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| It'll be like that bit in Finding Nemo where everyone's telling the story of Nemo, only with less water and more Internet (image found at www.rottentomatoes.com) |
But what, I hear you ask, is the big adventure? Who, I hear some of you ask, are you? Why, I am sure all of you are secretly wondering, am I such a fan of rhetorical questions?!
Well here's the thing. I am going to the World Scout Moot in Canada this year with the rest of the UK contingent. Well, I was going with the rest of the UK contingent until I decided that, with a job coming to a close and some money being saved up, I would go and indulge in a spot of travelling before I had to sit down and deal with the real world. The plan is go to Mexico in May, and work my way up through Mexico and the USA, seeing family, friends and occasinally couch surfing, until I joined the contingent in Toronto on 6th August and the Moot kicked off.
All well and good, I thought, but what on earth am I going to do in those three months? What was I going to see? I needed an objective. And then, as I lay awake in the early hours of the morning in a friend's house in London one weekend, it hit me. The UK readers of this blog, I would wager, do not know as much about BSA - the Boy Scouts of America - as they would like to. And I would also wager that they don't know nearly as much about how Scouting works in Mexico. And here I am, a Scout Leader who loves to write, planning on travelling round both those places! The opportunity is too good to pass up.
But wait! The idea gets even better!
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| BUT HOW COULD IT GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT?! |
In my experience as a Scout, both as a leader and working at the International Scout Centre in Switzerland, I have seen that international experiences and friends open up a amazing new side to Scouting that, sadly, can often be quite hard to get into without contacts in foreign countries. So, I thought, what better way of doing something about that than putting people in touch with Scout groups in Mexico and in the USA, and then from all over the world at the Moot as I travel? As plans go, I feel comfortable in saying that it is pretty much one of the best ideas I have ever had since I decided to put the hood up on my graduation gown when I finished university.
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| No regrets |
So here's my plan: any Scout group in the UK who fancies making contact with a foreign troop- most likely from the US or Mexico but potentially from anywhere in the world!- send me a group neckerchief, a woggle, some contact details, and maybe a small donation to help me get around the place when I'm out there if you feel you can. I will collect all these up and take them with me when I leave, and as I wander around the Americas I will meet as many Scout groups as I can. When there, I will swap the neckerchieves I have for theirs, along with the contact details, and when I return I will send all the swapped details and neckerchieves back to their new recipients. And just like that, now connections will be forged, new friendships made, and new experiences opened up for as many young people (and not so young people) as I can manage!
Of course I will keep this blog going as I travel, detailing who I meet, what I learn, and hopefully it will be an interesting and entertaining read for everyone back home. Now obviously, at the minute not many people know about this plan; in fact, I am pretty sure that you are the first person to read this, so you should take upon yourself to tell as many Scout Groups as you can about my adventure, and if they want to be a part of it then just point them in the direction of this blog! I am talking to the wonderful people at Scouting Magazine about getting their support for this endeavour, so watch out for me between the covers of that glossy compendium of scoutiness too! I'll post again next week, when I begin to plan the route that this journey will take me...
Ciao!
