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News

Welcome to Ballymoney Scout Group

We are a Scout Group for both girls and boys based in the Co. Antrim market town of Ballymoney.

Scouting has a long history in the town and indeed first started in Ballymoney with the formation of the ‘Ballymoney Church Scout Troop’ in 1921 and continued with other groups (1st Ballymoney, 2nd Ballymoney in various guises) joining and merging over the years until in 1957 when the name Ballymoney Scout Group was adopted.

We have 6 very active sections:

Squirrels (4-6), Beavers (6-8) Cubs (8-11) Scouts (11-14) and our Explorer (14-18) & Network (18-25) Sections- known as Phoenix Ensu.


Scouting offers challenge and adventure to 400,000 young people and 100,000 adults across the UK. We do some pretty amazing things in Scouting, but for us, adventure is a way of life and not just an activity or expedition.
Our Scouts grow in confidence by trying out new skills and stretching themselves. Whether it’s an Explorer trying out his French on an international trip or a Scout leading her Patrol for the first time, each time we challenge ourselves, it’s a step forward.
When a Scout stands up to a bully, or sticks up for what they believe in; that’s an adventure.


We are currently recruiting for more adults;

You can spare a few hours a week – We need Assistant Leaders and Occasional Helpers across a few sections
You can spare a few hours a month – We need Administrators and Event Planners to help with our fundraising (No experience required, just a willingness to get stuck in and be part of the team)
You can spare a couple of days over the year – We need people of all ages and backgrounds to help with events and also tradespeople to train the kids and volunteers on the upkeep of our equipment, hall and vehicles.
You can’t spare anytime but your business needs exposure? – We are working to create a wide variety of sponsorship opportunities please contact us to discuss.

email:  gsl@ballymoneyscoutgroup.co.uk for more info.

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Explorers News

Phoenix March Update

This month Phoenix members started to plan for our spring camp. So far date has been agreed, venue confirmed and now need to decide on activities and risk assess together. We also did some prep for camp… chopping firewood and trying some camp food treats. Camp doughnuts as requested by our scout YLs and campfire popcorn. Popcorn flavours were sugar, butter and sugar or chilli and salt. Lots of firewood chopped, traditional method using axes and a new gadget which will hopefully allow our younger member to prepare firewood without an axe.

At our other meeting this month we visited Somerset forest. It was a lovely afternoon for a walk, playing capture the flag, enjoying a competitive team Easter egg hunt and trying some cup a soups (using trangias to boil water) and other drinks and snacks. Plenty of socialising time as always, so important for this age group.

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Beavers News

Beavers Easter Eggscape Room

This week the Beavers were challenged to complete an escape room style activity which was Easter themed.

Our poor Easter bunny’s treat stash had been locked up by some nasty people and Beavers had to work together in their lodges, solving a number of problems to find the keys to the padlocks.

The challenge started when they cracked/popped their eggs to get their 1st instructions. They had to find eggs, solve the picture puzzle inside, flip it to solve Morse code for the next clue, figure out the lock box code, use compass skills to locate a key to matching fairy doors and use their aim to knock over cups which contained keys. Finally, they had to figure out which four of the twelve keys opened the padlocks on the Easter bunny’s box. She was so grateful for their help that she shared her Easter chocolate and mini eggs with all our Beavers.

After another two beaver collections were shown, our YLs ran a couple of Easter themed games and handed out Easter eggs to take home.

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Beavers News

Early St Patricks activities

Beavers had some Irish themed activities this week as it’s St Patricks day this Sunday. This counts towards their world challenge badge.

We had our fabulous young leader doing some Irish dancing, hot potato game (with a leprechaun handing out some gold coins), blind tasting Tayto crisps to guess the flavour and a code cracking activities for all things Irish. Also another 2 beavers shared their collection with us.

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News Squirrels

Flat Squirrels!

Squirrels spent last week making special Mother’s Day mug cake pots and tea cards. This week, we worked on our All Around Us badge, learning about other Scout groups and Squirrel Dreys in the UK. Inspired by the Flat Stanley novel, we made Flat Squirrels to post to some of our Squirrel friends in England, Wales and Scotland, and have asked them send back something about their drey and the area they live in. Squirrels filled the envelopes and added stamps, then we located the dreys on a map and marked their locations.

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News Scouts

Scouts tasty camp foods and board games

Over a couple of weeks our scouts tried some tasty camp foods. They cooked omelettes in bags in trangias (No pics 🙊) and cooked camp doughnuts on stoves with our YLs. While waiting for their turn to cook their doughnuts they enjoyed board games. Games at the start of the meetings too as usual.

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Beavers

Beavers baking and YLs take the lead

Last week our YLs ran a team games night, this week we had some baking buns (one for them, one to give to someone they love) and some beavers shared their collections for their collector badge.

