Hampshire Scouts are hosting a range of events in 2025 which is open to troops from across Hampshire, these events are designed for anyone to take part so don't miss out!
PL/APL Training Weekend
Date: 14th – 16th November 2025
Location: Lyons Copse Scout Campsite near Botley
Cost: £35 (meals included; transport and tents excluded)
The PL/APL Training Weekend is an excellent opportunity for Patrol Leaders (PLs) and Assistant Patrol Leaders (APLs) to develop their leadership skills. The event includes practical exercises focused on leadership, time management, coaching/mentoring, motivation, planning, and discipline. Participants will engage in real camp and troop activities, ensuring a hands-on learning experience. Scouts will sleep in tents, with alternative accommodations available if the weather is poor. Leaders, parents, or young leaders must accompany groups larger than three.
Scouts Expedition Challenge Weekend
Date: 9th – 11th May 2025
Location: Various locations across Hampshire
Cost: £38
The Expedition Challenge Weekend is designed for Scouts looking to complete their Expedition Challenge Award. This event involves planning and executing a self-sufficient expedition with minimal adult intervention. Scouts will navigate, cook, and camp as they learn essential survival and teamwork skills. It's a fantastic way for Scouts to push their limits and gain confidence in their abilities.
Scout Summer Camp
Date: 16th – 23rd August 2025
Location: Lyons Copse
Cost: £180 (including food; camping equipment and travel excluded)
The Hampshire Scout Summer Camp is perfect for Scout patrols and troops unable to arrange their own camps. This camp is run by a team of experienced Scout leaders and offers a variety of activities including team building, wide games, rafting, archery, air rifles, pioneering, and more. Scouts will work and cook as patrols, fostering teamwork and camp skills. Leaders are welcome to attend and assist with camp activities.
Enquire to reserve your places early, for any queries or further information, contact [email protected].
After the success of Chaos Camp 2023 for Explorers, we are happy to present Chaos Camp 24 Scout Edition! This year Chaos Camp will be bigger and better than ever before, seeing live bands, discos, adventurous activities and much more! It's an event your troop will not want to miss out on!
What is Chaos Camp?
Chaos Camp is a youth-led event for scouts aged 10-14 from across Hampshire to take part in a fun-filled weekend suitable for all. This year we will have 500+ Scouts at Ferny Croft taking part in over 11+ Activities throughout the weekend. We will have 3 activity zones during the day including the Chaos zone with activities like high ropes and pool noodle combat, the Creative zone with activities like battle of the bands and a Survival zone including knife work, fire lighting and much more.
Key Information
Location: Ferny Crofts Activity Centre, Brockenhurst.
Date: 27 - 29th September 2024
Price: £50 (+ Any additional Unit/Group costs) - this includes: camping, our amazing daytime timerabled activities, our fantastic selection of night-time entertainment, a lanyard and a badge
Sign up: via the website here - we are allowing up to 16 places per troop initially and a deposit of 50% of the camp fee will be payable to confirm the places.
Find out more
We hope to see you all very soon!
Adam Richardson (Event Lead)
Chaos Camp Team
The Emlyn Trophy Camping competition is back! For almost a century, this event has been teaching young people the skills for staying safe, healthy and organised while camping.
Scouts will have the chance to camp as a Patrol, learning new skills to plan and run an enjoyable weekend. With coaching and demonstrations from camp volunteers, young people will develop the crucial Life Skills needed to work as a team and run their own campsite alongside Scouts from all over the county!
Date: Friday 15th September to Sunday 17th September 2023
Location: Lyons Copse
Cost: The entry fee is £70.00 per Patrol.
You can find out more about the event on the event committee's website, which can be found here.
Find out more about the history of the event on our heritage site.
Patrol Leaders and Assitant Patrol Leaders can develop their leadership skills at this practical and fun camp. PLs, and APLs will also develop time management, coaching and mentoring, motivation, planning, and discipline.
Date: 24th – 26th November 2023
Location: Lyons Copse Scout Campsite, near Botley
Times: Arrive from 7 pm to 7.30 pm on Friday and Depart at 3 pm on Sunday
Cost: The cost is £35 which includes meals. Transport and tents excluded. Please pay the camp fees to your Troop, and they will forward them.
Leaders: A Leader, Parent or Young Leader must attend with their Scouts, and this could be on a rota basis. They will be actively involved in running the weekend at no cost, and all meals will be provided.
Booking:
This weekend is for PLs/APLs only, with places strictly limited. We ask that a Leader or Young Leader accompanies a group of Scouts of more than 3.
Please check if places are available before confirming any places to Scouts. Contact Dom Howell via email at [email protected]
The full info pack can be found below:
We know that not every Scout has an opportunity to attend a summer camp with their patrol or troop which is why Hampshire Scouts is holding a summer camp designed for Scouts, Patrols, and Troops from Hampshire who are unable to attend or arrange their own camp.
Scouts are welcome to attend without Leaders, but for large Groups, some leadership involvement is essential even if they can't get fully involved in running the Camp.
Scouts will be able to:
● Work as Patrols
● Cook as Patrols on stoves
● Learn camp skills
Scouts will take part in:
● Team building activities
● Wide games
● Rafting
● Archery
● Air rifles
● Pioneering
● Build and sleep in a bivi
● A day hike or cycle
● and many more activities….
Date: 19-26 August 2023
Location: Lyons Copse
Arrival: from 2pm - 4pm
Departure: from 10am - 11am
Cost: £170 each (including food supplied but excluding camping equipment and travel, no charge for leaders)
Booking: Contact Dom Howell via email [email protected]
We very much appreciate Leaders attending, full or part week. As a Leader, this Camp is for you if you are unable to run a Summer Camp, haven’t got enough leaders, don’t have a camping permit or if you would like the experience of a traditional Summer Camp and if any of your Scouts can’t make your Camp.
