Volunteering and beyond

It all started one evening . . .

When my son was all-but-6 years old I took him along to our local Beaver Scout Colony; the scouting organisation for the youngest members - 6-8 year old boys and girls. I had been a Brownie and Guide once of a day; been a patrol leader, and then grew disinterested in it.

One evening I thought that rather than drop him off and return an hour and half later, would it be worth my while to stay, offer to help and take him home after , , , and that's how it started. I became a CRB'd, occaisional parent helper. It wasn't that occasional though, it sort of expanded to every week.

It wasn't that easy to begin with; helping at a group where you have a young child, isn't always advisable. It was a bit tricky for me to leave my 'mum head' in the car and him to try and not call me 'mummy' and try to remember to call me 'leopard', my brand new Beaver scout helper's name. I was joining the group alongside - leaders 'cheetah' & 'Mr Beaver'. Well eventually it all panned out and I settled in to Friday evenings, in the musty, dusty scout hut.

I never saw myself as a 'joining in type' at school, but years later helping run the games and activities and sharing craft-skills, singing scouting songs and really quite taking to it all!

Rob, stayed the 2 years in Beavers and then ready to move into Cubs, having gained his Chief Scout Bronze award, trotted off into First Madeley Cub Pack, which was on a monday evening. I was asked if I'd like to stay and help at Beavers, or now at Cubs . . .

Tricky one this! I didnt' want to leave our Beaver leader in the lurch, but it was much more less of a logistical problem if I started helping at Cubs. Rob, didn't want to come along to Beavers any more along with me, and he was too young to leave on his own at home till dad came back from work.

So I became 'Baloo' all the cub helper names are based on characters from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle book. The wolf 'Akela' is where we get the cub leader name from, and helpers are named in a similar way.

By now I was also on the Scout group committee and pretty involved with outdoor events, including annual Saint Georges Day Parade and Remembrance Sunday Parade. I'd helped to supervise at quizzes and District sports events. It was getting serious!