East Ryde Joey Scout Program
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Theme: Remembrance Day |
Meeting Type: Hall |
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Time |
Activity Description |
Leader |
Equipment Required: |
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Coming in activity - Colour a poppy |
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pencils |
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5.45 |
Opening parade |
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Flags |
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5.50 |
Pairs (can’t remember the name!) |
Nushka |
nothing |
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6.00 |
Battle balls |
Ilara |
2 tables, boxes, cannon balls |
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6.10 |
Writing/drawing about:
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Parents to help with writing/spelling please! |
Paper, pencils, photos |
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6.30 |
Battleship! |
Ilara |
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6.35 |
Make a wreath Talk about remembrance day and poppies |
Nushka |
Staple poppies to wreath |
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6.45 |
Closing parade |
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Flags |
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spare |
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LEADERS AVAILABLE: |
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Next Meeting: |
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Games/Craft Information:
Pairs.
Everyone pairs and links arms up except “it” and the person who is “in”. “in” is chased by ‘it” and runs around and attaches to a pair – the one on the other end must let go and run without being caught by “it”. If you are caught you become “it” and must catch another free Joey.
Battle Balls
Set up two tables on their sides opposite each other for each team to hide behind. Place a box in front of each table. Supply each team with newspaper cannon balls and they must throw them from behind their table and get them in their opponents box. The team with the most balls in the box wins.
Battleship/Minefields
Can you get safely across the minefield?
Make a red poppy to add to the wreath.
- Joeys colour in a couple of poppies.
- Cut out poppy that has been coloured in.
- Glue or staple the poppies to the wreath base. To make the base cut the centre out of a paper plate. This could be painted prior to the meeting if you want to have a wreath base that is not white.
- Attach a piece of string, wool, or ribbon to the wreath (optional).
Remembrance Day – also known as Poppy Day commemorates the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and of civilians in times of war, specifically since the First World War. It is observed on 11 November to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918 (major hostilities of World War I were formally ended "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month" of 1918
In Australia Remembrance Day is always observed on 11 November, although the day is not a public holiday. Services are held at 11am at war memorials and schools in suburbs and towns across the country, at which "Last Post" is sounded by a bugler and a one-minute silence is observed.
In the United Kingdom, although two minutes of silence are observed on 11 November itself, the main observance is on the second Sunday of November, Remembrance Sunday. Poppy wreaths are laid by representatives of the Crown, the armed forces, and local civic leaders, as well as by local organisations including the Scouts, Guides, Boys' Brigade. The start and end of the silence is often also marked by the firing of a cannon. A minute's or two minutes' silence is also frequently incorporated into church services..[17]
The First Two Minute Silence in London (11 November 1919) was reported in the Manchester Guardian on 12 November 1919:
The first stroke of eleven produced a magical effect. The tram cars glided into stillness, motors ceased to cough and fume, and stopped dead, and the mighty-limbed dray horses hunched back upon their loads and stopped also, seeming to do it of their own volition. Someone took off his hat, and with a nervous hesitancy the rest of the men bowed their heads also. Here and there an old soldier could be detected slipping unconsciously into the posture of 'attention'. An elderly woman, not far away, wiped her eyes, and the man beside her looked white and stern. Everyone stood very still ... The hush deepened. It had spread over the whole city and become so pronounced as to impress one with a sense of audibility. It was a silence which was almost pain ... And the spirit of memory brooded over it all.[18]
The main national commemoration is held at Whitehall, in Central London, for dignitaries, the public, and ceremonial detachments from the armed forces. Members of the British Royal Family walk through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office towards the Cenotaph, assembling to the right of the monument to wait for Big Ben to strike 11:00 am, and for the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery at Horse Guards Parade, to fire the cannon marking the commencement of the two minutes of silence. Following this, "Last Post" is sounded by the buglers of the Royal Marines. After the service, there is a parade of veterans, who also lay wreaths at the foot of the Cenotaph as they pass, and a salute is taken by a member of the Royal Family at Horse Guards Parade.
Poppies
The poppy's significance to Remembrance Day is a result of Canadian military physician John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields. The poppy emblem was chosen because of the poppies that bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their red colour an appropriate symbol for the bloodshed of trench warfare.
Why is this day special to Australians?
At 11 am on 11 November 1918 the guns of the Western Front in Europe fell silent after more than four years of war. The allied armies had driven the German invaders back, having inflicted heavy defeats upon them over the preceding four months. In November the Germans called for an armistice (suspension of fighting) in order to secure a peace settlement. They accepted the allied terms of unconditional surrender.
The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month became special in the post-war years. The moment when hostilities ceased on the Western Front became universally associated with the remembrance of those who had died in the war. This first world war brought about the mobilisation of over 70 million people and left between 9 and 13 million dead, perhaps as many as one-third of them with no known grave. Most nations chose this day and time for the commemoration of their war dead.
On the first anniversary of the armistice in 1919 two minutes' silence was instituted as part of the main commemorative ceremony at the new Cenotaph in London. The silence was proposed by Australian journalist Edward Honey, who was working in Fleet Street.
At about the same time, a South African statesman made a similar proposal to the British Cabinet. King George V personally requested all the people of the British Empire to suspend normal activities for two minutes on the hour of the armistice "which stopped the worldwide carnage of the four preceding years and marked the victory of Right and Freedom". The two minutes' silence was popularly adopted and it became a central feature of commemorations on Armistice Day.
On the second anniversary of the armistice in 1920 the commemoration was given added significance when it became a funeral, with the return of the remains of an unknown soldier from the battlefields of the Western Front.
After the end of the Second World War, the Australian and British governments changed the name to Remembrance Day. Armistice Day was no longer an appropriate title for a day which would commemorate all war dead.
In Australia on the 75th anniversary of the armistice in 1993 Remembrance Day ceremonies again became the focus of national attention. The remains of an unknown Australian soldier, exhumed from a First World War military cemetery in France, were ceremonially entombed in the Memorial's Hall of Memory. Remembrance Day ceremonies were conducted simultaneously in towns and cities all over the country, culminating at the moment of burial at 11 am and coinciding with the traditional two minutes' silence. This ceremony, which touched a chord across the Australian nation, re-established Remembrance Day as a significant day of commemoration.
Four years later, in 1997, Governor-General Sir William Deane issued a proclamation formally declaring 11 November to be Remembrance Day, urging all Australians to observe one minute's silence at 11 am on 11 November each year to remember those who died or suffered for Australia's cause in all wars and armed conflicts.