Engaging kids in meaningful and constructive activities is a great idea and literally millions benefit from things like scouts, youth clubs, sports clubs and so forth. All run by volunteers with a sprinkling of professionals. The irony is that what funding they have is being cut left right and centre and it is without doubt having a negative impact on the existing voluntary sector.
The Big Society concept is firstly patronising and ignores the vast amount of people who have being doing such things for donkies years. It is fundamentally flawed by the fact that people do things becuase they get something out of it, not because of any sense of duty or obligation to fellow mankind. By making it harder to be a volunteer, (i.e. cutting funding), if anything Cameron is the architect of the destruction of the real “Big Society”, ie. the one that existed in village halls, scout huts and playing fields waaaaaaay before the his father had a twinkle in his eye and well before the best part of him ran down his mothers leg!