Thurrock Scouts and Guides take on Joint DCs Challenge

17th March 2016
At the end of February, nearly 400 Scouts and Guides from Thurrock headed off into London to take part in their joint District/Division Commissioners’ Challenge.

The challenge that awaited the Scouts, Guides, Explorers and Senior Section was to answer a number of questions about landmarks across the capital and prove they had visited by taking a photo of themselves at each location. Places included St. Paul’s Cathedral, Speakers Corner, Cutty Sark and lots more. There were also some bonus points available for photos with a street entertainer, someone in uniform and a police officer.

The 49 teams met outside Grays and Stanford-le-Hope train stations in the morning to await their dedicated c2c train that would take them to the city and return them home in the evening. Each team was provided with their questions and maps for the day before boarding and the train journey was spent planning their route for the day. Once everyone arrived at Fenchurch Street, the teams scattered and headed off to their first questions.

At 5pm, everyone met in Leicester Square to have their photos and questions marked by the organising team before heading off again to find some food. Everyone then met outside Fenchurch Street station at 6:30pm for the presentations before boarding the train back to Thurrock.

Congratulations go to 2nd Stanford-le-Hope Scouts B team who were the victors in the Scout and Guide competition and to Ockendon Senior Section who won the Explorer and Senior Section competition.

A huge thank you has to go to Julie Davis and everyone at c2c who worked really hard to not only provide a dedicated service for the day, but also to allow teams to travel to and from their local station for free to meet the special train.

Thanks also go to everyone who was involved with organising this event as a lot of work was required to make it a success; and to all of the Leaders, Scout Active Support members and Scout Network members who gave up their day to escort the teams around.