Scouting without Scouts

Although I am not yet attached to any group, having resigned from my old one, I can't say scouting is not in the agenda for the next few weeks. So in a good old blog fashion, were you don't just write about how to build a friction bridge or a review of a meeting night, i will attempt to lay out the agenda of whats ahead in my scouting life.

October. Second meeting with the County IT team, this is a social and work pub session with those who volunteer to help with the Berkshire Scouts IT issues and work. I only have met the team leader so I am curious to see how the rest of the team looks like, will it give us a kick start for something a bit more structured? let's hope so!

November. At some point in November I will meet with the cub scout leader of the 1st Jennett's Park scout group, this is my future group if all works out OK, with the move to the new house and all. Again, meeting new people, a new team, a new group!

End of November we (The Family) move to JP and that was a long time coming. I know loads of people have horror stories that span months when it comes to sell buy and move house, I can't say it went nasty with ours but it still took us about 5 months to be able to say when we might move... Hopefully.

December. I finally booked an Advanced First Aid Course, a 2 day (16h) training course that leads to a full first aid certificate, once the course has been evaluated. I was looking for one of these courses for a few years now, hopefully the one the Berkshire Scouts are running will go ahead in December. It'll be a weekend and it'll be great!

So scouting for old boys, I know without the young ones it's not much scouting as a leader role goes but it's a break, it will give me ideas and soon enough I will get back to "proper" scouting!

Before I start filling in my AA form I need to have a new proper home address first!

My farewell to the 47th

The time has come to announce my resignation from my role as an Assistant Cub Scout Leader.

After almost two and a half years scouting with the 47th Reading Scouting Group (St. Paul's) due to my family's relocation I decided that I can't commit to the commute to the meetings, on top of my day's work and commute.

I have taken so much from the amazing leadership of the other scouters, the enthusiasm and love of the young members and the scouting we all did together. We all became friends and we all had fun, exploring and doing things scouts do, without a doubt that we kept our promise. We did what we did under the scout law and we did make our founder proud. No doubt in my mind that the group will continue to do so.

As this is a review I will try to cram the most of the past few years.

In 2011 my daughter joined Beavers at the 47th, so I guess I started as a parent, it is a category of scout group membership if not official very real indeed! I shook the left hand of the GSL as an old scouter and I was recruited in my original role as a Sectional Assistant, knowing full well that I am joining a scout group but also feeling like I return to the scouting movement. The way my GSL approached and followed through my recruitment was text book!

Within weeks I realised that I have the chance to get so much more out of it if i commit a bit more and pick the role of Assistant Leader. These roles and the different paths seemed a bit complicated, the training looked attractive enough to commit but also wide and distant to complete.

So starting with the group for the year 2011-2012 my main priority was to learn the ropes, get trained and develop a sense of direction and comradeship with the team and the young ones. Sure enough as the months went by I figured out what the Training Modules are about  and how to tackle them. A big help in that was my then Training Assistant, Barry who is also the GSL of the group. Also the county, Berkshire scouts are running training courses, it made life so easy! It was almost a case of booking modules and then booking Validation Sessions.

What happens between the two, the Module training and the Validation Session is real scouting. Once you follow a module you can then imminently see the content appear in your program and planning. Your meeting nights and scouting activity now has all the elements you need for validation revealed to you to record and make examples of.

During training you also meet other leaders from various districts and sections from a wide array of ages and backgrounds. That makes you feel that you have nothing to worry about, we are all there to offer what we can, there is no scout type, we are all scouts unique as we are uniformed! weird eh? It was great to meet all these fellow scouts, it made us all feel instantly we belong to a batch! a generation!

But training apart, which for me is a comfortable place, scouting is about the young members, the games, the activities and the skills. I did not know I would enjoy songs and skits so much, taking games and adapting them to themes, preparing props and soon enough making that same preparation an activity for scouts, taking me out of the doing for them, to leading them to do.


My daughter joined the Cubs, so the period 2012 - 2013 we scouted together, father and daughter, scary but it turned out we work together just fine! she is a clever girl, she knows when we play the game and when we are back to family mode! I was half way finishing my wood badge and also making camping happen.

