Well this is something new, I’d like to say a big hello to all the Jabbering followers. Chris has asked me to write a regular Scouting contribution for his blog, he’s hoping for a viewpoint from the coal face. I’ve been reading the jabbering.co.uk blog for a while now, and always enjoyed it. I think I originally enjoyed it because I like what Chris is doing in his Scouting role, he’s always positive, he cares about Scouting and he his very approachable, unlike quite a few I have met before in his position. So because I think jabbering.co.uk is doing a lot of good, I agreed.
Some of you may already know me, but if not I too have been in Scouting since being an 8 year old Cub Scout. Well I’ve now been a Cub Scout Leader for about 15 years, being biased I reckon it’s the best section to be in. To me at the age of 8 – 11, the youngsters seem to be really keen to learn, and if you can inspire them, you’ll often find them going all the way through Scouting. As a Leader on the ‘coal face’, I will hopefully bring some experience or viewpoints that might not get heard at all levels of Scouting.
Carrying on the theme of starting something new, I’m sure many of you are getting back into the throws of a new Scouting term. I admit that this is my least favourite term of the year, as the nights grow darker, the weather gets worse and the Christmas hype soon kicks in. It seems to affect the sanity of some of our young people. I’ve learnt that outdoor activities are a little restricted during the winter evenings, so the best way I deal with this is to make pack nights as different and action packed as possible. This is the term where I squeeze in plenty of visits or get people to visit us, we have much loved favourites such as the Police dog handlers, the demonstrations from the local Fire Station and the falconry man who brings along his owls and kestrels.
We always try to come up with more unusual visits too. We took them behind the scenes of the local supermarket, although I’m glad I didn’t buy the bread the Cubs got to make in the bakery section. The Cub’s need to work on what shape a loaf actually should be. Or a favourite visitor to the pack evenings is a friend who is a bit of a science boffin. He comes along and does experiments with various items, which of course all the Cub’s think is cool. (Note to self, grand finale explosion, needs to be smaller next time.) So I would just like to say I hope your Scouting term goes well, and that it’s entertaining for both you and your young people.
Please feel free to leave comments, I don’t mind if you agree or disagree with some of my views. All views make for a better world. Finally, I don’t want to scare you, but Christmas is coming!
Yous in Scouting
Ben
www.atomicapple.co.uk
www.twitter.com/cilben
