The Scout pack is made up of boys and girls aged 12 -15 years of age, divided into small groups called patrols. Scouts get very involved in the planning of their own activities and are given a lot more responsibility. Scouts “Plan, Do and Review” learning from both the successes and failures of the activities they take part in together and it’s here that they learn how to make their voices heard. Scouts get to cook their own meals and organise their own trips, they learn to look after themselves and to look out for each other. Teamwork is especially important, scouts recognise that everyone comes to the group with different talents that help to make the group stronger, better and more able for anything they’re challenged to do.
Scouts work on skills in the traditional outdoor “scouty” areas like
- Air
- Backwoods
- Camping
- Emergencies
- Hillwalking
- Paddling
- Pioneering
- Rowing
- Sailing
Being outdoors and learning about nature and how to live well with it is what scouting is all about. Scouts regularly stay out under canvas, hike in the mountains (stopping for lunch they cook for themselves on a mountain track) and learn how to find their way day or night.
Some activities Scouts participated in last year include:
- hikes
- scout engineering projects
- outdoors cooking
- Annual camp to Carne, Co. Wexford – including trips to the National Heritage Park, the Dunbrodie Famine ship, Hook Lighthouse, and a beach hike to Rosslare Harbour.
- defeating werewolves
- pizza making
- gorge walking
- canoeing
- fire lighting skills
- MPSE skills
- football/volleyball
- swimming
- mental challenges
- orienteering
- knots and map reading skills
- games
- County Scout challenges