Things to know about Scouts
Scout weekly meetings are generally held every Friday night of the Royal Borough Term Time, including Fridays when schools break up for holidays.
Scout meetings are usually between 7pm and 9.15pm.
Directions to our frequent venues are on the Contact page of our website
Most weeks you will get an email with an update of the arrangements for forthcoming sessions.
Please don’t turn up more than five minutes early for a meeting since the leaders will be busy preparing. If you arrive and the meeting place is not obviously busy please come in and check that the Scout is in the right place and if so that we have enough leaders present to let them in. For safeguarding purposes we cannot let Scouts come into the meeting place until at least two leaders are present.
Parents need to agree with their Scouts how they are getting home from meetings. Are they allowed to walk or cycle? If lift sharing, do they know who they are going home with? Unless parents ask us specifically to get more involved, Leaders do not check how Scouts are getting home.
Camps are the highlight of the Scout Troop year…everything else is practice. Summer Camps are always the first full week of the advertised Royal Borough Summer Holidays, Saturday to Saturday. They are open to all Scouts and are designed to be a great adventure whatever a Scout’s age or experience. Most years we run a Mountain walking camp based in a youth hostel for older Scouts and Explorers. This is usually the first May Bank Holiday or the Autumn half term and is usually in Snowdonia or the Brecon Beacons.
The core age range for Scouts is ten and a half to fourteen, with six months’ flexibility in either direction. When moving Cubs up to Scouts or Scouts up to Explorers we use this flexibility to help people move up with their friends. We will talk to older Scouts to find out when they want to make the move to Explorers.
Scouts are welcome to cycle to and from meetings but must wear a helmet and bring lights. Cycling Scouts should talk to a leader on arrival to make sure their bikes are securely stored somewhere where they won’t get in the way of that evening’s activities.
There is a wide range of badges that a Scout can achieve. Some are earned through the Cookham Scouts programme. Others can be earned through hobbies, etc. Here are the badges available. Just let a leader know if you think a Scout has earned one:
