2021-2022

Areas covered this year – Our beavers worked towards and finished their Outdoors, World and Teamwork Challenge badges.

We earned the Emergency Aid, Hike and Navigator staged badges. We also worked on the following activity badges: Space, Photography, Safety, International and Cook.

In addition to all that, Four of our older Beavers completed their bronze award in February, and another five bronze awards in June. [BIG HAND].

Highlights – We continue to be based at FNEL this year, and have increasingly made use of the indoor spaces, especially during the colder winter months. They have made us feel very much at home.

One highlight was space week, when we learned about a brief history of space flight, as well as some current space missions, including all the new manned ships which can now take people in to space. Plus learning about the names and order of all the planets!

Away from FNEL, we held meetings in Larochette where we cooked apple pies. We also met at the Kaltreis playground in Bonnevoie where we looked at all the different types of plants and animals that can be found away from FNEL

Having already made a solid start to the topic of space, we organised a trip for both Beavers and Cubs to the European Space Center in Belgium. The trip went ahead in late January, when Covid was a particularly hot topic. Due to this, we suffered many cancellations and changes from both children and especially suffered from a lack of available leaders. Fortunately a late call for help was met with some fantastic support, so our cross-border, multi-section trip was able to go ahead with a nearly full bus. The children were driving moon buggies, doing virtual reality moon walks and so much more and the day was a fantastic success.

As well as major successes like the space centre trip, some smaller things also come to mind when thinking of highlights. The big variety of activities which the Beavers did for their personal challenge badges, and being able to hand out so many bronze awards to our graduates.

Beaver monopoly was also on the menu at the end of the year, with the children walking around Luxembourg city buying up properties, paying rent and completing challenges.

Plus of course, seeing everyone’s jumpers filling up with their hard earned badges!

We not only spent time at FNEL, but we also went out to visit some different locations around our lovely country. We visited the forest around Larochette, the big “Kaltreis” playground in Bonnevoie, Luxembourg city and the mini cycling area in Capellen. In Capellen we were blessed not only with excellent attendance from our beavers, but also some glorious springtime weather as the children earned their cycling badges. We managed to accommodate all levels of cycling ability, learn about traffic signs and how to pump up bicycle tyres.

Smaller things were also highlights. Teaching children how to tie knots, and then asking them to use that knot a few weeks later to tie string together so they could hang their wooden bird house from a tree. Seeing some turn from timid, frightened children into enthusiastic beavers, or turning from rowdy beavers into… well those ones didn’t change much yet, but we’re still working on them! Plus of course seeing those jumpers fill up with the badges that they all worked so hard to earn.