I saw a Dr Seuss book this week called “Oh The Places You’ll Go” and it got me thinking about Scouts and the opportunities presented to our youth members (and Adult Supporters). From time to time we bump into previous youth members and hear about how they are getting on. During one of these encounters, it was heartwarming to hear of how one of our now grown Scouts included his Scouting experience on his resume and according to his new employer, this was one of the reasons they offered him the position. Â
Scouting youth members have the opportunity to travel all over Australia – indeed, the World – attending Scout events, making memories to last a lifetime and gaining valuable experience in team building, leadership and problem solving skills.
One of our local Scouts – Koko – shares her scouting adventures between our group and the Longreach group as she regularly travels to Longreach for school (and family work) commitments.
During her last visit to Longreach, the Group was visited by His Excellency, General the Honourable David Hurley AC DSC (Retd) and his wife Her Excellency, Mrs Linda Hurley with whom Koko had a brief conversation. The couple were visiting as Longreach celebrates their 110 year anniversary this year. They mentioned that they are both qualified Cub Scout leaders. You never know when or where you are going to find people who ‘used to be’ or are still involved in Scouting. Koko is now eagerly anticipating attending a camp in the grounds of Government House in Canberra.
On a local level, we try to encourage our youth to attend larger events such as Cuborees, Jamborees and Ventures, although this is not always possible due to financial constraints. Where possible, we do try to engage our youth in community and will often access resources in our community. For instance, over the past few weeks our Cub Scouts have enjoyed outdoor games at a local park, taken advantage of the warm weather to enjoy Orion Lagoon, joined the Joeys for a Halloween themed camp and also spent some time baking brownies and having a Halloween party.Â
Our older section challenged themselves with a survival themed camp before taking the rest of the weekend to unwind on a chill camp. They got into the spirit of dress up to go trick or treating on Halloween, were challenged to a budget cooking night where they had to shop for resources to feed six people on $15 budget within a time constraint of about an hour, and also spent some time in the den doing a baby photo art night, where they each provided a baby photo and all tried to guess who the baby in the photo was, before attempting to sketch, draw, or paint themselves as depicted in the photo.
Our Joey Scouts are using this last few months of the year to investigate international festivals and holidays that are held around this time. Over the past few weeks they have celebrated US National Chocolate Cup Cake Day, enjoyed their Halloween themed camp complete with scary campfire and trick or treating, learned about los dias de muertos (Day of the Dead) in a chilled out movie session watching Coco and had one of our group parents come in to share the history and customs of Diwali (Festival of Lights), learning that it’s not just about lights.
By educating our youth (in a fun way) about local, national and international celebrations and customs, we can help them to understand some of the vast number of cultures who make up our community, and open them up to the possibility of going out and exploring these and other cultures. Imagine the places they’ll go. If you would like to find out more about being involved in Scouting, visit scoutsqld.com.au or check out our local group on Facebook and send us a message for more information.
