End of an era

Well that’s it. Large boy has had his last meeting at Cubs.

It’s been a strange experience for him (not that he realises this). He joined in February 2020, made his promise and promptly went into lockdown. Our Cubs pack didn’t do anything virtually for a long time, then they took part in weekly Zoom meetings led by the district team until finally going back to in person meetings in September.

All in all, over the space of two and a bit years, large boy has had about 10 months of real Cubs meetings.

By some miracle he’s managed to tick off all the achievements to get his full set of challenge badges so that he’ll receive his Chief Scouts Silver Award. The last couple of months have been rather packed with activities as his leader scrambled to support him completing everything. He got his Bronze one at Beavers with such ease, this has been a bit of a shock by comparison.

He’s made maps and learned about his local facilities, been on hikes, camped, learned and taught knots, led the pack in a Scalextric night (what else?), lit fires, put up a tent, owned his fears, done sit ups every day for weeks, sung campfire songs, sewn badges, made book ends, learned how to make me a cup of coffee, gone on a night hike with scouts, and so many more things.

I do feel like the rush to finish everything has meant he’s missed out on just experiencing these things for what they are. But he does make a good cup of coffee – on occasion, without being asked! Proper lending a hand there!

Next up though he’ll be going to Scouts. That’ll be a whole new kettle of fish to deal with. He’ll go from being the oldest to the youngest again. Probably good preparation for going up to secondary school in just over a year’s time. But I sincerely hope he’ll flourish and enjoy it, get a proper good run at getting really involved and discovering all the joys the scouting can bring. Plus Scouts is on a Thursday, freeing up Wednesdays for off season rugby training. First though, there’ll be a two week break for school half term.

So it’s the end of an era, but with another one on the horizon. I’m not sure large boy is sad to leave Cubs behind, or particularly excited for Scouts (beyond the promise of a later bedtime). But I hope he’ll soon realise how much fun he’s going to have.