Gold Award 2017 cohort

This is the working space for Scouts who joined the troop in March and September 2017.


LATEST CORRESPONDENCE (Scroll down for previous correspondance)

This is an important year for you if you wish to complete this award. Hopefully you have been working towards it over the last two years and have completed most elements, but if not it is not too late start now, if you are willing to put in the work.

You are part of the 2017 Cohort and all the relevant documents and information that we have sent in the past two years are also on this page.

Last night you received a personal development plan that sets out the activities you need to complete for this award. Please take some time to go through it and make a note of the important dates when we will be covering other elements as a troop. If you miss these dates you will need to find a way to complete the activity in your own time.

There are a number of mandatory elements of the award that require us to arrange activities over the weekends and holidays, you cannot comepte the Gold Award without attending these events:
 - Expedition (16/17 November)
 - Environmental Project (date to be advised - we cannot guarantee this will be run at times suitable to all as the date will depend on leader availability)
 - Summer Camp (25 July 2020 - if you did not attend camp this year you must attend this camp )

We like to see a many of our Scouts as possible gain this award but we recognise that not all Scouts may feel the same way. If you do not want to complete this award then please let us know so we can stop sending you all the reminders and plans.

All the details about the Award can be found on our website and you are welcome to speak to your leaders in more detail.



PREVIOUS CORRESPONDENCE 

Below is a reminder of the letter we sent out earlier this year about the Chief Scout Gold Award, specifically covering the things you will need to complete in your own time.

We are sure that in the time that has elapsed many of you will have done a number of things that may count towards the Gold Award or other badges so please take a bit of time to look at the attached documents and our website to see what else you can tick off.

Many of you in this '2017' cohort are very close to completing a couple of the awards:

1. Skills - keeping a physical activity log for a few weeks and learning/practising 5 household skills for a few weeks will see many of you achieve the Skills Challange Award .

2. Adventure - Our time at Fairlop Waters over the Summer ticks off a huge part of the Adventurous Activities badge but we still need you to do a little bit of research of your own to back this up.  Please find below the instructions and report. It should take about an hour to do and you will need Internet access. Completing this research will see many of you  achieve the  Adventure Challenge Award.

This term or the Summer Holidays are also a great time to undertake a Personal Challenge (document attached) - whether it is keeping your bedroom tidy, practising a musical instrument more regularly or even trying to master a new skill. Time to get those thinking caps on!

For those of you coming on Summer Camp this year we will be aiming to complete the Outdoor Challange Award, which includes many leadershop elements, and some elements of the Team Leader Challenge award.

For those of you that return to us next year we will create a personal plan covering all the outstanding elements. We will also aim to run an Expedition so you can achieve the Expedition Challenge award.

Details of all the elements of the Chief Scout Gold Award and relevant 'sign off' documents can all be found on this website.

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During your second year with the troop we will introduce the Gold Award programme and encourage you to complete independent activities (see below).

In this your second year we hope you will have had some success in completing the ongoing activities and if you have attended most or all of the Thursday evening meetings during the first year you will have completed many elements of the award. This progress can be viewed on OSM.

The additional elements of the award to be completed this year are a Personal Challenge, learn and use a number of household skills (part of the Skills Challenge Award), write up a report on forming a part of three teams (part of the Team Working Challange Award) and the Physical Activity log (part of the Skills Challenge Award). If you have participated in any sort of performance should also get this recorded. All activities that have occurred since joining Scouts in 2017 are valid.

Some of you may also be invited to take part in the additional activities laid on for the Scouts in their third year with the troop. This will only occur if there are sufficient places available and you are considered capable of completing the activity.

If you do not attend at least one (but usually two) Summer Camps is unlikely you will be able to complete the Chief Scout Gold Award as the Outdoors Challenge can usually only be completed by attending Summer Camp and it can be difficult to complete all elements of the award during one camp. A Scout who attends a Summer Camp at the end of their second year with the troop will be given the opportunity to complete the 'team leader' elements of the Outdoors Award. We appreciate that fitting family holidays alongside Scout camps may be difficult and so we alternate the dates of Summer Camp each year to try and provide as many chances as possible to attend to as many Scouts as possible. Summer Camp always takes place at some point in July and we can generally be flexible about late joiners and leavers.

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Reminder of Gold Award Requirements.

  1. Earn six Activity or Staged Activity badges. They could be badges gained outside of normal meetings or ones achieved through the Thursday evening programme.

  2. Complete the nine Challenge Awards.


Part 1: Scouts will earn a number of Activity and Staged Activity badges by participating fully in the troop programme: Nautical Skills, Time on Water, Nights Away, Swimming, First Aid, Sailing and Paddle Sports. In theory most Scouts will therefore meet the requirement through Thursday evening meeting attendance. However, the Leaders would like our Scouts to individually work towards at least one Activity or Staged badge on their own. As well as doing badges that match hobbies or interest there is the option to do badges based on school work, such as art or DT.  All badge information can be found on the main Scouts website (see menu on LHS).

Part 2: Most elements of most of the Challenge Awards will be completed during the three year programme, but in order to complete them all Scouts will need to attend weekend and camp activities. Some individual work will be required as well. The badge requirements for the Challenge Awards can be found on the main Scouts website but are also reproduced in the 3 Year Plan document below which covers how we intend to cover the badge work in the normal course of events.  

A Scout's progress against all elements of the Gold Award can be monitored via Online Scout Manager.

Gold Award Plan: You can read our plan using the link below. Thursday evening activities are drawn up with the Gold Award in mind and Scouts will have to also complete a number of independent activities, some of which we will programme in at set time and others that can be completed at any time.