Inspire

I was inspired to initiate this project with my former Cub Scout Pack by the efforts of my Cub Scout Leaders in preparing me for the Akela Award (highest sectional award in the Cub Scout Section in Singapore) back in 2015. The amount of time and resources which they had set aside to prepare me for the award then was testimonial to their passion towards Scouting and the satisfaction which they undertook in being a part of others' successes, both of which are qualities which I have been inspired to emulate and in turn, has allowed me to enjoy my Scouting experience as I moved on into the Scout Section in secondary school, unlike a number of my peers in the Scout Section who merely joined to earn their co-curricular activity (CCA) cut-off points at the GCE 'O' Levels. This strong passion towards Scouting which I acquired from my Cub Scout Leaders back when I was a Cub has also enabled me to attain the high-ranking post of Senior Patrol Leader (SPL) in my current Scout Troop. As such, I felt the need to repay my Pack for the fruitful upbringing it has provided me with and hence decided to organise this camp as a form of gratitude.

Learn & Decide

As a tribute to the efforts my Cub Scout Leaders undertook in helping me clear my Progress Badge requirements and in turn, attain the Akela Award back when I was a Cub, I decided to organise this camp to aid the Cubs from my Cub Scout Pack in fulfilling the requirements for a number of their Progress Badges while at the same time, provide them with more camping experience and improve their sense of cohesion and interdependence, the latter two of which were skills I found them to be lacking in based on my observations of them during some of the Pack meetings which preceeded before the idea of organising this camp came to me. Given the hands-on experience of partaking in core Scouting activities (i.e. campcraft, hiking and outdoor cooking) which I acquired throughout my experiece as both a Cub and a Scout, as well as the concept and importance of psycological skills like unity and brotherhood, which I was exposed to in depth in the Scout Section, I was thus determined to provide my Cubs with more opportunities to participate in core Scouting activities and more importantly, develop their interpersonal relations and overall interdependence on their fellow Cubs in a bid to foster stronger friendships and benefit from picking up as much authentic Scouting skills as possible throughout their three to four years of membership in our Pack. Project aspirations aside, I was faced with much challenges during the planning and preparation phase as my camp was pushed back on two occassions in view of a lack of finances from my Pack to organise it and delays in communications with my Cub Scout Leaders on the approval of the idea. Besides, gathering manpower to organise the camp and hence, deciding on the dates for it was also a challenge due to the busy schedules of my fellow Akela Award recipients from my Pack, whom I intended to organise the camp with, which left a cliffhanger in confiming attendance to run the activities along with a shortage of logistics in my Pack's inventory. However, after much thought and discussion with my fellow Akelas, the solutions to the problems faced soon became eminent as we decided to borrow some camping equipment from the Scout Troop affiliated to our Pack through our Scout Group to make up for the shortage of logistics and thus, reducing the need for additional finances inccurred on project spending as well as gather Service Scout volunteers from our affliated Troop to provide them with a chance to render an act of service to the community around them while at the same time in anticipation for a situation where we lack in organiser manpower. As for the delays in communications, they have cultivated in me a sense of patience with regard to making requests whilst dealing with the other challenges have also taught me the importance of having good negotiation skills and being creative so as to ensure that my plans can proceed with minimal effort lost as opposed to immediately giving up on them just as the challenges dawn on me. These intrapersonal and interpersonal skills acquired would eventually come into widespread use in my daily life in future as I become employed and start my own family upon entering adulthood.

Do

On overall, I felt that the project went well to my satisfaction since most of my Cubs enjoyed in and fulfilled most of its learning outcomes. This project has also been a fruitful opportunity for me to reunite and renew my existing friendships with my fellow Akelas, some of whom I have not met in years since we graduated from Primary 6 in 2015 as well as help alleviate a major issue the Cub Scout Section in Singapore is facing, which is a lack of support and guidance for the Cubs from former Cubs who have graduated. It was also rewarding to witness this project being a platform for the forging of new friendships between my fellow Akelas and the Service Scouts present as we mended the severing ties between our Cub Scout Pack and Scout Troop in the build-up to our combined Scout Group's 50th anniversary celebrations in the following year, 2019. In terms of areas of improvement, I felt that I could have improved on the aspect of planning the camp's hike to make it more safer for my Cubs as for one, there were many road crossings featured in the route which made attempting the hike a challenge given the fact that it was conducted as a guided hike at the Pack level with around 20 participating Cubs to coordinate at any point in time when we crossed the road. This observation was in turn brought up by me to the Camp Committee planning the next edition of this camp in 2020 with the agreed solution being to conduct next edition's hike at a Six level instead. On a whole, I completed 36 activity hours during this project, most of which include imparting my Scouting expertise onto my Cubs as well as looking our for their safety and providing first aid during the timeslots allocated for games.

Share

As a follow-up to my project, my fellow Akelas who were junior to me were inspired to continue with this idea by organising another edition of the camp in 2020. As such, I decided to impart my experiences of organising this camp to them through a series of discussions we held over weekends in early 2019. These discussion were a platform for me to inform them of areas from my edition of the camp which I felt could be improved to make the experience better for our Cubs along with brainstorming on approaches to do so, as with the case of the camp's hike as stated above. In a bid to foster greater cooperation between my Cub Scout Pack and our affliated Scout Troop, I have also decided to publish a blog post on their Troop blog to raise awareness of the efforts of the Service Scouts involved in helping to run the camp so as to encourage other Scouts there to follow suit and establish relations with our Cub Pack whose role in our Scout Group's development has to some extent been overlooked, with the hope of creating a more selfless and interconnected community within my Scout Group.