UKC

Hi, has anyone got experience of joining the sea scouts? They are setting up a group at my eldest daughters school and she is interested in joining. She will be 14 in September when they are due to begin, If she enjoys it I may well help out too. So, any thoughts?

In reply to the sheep:
In my experience* of Scouting, it can be great for kids - but only if the leaders are knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and committed. Otherwise the experience can be somewhere between boring and dangerous. Water based activities obviously entail specific risks, so check out the leaders: do they seem competent as well as the kind of people who actually like working with children?

Also the gender split in most scout groups is still tends towards male, so if applicable you might want to make sure your daughter is comfortable with that.

(*I used to help out with running a (landlubber not sea) Scout group for a few years back in the nineties, and now have a child who goes to scouts.)

In reply to the sheep:

At 14 she will be at the top of the age range, it is probably worth looking at the age make up of the group. She probably won't want to hang around with a bunch of 10 year olds! Another this will be is there a Sea Scout of ordinary Scout Explorer group to move on to.

In reply to The New NickB:

Ah, my mistake, its the Sea Cadets!

In reply to the sheep:


That sounds much more reassuring than the Scouts, my Dad once accompanied somebody who wasn't so safe in leading scouts (it was a few decades now to be fair), in letting children abseil off somewhere in the Burbage valley while he was simply onto the rope, and similarly unsafe things.

In reply to Timmd:

As a Scout Leader, can I be the first to be offended Tim.

In reply to The New NickB:


A Scout Leader should know where to place a question mark.

In reply to The New NickB:


You can be. I promptly retract any outdated implications contained in my post aimed at the Sea Scouts based upon one dodgy Scout man a few decades ago when risk assessments and safe guarding procedures weren't so robust.

In reply to the sheep:

As a former Sea Cadet I can say there's some great things and some not so great it all depends on those running the Unit. My unit was in Derby so not great for the sea so we didn't do many interesting things on the weekly sessions. However the camps/trips are incredibly good value (subsided). I went dinghy sailing for a weekend for £40 (all inclusive, spent a week crewing the Cadet Tallship (TS Royalist) and a week learning to sail a yacht (TS City Liveryman). The two sailing trips were some of the best experiences of my teens and helped me get into sailing. (Both sailing trips were £240 all inclusive and they would pay for your travel to and from wherever you started the week).

So I'd say it's worth it just for the incredibly cheap opportunity to learn to sail! (Other bigger units I heard about seemed to be much better and had even more opportunities)

In reply to the sheep:

Sea Cadets are linked to the Royal Navy which gives them some advantages over the Scouts but also some distinct differences. Maybe it's changed but in the past they, along with Air Cadets & Army Cadets, were a form of youth recruitment for the services

In reply to the sheep:

I know it's not the same, but I was in the Army cadets as a teenager and it was some thing so different (albeit brutal) from my life at the time I can't imagine what I would be like as an adult without it. It was in the cadets that I first went camping, hiking, sailing & learnt to lead a group. I still remember the camaraderie of being in a platoon on night exercise. I don't think I would have got into climbing or any other kind of outdoor sport without it, quite frankly. Not sure that I enjoyed it 100% at the time but it was an experience for sure.

In reply to aln:


It should have been an exclamation mark really. Anyway, I don't think grammar is included in the wood badge.