Scouts

We thought you would like to know a little more about Scouts before your first visit to our Troop. We hope that you enjoy yourself, learn lots of new things and make some new friends during your stay with us.

Scouts are a go-getting group of young people aged 10 ½ to 14 who:

• Master new skills and try new things
• Make new friends
• Have fun and go on adventures, at home and abroad
• Explore the world around them
• Help others and make a difference, in their own communities and beyond

Week in and week out, they gather in groups called Scout Troops to conquer the small task of changing the world.
All Scouts are members of the global Scout family. Closer to home, they’re also part of a wider local Scout Group, alongside Beavers (aged 6 to 8) and Cubs (aged 8 to10 ½ ). When they’re older, they can join Explorers (for 14 to 18 year olds) and – eventually – Scout Network (for our young adult members aged 18 to 25).

Each Scout Troop is made up of young people aged 10½  to 14, led by trained adult volunteers who are on hand to share their skills and keep everyone safe. Traditionally, Scout leaders were nicknamed ‘Skip’ – an abbreviation of ‘Skipper’, which is a name given to a ship’s captain. In some Troops this name is still used, but these days it’s more common for Scout leaders to just use their real names.
Within their Troop, Scouts are part of a Patrol – smaller groups of Scouts who look out for one another, and help each other grow. Scouts usually gather in their Patrols at the beginning and end of meetings. They might also stick together on expeditions or trips away, or during certain activities.

As well as the Scout leader, other adults are on hand to supervise activities, share their skills and keep everyone safe. The safeguarding of young people in our care is very important. The Scout Association has various processes in place to ensure that appropriate adults can take up volunteering opportunities including regular DBS checks. Other young people aged 14 to 18 might help out, too. These are Explorer Scouts taking part in the Explorer Scout Young Leader programme.

Where are the meetings?

Face to face meetings are normally held at the Scout Centre, Milton Road North, IP14 1EX on Tuesday evenings between 19.45 and 21.30. Please note that there is no parking available at the Scout Centre for Parents without prior agreement. Near by parking at the former Bosch site has been agreed with the current owners if this is more convenient.

What about my uniform?

Scouts wear a uniform during their weekly meetings and sometimes on trips away, depending on where we’re going and what we’re doing! Usually, this consists of a teal green shirt or blouse with their badges sewn on, which they pair with a scarf, known as a necker.
Alongside their shirts, Scouts might wear the accompanying blue uniform trousers or skirt, or they might save their uniform bottoms to wear for special occasions like awards ceremonies and public events – choosing to wear something more casual with their shirt during the week.
We suggest that you go along to the meetings for about 4 weeks before you consider buying your uniform. If you like Scouts you can decide to become invested into the Troop and then get your uniform. Investment is a short ceremony where you make your Scout Promise and are given your membership badges.

Scout uniform can be purchased at online

Uniform can also be purchased from Bury St. Edmunds Scout Shop: 19 Lake Avenue, Bury St. Edmunds IP32 6HX www.buryscoutguideshop.org.uk

We will provide a Group Name Tape, a District, County and a Membership Badge. If you are new to the Group, we will provide you with a necker and t-shirt. Additional neckers and t-shirts can be purchased for £5.

Our Scout Group

Our Scout Group is one of 9 Scout Groups within the Stowmarket District and has a youth membership of approximately 70 young people. The Group operates sections for each age group (Beavers, Cubs and Scouts) for children of 6 to 14 years of age. The group has a partnership agreement with Phoenix Explorer Scout Unit to meet at our HQ and provide Scouting for young people from 14 to 18 years.

The group has 20 voluntary Scout Leaders, a Group Scout Leader and an Assistant Group Scout Leader to manage the different sections. Leaders are assisted by a number of regular and occasional section assistants and helpers, including parents. All adults involved in scouting have a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check made before they are allowed to work with young people.

The group is an open group, which means that it is not sponsored by any authority, such as a church, and is managed by a committee made up of parents, leaders and people with special skills. The group owns and maintains it’s own headquarters (Scout Centre) and equipment.
All finances required to run the Scout Centre are raised through voluntary efforts of the committee and its supporters and the daytime letting of our headquarters.

The group seeks to achieve all of this by fostering a close partnership between leaders and parents. There are many different ways in which parents can contribute to the success of our Group and we would very much like to encourage your involvement.

GDPR & Data Protection Act

The group may store details of Scouts, e.g. names, addresses, telephone number, and NHS number on computer databases (OSM). These details can be viewed at any reasonable time and will not be passed onto third parties.

