Harvest Parade 2024

October 6, 2024

Sunday was our annual Harvest Parade at St Christopher's Church. For three years, we've encouraged the young people to bring in donations for the Food Bank to coincide with the Harvest service, and our families have been generous. Around the same time, we brought back parading from the hut to the church. The Beavers, Cubs and Scouts made a quick march of it and we arrived at the church sooner than expected!

Having managed to exit the hut without catching the flagpoles on the doorways or tree branches, the group stands in formation, Beavers at the front, Cubs in the middle and Scouts bringing up the rear, ready to depart.The Beaver flag bearer leads the parade toward the church, flanked by her colour guard. The flag bearers of the other sections are watching the tops of their flag poles, to make sure they don't catch on the tree branches overhanging the path.The flag bearers and colour guard stand either side of the walkway, while the remaining Beavers, Cubs and Scouts prepare to enter the church between them. The Cubs flag bearer looks particularly pleased with himself.

For many of our Beavers, this was their first parade and they weren't quite sure what to expect from the service, either. There was a craft activity as part of the service which our young people got stuck into (some more literally than others), creating a planet of sorts.

Beavers and Cubs are sticking torn pieces of coloured paper to half a planet. Some of the young people appear to have more glue on their fingers than on the paper. One Cub seems to think the idea is to cover as much paper as possible in glue. He looks rather excited about his glue stick.Four Beavers are tearing pieces of paper and sticking them onto the planet half. They seem to be rather more careful than the young people working on the other planet half!

Overall, the Beavers, Cubs and Scouts behaved themselves well and we're proud of them. It's not easy to sit still and quiet through a talk, or to try and sing songs you're not familiar with.

It's the end of the service, and the flagbearers and colour guards are ready to parade around the church's aisles and make their way out.

Be sure to also check our latest news and our Facebook, Bluesky and Twitter feeds.