Nick's Ramblings

I was talking to a colleague at work the other day and he brought up the subject of Scouting. He had seen us at our Annual General Meeting as we had hired my School’s sports hall and he uses  part of it to run his fitness business.

He was telling me that he was very impressed at the number of young people who were there and also the number of parents present. As a side note, I think we had around 2/3 of the Beavers, Cubs and Scouts there. He mentioned that he thought when his grandson was old enough, he would be likely to join us.

My colleague went on to say he was very impressed to hear that Bear Grylls was our Chief Scout. He thought that he is a good role model for our young people as he is an obvious outdoorsy type of person.

While talking to my colleague, he admitted he didn’t know too much about the Scouts and that he’d never given the movement much thought. But by seeing the number of young people and parents we had at our AGM and by the Scout Association’s publicity regarding our new Chief Scout, he told me how impressed he was and what a good job we were obviously doing!

By promoting Scouting at both the national and local levels, a good perception can be cultivated in people who don’t necessarily know much about us and this can only be a good thing.

If nothing else, I think in a few years time we will have gained a new Beaver!

Bear was invested as Chief Scout at Gilwell 24 yesterday. Best wishes to him and lets see what the next 5 years bring!

UPDATE: Just found out that Bear is on Twitter!

Bet that got your attention!

The reason for this is that today my Group got a cheque from Her Majesty’s Customs and Revenue (the taxman!) as part of their Gift Aid scheme.

 

Gift Aid is a scheme for charities which means that for every £1 given to the charity, the charity can claim back 25p from the taxman!

To be able to do this, we have to register with HMRC, get each parent to sign a form saying they are happy for us to claim Gift Aid on their behlaf, record money given to the Group by each parent and apply for the money once a year.

We can claim for money given to the Group for Capitation fees or weekly subs, but not for camps. Basically if you get a specific ‘thing’ for the money, we cannot claim against it. Fair enough!

It does require some work on the Group Treasurer’s part and a little bit on mine as Group Scout Scout Leader, but for the small amount of work we have to do, we get about the same amount of money as we get when we spend a whole day bag packing at one of the local supermarkets!

This is a great scheme which helps many UK charities and not just Scouting, but I find it extremely surprising that some Scout Groups don’t do it as they think it is ‘too complicated’.

When I was talking to our Treasurer earlier today, he reminded me that when we started applying for Gift Aid we didn’t think we would get much cash back from the scheme, but we were initially surprised at how much we got and we have been surprised every year since. As the Group is growing, the  amount of money coming in is going up and then the money we can claim back goes up. Win win really!

If you are a Scout Group (or any charity really) and don’t do Gift Aid, get it sorted! After all you get free money! And of course, this goes to provide great equipment and activities for the Group’s members!

Here are a few photo’s from my Group’s AGM last night. The rest can be seen here in the Group’s photo gallery.

One of the things we have to do is to elect a Group Executive Committee and each of the committee members got given a hat to show who they are and what jobs they did. I ended up wearing three! Group Scout Leader, Group Chairman & Group Secretary. I’ve been relieved of one of these already.

Then I got my Award for Merit.

It was a very good evening and a lot of parents turned up. You can read a bit more about the AGM on the Group’s Site.

Tonight we held the Group’s AGM and I’m going to do a podcast about AGMs soon.

But one of the things we did was give out some awards. The first, and most important, was the Cub of the Year Award. This is given every year to one of the older Cubs who will be moving on to the Troop soon. The award is given to the Cub who excels in all they do throughout the year.

The next award was a surprise as the Cub Leader was given her 25 Years Service Award. The District Commissioner gave her the badge and certificate and the Group gave her a bunch of flowers, a framed photo of all the Leaders and a bottle of wine! The flowers were presented by my Dad who recruited her to be an Assistant all those years ago, the photo was presented by the Cub who got the Cub of the Year Award and the wine by me as Group Scout Leader. She was most surprised we’d done anything!

Next came our Assistant Scout Leader who was presented his Woodbadge. This now means we have 5 Leaders in the Group with their Woodbadge – the most we’ve ever had!

And then it was my turn! As I said at the beginning of the month, I’ve been awarded the Award for Merit, which is a real honour!

I have to say I’m really proud of all my Group’s Leaders and especially those who got the awards tonight and the Cub who got his.

Well done and thank you to all!

I’m going to put some photos up later when I get my hands on some.

I’ve just come across an excellent site called Scouting Resources. This site is run by an Assistant Cub Leader from North East London and has LOADS of useful information and resources on it (hence the name). And while it has a UK slant, there is lots of stuff on there which will be of use to Scouts and Leaders all around the world.

Take a look, it’s great!

Yesterday was Father’s Day. To be honest,  I’ve often thought that it was nothing more than a ‘Hallmark Holiday’!

This is because it doesn’t seem to have any historical context, unlike Mother’s Day, which is based on the Christian Church’s Mothering Sunday (at least in the UK).

However, although I’m not a father myself (ok, technically I am, as Carol is 14 weeks pregnant, but I guess it doesn’t count yet!), I now understand the need to have a day for our Dads.

My Dad has been a constant guide in my life and I am grateful for this. When I need answers to questions, I always ask him (I hope I can live up to this).

In my role as Group Scout Leader, I kind of fill the father role of the Group. I steer it in the right direction and when people need help it’s me they ask.

Of course, BP is the Father of Scouting and for this again I am grateful.

So a belated Happy Father’s Day to all fathers of all kinds!

Me & my Dad

I’m in the process of sorting out some of my photographs so they are better organised and backed up in more then one place, which is always a sensible precaution.

Doing this, I’ve come across some of the oldest digital photos I have of the Scout Group, so I’ve put them into our Gallery. Some were already there, but in worse resolution and a lot smaller size.

A Bridge built without rope at our Group Camp in 1988

(I’m the one in the green cap!)

Our trip to London in 2001

(I’m lurking at the back on this one!)

So now we have some photos of the Group Camp in 1988, the Scout’s London Trips in 2001 and 2003, the Group’s Family Evening in 2003 and the Scout’s camp in  July 2004.

It’s always interesting to look back over our recent past and some of those camps don’t seem that long ago!

Interestingly, the picture from London was taken with a digital camera / web cam that I had recently bought. If I remember correctly, it cost me over £100 and was considered at the time to be of high quality! My mobile phone takes better quality photos now (even Carol’s iPhone does!). Shows how technology has moved on!

The Beavers and Cubs have spent this evening walking round Westport Lake to raise money for the animal charity the PDSA.

Of course, there was a bit of concern doing this today in light of the tragedy on Tuesday, where a Beaver drowned in a river. We were walking by a lake on one side and a canal on the other (in some places).

However, we had the correct amount of Leaders and a number of the parents said they would join in as well. We have a standard risk assessment for walking and so we had all the safety areas covered.

No matter how much you plan, things can go wrong and it can be a case of ‘there but for the Grace of God, go I’.

The Beavers walked around the larger lake and then the small one and then played some games while the Cubs walked around the large lake four times.

We’re not sure how much money the Beavers and Cubs raised yet, but we’re sure they have raised a considerable amount. It is nice to think that we have been raising money for a charity other than ourselves. I believe the Beavers and Cubs chose the charity themselves.

We all had a great evening out.

I’ve just read the awful news that a Beaver Scout died last night while walking along a river in Suffolk with the rest of his Colony.

There is no news on how this tragedy happened at the moment, and I will make no speculation or comment.

See here for more info – it will be updated as more information becomes available.

My thoughts and prayers are with the poor boy’s family, friends and fellow Beavers.