Sunday, November 30, 2008

A Tale of Two Scouts

As a scout leader of any sort you should never have favourites. It's unfair on all the other kids and doesn't do that individual any favours if they don't have to work as hard at things. Take that as read. I am however a human being and I'll admit that I do have a favourite cub (about whom more later). I would never allow that fact to cloud my judgement on anything they did or allow myself to cut them more or less slack on anything, that would be wrong. However I do allow myself to mentally warm to that individual a little more than the others.

So why come out with this now?

Well I thought I'd mention it because we have a leaders planning meeting tonight and on the way home I spoke to another leader and it transpires that at the moment he is feeling a bit under appreciated, both in scouting and in various other voluntary roles that he does. In some ways he feels taken for granted. Now he is relatively new to scouting, he's been at it a couple of years as opposed to yours truly who first got involved when he was 8, some 22 years ago and never left. I didn't have the heart to tell him that if he wanted thanks he was probably in the wrong job. I think very few people appreciate just how dam hard volunteers like me and him work. Trust me, unless you do some kind of voluntary role that you fit around the rest of you family, friends and work you can have no idea, no idea whatsoever. I don't want that sound to grouchy because it wasn't meant to, it was just a statement of fact.

Anyway speaking to him made me think of this favourite cub and why she is my favourite. It's quite simple, because she says thank you. She throws herself into everything with wild abandon and daft grin on her face and gets others to do the same. And then she will turn to me and the other leaders and say thank you. A couple of weeks ago we borrowed a leader from another pack on camp and this child specifically approached me for her email address in order to write to them and thank them. She's that sort of kid.

And her parents are the same, they always say thank you, they are always appreciative, if they can do anything to help the group they will and if they can't do what wants doing they will always be very apologetic.

The whole family show their appreciation of how hard we, as volunteers work. And if more people did that maybe I wouldn't have a leader who is loosing the enthusiasm and zest that he used to have.

1 comment:

Putz said...

in all my scouting and cubbing experiences, i have never had anyone cub, scout or parent thank me...i know they appreciate me but for some reason it has never come out in words