Scouts

As seen in the Australian Jewish News July 31, 2015

Budding philanthropist, Carlton Football Club enthusiast and 10th Caulfield Scout, Aiden King launched his own charity last year where he collected excess football cards for disadvantaged communities. After witnessing the wastage of duplicate cards among his friendship group, the 11-year-old student from The King David School started Fortunate Footy Cards, which saw him collect more than 3000 unwanted cards last year. He liaised with Ardoch Youth Foundation to ensure that these cards were given to fellow footy fanatics across Victoria.

When speaking about the inspiration behind Fortunate Footy Cards, King said, “I started this idea because last year I saw how many doubles my brother and I had and I said to mum and dad, ‘Why don’t we give these doubles to people who don’t have the opportunity to buy them?’”

After the success of the inaugural collection last year, King is hoping to collect more than 10,000 cards this year and he is now reaching out to friends and family in Sydney and Perth to join the cause. “I want to collect cards at more schools in Melbourne this year. Also I’m going to get my cousins in Perth and Sydney to help. We are going to make collection boxes and send emails and use a Facebook page.”

While King is still young, he told The AJN he has “always cared about those less fortunate” than him, even raising more than $2000 for the Smith Family Foundation when he partook in the Around the Bay last year as one of its youngest participants. His father Jeremy King expressed his pride for his son’s achievements and suggested philanthropy is a core value of the family.

“We are immensely proud. We’ve always tried to teach the kids to think about people less fortunate than themselves and each of them have come up with their own ideas around philanthropy.” For more information and to get involved, email fortunatefootycards@gmail.com or like the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/fortunatefootycards

This article appeared in the AJN last week and is a worthy mention in this months missive. We are hugely proud of Aiden and his achievements which includes recently completing his Grey Wolf and being awarded his community badge for Fortunate Footy Cards.

Our Scouts enjoyed The Fantastic Race over the past weekend.

Travelling in Patrols and completing a number of challenges in locations across Melbourne and beyond. The Patrols follow clues to navigate between the secret locations. Over 270 scouts in our district were involved this year, with 750 scouts Melbourne wide. This year it was held at various locations around Melbourne that included the Melbourne Zoo, Vic Sea Scouts and Luna Park. The race gives great exposure for Scouting as participants travelled on public transport wearing their scarves and purple beanies. Well done to all that participated.

Out Scout leader Gary received the following SMS from a parent today: “Our son  came home radiantly happy after a terrific weekend with scouts. Thank you for your commitment to giving the kids such enriching experiences!”

Matt, Gabe and Julian have arrived in Japan for World Jamboree!

Matt’s comments: “Kids in high spirits, having a ball I’m lead to believe. I’m off on site today, all’s about to begin.”

These photos hot off the presses.

10th Caulfield organised and swam in the District Swimming Carnival at Waves last night. The event was well attended with 8 troops in attendance. Congratulations to 5th/6th Moorabbin for overall 1st place. Well done to our scouts for participating in a fun night.

Congratulations to our mixed noodle relay team who smashed their race and came up 1st.

News from Matthew Minski (Assistant Scout Leader)

First up I’ll be attending the World Scout Jamboree along with Julian Green, Gabe Braverman, and 300 other Australians from Mid-July to Mid-August, at a camp with over 30,000 Scouts from across the globe. My role will be on the International Service Team (IST) to help keep the two week camp running in any way possible. This could include running activities, cooking meals or cleaning toilets, its all fair game, and I’ll find out my role once I’m on site. It’ll be my third World Jamboree, and funnily enough they will have all occurred before having ever attended an Australian Jamboree! I’m very much looking forward to catching up with a number of International Scouting friends I have made over the years, and swapping a few badges as well (it can become quite addictive).

Next, after a two week pit-stop back at home, I’ll be heading to Kandersteg International Scout Centre (KISC) as a Short Term Staff member from September to November, which is a chalet and camping ground that is staffed 365 days a year by volunteer Scouts from across the world to help run and maintain a permanent mini-World Jamboree. The campsite is open to Scouting and non-Scouting visitors, and as a staff member I’ll be responsible for helping to run the centre and keep the Scouting spirit alive. Every way will be different, and due to the quieter time of year (just after the European Summer) my roles will centre around preparing the campgrounds for winter and taking part in any maintenance work which will be needed – on top of more cleaning toilets of course…someone’s got to do it!

Lastly, after another two weeks in Melbourne, I’ll be off to join 10th Caulfield and 15,000 other Australian Scouts up at Cataract Park from the 2016 Australian Jamboree! This will be quite special for me personally as I’ve heard so much about AJs over the years but never been able to see it for myself. It will be great to go away with Scouts I actually know for a change and get to share in all the fun and activities with all of them. For those that are still on the fence about this opportunity I implore you to act now before you miss out, after all the stories I’ve heard about the Australian Jamborees over the years I know for sure it will be an experience that will stick with me for many years to come.

And the moral of the story here? Well, I’m hoping that through my stories I am able to inspire everyone about what’s out there, and to raise the awareness that there are quite a number of opportunities available within Scouting outside of the (awesome) Tuesday and Thursday night activities that we run. It’ll also explain the bulk of my absence for the second part of the year! To those reading this, a number of these opportunities you will need to go out of your way to find. However, with enough perseverance, there are so many rewarding experiences out there to be had and I have no doubt that the past experiences I’ve had in Scouting and the ones I’m yet to still take part in have and will continue to shape who I am as a person today (hopefully for the better!).

We’d like to welcome Sascha Bajayo to 10th Caulfield Scouts. Sascha was invested last Thursday June 4th with his grandparents, parents and brother all there to support him. We welcome you into scouts Sascha and we hope you enjoy all that scouts has to offer.