Last night I had the great privilege of investing Louis (8) as a new cub in our cub pack, watching Oakley (10) receive his Silver Chief Scout award and receiving my own award for 5 years of service to the movement. Not only are these big milestones for all three of us but we were lucky enough to have them presented by the District Commissioner (Lyn Darbyshire MBE), the Group Scout Leader (Nick Lambourne), Akela (Ed Vokes) and Myself in front of other leaders from other sections in the group and indeed a GSL and leader from one of the Chelmsford Groups. I think this made it one of the best attended presentation evenings yet at this section.
Having reflected on the evening over night and in the car on my way to work this morning I realised what a huge part of my life scouting has become and what an amazing adventure it has been over the last five years. Today I find myself running a scout troop and assisting with a cub pack every week. I have been selected for the Hampshire leadership team to take 90 children over to Japan in 2015 for three weeks to enjoy the life experience of a world scout jamboree.
Last weekend I was away with the leadership team for Japan, in 10 days time we are away on group camp with the 4th Chandlers Ford Scout group and the following weekend I am taking 14 scouts on an expedition across Exmoor – it’s amazingly busy and I love every minute of it.
Recently I was rather touched to find out that there is a scout troop called ‘The Gardiner Troop’ which meets in Ashtead and this was named after my Great Uncle Arnold after he died, for all the services he had put in along with his wife Joan and his brother Great Uncle Clifford. It was fascinating to read about the history of their scouting experiences that Joan had compiled before she died and so I thought it was about time I started to record some of the adventures we get up to as a family in scouting.
Hopefully this is the first of many posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment