Month: December 2010

First of all, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and Santa brought you what you asked for!

Looking through the business section of Sunday’s Telegraph , I saw this article (it is also in Monday’s Independent) about the revival of Bob a Job week or Scout Job week.

Bob a Job week was introduced in the late 1940’s as a way of raising money for Scout Groups. The basic premise was that a Cub or Scout would knock on the doors of people in their street and ask to do jobs for the people in return  for a ‘bob’. A ‘bob’ was the slang name for 1 Shilling which was part of the pre decimal monetary system we had in the UK prior to 1971 and to quote Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman in the book ‘Good Omens’

the British resisted the contaminated foreign notion of decimal currency for a long time because (a) it was foreign; and (b) they thought it was too complicated.

1 Shilling when decimalised was the equivalent of 5 pence and as an example 1 Shilling in, say, 1960, would be worth around £2 today.

The name of Bob a Job week was changed to Scout Job week sometime after decimalisation as it was wanted to get away from only getting 5p for a job. Indeed I can remember being somewhat miffed at doing a load of work for someone in the early 1980’s and only getting 5p!

I know our Cub Pack always participated in Job week and Akela, or to give him his official title ‘Dad’, gave prizes to the three Cubs who raised the most money. I don’t remember doing it in Scouts though.

Job week was stopped in that form in the 1990’s when, quite rightly, there were concerns about young kids knocking on stranger’s doors asking to come in and do jobs for them. And so other ways of raising money were devised. Although there was an attempt to revise it in 2001 by getting Groups to do bag packing in branches of Asda (I was so pleased to spend my birthday that year, on my day off, bag packing in the store where I worked!).

It seems as though the Scout Association are to re-launch it in 2012, but with more of a business feel to it. The idea is being run by the chief exec of an insurance company who is also a Scouting Ambassador, who says –

We want young people to come together as teams rather than working individually – it’s about putting the Scouts back at the heart of the community.

I was a Scout and I had 11 business learnings before the age of 20. The biggest single one is making things happen and getting on and doing it. It is about determination and persistence, never giving up and sticking with it. It’s what makes good Scouts and good business leaders.

I have to admit that I do like the idea of Job Week as it does instil into the Scouts that we can’t just get something for nothing and they have to work to get the money. It will also be interesting to see how it all works out with the business context.

I’m sure more information will be released in the near future and I’m sure I’ll be writing about it!

As many of you will know, one of the things I’m interested in is the history of my Group. So the other week this letter in the local newspaper caught my eye. It was about the filming of the then Chief Scout’s (Sir Charles Maclean) visit to Kibblestone Camp site in 1963. On the off chance it showed some of our Scouts, I contacted the chap who made it asking if he would send me a copy. And he did!

It came on DVD, which was a transfer from the original 16mm film. In 1963 the standard format of home movie film was 8mm, so to have this as a 16mm film shows that it was produced to a professional standard (the BBC often used this format for filmed TV shows and the Beatles film Let It Be was filmed on 16mm).

Watching the film there does appear to be one Scout who is highly likely to be from Porthill.

That’s him at the back in the middle.

The only down side is I have no idea who he is! It looks like he was with Scouts from Bradwell, who we have always had a close association with.

It also seems that our Cubs may have been there as well.

The Cubs on the right in the red neckerchiefs could be ours, but it’s very difficult to know where the are actually from. However there is a leader on the left wearing a light green shirt and red neckerchief who looks very much like the Cub Master of the time.

You can see the film and more information on my Group’s History site here.

It is very interesting to see all those Scouts and the campsite nearly 50 years ago. Especially as Kibblestone is my local site and I’ve been there many times. It’s also interesting to see the swimming pool and rope swings in use as the pool is now a ‘caving experience’ and the rope swings removed due to ‘safety issues’, and yes I am having a pop at the camp site here!

The original film was presented to the Stoke-on-Trent & Newcastle Boys Scouts Association (now Stoke-on-Trent & Newcastle Divisional Scout council) and to the Boy Scouts Association (now the Scout Association) at Gilwell, but has only been shown a limited number of times since it was shot. I am going to ask the chap who shot the film if he did any other for the Scouts, as this film, and possibly others, deserve to be seen as they are important parts of our local Scouting history.

One thing that doesn’t seem to change is the fact that the Chief Scout tried to speak to as many of the Scouts as possible (the commentary says he spoke to all!) and this is something the current Chief Scout, Bear Grylls, is also very keen to do when he goes on Scouting activities.

It was very sad to read today that our close neighbours, 1st Kidsgrove Scout Group, had suffered an arson attack. It seems someone had set fire to one of their outbuildings which was used to store archery and air rifle shooting equipment amongst others.

It was lucky it was just an outbuilding and not their main meeting hall. It would have been catastrophic for the Group if the main building was targeted as this is where they store all their music equipment (they have a very active Scout band) and all their camping gear, and of course they wouldn’t have anywhere to meet.

I wonder what kind of person sets fire to buildings belonging to a charity which does a lot of work and good for the young people in their community? I think my idea of enjoyment is somewhat different to these fools (I’m being VERY polite here!).

Good luck to Kidsgrove getting everything sorted out after this mindless and unprovoked attack.

A lot is said today about the need for people to do stuff for their local communities. The idea being that by doing things in the community, people are giving back.

Of course, Scouts (and other youth organisations to be fair) have been doing this for well over 100 years, from the traditional image of helping old ladies cross the road to going to help at refugee camps in Africa.

Recently, my Group planted lot of Daffodil bulbs (well over 1000 actually) in the grounds of the Church that sponsors us and at its sister Church as well. We’d also planted some bulbs and trees at the campsite the Cubs had been camping at the weekend before.

Also, we paraded from our meeting place to the Church on Remembrance Day and by doing this we commemorated those who had been killed in war (including the 13 from our own Group).

Both the bulb planting and the parade were well attended, and the planting at least, was enjoyed by all who came. However, these type of activities are not the, for want of a better word, ‘sexy’ ones! They can be most rewarding personally though.

When I was doing my Queens Scout Award, we did some work at the local convent over a couple of summers. This was a huge old house which had been donated to the Community of St. Francis by the old lady who owned it. She kept part of the house and the nuns kept an eye on her. As kids I’d been there often with my Mum and sister to visit the old lady, so when it was time to do some community work for the Queens Scout Award, the nuns knew me and gave us some jobs. We enjoyed working there as we were in and around the large gardens and it was a lovely environment to be in. We were a touch naughty by playing music somewhat loudly (including the most certainly unsuitable for a convent, Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack!), but the nuns tolerated us! I enjoyed those two summer’s work and I always think it was a shame when the nuns sold the house and left.

As Scouts we need to carry on doing work in, and for, the community, but perhaps we do need to ‘blow our own trumpets’ a bit more often, to show that our young people are putting stuff back into their communities and not just taking.