“Try new things. Make new friends. Joining Beavers is just the beginning of your big adventure.” (from Scouts website )
When you join Beavers, you’ll be introduced to lots of new activities, people and things. Completing awards challenges you to do more, learn more and be more. Become an expert in something you love, or try something shiny and new. There’s a badge to suit each and every Beaver.
We meet on Fridays usually between 5pm – 6.15pm in the Scout HQ at the bottom of Orchard Drive although we often meet outdoors in the autumn and summer and meeting places may alter from week to week. We often also elongate the meeting times in the summer as we do more outdoor activities so please note that we may start some weeks as early as 4.30 and/or end as late as 6.30/7. A programme for the term will be sent to you close to the start of the term- please make a careful note of times and locations in your diary when you get it and print off a copy. The programme for the term is also on Online Scout Manager which is our secure online admin and messaging service (more details later).
Structure
Leaders Liz Hall, Duncan Munro
A Beaver Colony is usually organised into small groups called Lodges each headed up by an older beaver called a Lodge Leader, and often with a Seconder as well. Lodges can be used in a number of ways to facilitate the organisation of the Beaver Scout Colony. They may provide a ‘home’ area for Beaver Scouts to gather at points at the start, during or at the end of the Beaver meeting.!
At the first meeting, your child is put into a lodge (group)-we give them a coloured lanyard at this point to help them learn which lodge they are in. This is swapped at enrollment for the scarf and woggle, (but if you have a scarf it is fine to wear it from day one and I will give them the right colour woggle). When the beavers are put into lodges they are often not with school friends so that they mix and get to know each other. Please prepare your child for the fact that they will probably not be in the same lodge as their best friend. This is rarely a problem and they get to know lots of new friends.
Activities
During their time in the Colony, Beaver Scouts will get a chance to try a wide range of different activities as well as going on trips, days out, and on camps. Participation and personal development is the key approach, and there are a range of badges and challenge awards that beaver Scouts can gain to recognise their achievements.
Uniform
You DON’T need to buy uniform now. You WILL need to buy a full Beaver uniform in time for the enrollment , hopefully around half term.
Scarves and woggles will from now on be given to you by Chorleywood Scouts so don’t worry about those. They will be presented at the enrollment. If you have a spare scarf from a sibling, it is fine for your child to wear it and save Chorleywood Scouts some money!
Your new uniform consists of a Beavers polo shirt, a Beavers sweatshirt, a green and white Chorleywood Scouts scarf and a woggle. We also now ask you to buy a green Chorleywood Scouts T-shirt which will be particularly useful in the late spring, summer term and early autumn when we are out of the HQ building.
The green t-shirt and other beaver uniform is currently available from Chorleywood Sports online store at https://thesportsfctry.com/collections/beavers/products/chorleywood-scouts-tees and the polo shirt and jumper are also available online at:
The Scouts Shop
Beats School Uniforms
I may have some secondhand polo shirts and a few green t-shirts if you are interested. I don’t currently have any secondhand beaver tops.
Do buy sizes your child will grow into. Footwear is trainers or school shoes (no crocs or sandals permitted) as we do a lot of running about. You do not need to buy the scout trousers at this stage.
Chorleywood Beavers ethos Based on scouts values of … Integrity, Respect, Care, Belief and Cooperation… We have fun, we try new challenges, we make friends, we are tolerant, we develop and grow in independence and confidence. We live by our Promise. We earn badges by joining in with activities at Beavers and also the skills we learn elsewhere. Therefore, we ask parents to encourage independence in their beavers; to try new things, to persevere, and to respect themselves, their peers and the adult leaders and helpers. This builds their confidence and allows them to get the most from the Scouting experience. For example, pack with your beaver for camp & hikes. There is an element of risk at beavers – this is a key aspect of Scouting, we mitigate it, we plan for it, but we don’t remove it.
