Beaver/Cub/Scout Volunteering

I’ll have a look at the Shelterbox thing, although the website doesn’t seem to want to work

Be quick. It fills up!

We’ve got an ‘expedition’ this weekend – two teams walking from our hut to a nearby-ish hut with their kit. sleep over there, and then back again on Sunday, navigating themselves along routes they planned last night. It’s only about 6/7miles each way, but should be interesting, given that their map reading skills are pretty rudimentary at best… Ah well, as long as more make it back than don’t 🙂

Expedition Challenge? We’ve yet to sort ours for the year. Got 3 kids who need it to get Gold.

Expedition Challenge? We’ve yet to sort ours for the year.

Yep. If you want to make use of our hut (Disley) for anything going out into the edges of the Peak, let me know.

I was a Beaver volunteer for a few years. Exhausting but good fun with some excellent activities (grass-sledging etc). Although it was widely agreed that the best night was the cancelled fire station tour where I just took the kids to the play-park instead.

MrsSC then became a cub leader. She is now leader for two groups, and helps with a third. She’s away camping this weekend (second weekend this month) and is off to South Korea with Thump for the World Scout Jamboree in August.

Scouts does seem obsessed with destroying the planet through its carbon-footprint. Any family without a car and a parent able to deliver a child to a remote camp or weekday “wide game” is screwed. And heaven forbid that you try to organise a car-share.

Any family without a car and a parent able to deliver a child to a remote camp or weekday “wide game” is screwed. And heaven forbid that you try to organise a car-share.

To be fair, the parents of our lot are pretty good for that.

Yeah. We have an “Explorer Taxi” shout go out on WhatsApp most weeks amongst the parents to sort lifts out.

They are up at Waddecar this week doing some back woods survival type thing. My lad has a lift up tonight and I’m picking them up on Sunday.

I was an Assistant Scout Leader for 7 years up till a couple of years ago. My kids were going through and the group was crying out for leaders so it seemed only fair. it was great for about 6 of those years, really good fun – there is something special about seeing a young kid come in and develop confidence, make friends and go way outside their comfort zone whilst having loads of fun – plus FIRE and AXES!!!!

Unfortunately I witnessed some very bad behaviour from the scout hierachy and there was a complete leadership change. One of my leaders (and a good mate of mine) got booted out on the say so of a nasty 10 year old with no support. It wasn’t a pervy thing before you ask but a discipline matter but he had absolutely no say and bang out the door after many years loyal service without so much as a thankyou. After that the main leader lost her mojo as she was so disgusted with the way our friend had been treated and she left too. I left a year or so later after giving 6 months notice.

I felt really sorry for the kids as it had been a fantastic vibrant group which would still be going strong with 3 good leaders but for one nasty spiteful parent and her child, plus the craven DC and his inability to do the job properly. I really lost confidence that I would be supported in the event of either a personal allegation against me or if there was an accident that I would be held responsible with no back up.

Despite that when our Explorer group lost a leader due to moving away I was asked to step in and volunteered (and still do on odd occasions) but made it clear i would be a parent helper and not a leader. I just didn’t want to deal with the scout hierachy any more.

Expedition Challenge? We’ve yet to sort ours for the year.

I thought all the planning etc had to be done by the Scouts- that’s what we make them do.

…carbon-footprint. Any family without a car

not just the cars- it’s all the camp fires! We had 6 going last weekend clearing some tree stumps as part of a project at our district site.

For most sections, parents tend to car share if needed esp as most of our kids have been trough the same primary-secondary schools.

That’s awful Winston, and doesn’t surprise me as it’s similar to another story I’ve been told by a colleague. However as a parent of a Beaver and currently unable to pitch in and help, thank you for what you’ve done!

Expedition Challenge? We’ve yet to sort ours for the year.

I thought all the planning etc had to be done by the Scouts- that’s what we make them do.

We give them a start point, an end point, a map and a compass. A couple of leaders go with them but walk at the back not the front.

Last one we did was 22km around Rivington and Winter Hill out of Bibby’s Farm. I was their water carrier.

