Have Fun and Make New Friends

Playing games at the start of an evening session allows the young people to let off steam and helps them to develop trust in each other, encouraging teamwork and collaboration. This is often accompanied with a healthy dose of competitiveness!

At Mafeking, the Explorers have some favourite games that they play regularly, including hockey when indoors or rounders on the field adjoining the den on summer evenings. Introducing new games and challenges on a regular basis helps Explorers build new skills, develop new friendship bonds and to push their boundaries.

Activities and Adventures

Adventure is very much at the core of Scouting, and at the Explorer age group the adventures become bigger and bolder. These are a selection of the activities that the Explorers at Mafeking have had the opportunity to experience over the last few years:

• Outdoor rock climbing in the Peak District
• Indoor rock climbing
• Night time canoeing along the River Trent
• Dusk-to-Dawn hikes over upland moorlands
• Bouldering on Peak District crags
• Survival camps
• Stand-up paddle boarding
• Bushcraft skills, including fire lighting, food preparation and cooking
• Expeditions, carrying full camping gear
• Forest-based rescue scenarios
• Clay target shooting using full-bore shotguns
• Kart racing

Adventure is also present in the opportunity to travel, to explore the world we live in. We have two Explorers travelling to South Korea, representing our unit at the World Scout Jamboree, and we have four Explorers travelling to the Swiss mountains next year for winter sport activities.

Gain Skills for Life

At Explorers we aim to develop new skills that will bring benefits to young people as they prepare to head out into the great wide world. One of the most popular sessions that we run helps the Explorer to develop their cooking skills, an important asset for university life, and hey, teenagers love their food, right?!

But we might also train young people in skills that we hope that they never need, such as first aid for critical bleeding, how to use a defibrillator and how to decide who to help in a mass-casualty incident.

Other, more practical, skills are developed simply through the activities that we do in Scouting. Teamwork, collaboration, problem-solving, safety and risk management, resource management, self-reliance, resilience; these are the softer skills that are all so important in day-to-day adult life.

The Scout motto is “Be Prepared”. With skills development we are helping young people be better prepared for life.

Gain Awards

• Chief Scout’s Platinum Award
• Chief Scout’s Diamond Award
• King’s Scout Award

Each award represents a very significant achievement, showing a commitment over a sustained period of time. They are also closely aligned with the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme, with Bronze being the basis for the Chief Scout’s Platinum, Silver being the basis for the Chief Scout’s Diamond, and Gold being the basis for the King’s Scout Award. The Scouting awards include additional qualification criteria for International, Community and Values categories above and beyond the Duke of Edinburgh awards.

Any of the top awards would enhance any CV.

The Scout Promise

The Promise is a simple way to help young people and adults keep the Fundamentals of Scouting in mind. The Promise is the commitment made by all Members as they join Scouting, promising to share the values of Scouting. The Christian version of the Scout Promise is:

On my honour,
I promise that I will do my best
to do my duty to God and to the King,
to help other people
and to keep the Scout Law

Alternative versions of the Scout Promise are available for all religions, including atheist.