It was an evening to remember for more than 100 young people in Scouts as Ellesmere Port & Neston District held its annual honours event.
The hard work and achievement of the last 12 months was marked by a series of presentations that rewarded young people from all sections for their success in tackling the challenges set out in their programmes.
There was also a look back to Chief Scout Bear Grylls’ visit to Cheshire last May which was attended and enjoyed by many of the district’s members.
Helping the young people to celebrate at Ellesmere Port Civic Hall were a number of special guests including Andrew Miller MP, the mayor of Ellesmere Port, Cllr Bob Crompton and Cheshire Scouts county commissioner Graham Phillips who were part of an audience of 300 at the event.
Awards presented during the evening included 60 bronze challenge awards to Beavers, 35 silver challenge awards to Cubs, 13 gold challenge awards to Scouts and five platinum challenge awards to Explorers
In addition, the county commissioner presented Network Scouts Matthew Davies and Stephen Washington, both aged over 18, with their Queen’s Scout Awards, the highest available to young people in Scouting.
“Receiving the award gave me a sense of accomplishment and a small amount of pride at how far I have come since joining Scouting.
“Participating in the Queen’s Scout Award has helped me discover new interests and skills I didn’t know I had,” said Matthew.
Adrian Venables, a leader at the 8th Ellesmere Port Scout Group, received the Wendy Hyndman trophy, an award given to a leader or Scout who has battled adversity to carry on Scouting.
Long service awards were made to Ken Salter for a remarkable 60 years and Henry Smith for 40 years, while Andrew Miller MP was given a special `Thanks’ badge for all his help and support for Scouting over a number of years.
Henry has been at Dee Sea Scouts for most of his 40 years and Ken is part of the County Chaplaincy team.