I made it my task to lead our camping expedition, originally planned for October 2012 but then cancelled to be rescheduled for May 2013. I wanted to consciously control all stages of the planning so that I learn and move closer to my Nights Away permit. In doing so I also wanted to help the other leaders to do the same! We must all train and help each other do their training in the scouting system, the same way we share experience we also must share the training effort.

Camp went awesome; cubs loved it they didn't want to go home! Our long lists of activities and timetable run through with many items working just fine while others just didn't need to happen. Some parts of the organisation had some mistakes and needed a bit more attention, it doesn't matter, just make a note, remember for next time! The important thing is that there is a next time!

Leaders had a lovely time too, I slept for most of the week when we returned; I was knackered but happy.

Summer 2013 came with the news that we would have to move. Sad to leave my group and as we expected to do so by the end of August there was no more scouting for me with the 47th, or so I thought...

My daughter and I had a few more biscuits to eat at the 47th and there was a surprise waiting at the end!


As the move was delayed I continued scouting for the first term of 2013- 2014 and I was happy to see many of the old cubs coming back to our meetings, some moved up a section and some were new members.



On the 14th of October 2013 I had the honour and privilege to invest three new cubs into scouting and also, the same night, I was presented with the wood badge and beads by our DC in front of all the cubs, leadership team and some parents, a moment I will never forget!

I consider the 47th as my scout group, my cubs and my team. In Whitley the families have a scout group that has 100 years of history and from what I have seen their children are in good hands!

Keeping it personal as I review my continuous scouting experience, I will report from the new group soon but I will keep the 47 after Won Tolla for ever to always remind me the 47th Reading Scouts!

HEATWAVE

Long time no see! We are near to the end of this term, as we approach the Summer Break, almost like the end of a scouting year, depends how you count it, I tend to measure a year from September!

The weather is Hot and the park near our HQ is very inviting for wide games, the water relays, with the outdoors being the main theme of almost every meeting.

I have noticed that parents tune-in to the weather especially well when it's rainy and cold but for the Summer season, things tend to get a bit simpler. No worries, Summer calls for less clothes!

Sometimes the transit between the seasons is slow in scouting mainly because of the uniform and the regular meetings indoors, in the Scout Hut. So I think it is a good idea to have a few general guidelines ready and to let parents know that being summer and being scouts we will be mostly outside and possibly playing with water a lot!

Do this as a cover-all statement, as the seasons change, not like a letter for a particular event...

This way you can rely on their educated common sense to send the young scouts ready for outdoors, even when you have not planned a visit to a near by field for a wide game, obviously if the field trip or the visit does warrant an activity notification and an information form this is covered already.

The beaver and cub jumpers or the scout shirt are too hot for games outdoors on a 28C hot summers day! Can they bring a t-shirt to change to for games? Especially if there's water relays and games involved and the weather is not that hot!

High factor Sun screen is necessary, even on nice cool days outdoors. Remember, we can not apply it to our young members and we expect them to have it on before they arrive at the HQ, covering parts that the t-shirt wont cover.

A bottle of water is good practice, although Scout Huts have water and cups, it still shows initiative and good thinking. Also imagine, if during a heatwave the HQ has the water cut off, you need to drink to play! I realise this is not practical but imagine if you manage to convince all scouts to have a bottle of water in the backpacks!


A hat is always a great idea, this is like saying that appropriate shoes for games are also a good idea.


Scout huts need to have a good 1st aid field box, something to pick up and go, it will patch a grazed knee quickly and get you back to the game without delays.

In my experience a small kit with:

• Nitrile gloves
• Sterile water
• Sterile gauze to clean small cuts and wounds 
• Selection of wide plasters or adhesive tape 

all these are more than enough to cover the grazed knee. For anything more than a graze, you'll probably stop the game and seek further 1st aid or assistance anyway, so don't take this as the basic first aid advice.

Extend your knowledge to the young Scouts, highlight three things:

1. Equip: Sunscreen & Water, have them, use them!
2. Plan: Avoid working hard on hot hours of the day
3. Care: Keep an eye on elderly, family members, neighbours, they might suffer.

Also, pets must not be left in hot small confined areas, like cars.


Finally, I spend sometime refreshing my first aid and I use the Red Cross application on my iPad, excellent app but the info is also available on the Red Cross website, I submit this link for Heatwave advice. Be Prepared for Heatwave

That's all! Scouting is Outdoors, get going!