On Saturday 17th November 2007, Cubs, Beavers and Scouts at the 1st Winchester Scout Group held a twenty four hour archery marathon to raise money for Winchester Hospital Radio.

The event was organised by members of the Celts Cub Pack who are working towards their Caring Challenge badge. This badge involves raising money for a charity other than Scouting. They decided to enlisted the help of the rest of the Scout Group to raise more money. A target of £1,000.00 was set.

Winchester Hospital Radio is a registered charity and committed to relieving the boredom of staying in hospital by visiting patients and playing requests and other music. They are funded almost entirely by donations and the Cub Scouts chose hospital radio from a short list of three local charities after a visit to the studios at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital.

The first and last arrows were fired by Tony Knight, the chairman of Winchester Hospital Radio, who also presented the evening request programme live from the Scout Hut along with co-presenter Paul Blitz. Most of the requests were read by members of the scout group, the youngest of which is just 6 years old, and a generous sprinkling of clean jokes was also included in the programme. Mr Knight said that it was “great to see these young people having so much fun whilst raising money for charity”.

A room was set aside for relaxing, sleeping and playing board games. The marathon met the target raising £1,010.50 for hospital radio.

A total of 7,483 arrows were fired over the 24 hour period, 49 young people took part, of which 22 continued firing arrows throughout the night. These were supported by 12 leaders and parents.

Group Scout Leader, Phil Ralph, said, “these are absolutely brilliant young people and we are lucky to have them in our group. They stayed happy and buoyant throughout the night which helped keep the leaders on their toes and awake.”

And, yes, everyone of those arrows had to be counted so we could determine the winner of the "Guess The Number of Arrows" Competition. A huge thanks to Hathi, Balloo and Raksha for manning the tally sheets for the entire 24 hours.

Prizes were also awarded to the Beaver, Cub and Scout who raised the most money. A cub from the Celts Pack and a Scout from the Greeks Troop raised the most money for their sections but the most money of all was raised by the youngest Beaver in the Group. He raised £77.00 - Well done!

Click here if you would like to make an on line donation direct to Winchester Hospital Radio.