Why Scouts and Guides need the help of some adventurous adults

Increasing numbers of children and young people are joining the Scouts and Guides, hoping to get a taste of adventure at a bargain price.

There’s been a boom in Scout membership over the last six years, with numbers increasing by 55,000, from 358,000 in 2007 to 413,000 this year.And while the increase in Girl Guide membership is much smaller, it has still gone up – from 528,000 in 2007 to 530,000 in 2011.

It’s thought that as well as children and young adults being attracted to the adventure, games, camps and varied experiences they can enjoy through the Scouts and Girl Guides, they – or more precisely, their parents – are enticed by the fact that such fun doesn’t come at a high price. While costs vary across the UK, for Scouts they tend to be between £70-£90 a year, and for Guides it can be as little as £15 a term.

However, the movements are so attractive to modern kids that there are huge waiting lists – there are more than 30,000 young boys and girls waiting to join a Scout troop, and 44,000 on the waiting lists for Girl Guides.

Whether there’s a waiting list or not depends on the area – in some places, it’s possible to join straight away.

And the way to solve the problem of a long wait to join is, it seems, for more parents to be prepared to get involved.

The number of adult volunteers isn’t keeping pace with the number of youngsters who want to join: the 55,000 increase in the number of Scouts over the last six years is matched by only an 8,000 rise in adult membership.

Girl Guides also need many more adult volunteers to help reduce waiting lists.

Simon Carter of the Scout Association says there tends to be a ratio of one adult to five children/young people at Scout troops, so the movement needs just over 6,000 adults to reduce its waiting list to zero.

Girl Guiding UK needs around 7,000 adult volunteers to do the same.

“What’s happened is that we’ve got more attractive and more popular and our numbers have gone up, but the thing that’s constraining our membership is our lack of adults,” says Simon.

“There’s not a Scout group in the country that couldn’t open for 20-odd people tomorrow if we had the adults.”

Much of the Scout Association’s adult recruitment is done through word-of-mouth at the school gates, and twice a year the Chief Scout, adventurer Bear Grylls, goes round the country spreading the message that if more adults got involved, Scouts could become a fun and useful part of the lives of many more children and young people.

“The message we’re trying to get across with that,” says Simon, “is that if Bear’s an international star and spends half his life in the middle of nowhere, but he can still do volunteering for the Scouts, so can you.”

The time adult volunteers need to give is flexible, but a Scout leader, for example, would need to take part in one Scout session a week during school term time that might take about an hour-and-a-half, plus spend a few hours a week planning the session. They’d probably also attend a camp in school holidays.

But for both Scouts and Girl Guides, any time that adult volunteers can give is appreciated, and there’s plenty of high quality training and support.

“Most people think of volunteering as giving up a few hours a week to help people. But the reality with Scouting is that it’s not about what you give up, it’s about what you get from it.”

That means doing all the activities the kids do, ranging from camping, canoeing and climbing, to going on Scout jamborees or camps, and playing games.

SCOUTING AROUND THE OPTIONS

Children can join various Scout groups, from Beavers to the Scout Network, from the age of around six to 25. Both boys and girls can join, and for the first time in Scouting’s 104-year history, this year more girls have joined than boys.Girl Guides are exclusively female, and can join from the age of five to 25. Scouts and Guides take part in a variety of adventure sports, as well as playing fun, physical games, taking part in community action projects, and going on camps in the school holidays visit www.scouts.org.uk, or call 0845 3001 818. For Girl Guides, visit www.girlguiding.org.uk, or call 0800 1695 901.