Survived my first Beaver meeting
And actually I quite enjoyed it. Beavers used to be run by one warranted leader (who got progressively less organised over the months she was doing it, then moved house and it went completely to pot) and an adult helper. I visited them last Thursday to get the records, money and keys and there were 8 Beavers there running wild. So I thought there might well be less than 8 this week, seeing as I’d changed the evening and the time.
A put lots of notices out in various places asking for new helpers and got several enquiries, so there was me and 2 assistant Beaver leaders to run it this evening. I also had a parent who offered to stay and help. I thought it was going to be overkill on the adult ratios but as it turned out we had 16 Beavers turn up, including one who used to come but hadn’t been in months and 2 new boys.
Thankfully the programme we’d planned out for the evening panned out fine, the timings worked OK, no one ran riot and I think most people had a nice evening. A couple of the boys asked what happened to the games (they came 15 mins late and missed the starting game) and were obviously used to having more of a free rein. But hopefully the quieter ones will have liked having a bit more of a plan.
We talked about the Scouting centenary and how Scouts started, made a Beaver tree picture with hand prints and played Lifeboats and a relay race jigsaw of Baden Powell. At the end A came along in his Group Scout Leader capacity and presented all the invested Beavers with join in centenary neckers.
Next week is half term so there is no Beaver meeting but us leaders are getting together to plan meetings up until Easter. Hopefully they will all go as well as tonight did - couldn’t have asked for better really 
Now if only the old leader has actually posted me the cupboard keys so I can get at the badges and Beaver log books and what not for the next meeting…