We give them a start point, an end point, a map and a compass. A couple of leaders go with them but walk at the back not the front.

Yeah, we give them start, end, and a couple of checkpoints in between. No leaders with them, but there’s only a couple of miles between each checkpoint.

They are up at Waddecar this week doing some back woods survival type thing. My lad has a lift up tonight and I’m picking them up on Sunday.

Waddecar bushcraft village is ace!

Not seen it myself yet. Camped up there back in 2021 and did raft building. Stayed in the permanent tented village.

Our kids had great fun watching the school DoE carrying far too much kit in their best trainers.

Our lot have an unofficial camp uniform of military styles and big bobble hats.

Anyone doing Shelterbox in Liverpool this weekend?

http://www.nwscoutsglobal.org.uk/

We’ve got 5 teams. 2 x Cubs, 2 x Scouts and 1 x Explorers.

We’ll be wearing our very stylish green and orange 8th Prestwich hoodies.

It’s taken a while but last night I finally had my induction and got a neckerchief so guess I’m an actual volunteer now.

Felt a bit bad while doing the oath but couldn’t quite bring myself to let the local leader know I’m an atheist and a republican. Guess that doesn’t really matter though.

Throw yourself at it! It can be so rewarding.

Harry_the_Spider
Full Member
Throw yourself at it! It can be so rewarding

What he said, I’m a GSL it’s part maddening and very rewarding. If you’ve had a tough session look for the faces of the kids and think about the lives you’ve enriched.

It’s a very rewarding pastime.

Why is the search so bad? I was looking for this thread. Oh well, as I said elsewhere…

know there is anther thread about volunteering at clubs but….search is frankly **** and I absolutely must say this.

Holy Mary mother of God! In fact Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey! That was an eye opener! I volunteered to help at Beavers and do knots…. I’m going to have nightmares …..20 beavers all screaming, ‘is this it? Have I done it?’ While holding the biggest tightest not-a-reef-knot-granny-knot …. I need a beer!

I TAKE MY HAT OFF TO ALL WHO VOLUNTEER!

Felt a bit bad while doing the oath but couldn’t quite bring myself to let the local leader know I’m an atheist and a republican. Guess that doesn’t really matter though.

There’s a version of the promise for atheists these days, so you could have said.

As for “do my duty to … the King”, well your duty can be whatever you feel your duty is. Same to God, really… I’ve always felt that as he doesn’t exist, my duty to him is quite limited 😉

Always felt my duty was to “society”, represented by the Queen (at the time) and God as kind of notional figureheads.

Just spent the weekend at Linnet Clough in Marple.

8 leaders + 37 kids.

Highlights: 10 of them got up at 3am on Saturday to do a 5km sunrise hike. Kid with ASD chucked herself down a zip line (twice). Badgers got in the tents causing some excitement and they took part in the biggest water fight that they will probably ever experience.

Excellent, if knackering, fun.

Badgers got in the tents causing some excitement

Ha, the good old Linnet Clough badgers, we’ve had similar excitement in the past 🙂

We were at Barnswood (between Macc and Leek) for our patrol competition camp. Great fun, and even better we came back with everything dry. Result!

Sun up at Mellor Cross was a good one. We made that optional, but pretty much all of the older kids came along.

Was up there at 10:00pm on the Friday night too checking that the terrain was OK for the RA!

Sounds super fun, well done.

With my eldest moving up to cubs in a few weeks,  and my almost 6yo about to be invested as a beaver,  I’ll be volunteering a little bit more.   I’m planning to do a night at beavers at least once a term and the same at cubs, and it seems my (relative) skill with knots is in demand so I’ve said,  ‘let me know when you want to do knots and I’ll help’.  I realise I’ve got a decent/ large amount of experience at quite a few outdoor pursuits, sailing,  mtb,  hill walking,  rock climbing and would feel quite confident helping with any of those activities however although I have done all of them quite a lot,  I’ve never bothered with any tickets/quals.  I’m considering speaking to Akela to offer myself for some of that  (sailing possibly as there is a local boating lake) if they will fund the tickets.  I need to be sure I’ll actually have the time to do some stuff with the kids though first…. it might have to wait until the youngest (just turned 3) is another couple of years older before I would have much time and I don’t want to have scouts pay high hundreds or more to get me to Rya instructor if I can’t give back.