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Beavers Cubs News Squirrels

Squirrels, Beavers & Cubs Visit W5

Our youngest 3 sections enjoyed a trip to W5 at the weekend. We visited the lost planet soft play first to burn off some energy, then visited levels 2, climbit and level 4. Lots of exploring the exhibitions and fun with friends. Time whizzed by and before we knew it 5 hours had passed and it was time to travel back to Ballymoney. Everyone received a W5 pencil as a wee souvenir of their day out. Thanks to all our youths for being so well behaved, to our young leaders for their help and our adult volunteers for giving their time.

Check out the video of our visit ⬇️

https://studio.youtube.com/video/w5l2n69fkg4/edit
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Explorers News Scouts

Phoenix Explorers & Ballymoney Scouts visit Dublin Zoo

Our Scouts and Explorers travelled to Phoenix Park at the weekend to visit Dublin Zoo (requested by our youths back in September)

We invested a new scout and explorer before breaking into groups to tour the zoo. Nice wee day out, lots of chatting on the bus and a stop off at applegreen for our meal on the way home.

Finally, they have been asked to send through their favourite photo of the day for a wee competition 📷

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Beavers News

Beavers Junk Model challenge 🤖

Leaders and Beavers brought lots of recyclables along to this week’s meeting for a junk model challenge.

Build a robot!! They could use anything on the floor and used cello tape and hot glue to attach pieces. Main rule was if someone already had their hand on an item then they couldn’t snatch it for themselves 😂 321 GO!! Beavers literally launched themselves into the pile of recyclables 🤣🤣

While building we asked what their robot could do to help them…mostly chores, homework and getting them food 😂😂😂 Badge links were builder badge and make a machine (skills challenge badge)

After everyone was helpful tidying up the excess pieces we had a wee game of duck, duck, goose ran by Lotars.

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News Squirrels

Squirrel superheroes and brilliant builders

Squirrels have spent time over the past few weeks working on their Brilliant Builder and Local Superhero badges. We coloured a river the width of the Scout hall and then built bridges and boats to help the billy goats gruff cross over. Then we learned about our local superheroes – people who help us like police, doctors and the fire brigade. We talked about what superhero powers we would like to have, designed superhero capes, and struck some superhero poses to show off our special powers.

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News Scouts

Scouts Portrush Dander

Scouts had an enjoyable dander for their half term meeting. We met at the Dunluce centre car park, walked to the West Strand, went along the promenade to the harbour, then followed the lower path at Ramore Head before continuing on along the coast to the East strand. Once there, mini campfires were prepared and lit with flint and steel to toast some marshmallows and enjoy s’mores. Lots of time for chatting with friends as they walked and spent time on the beach 🔥 A short walk back and a full circuit of Portrush was complete.

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Beavers News

Pancake day with Beavers

Beaver section met up as usual this half term, playing the ladders game to start and then making pancakes after. Lots of measuring flour, sugar, eggs, milk and a pinch of salt in their groups. Once fried, they had a variety of toppings to choose from…chocolate spread and banana/strawberries were the most popular toppings 😋 Once beavers finished eating they all washed and dried their plates of course.

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Explorers News

Phoenix ENSU News

Our Phoenix youths have had a busy start to 2024. Some teamwork challenges in patrols, litter picking in the park after storm Isha, crafts for fundraising later this year, Chinese New Year cook off, a visit from Zachary Geddis Break the silence trust, games and lots of food with friends.

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News Scouts

Scouts Circus Skills/Entertainer and National Pizza day

Scouts have spent a few weeks practicing their circus skills and routines. Some of our scouts managed to master the skills, the rest definitely completed their entertainers badge 😂😂

Our most recent meeting was lead by one of our patrols. National pizza day. Well done to Shannon and her patrol

National pizza day

Beavers update 🦫

Beavers were busy in January doing lots of badge work. They earned their air activities stage one badge (on order) making paper planes, hoopsters, using the phonetic alphabet and researching military aircraft. Then they made apple bird feeders, bird pizzas and completed a quiz on garden birds by researching bird facts around the hall with their lodge (linked to big garden bird watch). They also did some work towards their teamwork challenge badge (team games and constructing bridges out of paper in lodges). Thanks to our young leaders for helping out, awesome as always ⭐️

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News Squirrels

Squirrel Appreciation Day

We celebrated Squirrel Appreciation Day with some squirrel themed activities. We made paper jumping squirrels, chocolate squirrel nests, and finished up with a fun squirrel themed four corners game.

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News Squirrels

Squirrels experiments

Squirrels turned scientists for the night, working on their Exciting Experiments badge. We discovered our senses by using our hands to guess the contents of 5 mystery boxes while blindfolded (boxes contained cotton balls, flour, popcorn, jelly and baked beans). Then we did the Skittles experiment, mixed up some cloud slime, and created and played with oobleck!