Guide to Badges in Beavers
Badge work you can do at home is put onto our programme Online Scout Manager which I will send you an invite for shortly. We have a busy programme of meetings and by attending as many meetings as possible, most of our beavers obtain the highest award a beaver can get- the Bronze Chief Scout Award, by the time they leave. Online scout manager Badges at Home is for catch-up or extra badges they may like to do. I don’t open up all the badges to do at home but I do know exactly what criteria your child has covered at every meeting and I keep track of that on OSM. You can see their progress through the parent portal, which I will send information out about later.
Activity badges Many of the badges available are activity badges, which allow Beavers to show their progress in existing pursuits, but also to try all kinds of new things and form new interests. Some of these are Staged, and the highest of each stage badge achieved can be moved to their cub uniform when they swim up.
Challenge awards Gaining a challenge badge involves accomplishing a number of more ambitious tasks within the Pack or community. There are several challenge badges across a number of themes, from the physical and outdoorsy to challenges dealing with the local community or issues connected with the Scouting world. When beavers are awarded all their challenge badges, they get the coveted Chief Scout Bronze award. It can be transferred onto their cub uniform.
Personal challenge For this challenge badge, sent out in the penultimate term of beavers, we will give our Leader’s challenge; this could be to give a presentation or carry out a challenging task. The second one is agreed between the Cub and parents. It should be a bit of a stretch, but doable. Eg: keep bedroom tidy for 3 weeks, look after your pet without any help, get organised for school the night before, make your pack lunch every day for 2 weeks etc. All badge requirements are adapted to the ability of the child, so those with special needs are challenged at their level.
Core badges In addition, there are a number of special badges, obtained upon joining or moving on from the Pack, or for time spent in the Scouting movement. There is more information about the badges on the Scouting website www.scouts.org.uk, under ‘what we do’ and ‘badges’. You can also log on as a parent on OSM (Online scout manager) www.onlinescoutmanager.co.uk.
Lodge Leaders/Seconders After some time in the pack, Beavers may be chosen to be leaders or seconders of their lodge. We decide this, and we may also have to move beavers between lodges occasionally. Lodge Leaders and seconders are given extra responsibilities in the pack – organising their lodge during the activities and leading, helping new beavers or those with extra needs, etc. We aim for most beavers to be given this role at some point, some will be both lodge leaders and seconders, occasionally some may miss out. We expect good attendance levels, good behaviour and adherence to the Beaver promise in those we select.
Camps and Sleepovers. These are an exciting and important part of being a Beaver Scout. Please encourage your Beaver to attend. We do not usually allow Cubs to attend part of a camp – it is all or nothing, as otherwise it is disruptive to the other scouts and Camp organisation. We do need extra parent help to run these busy events – they are a lot of fun for all attendees! Any parent staying overnight on a camp must have a Scout DBS (even if you have an enhanced DBS for another reason, scouts will not accept this) this can be easily arranged with our Scout administrator, Anne-Maria, please contact her in good time to arrange one: admin@chorleywoodscouts.org
Eventually, it’ll be time to say farewell to Beavers and embrace your next big adventure; cubs, usually in the term after you turn 8. At their last beaver meeting, beavers ‘swim up’ on a blue river-sheet and greet a representative of the cub leaders.
What we need from parents please:
1. Information on Health conditions in your children, any allergies or intolerances or dietary requirements. If they have to carry medication with them – Epi-pens, inhalers, tablets, then we must know what they have, and when/how it has to be given. It would be strongly recommended that we are given a spare set of medication to hold in our first aid kit (always carried with us).
Please make sure you give us full details of any allergies or medical conditions and that if required they bring an in-date epipen/ inhaler to meetings. We work hard to be inclusive of all needs (medical or dietary or otherwise) in the group; uniformed leaders are first-aid trained and Liz is a Primary schoolteacher with 30 years experience.
2. Behavioural conditions in your children and ways of managing them. We may ask for you to attend for a while with your child if required, to allow us to be able to supervise the rest of the pack safely. We aim to be as inclusive as much as possible, as long as we are able to run the evenings safely, and give sufficient attention to the whole pack. Please do come and talk to us about any concerns.
