Parents….
Well, you’ve got to love them, haven’t you!
I was thinking of a way to engage my Cub Pack on a (don’t shoot me Gilwell) slightly boring badge that they all wanted to get, the Home Safety Badge. I looked at worksheets, plays, games and all sorts. I really was at the end of my imagination when a dad of a Cub offered to help.
Now he was the expert really, being a trained firefighter. It also turned out that our local fire station’s newest recruit was in fact the older sister of a Cub! The fire station is also less than 100 meters from the Scout Hall, just across the park.
So, off went our fire-fighting dad and two weeks later we all trudged through the dark park to visit the fire station. We had a blast, doing games, asking questions and looking at pictures. We looked at the appliances and talked to the parents, fired the water hoses and received a message for the call centre.
It didn’t occur to me untill I waved off the last Cub armed with a handful of water bottles, balls and stickers that we had in fact covered almost the whole badge in one go. I sent round a home survey sheet the following week and now we are having the entire Station down to present the badges on Thursday.
After all of this I've had several calls from parents whose children have come home saying 'his dad organised this' and the offers to help have increased. We now have a football night planned with the local semi-pro team, a doctor bringing in gruesome instruments and a local horse sanctuary offering to do a day on the equestrian badge!
Why didn’t I get them on it earlier?? All I have to do now is plan the parts they are going to have I the Christmas play!!
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Goodbye Beavers, Hello Cubs!
Well it was sad day last Friday when I arrived at Beavers in my ‘mummy’ uniform. No bright blue t shirt, no silly necker or silly hat. I was officially just a mum for the evening. But, it was not all doom and gloom as I have now officially become Akela to the Cub Pack.
It seems odd to be moving up into a new Section, just as I was getting used to the Beavers ceremonies, planning and badges, but as is the way in rural Wales, you have to move to where you are needed. In my case it was because the previous Cub Leader felt that the time had come to retire and concentrate on his farming and the GSL had to get back to her studies, so a gap had formed and I volunteered to plug it!
So I prepared and researched ready for the start of term and what I found out was rather surprising. I discovered from various people, books and websites that Beavers and Explorers are virtually the same but 10 years apart, Scouts are willing and able to do anything once and Cubs are the spongy section, you know, soaking up everything you tell them and show them.
With this in mind, in the first three months of being Akela, we have done the collectors and hobbies badges, the creative, fitness and outdoor challenge, the camper badge and some of the Cubs have gained their swimmers and Nights Away staged badges.
There can’t be much more to do can there?
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21st Century Scouting?
Being involved in Scouting in this technology-rich era has raised its own challenges and problems. There have been new badges with the emphasis on understanding the modern methods of communication and great connections have been made through Jamboree On The Air and Jamboree On The Internet, but what have we forgotten?
Have we forgotten to teach fire lighting, pioneering and map reading? Well, a year ago I would have answered that question with a ‘Yes...we have forgotten the basics’. But at the World Scout Jamboree I saw Scouts from all over the world and the UK pioneering and building like it was second nature. I was really impressed with all the gateways and camp ideas I saw from around the globe.
I spend a lot of my free time communicating with other Scouters through internet forums and email, which has given me the opportunity to bring international Scouting to my Beavers and Cubs. There will soon be two new badges on my ‘cyber uniform’, The 1st Facebook Scout Group and the Escouts badge, of which I am a proud member. These new ways of finding out tried and tested ideas aren’t as ‘new’ as I thought. It was pointed out to me at the Jamboree by Tom from Edinburgh, a loud and raucous Scout Leader in his seventies, that ‘we’ve been doing that for years…it's called a Jamboree!’
If it wasn’t for the On Air and On Internet Jamboree’s I’m sure many more young people would arrive at their first international event without any experience of communicating with the world. There is now one foolproof way to get a response from a group of Scouts, yell ‘Jambo’ and see what happens!!
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2007: The best year so far?
Well for me, 2007 has been an amazing year, and it's not over yet!
I’m Alli, an Assistant Beaver Scout Leader in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Our Group is in an area dotted with castles, beaches, country parks and mountain ranges, so we seem to have a good supply of ready made Scouting activities on our doorstep. But even with the amazing countryside around us and the support of the local community, we struggle for adult volunteers just like all Scout Groups today. One night four years ago I dropped my oldest son off at Beavers and realised it was too far to go home and come back again, so I stepped into a world of Appointments and training, camping and canoeing.
I’m quite new to Scouting, I had no experience of it as a child but so far I’m hooked! I’ve been to our area Centenary Jamboree back in May, I’ve helped to organise a huge community fun day and (the part I’m most proud of) attended the World Scout Jamboree at Hylands Park this summer.
The lasting friendships I have made through Scouting have carried me through tough times and fun times. I didn’t realise quite how much fun making endless costumes and cooking breakfast for 30 on a gas stove could be! If someone could bottle the feeling you get when one of your Beaver Scouts makes their way across a crowded AGM to make their Scout Promise, then they would be rich.
While I was at the Jamboree I had the chance to meet Scouts from all over the world and to learn a little more about the global effect of Scouting. I also had he chance to get to know people from my own area better and made some lifelong friendships along the way. I have to say that at times it was hard work and the mud was fun, but it was an amazing three weeks. I’m already planning for Sweden 2011!
