Kids that pass through

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Interesting follow up to this..... The good the bad and the ugly.

 

Yesterday was a busy evening. First I went to our feeder cub pack to talk to the next batch of cubs due to move up at Easter. With that cub pack they currently have one of my former scouts there as a "Young Leader" (YL). The YL scheme is for explorer scouts aged 14-17 who want to effectively be apprentice adult leader. I hadn't seen that explorer for well over a year but I got a big smile off of her and she came and sat with me while I talked the cubs through the process of moving up and what scouts was like. She had plenty of really good things to say about what she'd done there (we got her when she jumped ship from Girl Guides!) and how scouts get so much more freedom to do their own thing than at cubs. I almost blushed!

 

From there it was a quick cycle across town where I was stand in Explorer Leader with a unit who's leaders were all out of town for some reason but has plenty of my former scouts in it. Again really nice to catch up with some old faces including one who has had the growth spurt to end all growth spurts since leaving scouts. He has grown something like 2 feet in the last 18 months. Extraordinary. Especially good as he was never a PL in scouts, never quite had it in him. In explorers though he is one of the leading figures in terms of pushing the whole unit forward. Great to see

 

Bit of a sad note though. Some of them told me about a lad who had been a cub with me in my cub leader days. He quit before moving up to scouts. He's now 18. Apparently on bail awaiting trial on multiple pretty serious charges and looking like a stretch in prison is on the cards. I won't do the detail as it's not appropriate in public (especially when heard 2nd or 3rd hand from teenagers!) Sad times though.