Cub Scouts raise funds

5th Tyldesley Cub Scouts being congratulated by Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burham for raising £67,000 in memory of those who lost lives at the Manchester Arena Bombing as part of the Greater Manchester Bee Badge Campaign.

The Assistant Cub Scout leader lost a cousin to the events of that night.

On Parade

A look back at the past with a group of French Wolf Cubs on parade from the 1950's looking extremely smart and showing what is lacking in today's modern equivalent 

The Sixer Annual

Something I had in what was a "second time around" Christmas this year was this annual.

Published by Purnell and Sons a big publisher of annuals in 1973, the annual bills itself as being "For all cub scouts" so while the title plays on the role of the Sixer in scouting, it's not just for them.

What we have are stories of adventure based around fiction cub scouts but routed in the rules and Law that illuminate how in certain situations a cub scout would be expected to act and showing potential consequences if he were not to.

There are a number of articles connected with the badges that back then you could be awarded and what would be required as the evidence of your knowledge so part of the requirements for the Scientist badge are explained and the six projects of which you must chose four to demonstrate to the examiner for Part A and goes on to show you how to make a Morse Signaller that you can send Morse Code with.

There are a number of construction projects connected around making a Weather Station for either the Handyman or Gold Arrow Badges together with an article on nature covering identifying birds, mammals, trees and flowers.

Because as I explained earlier on in this blog it wasn't just training, there are suggestions for cub scout games to play as part of your pack or inter-pack competitions.

This to me gives a good flavour of the things I can attempt myself to learn this time around as that cub scout in spirit which in its own way to a cub scout at the time it would of served who then would of been in a pack having things signed off for your formal awarding.

Winter Scout

A scout has made a snow-scout in his uniform and is posed proudly by it.

He has shown resourcefulness, in sculpting the snow to make the basic snow man shape, creating the eyes, nose, mouth and buttons but also in taking a neckerchief, making a Investiture Badge and attaching his patrols flag to it.

Christmas

Cub Scouts at 11th Ipswich scouts, Suffolk submit their entry to the  St. Mary Le Tower Christmas Tree festival with each cub making their own decoration such as reindeer and snow flakes in what has become a new tradition for the pack.

The event features exhibits from other local organizations and charities in the town.

This is a good example of how encouraging the learning of handcrafts can go hand in hand with the Cub and his pack being a part of the wider community which is part of what Citizenship means.

That 70's Cub

The image of what I recall a boy scout in the 1970′s especially the period my younger brothers were in it was very much this. Green cap and jersey, the colourful necker and shorts. Long socks with green garters to keep them smartly full pulled up at all times went with them.

Finding some of them when I first started regressing around the age of sixteen was part of my earliest and most memorable attempts at dressing to match that younger than my years boy self then as it wouldn't of been long before he'd of transferred to the Scouts so parts of the uniform of of been redundant and left in a draw I explored.

Longs tended to be what an increasing number of Boy Scouts -those in the 10 ½ through 14+ -were wearing reflecting the changes in school uniform in an era where boys casually wore jeans and little else although shorts were worn at camp.

British Boys Scout Association

Members of a British Boy Scouts Association pack on parade who look smarter in their more vintage scouting uniform compared to the Scout Association’s current one although I will add they did avoid the 'too cool' excesses that Girl Guiding went through in the 2000's with what was essentially branded casual sports influenced wear that later had to be reversed.

Baden Powell Scouts

First Longridge Baden Powell Scout Group.  

From the changes that came in from the mid sixties looking at perceived challenges and threats to the role that scouting including the Wolf Cubs came from a wider variety of interests of boys and social attitudes changes started to made to the Scouting Program as well as the naming of each part of the scouting family and their uniforms.

This met with some opposition who felt  BP's vision of Scouting was being watered down leading to the formation of newer groups that kept much of what had gone before and actually in a number of areas, brand new units have been established proving popular with the people who in this difference of opinion matter - the young people - who clearly love a challenge.

The Baden Powell Scouts were the first to accept membership of Girls and also introduced a stripped down management style that today uses the internet for much of its work mixing tradition and modernity.

You can see more of that tradition when you look at the uniform and Standard and that those young people are happy to be a part of that tradition, not wishing to re-invent themselves and carry it forward.

Wolf Cubs

Wolf Cubs British Boy Scouts. 

Wolf Cubs were removed from The Scouting Association after 1967 and became “Cub Scouts” in a series of changes that lead to the formation of the Baden Powell Scouts Association in 1970 that kept more of the traditional scouting  principals and uniform.

Wolf Cub attire

Wolf Cub Catalogue, Boy Scouts of Canada, 1963/64, that listed all the things a Wolf Cub of that era needed both attire and useful tools. 

A good number of boys in Canada lived in areas that depended on mail order so catalogues for things like this as well as school wear were needed.

He looks smart and very boyish in his uniform, ready to commence an adventure.

The Cub Scout Law

“A Cub Scout always does his best, thinks of others before himself and does a Good Turn every day.”

This is a very good start point which is why I’ve typed this because it covers a few fundamentals of which one is no one perfect at everything and so you may well struggle but you carry on trying until you have done your very best in everything.

People can struggle around feeling happy and finding joy in their lives  but being focused on our need for this is to get things the wrong way around. We find joy and enjoy our lives with others when we think about what would make other people happy and what they’d like you to do that would help and less on what we’d want to do. We put our thoughts having done that into action.

The phrase Good Turn can be misunderstood in everyday speech. We all have chores that we do to help those who help us in certain situations but they are not Good Turns. A Good Turn is something extra that helps others. We don’t just do what we ‘have to’, we look beyond at what needs to be done and do it.

If the aim of scouting is to prepare people for life, then getting our motivations and responsibilities to ourselves and to others aright matters a good deal so we do move on from dependency to higher levels of personal independence and   responsibility.

If like me you missed much of this, being a “cub scout in spirit” can help in focusing away from past bad habits putting you on a better road to living.  

I have dedicated myself to living by these principals from now on as a ‘little’.

Image source: zealouspirateking who took the photo.

Your Salute

Making your salute properly is important in all branches of Scouting as it is used not on certain formal in uniform occasions such as flag break but also to greet Akela

It is the sign used whenever any member of the scout movement needs to make his promise.

The three fingers of the salute and sign remind you of the three parts of the cub scout promise.

Cub Scout Badges

One thing I would of done is worked on and been awarded badges for merit  I have a number though I have obtained that do align to what I had and have shown since to have met the criteria for them to had been awarded at that time.

There are few more not photographed but they exist in my world as almost a “compensatory award” being those I would of been awarded had my folks enrolled me with my peers and bizarrely my own siblings who were in scouting.

As what you’d of learned is in effect passported through the movement as part of your training for life and I have this abilities and skills, to have some now makes sense - validation of a capable disabled boys abilities and character.