JAMBOREE - SWEDEN 2011

The World Scout Jamboree takes place every four years and is international Scouting at its best. Scouts from all over the world gather to celebrate the fellowship of Scouting. The 22nd World Scout Jamboree will take place in Sweden in the summer of 2011. As in 2007 tens of thousands are expected to share in this unique International experience. The theme is 'Simply Scouting'. Rickmansworth and Chorleywood Scouts District, of which Batchworth Sea Scouts is a part, have been allocated a limited number of places in the Hertfordshire contingent, so we will have to select who will represent us.

To qualify, Scouts / Explorers would have to be born between 25th July 1993 and 27th July 1997. For more details contact Jon Wall on bograts.explorers@googlemail.com or telephone 07850 145969.

CHRISTMAS PARTY

This year our Christmas party will be held at our Headquarters on Riverside Drive on Saturday 12th December 2009. Doors open at 6:30pm.

A festive celebration filled with food, drinks, music and top quality entertainment. Christmas Buffet Dinner with Licensed Bar. For those arriving in uniform please bring a change of clothes as you must be out of uniform when the licensed bar is open.

For more details and a booking form click here

EASTENDERS AT BATCHWORTH SEA SCOUTS

By Group Scout Leader, Simon Theobald.

Amid strict security and almost total secrecy, part of an episode of the BBC programme EastEnders was recently filmed at Batchworth Sea Scouts Headquarters. Early on a recent Monday morning the set crew arrived to transform part of the back of Batchworth Sea Scouts HQ into the "storage building" and prepare the set. Prop trucks arrived, new dummy security cameras installed and new signs put up to cover the existing scout signs.

The inside of the HQ was transformed into a studio with directors, technicians and crew all monitoring the action going on outside. Eventually members of the EastEnders cast arrived and filming got underway.

We, of course, will not spoil the enjoyment of those that watch EastEnders by giving away any of the plot details and the two members of the Batchworth Executive committee present during the filming have been sworn to secrecy anyway. However, if you are watching the programme in the run up to Christmas and think you recognise the location and building, you are right, it really is Batchworth Sea Scout Headquarters.

Once filming was finished the same set crew arrived back and transformed the Headquarters building back to normal just as if they had never been there. It took about 50 people from the EastEnders filming team to film the scene on the day which included a couple of bits of filming that will be used in more than one episode (again, we are not saying anymore about that). The cast members that were present were really friendly and Adam Woodyatt ("Ian Beale") was very interested in some of the photos and information about Batchworth Sea Scouts that we have around the walls inside our Headquarters.

So, when you are encouraging further young people to join Batchworth Beavers, Cubs and Sea Scouts you can now add "as seen on TV" to the list of other explanations of what goes on at Batchworth Sea Scouts.

LATEST NEWS FROM HMS CUMBERLAND

HMS Cumberland is the Royal Navy type 22 Frigate affiliated with Batchworth Sea Scouts

22nd October 2009

The crew of HMS Cumberland proved that it’s not just an Army that marches on its stomach when they were treated to a ‘flight-deck masterclass’ by Gordon Ramsay protégé Matthew Pickop.

Over half way through their six-month deployment, some of Cumberland’s 273 strong company, joined by forces-favourite Jim Davidson, gathered under Dubai’s azure skies to cook ‘al-fresco’ with the top chef.

Logistics Officer and self-confessed food junkie, Lieutenant Commander Wayne Middleton, 37, from Sheldon near Birmingham originally had the idea to invite Matthew onboard. He said “Cumberland’s galleys were no stranger to publicity having been involved in the ITV series ‘Britain’s Best Dish’ so we thought we’d see how they measured up against the world’s finest.”

“Knowing that we had two weeks in Dubai, I was keen to get Matthew and his team onboard to teach us some of his team’s most famous recipes.”

Pickop, executive chef of Ramsay’s Dubai outpost ‘Verre’, confessed that he receives many an invitation but that this was one he found impossible to refuse, his Dad having served with the Royal Navy onboard HMS Broadsword in the Falklands War. “I know what these guys go through and how hard their work is” he said, adding that, owing to the peculiarities of life onboard a warship, there was a ‘massive difference’ to the environment in which Naval chefs worked, when compared with life ashore.

“These guys manage to cook almost 400 meals every service,” he exclaimed. “They have so much against them…facing all sorts of challenges holding down their Naval roles as well as being chefs – plus they have to solely with the ingredients they have for long periods of time.”