Marking the Platinum Jubilee

As touched upon on Friday these few days are different for being the Queen's Platinum Jubilee marking her seventy years on the throne which are being reflected across of all society here and Scouting is no exception.

The Queen was a GirlGuide herself, gaining her awards entirely on merit, just like anyone else and is the Patron of  Scouts, showing in her approach to life those values she learned and we all hold dear not least her sense of committment.

In Scouts there is specific Platinum challenge open to all to work towards not least that Platinum Jubilee badge and in the last few days no doubt a good number have been doing things towards that.

Beacons are really quite an old established way to communicate things such as danger of risk of invasion so for centuries lighting a beacon at a point it can be seen for miles around.

Today it is kept for ceremonial purposes and a massive chain of beacons was established for such events and scouts and girls guides amongst others lit over 1,200 beacons such as those at Betley and Dudley to mark this anniversary.

How a beacon is lit was something the longstanding children's magazine program, Blue Peter showed in it's Jubilee special edition on Friday which did include a feature on Girl Guiding.

Two young scouts lit theirs in this photograph.

Three cheers for our Queen and Patron!