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News Scouts

Scouts Festive Activities

Over the last month scouts have been using their DIY and craft skills to create scrap wood snowmen and other festive decorations. Sawing the wood to size, painting, hammering nail buttons and crafting woolly hats. Some of them also made clay tree decorations or paracord Christmas trees. Not many photos 🙊

To finish up 2023 they also enjoyed a trip to the Jet Centre for bowling, arcade games and presents. Enjoy the break everyone and see you in 2024.

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News Squirrels

Squirrels Christmas Party!

Squirrels held their last session of 2023 this evening with a Christmas party, where they played lots of different games such as Christmas ring toss, reindeer hands, marshmallow straw fishing and knocking down snowballs with party horns! We hope everyone enjoys the Christmas break and can’t wait to see them all back in 2024.

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Explorers News

Phoenix ENSU Xmas fundraiser disco’s

After a planning session at a previous meeting our Phoenix Explorer and Network Scout Unit (ENSU) were all prepped and ready to go with their Xmas fundraiser disco’s for squirrels/beavers and cubs. Roles assigned (DJ’s, welcoming, entertainers, tuck shop, clean crew, face painters and photographers) and our youngest sections were welcomed to the hall for dancing, face painting, games, tuck shop and fun with friends.

As a reward for their hard work Phoenix enjoyed an “after party” with music, Wii games and food. Finally a slumber party with movies and more games on Saturday morning 🤩

Thanks to all our Phoenix ENSU…Squirrel,Beaver and Cub leaders for being familiar faces…Croxford family for tasty buns..and, as always, all our scouting families for supporting their youths and our group.

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News Squirrels

Squirrels indoor camping

Squirrels spent time this evening learning how to put up tents in the hall. They played some games in the tents, then had an indoor campfire with songs, smores and hot chocolate, followed by a lesson in how to pack away the tents properly.

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Beavers News

Beavers try Brazilian Ju-Jitsu

A massive thank you to the coaches and young assistant coaches at North Coast Grappling for giving our Beaver scouts a taster session of Brazilian Ju-Jitsu. They started off with a game of bear crawl tag, then tried their best to do arm bars, became ninjas jumping over walls and had great fun trying to push each other off the training mats! Lots of fun and laughter 😂😂 Check out their moves in the video below ⬇️

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News Squirrels

Squirrels adventure activities

Squirrels worked on their All About Adventure badge tonight by taking part in some bouldering wall activities with our Young Leaders. They also worked on their hand eye coordination by making beaded keyrings, and finished up with some delicious armpit fudge!

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Cubs

Cubs Badgework and Craft

Over the last few weeks Cubs have been working hard on badgework.

For Remembrance Day they made poppies and displayed them as a picture of a soldier.

Following week they then had to make a wheelbarrow from a Stem kit.

Last night they practiced knots and lashings and made a tripod.

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Beavers News

Beavers Ocean Sleepover

At the weekend some of our Beavers joined us for an ocean themed sleepover at the scout hall. They arrived on Saturday evening to find the hall transformed to an under the sea world with jellyfish overhead and sea creatures all around.

They enjoyed sea life scratch art, a turtle weaving craft, some YL ran sea themed games, a scavenger hunt walk looking for sea life facts around town followed by a quiz about the facts found, then a movie in the loft (finding Nemo) with pizza and popcorn!

After a good nights sleep they enjoyed a decorating shortbread sea animals and learned some map skills with an ocean themed map activity. Finally they had some snacks and chilled out with friends colouring in, drawing and doing puzzles.

Thanks to all leaders (including 2 squirrel leaders) and young leaders for all their help preparing, setting up and running camp. Also a big thank you to our brilliant Beavers who behaved so well for the duration of camp 🦫 🐟 🪼 🦈

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Beavers News

Beavers Global Issues

For the last 2 weeks Chris has been guiding our youths through the global issues activity badge We had log chews on recycling and endangered animals, learned about Fairtrade and tasted some fairtrade goodies. We made water filters and endangered animal masks and played some related games throughout. Well done everyone 😃

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News

Remembrance Parade 2023

Well done and thanks to all youths and adults who turned out to remember the fallen. Lest we forget

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News Squirrels

Diwali with Squirrels

Squirrels worked on their Let’s Celebrate badge tonight by learning all about Diwali. We read a story together to learn about the meaning of Diwali, tested our dancing abilities by learning a Bollywood dance routine, made Diwali lanterns and chocolate sparklers and lit some real sparklers to finish up.

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News Squirrels

Squirrels football skills

Squirrels had a mini soccer training session this evening led by Coach Lee from TW Sports. They had great fun playing sneak tag, Toy Story and Superhero themed games, before having a halftime snack and finishing up with Wacky Races. Thanks to Coach Lee and TW Sports for a brilliant night!

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Cubs News

Cubs camp

Cubs had their first camp. Cubs started by preparing their own lunch to take with them on train ride to Botanic. We explored Ulster Museum. Once back in hall we enjoyed dinner, played games and set up tents for good nights sleep. Next morning after breakfast and tidy up cubs worked on some DIY skills.