Scouting Centenary
| AIMS |
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| PREPARATION |
You will need:
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| DEVELOPMENT |
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Start by encouraging children to share their experiences of Scouting. You might like to give them free reign to talk about what being part of the Scouting organisation means to them, or you could ask them specific questions about what they wear, what they do at meetings, what badges they work towards, and why etc.. Provide some background to the Scouting movement. These simple facts may help: Lord Robert Baden-Powell was the founder of Scouting. Baden-Powell was in the army and was impressed at the initiative many young boys used in times of difficulty and pressure. He was keen to set up some kind of training programme for young people back home in Britain. He began in 1907, with an experimental camp on Brownsea Island for 20 boys. He wrote a handbook intended as a training aid for organisations that already existed, but it was so popular that it became the handbook for his own new movement instead. (You may also like to use the first 3 slides of the PowerPoint to accompany this part of the reflection.) The Scout Association is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. There are 28 million members worldwide. Why is something so old still so popular today? Encourage children to think about the sorts of goals they have for themselves. Then encourage them to think about hopes and dreams they have for the world they live in when they are older. Look at the aims of the Scout Association by looking at its mission statement. Try and encourage children to see how their dreams and goals may have some similarities, or ask whether they think the mission statement seems good and sensible. (The slides from Slide 4 onwards on the PowerPoint 'Scouts' provide examples of how the mission statement might be explored.) |
| FURTHER IDEAS FOR DEVELOPMENT |
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Provide children with greater time to reflect on the mission statement of the Scout Association and at each point also think about their own dreams and goals using the same focus ideas and questions. The success of the Scouting Association relies on people listening to what they are told and then understanding and acting upon the messages they hear - it's a bit like religion! Read the parables of the Kingdom from Matthew 13. The stories of the farmer's seeds, the mustard seed and the yeast are all true to both religion and Scouting. In both cases it is not just a case of hearing good ideas, but of acting on what we hear and of showing others that we are making good decisions and enjoying ourselves so that they become interested and are able to share the good news and fun too. Additional information may be found on the following web sites: www.scouts.org.uk www.scoutbase.org.uk |
| SONGS |
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'He's got the whole world, in his hand.' No 19, The Complete Come and Praise, BBC Publishing. 'If I had a hammer' No 71, The Complete Come and Praise, BBC Publishing. |
| PRAYER |
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Dear Lord, Help me to be the best I can be today and always. I want to do good things for myself and to help others - the people I live near and the people who live far away. When I work or when I play help me understand that what I do can affect others, and let me choose to affect them in a good way by being helpful, or cheerful, knowledgeable, strong or wise. Amen. |