WWF - One Planet Future

With the introduction of the new Beavers Badges we were finding it difficult this year to cover the Community elements.  Whenever we thought of an idea to help locally we were hit with a stumbling block so we decided to look further afield and select the WWF as our charity of choice.

The WWF have a lot of resources for Youth Groups but the one that stood out for me was the "One Planet Future" badge.  This is a series of tasks for the children to complete and a badge that can be purchased for their Camp Blankets.  It's also really easy to tie in with other Beaver badges.  We decided that 3 weeks was about the right amount of time to spend on this, considering how many elements it included.

The Challenge is split into 4 sections:
- Introducing the WWF and One Planet Future film
- Safeguarding the natural world
- Tackling Climate Change
- Changing the way we live.

The pack contains lots of ideas for children from 6 - 14 years old and the idea is that you choose the activities best suited to your group, at least one from each section to raise awareness of all the issues.  If you need the printed pack make sure you order it well in advance as it took mine 3 months to arrive.  Also order the badges as soon as possible as I had problems with mine.

Fairtrade Night

One of the things I've come to learn in my relatively short time as a Assistant Beaver Leader is that some badges are easier to cover during meetings then others, some just lend themselves to children having fun.  The Global badge is one that sits on the line - there are some really boring elements "keep a recycling diary" and then there is "Try different kinds of Fairtrade products".  One thing you'll know about (most) 6-8 year olds is that if it involves food or mess they will be up for the challenge.  The Plan was to make Chocolate Bananas (a scouting favourite), except then I realised we had children who were allergic/ intolerant to Bananas and Chocolate, so the plan had to change to a tasting platter.

Then we hit the stumbling block.. we had already overspent on this terms budget and we weren't even up to half term.  There was no way we could spend lots of money on Fairtrade foods, unless we could get some help.....

JOTT (Jamboree On The Trail) 2016

Whoever said Beavers can't do as much as Cubs and Scouts had clearly never met our Beaver Scouts.
My first major activity as an Assistant Beaver Leader was to plan the JOTT walk for 2016.  It's the first time our colony have taken part and it's not going to be the last.

For those who have never heard of it, and I've met quite a few leaders who haven't, JOTT (Jamboree On The Trail) is "an annual day for the World Scout Movement to hike together. All Scouts, whatever their age and wherever they may be in the world, are invited to participate in whatever way they can. Beaver Scouts could visit a local park, walking the trails and playing games. Cub Scouts could visit a local nature trail as part of a weekend camp. A Scout Troop might check out a hiking trail while working on badge requirements. An Explorer Unit might make a Service Project out of restoring or maintaining a hiking trail. In their own way, everyone will be hiking the same direction; towards a better future through Scouting."

JOTT is held on the second Saturday of May each year so it one of those activities that is really easy to plan into the calender well in advance and with no restrictions other than your own risk assessments it's a great opportunity to show your children how they are part of the wider Scouting community.

And as an added bonus it comes with it's own special badge for leaders to order for anyone who took part.

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"!!!!

Bringing the Teddy Bears Hospital to Beavers

With 2 boys of my own (1 a Beaver and 1 in training) I have spent more than my fair share of time at the Sheffield Children's Hospital in the last 2 years.  From X-rays to bandages my boys haven't been scared at all, and I really do think the Teddy Bears Hospital (TBH) has had something to do with this.

Campfire Songs: My Name's Jo

This week we started our mission to teach the Beavers a campfire song every week to build up

their repertoire.

I started with a favourite of mine from my Brownie days - "My Name's Jo". There's various versions of this on the internet, however the version I remembered went like this.

It's a repeat after me song so leader says the line and the Beavers say it back.

And like I said to my Beavers - you have to sing it with a silly accent to make it a really silly song!!

Cook Badge (activity)

This weekend me and Ben have been really busy working on his Cook activity badge for Beavers. With part 4 already ticked off it was a case of proving his knowledge and getting it evidenced on paper.





This is how we did it - it's a really easy one to tick off through meetings or to send home with resources/ links for your parents.