1st Bourne Foxwood Cub Scouts Trip to the Battlefields of WW1 and Ypres

In October 2017, 1st Bourne Foxwood Cub Scouts and Leaders will be going on an organised trip to the Battlefields, Cemeteries and Museums of Southern Belgium. The trip will visit the Menin Gate Tyne Cott Cemetery, the Passchendaele Museum and the reconstructed Yorkshire Trenches. They will lay wreaths at the Menin Gate Last Post Service.

The trip is deliberately taking place just before Remembrance time in order to educate our Young people about the significance of our Remembrance services. The aim is to help them understand why this is so important and to put this into context for our young people today and at local level in our town & surrounding villages i.e. the communities in which our Cubs live. As an association we attend the services in large numbers across the country. It is also appropriate to undertake this trip in 2017; 100 years after some of the hardest fought battles. We hope that the young people who go will help us to continue to understand the significance of the Remembrance Act by sharing their experiences with their peers both at school and in other clubs and sporting associations.

As a section we are fundraising as much as possible in order to cover the expenses of this trip, which is a little under £6,000. To date we have held a number of quiz’s, several coffee mornings, table top sales, selling refreshments at concerts and local community events. More recently, a significant proportion of the leaders and youngsters going on the visit took part in the Bourne Town “Run in the Woods 10K” obtaining sponsorship from family and friends. Bourne Cubs also carried out a bag pack in our local supermarket, marshalled at the Bourne Car Show and litter picked at the Bourne Town Festival. To date we have raised an amazing £4,000 through the efforts of these young people (aged 8 - 10) as well as kind donations from local charities but we have a little way to go and need your help!

We hope that through further fundraising and through crowd funding on "Just Giving" we can raise a significant proportion of the rest of the money. There are children whose families would not be able to afford this trip if they were asked to bear the full cost of the experience, hence why we are trying to raise as much of it as we can through our own efforts.

We sincerely hope that you will consider supporting this trip with a small donation. If you would like any further information please feel free to contact myself at your earliest convenience. Many thanks for your kind generosity.

Cliff Gillis (Akela - 1st Bourne Foxwood Cub Scouts)