Growth of the Scout Group

I’ve got a success story graph for you. Look at the top line – that’s the growth of 1st Claremont Scout Group over the years. We’re now at 109 members, our biggest so far, and up 300% since our centenary in 2008. You’ll see a few nice upward steps on it . One is in 2014 when, after a few years of slow decline, we suddenly got recruiting right and doubled the Scout Troop in a year. Next is the yellow line in 2015, when we reopened the Cub Pack. Next was in 2018, when the Cubs going up to Scouts shot the Troop size up to record levels. And then in 2021, when we opened Meerkats. There is one decline worth mentioning – the drop in Cubs in 2021. This was intentional because a very large Cub Pack was producing too many Scouts for the Troop to handle, so we decided to let our Cub numbers reduce slightly. From 2021 to 2022 our numbers have been stable and we are basically at our maximum.

Not shown on the graph: in 2021 and 2022, we got involved in restarting the 4th Claremont Fernwood Scout Group, just up the road from us, not least because we couldn’t find places at 1st Claremont for all the people who have asked to join. 4th Claremont closed about 20 years ago, but their hall is once again home to a thriving group of Meerkats, Cubs and Scouts.

Adult leaders

Hidden in the graph is a purple line that has grown steadily to 25 adult leaders, mostly former Scouts or parents. That gives us the biggest adult team of any group in the Western Cape, and it is one of the the main keys to the success of the group – adult volunteers who have joined the team, done the training, and produce an excellent programme that keeps the Meerkats, Cubs and Scouts coming back, and leads to word-of-mouth recruiting in the community. There’s clearly demand for Scouting!

Talking of adult leaders, the following have received their warrants in the past term: Natasha, Becca, David, Karen, Sahil, Brian, Lucy, Caleb, Simon, Namita, Thomas, Justin and Chris. Jonathan completed his Wood Badge, and Judith, David and Jonathan received their third Wood Badge beads as Assistant Leader Trainers.

Thank you to all our adult volunteers for doing the training and paperwork and for the part you play in our amazing Scout Group and beyond.

By the way, someone asked why we were having a “Scout” fundraising auction and not mentioning the Cubs and Meerkats. Well, the reason is that all of them are also Scouts – maybe we should call them “Cub Scouts” and “Meerkat Scouts” to make that clearer!