Busy times for Saltcoats BB

Officer James Anderson brings us an update on what has been happening at the busy group throughout their last session and what to look forward to.

Now that we have finished another session, 2014-15, we would like to share with you some of the things that we have been doing this year.

Thanks to a number of local businesses, who last summer put up recruitment posters for us, we are delighted to report as a result of our recruitment efforts that the number of boys in all three sections of 1st Saltcoats are up compared to this time last year.

In October, some of our Junior section boys took a trip to the Riverside transport museum in Glasgow.

The boys all had fun looking at all the old vehicles and other exhibits even trying their hand at driving a Sinclair C5 and exploring the tall ship where they showed a knack for scrubbing the deck!

This year as part of their Community Badgework the Company section boys decided to do a month long food collection on behalf of North Ayrshire Foodbank during the month of November.

At the end of our collection we handed over 16 boxes of donations.

We would like to thank the following for taking a collection box: Saltcoats Bowling Club, Cali Stores, Saltcoats, Caledonia Primary School, Scotmid Co-op, Stevenston, Grant Arms, Stevenston, BPO Collections, Windy Ha, Saltcoats and the North Ayrshire Domino league.

We would also like to say thank you to Councillor Jim Montgomerie and former MP Katy Clark for their support and assistance during our collection. Thanks to the team at Ardrossan Fire Station for having us last October to meet the crew and see the equipment on board the fire engine.

The boys (and officers!) had a really good time.

Boys from 1st Saltcoats Boy’s Brigade along with some of our friends from 1st Kilbirnie went up to PGL Lochranza on the Isle of Arran, for a weekend of fun.

Our boys took part in a number of exciting activities including raft building, mountain biking, orienteering and various other fun activities.

For many of the boys in our group, this was the first time away from home.

The boys in our group were all P4-P6 and they absolutely loved the experience.

They were having so much fun that not one of them wanted to go home early.

In fact, they are all eager to find out more about their next adventure! Over the course of this season, we took part in a number of competitions where we were competing with boys of similar ages from across North Ayrshire.

We are delighted to report that we won medals for Company Section Scripture Knowledge which we won for the second year running, pool also second year running and 7-a-side football and Company section Quiz.

We also won the Company section drill competition.

This was the first year that 1st Saltcoats has entered the drill since 2002 (which we also won) our Junior Section also had their own success this session with medals in the junior section potted sports and coming 4th in the junior section football league which is a massive improvement when you take in account the previous year we finished second last.

And we are looking forward to more of the same next year!

The annual display was held on May 22 with all boys being awarded the badges which they have earned over the previous session.

We also presented one Presidents badge, the second highest award in the Boy’s Brigade and one Queen’s badge, the highest award in the Boys Brigade.

This is the first time we have presented these awards in three years.

Three of our Company Section boys have attended the bi-annual North Ayrshire BB camp in July.

Many thanks to the council for offering funding to send these boys away.

Our Enrolment evening for next session will be on Friday, August 21 6.30–7.30pm at St Cuthbert’s Church, Saltcoats. We are always looking for new members for our Anchor Boys (P1-P3), Junior Section (P4-P6) and Company Section (P7-S6).

Why not bring your son along and see what it is like?

Don’t be shy, give us a try!

There are also regular updates on our Facebook pagewww.facebook.com/1stSaltcoats.