The main celebrations were during the month of May. During the first weekend in May, we held an excellent Group Camp at Ardnavally. The Cubs were housed in the Pathfinder Cabin and the Scouts camped on the camping field alongside. Our Beavers came down and spent Saturday with us. A varied programme was undertaken including an assault course, abseiling, quads, archery, painting and lots of fun activities. On Saturday evening, we all visited the spectacular American Circus and had a terrific campfire. The abseiling turned out to be ‘interesting’ with our Beaver leaders taking an active part while the Scout leader and Cub leader took the Beavers for a hike. Ameek enjoyed her climb up and down the tower. Akela managed to get us all lost in Beaver forest during our evening dander on Friday, and our ‘singing twins’ made their debut. The two cubs, identical twins, spent the weekend serenading us all with their tuneful renderings. We had an excellent weekend in terms of lots of fun and fellowship, good food and terrific weather: that elusive commodity ‘the sun’ blessed us with its presence all weekend.

The weekend of 23^rd-24^th May saw us gathering with guests, old friends and past members in the Church for our Anniversary dinner when the general theme appeared to be ‘down memory lane.’ On Sunday morning ordinary Church members may have mistaken the Church vestibule for a mini campsite complete with tent, camp gear, axes etc. Sunday afternoon saw us all gathered with boys, parents, friends and ex-members for a Service of Thanksgiving conducted by Rev.Robert Russell and during which a Banner depicting 50 years of 7^th was presented to hang in our church.

The last Thursday evening in May saw the Group gathered together again, this time at the Scout Cabin in Crawfordsburn for a BBQ. Tremendous fun was again had by all and our special Birthday Cake scoffed by all present. Looking forward to the rest of the year, we are planning a Group Parents’ Evening on 18^th November, when parents and friends will be entertained and all present members will be presented with a new badge to be worn on the back of our scarves in the future. Coming up to Christmas, the boys will be treated to their own ‘Anniversary Meal’ to round off the year.

We are particularly lucky in 7^th as we have an excellent group of leaders who between them have chalked up around 175 years service, and our boys in the Beavers, Cubs and Scouts are so gifted in many ways and always keen to participate in the spiritual, mental and physical activities which are fundamental to Scouting. So to the next 50 years..here comes 7^th at full speed!

Anne Jackson (GSL, 7^th)