In You Go ..................!

As a new recruit to the Scouting volunteer circle I love to hear of other peoples experiences so when I discovered John Hemming-Clark had written a book all about being a new Scouting volunteer it went straight to the top of my Birthday List (and yay, my mummy bought it for me).

Although John is a Scout Master in his role I couldn't help but think "that would be my Beavers" to some of the experiences he recalls..... I also can't help thinking just how pleased I am to be working with the younger section :)

I don't get time to read at home so the book came to and from work with me for the best part of a month, this was probably not the best idea as it involved many journeys sitting on the tram laughing to myself.

From tales of rogue poos to desperate wees, from Wellygate to Motor Homes, cheating parents to competitive helpers and impromptu fundraising and even the time he met a Bear, the book has it all.  And yes John (if you read this) - I did spend my lunch time at work trying to find the London Badge your colony won as I'm looking for a good one for when I take my kids (Beavers) away in the Summer - I was hoping there would be a set of Beaver requirements ...... before finishing the chapter on my way home!!

Scouting needs you

One thing I've discovered since becoming an Assistant Beaver Scout Leader is how unwilling (or unable) people are to give up their time to help with meetings.  I'm not talking about everyone obviously as there are 100,000 volunteers in Scouting across the world who do an amazing job - if you are nodding along to this sentence you are one of them.

This week one of out brilliant assistant leaders had to step down due to work pressures (we all know that feeling don't we) so for the last 2 weeks I've been putting messages on my emails and in newsletters asking for parents to help out, I've also been using social media to recruit, tweeting and emailing out to voluntary groups I know of and even asking the church we are next to to get the message out and yet no one has come forward, not even to say "I can do next week for you".

Don't get me wrong some of our parents will help, they just like to wait until 10 minutes before the meeting to make that decision and I'm a bit of a planning freak - I like to know who to expect so I can assign them roles in my planning (my brain turns to mush about 5.30pm). One night we had an amazing 4 parents stay, last week the local uni sent us 5 volunteers - I almost didn't know what to do with them all, they seemed to enjoy themselves but as yet none have got in touch to say "Sign me up"!!!!