Wednesday

Legacy Wednesday was founded by Duncan Adkinson and James Wreford back in January 2014 as the number of Explorers in Colchester North meant a new unit was needed to stop the current 2 units from being overrun with Young People.

Duncan was then, an Assistant Leader at 1st Gt Horkesley Scouts, and was ‘volunteered’ by the then District Commissioner to open the unit. At the time, Duncan was working as a Manager at a local outdoor retailer, and James was one of his colleagues who, like Duncan, was very passionate about the outdoors (being a very keen hiker, camper and climber), so Duncan asked if he would be interested. Luckily he was so he helped get the unit up and running. Originally, it was proposed that we meet in the local GO Outdoors store, but after long discussions with the Legal bods from both parties, it was thought to be easier to find another home. So we found a local hall, and have been there ever since!

We started with 6 Explorers in the first term, but this grew steadily to the high teens / low twenties, which is a level we have maintained over the past 7 years. Also, one of the Assistant Leaders here at Legacy Wednesday was one of the Founding Explorers, so we must have been doing something right…

After a couple of years, James had to stand down from his Scouting role as he was accepted into the Metropolitan Police Force, and therefore could not guarantee to be free on a Wednesday night. As much as we loved having James within the unit, we were all behind him when he went to work in the Capital, where he is doing great things!

Duncan is currently assisted by Alex Emmins and Benn Eldridge. Alex, as mentioned, was one of the Explorers who joined Legacy Wednesday when we first opened, and Benn came onboard when he needed somewhere to complete his DofE Gold Award Volunteering only a few weeks after the unit first opened.

Now we have Explorers at all ages (14 up to 18), and a good mix of both young men and young ladies. Most Explorers are taking part in the DofE Award Scheme (so very similar to the other two units within Legacy Explorers, which is fantastic!), and are active members of the unit.

The activities we get up to within Legacy Wednesday is as varied as possible. As we meet in a hall that is not owned by the Scouts, we are limited to what we can do (no fires outside, which is a shame), but we do have lots of local places we can go to so we can tick off that type of Scouting activity. We also have Highwoods Country Park not too far from us, so we do try to get out there as often as possible. We also enjoy hiking along local paths, especially if the hike ends at a chip shop for some well-earned carbs! We also use the District Minibus to get us that bit further afield whenever we can, and he have visited the Sea Scouts over on Mersea Island and had a fun evening in the water off West Mersea. We have visited local areas of interest, and had Speakers come to us to help inform us of local charities and the like.

We also get involved in the annual events that Legacy ESU take part in as a whole, so the Monopoly Run, the Essex County Marathon, The Essex International Jamboree, the World Jamboree, NorJam, CamJam, all these events we offer to the Explorers!

So if any of this sounds interested, please get in touch and join up!

Duncan Adkinson

Legacy Wednesday ESU Leader