Meet Mr Claus!

 

Santa sure gets about such as holding a meet and greet session aided by scouts that also helps promote the work of the local scout unit and the differing sections with display boards being set out with pictures and cuttings illustrating what we do.

Does Santa earn a badge?

Collecting on the doorstep

 

From one continent to another and yesterday we were treated to Mr. Claus and his many helpers from the local scouts wishing everybody a Happy Christmas while collecting funds to help replace equipment and support children and young people in scouts locally.

Needless to say I contributed generiously.

Santa Parades

 

Some places do have oraganized Santa Claus parades that may be sponsered and while all those involved dress up, some rather more than others perhaps such as these Scouts in Penticton, Canada that all adds to the colour of this time of year.

Fairs

 

Something that I can recall is fairs often Christmas Ones many bodies organized around this area, attending a good many and Scouts and Girlguides wasn't missing from that and indeed sometimes would co-operate, selling both new branded products such as cards or donated items of high quality.

This is a picture of one from the 1980's with cubs, scouts and girl guides working as one.

Activities indoors

 Activities at Cubs have always varied a bit over the decades depending on the interests of the indviduals in the pack but a common one involves a variety of different makes some using tools.

Here we are making pyramids using plastic extrusions that are coupled together with leaders present.

Appeals

 

Something that does run at this time of year as we move across Advent into Christmas is appeals by local scout groups to help keep scouting running, changing the lives of many learning new skills, going on adventures, moving on.

It's worth while looking if your local group is holding an appeal of if there's any other way you can help by contacting its leaderand make a big difference in the lives of children and young people in your area.

Back to the 90's

Today we'll continue a little with a theme.

The 1990's, for some a lost decade from a scouting point of view as they lost contact with uni and work, for others in that uber-cool era of Cool Britannia, boy bands, brit pop and gaming it may of felt really something out of the past and yet despite a drop in membership scouting did continue with many gainig awards and moving up.

The annual was still very much a thing, a more jazzed up to hold your attention but with similar content to past editions cos cubs (and for that matter Brownies) is a children's thing and deep down they're the same  whatever decade we're in.

As a cub you still did the same sort of things at your weekly meetings and at camp plus you'd of helped out raising funds an awareness by things such as bag packing at the local supermarket such as these cubs in northern England in 1997.

Whatever the doomsters said, scouting did continue on into the next century.

1990's Cub badges

 

The 1990's may to some be a lost decade at least as far as anything to do with Scouting was involved although it was to see both a more co-ed approach being taken across the board and by the end of the decade some changes within cub uniform.

As with other decades the Awards were changed reflecting changed emphasis and attempts to interest eight to ten year olds even if the basis for many remained the same.

Included in that set of 1990's cubs badges is the Local Historian one, something that within a ten mile radius of here any cub would be able complete with much local history preserved and indeed artifacts that go back a thousand years.