A busy little beaver

I have been pretty busy this weekend doing all kinds of letters for scouts and beavers.

I still can't believe I was ever fooled into thinking that scouting was just one night a week for a couple of hours! Maybe it is for those occasional helpers who dont do anything except turn up and go home again right at the end without getting involved in any of the planning or preparing.

At the moment I am juggling preparing, organising and running a beaver programme by myself with preparing, organising and running a scout programme pretty much by myself (I have an ASL but there not necessarily so great at the being organised thing!).

This is a whole lot of things to organise to sure every child gets the full experience of scouting and doesnt miss out on any badges they have earnt because of my lack of record keeping skills!

This weekend I have done the following relating to scouting:

• Written a letter to give to Beaver parents regarding an invite to join another colony to see Persil the Owl.
• Written a letter to send to the scout parents regarding a weekend away which our troop has been invited to by another troop in the district.
• Addressed the envelopes and posted the above said letters!
• Updated group records
• Printed health forms for the patrol leader reward camp I will be running to give to the scouts who need them on thursday.
• Printed the provisional programme for the patrol leader reward camp to give to the other leaders so they can see what will be happening and throw in any ideas they have (a camp programme is never set in stone, it is only ever a rough guide so you have things they can do but things always change when you are on camp depending on enjoyment factors of current activities!).
• Started organising the beaver programme for the term starting in September with regards to outside guests coming in.

That is a whole lot of stuff to squish in when I also spent most of saturday daytime out of the house with family and sunday afternoon at my parents house.

I absolutely love being in scouting and this post might seem like I am complaining but it is meant that way. I love the time I spend at weekly meetings actually running them and I admit I like things to be organised and so that aspect of scouting I relish! I always try to keep my records upto date every week with regards to work they have completed in case it completes a badge (that can so easily sneak you by without realising) and letters and forms and all things like that!

Tonight I will be joining another troop in the district for their weekly meeting. They are holding a Carnival/ Fair games night and I was asked to go along and help man a stall. I think the way the night will run is all the leaders will be at a 'stall' and the scouts will be free to roam and go on any activity they like. I know they have got a candy floss machine!! and there will be a hook a duck as well. I'm not sure what else they will have going on but I am aware that the group own a set of stocks and I'm a little worried there maybe a throw wet sponges at the leader in the stocks. Hopefully if that is there I wont be on that one!!!! This is the same group who the weekend away is with at the end of July so it will be good to get to know a few of their scouts a bit better.