The full event info pack can be found below:
The aim of this weekend is to enable Scouts to complete their Expedition Challenge through a hike.
Scouts will arrive Friday evening and plan their route based on key locations they have to visit over the two days with an overnight stop. We will also give them refresher training on using a map, compass and safety during the evening, and they will decide what their "goal" for the expedition will be (if not already decided).
Scouts should attend as full teams (min 4, max 6), though Scouts might be able to attend without being part of a team by joining being joined up with another team; please contact the booking email to discuss.
Date: 12-14 May 2023
Location: Chineham Scout HQ, Hampshire
Arrival: from 6 pm - 7.30 pm, Friday
Departure: from 3 pm - 4 pm, Sunday
Cost: £35 per Scout for the hike expedition (excludes transport, tents and personal equipment)
Scouts should be capable of walking for 4 hours over light hilly ground. Familiarity with a map, grid references and bearings is essential, although we will provide a refresher.
A Leader, Young Leader or parent should attend the weekend with their Troop, and they are welcome to help with the training and manning checkpoints. There will be no cost, and meals and indoor accommodation will be provided.
To learn more or to book, contact Dom Howell via email [email protected]
The full info pack for this event is below:
We have developed this resource to help Leaders bring their Sections and
Groups back to face-to-face Scouting. To support this, we describe a countdown
of five steps - “5-4-3-2-1”. Starting with advice to help people prepare, we then
provide programme ideas to help guide Sections through the various steps –
including both practical activities and the softer skill activities which are going
to be important to a successful return to Scouting.
There are lots of people and resources to help you, including your District, the
County Growth and Development Team, and the Programme Team.
When you have achieved all five steps, please let us know. Tell us your story so
we can share it with other Leaders.
Here’s a checklist of key areas to think about as you prepare for a safe return.
As Scouts we love to get outdoors and try new things. But with winter and everything going on, we know its hard to think of ideas of what to do right now. To help you deliver great online Scouting, we’ve pulled together our list of places to find great ideas.
These two sources of activities are much newer so you may not have heard much about them yet. Both of them are prepared by Scout leaders for Scout leaders and you can pick them up and run them with your section without much planning or adaptation needed.
Press Play and Go activities are made by HQ and have a video activity you can share with your Zoom session directly with the video doing all the work. New activities arrive every week and there are activities for Beavers/Cubs and Scouts/Explorers.
1st Digital Scouts is the new kid on the block with videos by Scout Content. These videos are nice and short, follow a good structure for zoom sessions, and give you up front what you’ll need. There are weekly videos for Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Explorers ready to go.
Across the UK there are loads of other leaders looking for ideas and sharing what they’ve found in various different Facebook groups. 1st Virtual Scout Group on Facebook and 1st Facebook Scout Group are the big ones. The posts in these groups are easily searchable and linked together in topics.
There are lots of activities out there including PowerPoints for activities, games, escape rooms and links to more external resources. Lots of charities are offering activities that can work over Zoom, the RNLI being a good example, and there are many guest presenters that leaders can invite to show off their skills or animals or whatever!
So you may know about the new Scouts Activities tool already – it replaced the old Programmes on a Plate and is linked to the Programme Planning Tool that HQ is building and adding to. Throughout this weird time, the Scouts and the partners have been adding to this Activity index and adding new filters to make it searchable – so you can look at just online activities for example.
More usefully though, these activity listings can also be found on the pages for different badges on the Scout websites. At the bottom of these pages, below the badge requirements, is a box with activities that can be used to tick off these requirements. While some might need tweaking, there are lots of activities that you can use to get things started.
Scoutadelic are a YouTube channel run by Scout leaders and they make great videos teaching lots of different scouting skills from first aid to campfire songs.
Chester Zoo have made lots of resources and activities to support people at home, with fun activities, spotting the signs of your animal visitors and more practical experiences pitched at lots of different age ranges.
Scout Adventures have long made resources to support leaders with practical Scout skills and their page also has some smashing recipes as well.
The Scouts have put together some virtual programme support webinars, to help with the basics of running a putting over Zoom if you're feeling unsure about how it will all work.
Do you need help with getting your section to meet and take part in activities or can you offer support to another group? Please do reach out and contact our programme team, who are always happy to help provide support!
scouts.org.uk/volunteers/staying-safe-and-safeguarding/risk-assessments
We all do risk assessments or safety checks everyday, for example, when we cross the road. We choose an appropriate place to cross, look both ways and make a decision about whether it’s safe to cross.
We know that children and young people learn by doing. Activities encourage the development of young people and they can feel a huge sense of achievement in completing them. We want to provide EXCITEMENT but not DANGER; ADVENTURE but not HAZARD.
Risk Assessment starts in the early stages of activity planning and goes on throughout the activity until all participants go home at the end of the activity. There are five simple steps. If you’ve done risk assessments elsewhere, these should look familiar.
A special Emlyn Training Camp will take place in April 2021, open to all, with workshops and challenges to build on key camping Skills.
Scouts will have the chance to camp as a Patrol, learning new skills to plan and run an enjoyable weekend. With coaching and demonstrations from camp volunteers, young people will develop the crucial Life Skills needed to work as a team and run their own campsite, alongside Scouts from all over the county!
Leaders, you’ll have the chance to experience Emlyn from ‘back-stage’ — you’ll take part in workshops, providing support for running District Competitions and what Skills to pass on to Patrols. You’ll meet Leaders from all over the county, sharing ideas and techniques as well as your views and ideas for Emlyn’s future.
Take a look at our website for details!
