Gold Award 3 Year Plan

  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.


Your Leaders' Promise to you

We will aim to get all our Scouts through the Chief Scouts Gold Award subject to the following conditions:

        a. Scouts remain with the troop for three years (many leadership elements will only be covered in their third year as a PL / APL);

        b. Scouts attend the majority of Thursday evenings ('catch-up' opportunities will be provided for scouts who miss occasional sessions for good reason, but there is not the resources to duplicate activities for scouts who are infrequent attendees);

        c. Scouts attend two Summer camps (many elements can only be filled by doing camps) and the requisite number of specially organised additional activities (e.g Foodbank volunteering, Expedition etc);

        d. Scouts commit to undertaking a small amount of independent work.

To support Scouts doing the independent work your leaders will manage the cohorts via this website and provide relevant proformas for signing off activities (see below). Although independent activities can be undertaken at any time during the three years a Scout is in the troop your leaders will offer a framework for managing the activities at certain times.


This is the standard format which may change for some cohorts when circumstances require.


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. You can use the Personal Planning Document below to help you plan how to complete some of the activities.  

The Pro-forma listed below cover activities (additional Activity Badges, Adventurous activities, Creative activities, taking part in a Performance) which may be completed by Scouts at any time during their time with the troop. If a Scout's interests and hobbies are such that these may be difficult to complete then let the leaders know as soon as possible.

A Scout who does not attend at least one (but usually two) Summer Camps is not going to be able to complete the Chief Scout Gold Award as the Outdoors Challenge can 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.


Year One

During their first year with the troop we will introduce the Gold Award programme and encourage Scouts to complete ongoing activities (listed above) and also provide two additional activities to complete.

The two additional activities are the 'ongoing Physical Activity' element of the Skills Challenge Award and undertake an activity to 'explore your own Beliefs' which is an element of the World Challenge Award.


Year Two

In their second year we hope Scouts will have had some success in completing the ongoing activities and if Scouts have attended most or all of the Thursday evening meetings during the first year they 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) and a report on forming a part of three teams (part of the Team Working Challange Award).

Some members of the troop in their second year 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 the Scout is considered capable of completing the activity.


Year Three

By the time Scouts have reached their third year with the troop they should have completed most elements of the award through their attendance at Thursday evening meeting and completing all the independent work.  Leaders will make sure that the plan for the Thursday evening activities for the year provides an opportunity to complete any outstanding elements so it is important that Scouts in their third year with the troop have a near perfect attendance record if they want to take advantage of these opportunities. (If a Scout has had a relatively poor attendance record in previous years then it may not be possible for the programme to address all outstanding points).

In their third year with the troop Scouts will be invited to take part in a number of additional activities to help them complete the award.  These will only be provided if it is judged that some Scouts in this year have a realistic expectation of completing the Gold Award. These are:

    - an Environmental project;

    - an Expedition;

    - they will be set a personal challenge by the leaders;

    - as PLs or APLs they will undertake a number of team leader activities.

All Scouts in this year will be able to take part in these activities if they are offered so the development opportunity for the Scout is still available. There will be limited ability to take into account personal date preferences so we cannot guarantee to provide the opportunities at a time to suit all Scouts in this year.