Is anyone here a Scout leader?

[Lovingsummerflowers]

I’ve just become involved with a rather ailing Scout troop and wondered if anyone who is a scout leader has any tips or ideas for how to rejuvenate a group.

Unfortunately we have become known as the ‘boring’ troop in our town (v affluent area with other troops doing a huge range of exciting activities) so numbers have dropped hugely.

The positive thing is that there’s a brilliant beaver and cub group in the same section- it’s just that they currently go elsewhere for Scouts!

Any advice most welcome! Thanks

Ask the scouts that you do have what type of activities they’d like to be doing

can you do joint activities with the more popular groups?

You won't see changes overnight, but here's a bit of food for thought:

What do the other groups do that's so exciting?

We do quite well with keeping Guides by travelling every other year. Even with that there is a rise and fall over time.

It might be worth inviting the oldest cubs to a couple of things every year to wet their appetite and become more familiar.

What sort of leaders do you have? What are their ages and interests? Is there a uni you could harvest for young enthusiastic leaders?

I've found taking photos is a great way to document what they've done. Social media and old fashioned local paper is as good way to keep your profile up. You can apply for an NGO account with Canva which helps with beautiful templates for so.me.

Invite experts in to do the stuff that is beyond your capabilities. Ex military people in particular get v excited if you ask them.

Are there any consultants from Scouts that could help? What about your district or division commissioner?

Try and make them feel part of something bigger by remembering all the county and national things they can go to.

Also remember that sometimes it's fun just to play games and not have any particular learning objectives!

Good luck ☘️

@Muchtoomuchtodo thank you- we have asked them but perhaps I should have a suggestion box out every week so that offering suggestions of activities becomes a regular thing.

I have suggested activities with the other groups but have been declined- it seems rather cliquey to me but rather than being negative about it I’m trying to forge our own path! Thank you for your suggestions.

@StrictlyAFemaleFemale thank you- I like the idea of inviting cubs up to try some activities and also getting a young leader. I’ll investigate those.

We have started inviting experts in so that’s been great. Will investigate consultants from the district/ division. Really appreciate your help!

@Lovingsummerflowers

Bit late to this, but some of the things on our programme which you might like to think about

• Warhammer (model making badge). The warhammer people give free kits to scout groups. You can order them and spend a weeks making them. Then organise another week to have a warhammer games night to play with them.
• Shooting. We have air rifles (I know and appreciate this might not be an option) but we run ‘fun shoots’ probably once every 2 months which they can sing up to and then run a separate series of weekend where they can work towards the badge
• Electronics (linked to badge). The IET publish some great resources for scouts. Worth having a look at and you don’t need to be an electronics expert. They will be able to put you in touch with a STEM ambassador in your area who can come in for a few weeks and do the badge.
• Scenario based first aid. They seem to enjoy this.
• We got involved with a local environment group and made bat boxes, went and hung them up and spend a night later on in the year going bat spotting and learning all about bags
• They like D&D so we’ve had a couple of nights playing that
• Town treasure hunt where they had to go an find historical places in town (counts towards heritage and orienteering badges)
• We’re located near some water so lots of water activities
• We canvas them in their patrols and they chose a badge for the patrol to work towards. That was quite interesting.
• Team building night in patrols, lots of general team building things.
• Had a ‘The apprentice’ night where they had to put a proposal together and either make something or come up with a design, present it and it got judged.
• Water balloon fight
• Music/band night where they spend time planning what they are going to do/play/sing, then a night practicing with those who play instruments bring them and the others providing accompaniment or singing or playing the triangle (schools are always willing to let you borrow things if you ask) then organise a performance for the parents etc.
• disability awareness, we got the guide dogs in
• Fire night, we went to the fire station
• Learned about proper radio comms. Teamed up with the sea cadets to play with radios for a night, talking to each other with the scouts in the scouts hut and the sea cadets in their building.
• traditional scout skills, knots, cooking marshmallows on fire, things like that.

What are your district / county running? Join in with district / county activities, they sometimes run more adventurous stuff as they'll use Leaders with permits for the exciting stuff.
How about a chase event, or a monopoly run? Monopoly could be in the local town with challenge bases at each place on the 'board'.
Fire is always a winner!
But yes, do run a YouShape forum so they get their say.

Sorry pressed post too early.

The above it’s just a few ideas which you may or may not already be doing but there might be something on there you can try.

I second what’s been said about social media. This is a really powerful tool (just remember those photo permission forms 😉)

Invite a friend. I’m pretty sure there’s a non official (AKA fun badge) for this. We tried this after covid and it was very successful.

getting your advertisement into local schools (primary and secondary).

Another thing to think about, do you clash with something? We found out we clashed with a really popular outdoors group and the Air cadets. After some consultation with parent and scouts, we actually moved our night and now they can do both activities.

If you want to discuss things further, or want any other help and advice just give me a shout :)

Yes, scouts monopoly is always a winner!