#22

Went to Brownies and hated it, mainly because the local group was really crap. Like the book of possible badges was full of things like paragliding, but we just did things like make toast for old ladies for the Hospitality badge.

#23

I joined Beavers when I was 6 and then stayed through Cubs, Scouts, Venture Scouts and Rovers, leaving when I was 21. I was a Scout Leader in my later years as well.

I loved it. Made loads of friends through it, got to mess about in the woods every weekend, went away to events every few months and went on a two week long camp every summer when I got to the Scouts.

Like Marckee above I also got my Bronze, Silver and Gold Scout awards. Never did my Chief Scout and I can’t remember why. I did get my Star Scout award and won Scout of the Year in my troop.

Greatest achievement was winning the National Quiz in Cubs and Scouts. No other troop from our region had won a national contest before and they haven’t since. Our team may also have finished third last in the Melvin Trophy (National Scoutcraft competition) in our troop’s first appearance there in fifteen years but that’s because we were fucking about and messing too much.

My brothers are still involved and one is a Commissioner at a national level and people are clamouring for him to join in and help their units now he’s living in Dublin.

tl;dr I loved Scouts.

4 Likes
#24

Made it as far as scouts but quit early on as it clashed with quantum leap on bbc. Always got a bad vibe from my scout leaders, with hindsight think they were probably racist

4 Likes
#25

Turns out one of our Cub leaders was a paedo. He was accused of offences after I left and went to jail for two years. No idea what he’s doing now.

#26

I really enjoyed beavers, cubs and scouts. It was basically like sports or games at school but more fun. The leaders who ran it were all good guys giving up their time. The kids that stayed on until they were in the late teens were a bit odd though.

#27

subthread: did anyone take part in a gang show?

#28

apologies hadn’t read some of the above

#29

Adding my name to the “Went to cubs, did a few weeks of scouts and sodded it off” list.

Cubs was great stuff, got to muck around with a great bunch o lads and do stuff I otherwise wouldn’t have, orienteering and archery and all the jazz already mentioned. The weird Edwardian ritual of it wasn’t so weird to a kid because you just accepted so much as just stuff that happened. Got a lot of respect for Akelas and Kaas and whoever giving up a lot of their time to do it.

Scouts
 idk, seemed like it might have been alright if I’d stuck it out a bit longer? But once you get to that age taking orders from another set of adults in your life starts sounding like a tough fucking ask.

#30

Didn’t have that in Ireland! Looks like it’d be a bit of a howl!

#31

I was in the cubs, but never graduated to the scouts. I used to resent missing Blakes Seven to go off to do what felt a lot like military training.

I made it to seconder, and on one occasion when the sixer wasn’t around I was temporarily promoted to sixer. My six/five wouldn’t take me seriously so I stamped on the foot of the kid who was laughing at me the loudest. In front of his mum.

This was a clear indication from a young age that I wasn’t cut out for management, a lesson I would have saved a lot of later hassle from having learned then.

#32

i mean it’s people volunteering to spend time with access to kids, so obviously there are going to be horrible paedos signing up, but my dad was convinced it was a country-wide conspiracy for access to boys.

#33

My Akela was great. We once did some sort of play for all our parents and he introduced it by saying that “they’ve made it all up out of their own minds”.

#34

Yeah, a lot of people thought that here as well. Especially after the revelations about the Catholic Church. Spent a lot of uni defending the Scouts to various wallies who’d suggest that.

#35

That it was a husband and wife team running things w/ a kid of their own in the pack made it a lot easier for my parents to leave me in their care. Obviously they still could have been paedos, but is a bit sad that by doing this selfless bit of community service people thoughtlessly tar you with that brush.

#36

Like I remember stuff like at cub camp being singled out repeatedly sent to rinse the soap of my hands (quite a walk to the tap) despite already having done it, and by the time I got back my tin foil wrapped food cooking in the fire had burnt and scout leaders finding it funny. Credit that with having low level paranoia about people

#37

Yeah, it’s such a pity. All our other leaders, all the way up were really nice and decent people. Got to know them much better when I got older and really enjoyed them as people. Probably why I ended up defending them. so vociferously when I left the organisation.

#38

When I was in brownies we were told we’d be going to try out for the Gang Show, didn’t really get an explanation as I guess they assumed we all knew what it was, then we ended up in a room with lots of other brownies and guides going through a dance routine. Me and my friend were terrible at it and just pissed about a bit, then our other mate got picked out and taken to a different room and the rest of us went back with one of the helpers. We only found out we’d been auditioning for a stage show a couple of weeks later. Bit weird I thought.

#39

Won a competition to design an anniversary badge whilst I was in the cubs. Everyone across Essex (i think?) had to wear it which was cool.

Looking back it’s an incredibly boring design, but probably remains my greatest acheivement.

2 Likes
#40

I was a brownie and loved it (seconder then sixer because I was a swot). We didn’t really do much more than do the dance around the toadstool at the start, then do some crafts like sticking glitter and pasta onto boxes for our long-suffering parents’ Christmas gifts. There were two girls who were really on it with the badges but my pack didn’t really go in for it because it was run by two old fat women who preferred doing stuff we could sit down and do. I did the chess badge and the computers badge off my own back (wish I was as good at both of those things now as I was then). We went on one “camp” which involved staying in a bunk barn and going for a walk on the beach, definitely none of the archery and orienteering stuff. The cubs always seemed to do more fun stuff than us.

Guides was worse, there were only a couple of girls there over 12 because it was more of the same, but much more boring because we were older.

#41

Since the Scouts allowed girls to join, the number of Girl Guides and Brownies has dropped, pretty significantly, in part because the Cubs/Scouts/Explorers do much more exciting stuff than the Guides.