A little old in their time?

 We enter Autumn which brings with it a load of events that we mark and to which pack leaders no doubt will be working on plans but one thing that always intrigued me was why as I recall from the sidelines where there was a number of different Cub annuals.

Part of the reason I can say that I was around during that era so I knew what my mates had, what they did - cubs on a Wednesday - and what appealed to them.

1971 is some fifty three years ago, the world of cubbery had changed in 1967 when the Wolf Cubs became Cub Scouts (and now just Cubs), uniforms got changes and awards got altered a bit.

Year had began with Clive Dunn singing Grandad and ended with Slade, T Rex and David Bowie and so in broad cultural terms we'd moved very much into the more sophesticated seventies.

What you might think does that have to do with Cub Scouts you might ask and the answer I would say can be seen between the covers of that book published in 1970, the 1971 Sixer Annual.

Re-reading this over the last few weeks, while the cover has three cub scouts looking as we all did the minute you opened it up, while looking to be a premium annual, this had no colour illustrations or pictures.

The language was rather stilted and old-fashioned even by 1971 standards, and indeed looking at early 60's versions seemed to be very much of the same ilk.

It certainly talks about exploring, identifying mammals, wild flowers and adventures which is great but it doesn't grip you in much the way the shorter Cub Annuals with their friendly text with colour did, leaving you wanting to try it out.

Had their been a "retro" market for Cubs stuff in 1971, in some respects this was more it even if the quality of the binding and the graphic layout on front cover is classy.

It doesn't surprise me that in time this annual left us because It certainly wouldn't of held the attention of myself and my mates as seven or eight year olds back then.

Moving ahead through Beavers

The Beavers don't get a lot of mention on here but we might as well as after all they do generally speaking move on to become Cubs.

From the early days when like the rest of Scouting Beavers had Annuals, here's a really nice one from 1991 that shows the FUN you could have as a Beaver, presented in a way that really appeals to six to eight year olds.

Believe it or not, I don't think I ever did anything about Beavers Badges you could work towards gaining and Awards because Beavers isn't just place for younger brothers and sisters of Cubs but very much a place where you learn things that move you on as you start to want to find out about things and have an adventure or two.

This shows the all important Moving On badge as you prepare to move into Cubs ready for the next stages on the Adventure of Life.

World Scout Conference 2027

It's great news that UK Scouts has won the bid to host the next World Scout Conference in 2027 in London being announced at this year’s World Scout Conference in Cairo, Egypt.

There will be 176 Member Organisations and global partners in  location that is very sustainable, easy for delegate s to easily get to and arround and has a diverse community.

Together, it is believed it will shape the future of the world’s largest youth Movement, supporting 57 million young people to learn skills for life. It’s a moment to found the future together, the theme of the winning bid.

Bank Holiday edition

The Bank Holiday is upon us before school resumes for autumn term and today is a day when I'll be exploring, getting very much in the undergrowth while many cubs leader will be planning the program for the next three months with group activities, a Christmas party and supporting individuals cubs in gaining their awards.

The great thing around this age is you're able to do more under your steam even if somethings will be supervised, you're phyiscally stronger but theirs nothing pulling you away like hours of homework from just enjoying enjoying life.
 

The past survives

 When the industrial revolution took off in these parts the resultant pits, iron works and potteries together with the associated housing for works obliterated much of what was around even if settlement went back to the Middle Ages with Doomsday Book references even if many others have little history just enveloping the old settlements that left us with a vast conurbation.

Some places did have the odd building survive, and the case of this building despite being in the sprawl of post war suburban nondescript development at the edges of this city region, a Sixteenth Century cottage survives and indeed was carefully  restored around Thirty-five years ago with its tradition gardens.

Walking by it is just fascinating to look at.

Scouting and Civil Order

 

A week and a bit ago, the Scout Association issued a press release looking at what we in Scouts do and how that contrasts to much of the rioting that had taken place in much of England and Northern Ireland.

Here is my thoughts.

In scouts we don't see peoples ethnicities as either limiting in terms of intelligence, capablilities of leading or issues in terms of getting along with other different groups and we have little time for anyone who treats people less favourably because of their background.

Rather than pushing a belief that people are engaged in a struggle against others that they must stay on top of prioritizing their race, religion or social class, we offer hope and belief that by your own efforts and application supported by all along the way you will realize your full potential regards of what your background is while we acknowledge and do all we can to minimize the barriers people may feel would limit it.

By doing this, we elevate everyones potential and believe the well-being of society is served better by this than the destruction,racial hatred and fear we saw on the streets being replaced by a message of hope and the promise of support open to all to be the best selves you can.

When it comes to knowing on what side of the fence we stand against hatred, we know which side we are on and that from our foundation, establishing groups around the World, what our values are.

We reject rioting and racial hatred.

Old school Brownies

Today for once we're paying a brief look at Brown badges and the like before the major program reorganization of the 2000's.

Like Scouts, Girl Guiding had a good number of publications such as annuals but this 1983 example isn't actually an annual, it calls itself a gift book and in some respects is more of a cross between those Ladybird guides to Scouts and Guides with some of the more "stories of what we do with photos" that tend to be in the annuals.

The original text in this edition is copyrighted 1981 although this is a re-print from two years later.

As with Scouts, these publications are no longer with us.

The original badge scheme in Girl Guides was similar to Scouts with awards for meeting certain challenges and here's a selection. 

Legacy Badge Categories consist of Artist, Athlete, Citizen, Cook, First Aid, Girl Scout Way, and Naturalist. Each individual badge book consists of 4-12 pages, and contains all the information needed to earn the badge.

The Imp was one pretty much every brownie had like the Trifoil membership badge and reflects the whole faeries story that's woven into it rather like in Cubs we had the Jungle Book.

This last one was the Highways Badge,