The Ideabase is a collection of good ideas covering all manner of subjects.

These ideas have been tried and tested 'in the field' at the 9th Barking & Dagenham Scout group and have proven useful to the leaders and scouts at the group.

The ideas presented here are those that fall into the general 'bright idea', "hey how about..." category. Be sure to look through the site for more ideas and suggestions.

If you have any particularly original ideas that would benefit other groups then please share them with use. Full credit and acknowledgment will be given for all ideas.

These take up a single side of A4 that not only serves as an Award itself but states the requirements needed to gain that stage and so a photocopy can be given as a record of achievement so far.

Each award tests the cubs on a particular skill (e.g. mapping) and offers three levels of achievement (Gold, Silver & Bronze).

The requirements for each award are listed on the front with a space for a completion date and signature. The left hand side is reserved for some pictures relating to that particular skill. The cubs usually take a black & white photocopy and when they have completed the award we give them a colour award printed on card.

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I came up with the idea of offering the cubs a chance to undertake a scouting skill in detail quite a while ago now (2001), when I changed the pack night program to include a lot more basic scouting skills. Almost all of the requirements are those covered by the (then) Cub awards/Handbook although I have made what I feel they should be able to do at that level. Certainly some of the Gold awards are heading towards Scout rather than Cub work but then again I don't hold my cubs back too much in that respect. At least with the awards they are concentrating on a particular skill at one time rather than spread out across several years and several awards. I can use these occasionally as the basis for some work on a pack night. At the simplest level though it just provides the cubs with another opportunity to learn and enjoy themselves and feel the pride of earning an award.

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Over the past few years my cubs have been doing a lot more practice at what I consider the basic scouting skills and have improved immensely (2001 onwards). I won't pretend that every cub wants to try one of the awards but most of my cubs have gone for at least one, with a few cubs trying their hand at several of the awards. Used in conjunction with (or as an excuse for) more knotting/ mapping etc. as a regular feature of the pack night you will see a noticeable improvement in their knowledge and skills.

Our cubs are at the stage where they sometimes do some mapping, knotting, compass etc. almost all night. Of course you must be able to put this across in the right way. So called 'games' that utilise these skills are important, as well as not making the 'work' boring in the first place. If you can try new and varied ways of teaching these, and if you do it regularly, you will see a great improvement in their scouting skills.

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I constructed my original awards using Microsoft Word 97 although they were redesigned in Publisher (See the comments regarding certificates and newsletters). You can make use of Words templates and ready made files/wizards to give you the basic layout that you prefer. A simple modification of the text can give you a usable certificate in a short amount of time. I wanted to add pictures to mine so I used a 'boxed-out' frame to hold the pictures separate. To be honest they are not that difficult to construct being mainly plain text in a simple layout. Indeed the certificates sometimes get modified to use on special occasions or at camp.

I have had to construct many different certificates and awards for the district over the past few years and now use various 'templates' of my own construction within Microsoft Publisher.

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