3. Help We ask that you come along as a parent helper to at least 1 beaver meeting per term. We have to have a certain ratio of adults to children to be able to carry out the planned activities safely. Therefore, we will allocate parents to a particular date if we don’t hear from you. If you are unable to attend your allocated evening/day then it is the responsibility of the parent to arrange a swap for another date.
4. Subs These are payable by direct debit only. You will be contacted to set up your direct debit soon after starting (by our treasurer). If you are unable to pay, there are hardship funds to assist (please speak to us in confidence). We run an exciting programme which we aim to use the subs for except for occasional more expensive activities where we will ask for extra payment on the night (water activities, camps etc). We are a charitable organisation and we can’t run successfully without subs. The direct debits will stop as soon as you leave our section.
5. Care at drop off/pick up time We want to start promptly at 5pm. Finish time will be around 6.15pm, although if there are badge presentations etc it may be slightly delayed. Parents are welcome to watch presentations and investitures. Please let us know if someone else is picking up your child at the end. We have to know that the beavers have been collected by their responsible adult, so please make sure we have acknowledged you picking up your child. We have a register at each evening whether in or out of HQ. If you are late, 2 adults have to stay with your child until they are collected, so please try to collect on time.
6. Contact details Please ensure we have a contact for you, in case of emergency. If you know you will be out of signal etc, please provide an alternative contact. Please fill in the Information Form for your child promptly when they join beavers and provide an emergency contact who is not a parent. Please also make sure you keep OSM up to date with your correct contact details.
7. Think about whether you could do even more: an assistant leader, or join the executive committee, or just help with admin or anything you can! Contact a leader for more information – they all started out as parents of children in scouts.
All beavers read and sign the code of conduct when they start:
At Beavers we will…………..
- Behave sensibly
- Be still to listen to others
- Always listen to each other and leaders
- Be kind
- Keep our hands to ourselves
- Keep our beaver promise
- Be organised in our lodges
- Be prepared!
- Be careful when we play games
- Think of others before we speak
- HAVE FUN
The Beaver Scout Promise
I promise that I will do my best to be kind and faithful and to love God.
As well as enjoying plenty of adventures, being a Beaver is about exploring who you are and what you stand for. These are big ideas, and when you join the Colony, you’ll start thinking about them by making a promise. A promise is a set of words that mean something to you, which you try to follow every day.
Making the promise is a big celebration within the Colony. Every time a new Beaver decides to join, they repeat their promise after the leader, in front of the other beavers and their parents. Doing this is called being ‘invested’ into Beavers, and it usually takes place once you’ve had a few weeks to settle in.
There are a number of variations of the Beaver Scout Promise to reflect the range of faiths, beliefs and attitudes, and nationalities, in the UK within Scouting. They can be requested when your child gets enrolled and can be see on the scouts website.
Please be aware that as our waiting list is so long, classmates who now choose to join the list may never get a place. I know some of you have had to wait years! However, as most scout groups have to do, we do give priority to those whose parents are willing to take on uniformed leadership roles and if we were able to start a third cub pack now, we could also start a second beaver colony which would solve the waiting list crisis, so if your child has a friend who is desperate to join that may be a solution if the parent is a willing volunteer- ask them to contact us if they would like to be a cub or beaver leader!
Please note that the waiting list is run by Emma Muirden, not me so please direct friends to her to put their child’s name down for Beavers cbadmissions@chorleywoodscouts.org
PLEASE DO NOT GIVE MY EMAIL ADDRESS OUT TO PEOPLE WANTING TO PUT THEIR CHILD ON THE BEAVER WAITING LIST. It is actually slower to direct friends to me first as all I do is forward emails to Emma.
We can now only take those into Beavers who live in Chorleywood and are nearer to our HQ than any other local scout group. This means some living the other side of the M25 may be directed to other groups as they are closer. There are often places available in Sarratt , Mill End and Rickmansworth Beaver Colonies for those who live outside Chorleywood or there are beaver colonies in Buckinghamshire for those who have moved across the county boundary. Even if your child is in a Chorleywood primary school that does not guarantee them a place in Chorleywood beavers. We do not provide spaces for children to automatically transfer from colony to colony within the district.