George Langford started as a Cub at the age of 6. He’s now 22 now and is a Young Leader.
George applied to East Coseley Big Local for funding for a scout recruitment drive in 2018. “The aim was to find new scouts, we put the money towards a website to put ourselves out there. We built the website ourselves. We had flyers and posters printed that we handed out at the Coseley Big Event, we also put posters around schools to get information out there about what we do.”
The website has given us an online presence and has attracted many new people, we can see this from the traffic to the website. We’ve built up numbers and it’s still on going. So the recruitment drive worked.
Big local have supported us to exchange information and get us to the Big Event. We bought huge banners with the money funded by Big Local, which showed us off at the event. We had a steady queue at the event, did a raffle and helped to sell tickets for the events rides at the same time.”
We’ve been able to connect with the local community and encourage our scouts to help in the community. One of our next events is a carwash to raise money locally.
The best thing about being a scout leader is giving something back. We have a laugh, it’s really rewarding.
George Morgan is 20, he’s been with the 1st Coseley scouts since he was 8, he became a Young Leader at 18. “I’ve made some great friendships through being in the scouts and I’ve done activities that I thought I’d never do. Cliff diving was one of the best activities I’ve ever done! We get together, do activities, we like to have a laugh and a joke. We like to make it enjoyable because that’s what makes people stay. That’s what made me stay, every week there was something new to do. I like to help young people to get their badges.
We go on camping trips where scouts get to do stuff they’ve never done before like shooting, archery, abseiling, activities that you thought you would never do until you came here. We also go away for a week
annually. We’re going to Blackpool this year, it’s a great get together in the summer. It’s just pure camping, we get the tents and marquee up – it’s more of a holiday – we go on hikes, to theme parks or water parks. I love the simple things like sitting around the fire. It’s a place to make good friends and mingle with scouts from different areas.
The activities the young people get to do with the scouts are just fantastic. If they are here enjoying themselves they’re not out on the streets with nothing to do. If they are here they can do activities that they have never done before, meet new people and learn new things.
They also learn life skills like cooking, cleaning and camping – so they can learn how to put a tent up at a festival! I don’t know what I would do without it. My best friend told me about scouts and how fantastic it was, 12 years later I’m still here. All it took was one positive message. I spend a lot of time doing what I do because it benefits them. I want to do what previous leaders did for me.
Girls started joining in the ’80s. Most scouts come from the cubs. There is a nice divide of boys and girls, I think the scouts reach out to everyone. We are looking to recruit more scouts, so we’ll be going to the Big Local Big Event this June, we’ll have a stand with a banner and we can talk to young people about what we do and why it’s worth joining,”
Anthony is Scout Leader, he has been with 1st Coseley Scouts since 1964, 55 years ago he joined as a cub when he was 8. He has seen many changes over the years. One of the things he’s most proud of is going away for a week every year, this began in 1982 and they haven’t missed a year since. They’ve been all over the country, Whitby, the Lake District, North Wales, and Torquay, to name a few.