We tend to use the site instructors for climbing, axe throwing, archery and so on as they already have the permits and RAs in place.

Our leaders will get involved though as an additional pair of hands, crowd control or in the case of the zip line showing that it isn’t as scary as it looks. I went off first, for demonstration purposes only you understand, not because I’m a big kid. Three other leaders had a go, some of them twice. Just to make sure.

We’ve got one Terrain Two permit holder in the group for going over “big stuff”, but other than that we rely on site staff.

Was up there at 10:00pm on the Friday night too checking that the terrain was OK for the RA!

Ah, the good old RA. I did a bike ride with them last week, what I missed from the RA was “child falls off bike for no apparent reason” – we had one deck it on a flat, dry, straight piece of quiet lane. She didn’t know what happened, there was genuinely no obvious cause. She was fine, no tears or anything, but had nice grazes on her shoulder, elbow, knee (and I’d guess hip). Parents were unbothered when we got back, she’d enjoyed it other than that, but next morning her wrist hurt so they took her to A&E. It was just a sprain, but the hospital trip means it’s reportable to HQ. Smashing…

Oh, and it turns out that the section of canal we cycled along has giant hogweed on it, which could have been ‘interesting’.

It’s a good job that we did check out the Mellor Cross bit to be honest. A lot of erosion and the recent dry weather has made it a bit of a “scramble”, so an RA “no no”.

Found another route up round the back. Only a 50m detour, but best not to have to work it out at 3:30am with a load of kids.

 axe throwing

Tomahawks for throwing, not axes please.

We’ve got cover for air rifles, tomahawks & archery in our group- saves a fair bit on the cost not having to pay instructor fees, especially when it’s run as a whole day activity.

Indeed and why I need to find out what the group prefer.  The idea wasn’t mine though.  I work with a guy who was group leader at a nearby pack (until moving to Cornwall a year or more back.)  He told me that group did lots of kayaking and sailing because he did it.  However it seems there has been some club politics at the sailing club resulting in them putting prices up significantly for stuff they offer. He seemed to feel the cubs/scouts were disadvantaged by the change (and him no longer available locally to lead the stuff on the water instead of paying the sailing club).  I must have mentioned I’ve done a lot of sailing (although mine has been inshore and open ocean yachts,  I’ve not been in a dinghy for 25+ years) and hence he suggested I consider getting the rya instructor qual.

Always felt my duty was to “society”, represented by the Queen (at the time) and God as kind of notional figureheads.

<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>
lots of people talk themselves around to it like that, but I have to say I’m not sure it’s the right answer – for an organisation that really wants to be inclusive.  It’s unlikely to change as those at the top of the organisation all have survivor bias as either people who think it’s good or think it’s insignificant.  My daughter took a wee bit of convincing (she joined as an explorer so was old enough and wise enough to know what she was saying) and I think if she’d been told this before she went along it might have stopped her.</span>

I don’t want to have scouts pay high hundreds or more to get me to Rya instructor if I can’t give back.

I considered this when my son was a sea scout (they mostly canoe not sail at that group).  I wasn’t even worried about the cash, and I already had some of the prerequisites to become an RYA dinghy instructor (eg you’ll need a powerboat certificate, a vhf certificate, a first aid certificate as well as being good at sailing).  I think to do it from “scratch” would take you every second weekend for a whole sailing season.   Then the scouts don’t automatically take that as proof of competence! (Which is a good thing in my opinion). But you will also need a sailing centre who will let you have access to the boats etc.  my conclusion was that to do that for a couple of weekends a year wasn’t worth the pain and the scouts would be better just paying professionals when they needed it.