Insurance

The group does not provide insurance cover for young persons clothing or equipment. You should ensure that you own insurance policies provide this cover. This is especially important when on outside activities or on camp.

Safety of our young people

The Scout Association operates a Safeguarding Policy to help protect all young people from harm. All adults working with children complete mandatory training to ensure that they have the necessary skills to look after young people.

The activities of the group are carried out strictly within the rules set out by the Scout Association. Please ensure that all young persons are collected from inside our headquarters building by a parent or another nominated adult after meetings. You are very welcome to wait inside the building.

Our Programme

We run a balanced program of fun activities which will give Scouts the opportunity to gain a wide range of activity, staged activity and challenge badges while learning skills for life. Alongside our own bespoke program, there are also many District, County and National event for us to join in

Please visit www.scout.org.uk/cubs for more information.

There are currently 77 different activity and staged activity badges to choose from! If you were a member of Cubs and or Beavers, some staged activity badges will carry on from where you left off i.e. Nights Away.

Don’t forget that you can complete some of these away from our Scout meetings and submit evidence on OSM via. ‘badges at home’.

Chief Scout Gold Award

This is the highest award a Scout can earn. To complete it, you need to complete all nine of the Challenge Awards, plus six Activity badges.

• World Challenge Award
• Skills Challenge Award
• Creative Challenge Award
• Outdoors Challenge Award
• Adventure Challenge Award
• Expedition Challenge Award
• Teamwork Challenge Award
• Team Leader Challenge Award
• Personal Challenge Award

Camping

Scout love to camp! Throughout the year we have a range of different camping opportunities available that range from lightweight hiking weekends through to week long summer camps that are a little further afield and even sometimes in a different country!

Young Leader Training Scheme?

Our Troop also welcomes Explorer Scouts and Duke of Edinburgh participants who wish to complete a period of volunteering and/or aspire to become Adult Scout Leaders in the future. We support them with their training and provide opportunities to lead and be part of a team.

How much does Scouts cost?

Being a youth member costs £7.50 per month or £30 per term. This fee contributes towards a capitation paid to The Scouts UK (which covers insurance, HQ staff, Leader resources and training etc) and helps to maintain the running costs of our outstanding Scout Centre. The fees we charge parents contribute around 50% of the running costs for the Scout Centre. The remainder is made up through fundraising.
We prefer that ‘subs’ are paid by standing order or bank transfer into the group bank account although we will accept card payment at the Scout Centre (for a 1.75% fee). Alternatively, card payments for a full term can now be paid online by following this link: http://bit.ly/groupsubspayment

For more expensive events such as Summer camps, we will offer the facility to pay in instalments over time. We will usually ask for a small deposit to secure a place on such trips. We cannot guarantee that full refunds will be possible if Scouts are withdrawn from trips and events.

Please note that we do not accept cash or cheques.

We ask you to complete a Gift Aid form so that we can claim vital funds to operate. You can register directly on OSM or you can download and print a copy from the Parent Portal on OSM.

Communicating with you

We utilise a management tool called OSM which allows us to communicate our programme and events to all Parents (you may already be set up if your Cub was in Beavers). Please keep an eye on your e-mail junk folder as often our e-mails / invites end up there!

You may need to create a login and password to access but after this you can check the page regularly for programme updates / event invites directly related to your Scout.

We often ask for a YES/NO response to an activity invite. Either response is OK and it means that we don’t (or the system doesn’t) chase you! From the parent portal on OSM, you can update us with important information such as medical, dietary and photograph permissions etc. You can also view, print and download a unique calendar feed for our program. The calendar feed works on most platforms!

We also have a closed Facebook page. If you would like to join, please search for 1st & 3rd Stowmarket Scout Troop and request to join.

You can always contact us by email which is monitored by all Scout Leaders: scouts@stowscouts.org.uk

Attendance to Scouts…

We ask that our members commit to attending meetings on a regular basis. Our Scout Group has a significant waiting list and if a Scout does not attend for more than 4 weeks in a term without good cause, we may ask that their place in our Troop is offered to somebody else waiting to join.

And finally…

Scouting is a voluntary organisation and our Leaders willingly give many hours of their time to help deliver an exciting program of activities for young people.

Perhaps you could help us too? There are many different and rewarding roles for volunteers in Scouting, all designed to suit your needs and availability. We provide training, cups of tea. cheese and biscuits around the campfire, and a very warm welcome!

Should you require any further information, please do not hesitate to get in touch or visit www.scouts.org.uk or email us scouts@stowscouts.org.uk You can also email the Scout Leader, Martin Foreman directly: martin.foreman@stowscouts.org.uk