What Scouting means today  

The Aim of Scouting is to promote the development of young people in achieving their full physical, intellectual, social and spiritual potential, as individuals, as responsible citizens and as members of their local, national and international communities.

This is why we challenge them to try new activities or foods, make new friends, visit new places, help with fundraising, take part in St George’s Day and Remembrance Parades, go for nights away – in other words to become Scouts. Who knows what our current Beavers, Cubs and Scouts will become in adulthood, but through Scouting we hope to give them the courage and the ability to find out. Through Scouting they learn new skills, respect, to listen, to work as a team and overcome fears. We help to teach them that making a decision is never the difficult bit - it's learning to live with the consequences (as any Scout who has burnt their breakfast will tell you!).

Whether applying to Sixth Form, university or for a job in adulthood anyone who has made the most of their role in Scouting will find they are frequently seen as ideal candidates compared to others – after all you often get out of life what you have put in.

Since it’s founding in 1907 millions of people around the world have been able to gain from the opportunities that Scouting has been able to offer, benefiting them and society in numerous ways. Did you know that of the 312 people selected as astronauts since 1959, 180 were Scouts or have been active in Scouting? Or the fact that 11 of the 12 people who have ever stepped on the moon had been involved in Scouting?Or that former Scouts include Barack Obama, Natasha Kaplinsky, Neil Armstrong, Stephen Speilberg, David Beckham, Michael Owen, Mark Ramprakash, Mark Spitz, David Bowie, Bill Gates, Sterling Moss, Sir Paul McCartney, John F Kennedy and Sir David Attenborough?

The following words, written more than a century ago still seem appropriate today, and no doubt they’ll continue to be quoted one hundred years from now. They sum up what we hope our Scouts will turn out to be in character, and ties in neatly with the Promise every single one of them has made but now has to try and live up to.

What the World Needs Now

by Josiah Gilbert Holland

"The world needs young men and women who cannot be bought; whose word is their bond; who put character above wealth; who possess opinions and a will; who are larger than their vocations; who do not hesitate to take chances.

The world needs young men and women who will not loose their individuality in a crowd; who will be as honest in small things as in great things; who will make no compromise with wrong; whose ambitions are not confined to their own selfish desires.

The world needs young men and women who will not say they do it because everybody else does it; who are true friends through good report and evil report, in adversity as well as in prosperity; who do not believe that shrewdness, cunning and hard-headedness are the best qualities for winning; who are not ashamed or afraid to stand for the truth when it is unpopular.

The world needs young men and women who say no with emphasis, though the rest of the world says yes."

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