They could be swearing allegiance to Dr Who, Minnie Mouse and Sponge Bob for all they care. All a bit meaningless in the circumstances.

The real loyalty is to their mates and the troop.

I went along to another groups weekend camp (local) on Saturday to run a tomahawk throwing range for them as they don’t have the kit/permit to do so. Free lunch for me, contacts made with another group and the cubs and scouts had a blast. Got chance to have a go at air rifle shooting too which I haven’t done in a while!
Currently planning a joint beavers/cubs summer camp to get my permit for that too.

They could be swearing allegiance to Dr Who, Minnie Mouse and Sponge Bob for all they care. All a bit meaningless in the circumstances.

Probably true at the beavers and cubs age.  Then they get to scouts and start to question stuff.  Our local groups seem to lose various people at that age and even more at explorers.  I doubt anyone would say the promise was THE driving force for that – but I remember being that age and it would have* struck me as ceremonial bullshit (I know that some love that part of it).

The real loyalty is to their mates and the troop.

Yeah, I’m not even sure that is a healthy attitude.  It’s only one step away from the masons or political parties where the priority is to the organisation.  If you must have promises, perhaps something like “serving the good of humanity and protecting the natural environment for future scouts” or something would be less ambiguous.

To be 100% clear though I think that the work the Scouts do with young people is great, and their volunteers are invaluable.

*I can say that with some confidence as I was never a Scout, but at about 14 I went to a scout outdoor centre with another youth group and was both confused and astounded at the formalities that the Scouts seemed to be based around – collecting round the flag pole each day, housing and folding it in particular ways etc.

Harry_the_Spider – did you enter the ‘cave bus’?

Yes the Marple badgers are greedy things and will do anything for a nutella sandwich.

Didn’t do the Cave Bus.

We got earned a big wedge of cash for delivering resident’s parking permits for Park Life the other week, so we “invested” it in hiring the climbing tower / zip line for the afternoon.

I can say that with some confidence as I was never a Scout, but at about 14 I went to a scout outdoor centre with another youth group and was both confused and astounded at the formalities that the Scouts seemed to be based around – collecting round the flag pole each day, housing and folding it in particular ways etc.

Not our lot. Formal break of camp and a couple of awards for those that overcame fears etc. No uniforms. No parading. All changed a bit since when I did it back in the 1970s & 80s.

The thing that would have amazed any onlookers this weekend with our lot was tents down and bagged in 38 minutes (we had a bet).

They could be swearing allegiance to Dr Who, Minnie Mouse and Sponge Bob for all they care. All a bit meaningless in the circumstances.

I agree, I don’t know why we make them do it.

If you must have promises, perhaps something like “serving the good of humanity and protecting the natural environment for future scouts” or something would be less ambiguous.

If take the “do my duty to Him Upstairs and King Chuck” bit out, the rest of the promise is “to help other people and keep the Scout law“. I don’t why we can’t just have that bit.

[Scout law being:

1. A Scout is to be trusted.
2. A Scout is loyal.
3. A Scout is friendly and considerate.
4. A Scout belongs to the worldwide family of Scouts.
5. A Scout has courage in all difficulties.
6. A Scout makes good use of time and is careful of possessions and property.
7. A Scout has self-respect and respect for others

Covers a reasonable amount of “how to be a decent person” bases I reckon]

the formalities that the Scouts seemed to be based around – collecting round the flag pole each day, housing and folding it in particular ways etc.

There is undoubtedly too much quasi-military bollocks in Scouting.

The thing that would have amazed any onlookers this weekend with our lot was tents down and bagged in 38 minutes (we had a bet).

What kind of tents?

The thing that would have amazed any onlookers this weekend with our lot was tents down and bagged in 38 minutes (we had a bet).

Impressive!

Most DofE / Scout / youth camp groups I have worked with seem to have a time zone malfunction when it comes to packing up anything camping wise…

The thing that would have amazed any onlookers this weekend with our lot was tents down and bagged in 38 minutes (we had a bet).

What kind of tents?

Probably those 2 second Decathlon ones….