Active and former Scout leaders gathered for pizza in advance. One of the leaders got the Generals award back in 1960, and another leader back in 1963 from the General himself. We believe that was the only time the General have handed out the Generals award by himself in Norway before this day.

Linda Bond has been a brownie and just needed a litte refreshing on how to do the scout greeting.

“Usually I only sign these diplomas, it`s very nice to hand it out personally” said Linda Bond.

• Knowledge. A lot of questions about scouting, The Salvation army and other subjects to be answered.
• Practical task. This time they got a pair of skies they had to decorate and make possible for two people to use at the same time.
• Orienteering. Was in the city, using street maps and buses and not so much compasses.
• Obstacle course. They had to use their new skies to move from Greenland ( a place in Oslo is called Greenland) to the north Pole ( a cafe in Oslo)
• Secret task. During sunday service at the corps the different patrols dramtized different parabels from Luke 15. ( You may recognize some of them by the pictures).

Fiskesuppe(fishsoup) from Lørenskog snd Kristiansand was the “5battle” winners. Congratulations!

At this adventures ending everybody agreed that they have had a wonderful time, and are already looking forward to next years ” 5 battle”.

The 50^th birthday of PFs scouts groups was the high point of 2011.

For this celebration, 9 Portuguese scouts and 44 Dutch scouts came to the PF summer camp in Chausse, organized for the 2^nd half of July.

It’s no small matter to manage more than 130 scouts, from 3 to 73 years old, speaking 3 or 4 different languages, but Eric and Dorcas TIGE, helped by their team, managed to fulfill this task with flying colours.

The camp theme, One for All and All for One, helped to energise the children, and to adapt to each other, all united by the same Lord.

Apart from the traditional PF camp activities, the children were also able to carry out some actions of service on the camp ground, visit the Camargue region, experience a Dutch or Portuguese day, and welcome the numerous visitors, who came to celebrate the 50^th birthday with us.  A bright and colourful day, with a splendid service, combining the scout camp, the musical camp, and visitors, an outdoor picnic, followed by numerous stand and activities.  And the day finished with a closing ceremony and a wonderful mosaic cake.

Form’Action 2011

You’ve certainly already seen this logo, widely distributed in our corps for the last few months.  It symbolizes the new programme :  Action, Youth, FaIth, SeRvice. The current means of the SA in France and Belgium don’t allow us to have full time youth officers, but the desire to do as much as possible for the children and young people, is very real.  So a national committee has put in place this new project, getting the local youth leaders greatly involved, as well as the young people themselves.

More than 50 of them met up during 4 days at the beginning of November, in order to better understand the 5 main pillars of the project:  Outreach, worship, communion, training and service.  These meetings were rich in terms of shared ideas, reflection, setting up projects, friendship and spiritual resourcing.  Visits from Oliver Boschung (Swiss Youth department) and the national leaders, Jane and Massimo Paone, were particularly appreciated.

The PF leaders, who usually meet up in for an annual training week end called Brownsea, were delighted to join with us at this time.

Briefly

⇒ You can find all the information regarding the SA youth work at : ajir-ensemble.com

⇒ The PFs have started up again in Nimes – all the best for that.

⇒ A Basic Protestant scouts BAFA training session was organized during the Autumn holidays.  Apparently it was very good.  It’s a pity that there were no PF representatives there this year.

Youth and Scouting European Networks

 David Vandebeulque and Joël Etcheverry (accompanied by Pierre-Alain César for the translation), and along with Philippe Clément, went to London at the beginning of November, for the Youth and Scouting European Networks, scheduled once every two years.  It was a time of encouraging meetings and contacts, joint work on projects, and reflection on the European youth work.  An outreach project during the London Olympics, a scouts jamboree for the 100 years celebration of SA scouts, or a European youth work congress, are several examples of the work planned together

A sheep for Armenia

To launch the AGIR programme, a common solidarity project was launched for all sections of the youth work, initiated at the Form’action weekend.  Together with the SPFA (Protestant Solidarity France-Armenia) sheep will be given to the families of the Karabagh region, a very poor and mountainous region of Armenia, to help them provide for their needs.  After several months, each family involved gives a lamb to the community, to help others.  This action, led by the PFs and launched at the 50^th birthday celebration, has already enabled 2 sheeps to be given in November.  Very soon some photos will be available on the agir website, as well as a special downloadable piggy bank.  Any money collected is to be sent to the national leader by 20^th March 2012, in order to buy the sheep before the next trip in April.

Lognes 2012

Like every year the FSEF (French Evangelical scouting federation) held a stand at the evangelical centre in Lognes in November.  Thanks go out to Stephane Gratas who represented the PFs finely at this event.

Live out the gospel through acts of kindness

Internationally called “I’ll fight day”, and “JMB” in France and Belgium, it’s a means for us to show the gospel, through concrete acts of kindness.  These acts are done in the name of Jesus, with the idea being to share the love of God, in such a way as to bring people to ask the question: “why are you doing that?”

The Strasbourg PFs troop took part in this event by welcoming visitors to the Christmas market, who needed a short break or trip to the toilet, or hot drink etc.  The PFC group from the Lilas went to hand out coffee to the homeless in the metro stations around the corps, while the PFAs helped to decorate the entrance hall of the Albin Peyron residence.  The days of BA (good actions) are still alive and they are even sweeter when done in the name of Jesus.

Prayer subjects for 1^st semester 2012

• The implementation of AGIR projects

• The health and time management for the various responsibilities of the national youth director and the national scouts leader.

• The organization of next summer’s camps, and coping with a new limiting law

• The different PF troops in the corps (children, teenagers and helpers)

• The relaunch of a PF committee in the framework of AGIR

You can read another update from the Salvation Army Scouts of France/ Porteurs de Flambeau in the following pdf: PF’Infos 2011 12 English

We cross the border on the 4^th – 11^th August to Kragenäs, near Strömstad in Sweden, for the S.A. Scout camp. The Scout Camp is for scouts 11 years old or older. The Family Camp is for those who have Family Scouting groups or are curious about Family Scouting, and would like a week of activities for adults and children aged 0– 10 together. You’ll have the chance to experience something new and meet new challenges in a range of activities on land and sea– and in your personal life and relationship to God – during a week that we believe will truly be ground-breaking!

Activities in the Scout Camp are primarily aimed at scouts aged 11 – 16. For those over 16 (Rover Scouts), there will be a Rover café every evening, the possibility of helping with other activities and a special rover activity.

We hope to see a lot of scouts from different european countries there!

Check www.fa-leir.no for more information, updates and campletters.

On the 16th of July 2011 the French and Portuguese Salvation Army scouts came together in Chamborigaud (south-east France) for a scoutcamp. The French S.A. scouts (Porteurs de Flambeau) celebrated this year their 50th anniversary. In the last week of July Dutch S.A. scouts joined them. The camp included a fair, a Portuguese and Dutch day, a football tournament, new friends, games, a lot of french bread, canoeing, boat- and train ride in a national park etc.

The Portuguese returned home on Tuesday the 26th of july, the French and Dutch scouts spend a few days more together.

We would like to congratulate Ingvild Solberg (16) with the Generals award. She is the first for several years in Norway who received this award, which involves a lot of challenges and work. She has for instance earn 12 skill badges, learned more about the Bible and the Salvation Army. Besides that she did a lot of outdoor activities and went on different trips/hikes.

“It`s been a period with a lot of experiences” says Ingvild. “ and in scouting you get a lot of friends with all kind of personalities and ages”.