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12th Gateshead cubs

A very warm welcome to our cub pack!

12th Gateshead cubs meet every Friday night during term time and work towards different activity badges, enjoy the outdoors and play games. We encourage cubs to work together to complete fun activities, which are both satisfying and build key life skills such as independence, determination and team work.

Whilst at cubs, you can expect that your child will enjoy the exciting activities that we do, whether that be learning basic first aid, learning how to tie knots, learning about the local area, playing dodgeball or constructing camp fires. Of course, most importantly you can expect that your child is kept safe.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to catch us at the end of a session or before/after an activity or camp.

Cheers,
Lewis, Janice & Jack

Our programme:

We have created a programme at cubs which has a mix of fun, physical and mentally stimulating activities and games whilst also closely following the requirements to earn certain badges and awards. This means the cubs will mainly meet in the Church Hall, but will sometimes venture out elsewhere in order to get the full experience. As well as the list below, the cubs play games almost every night we meet and some nights we take a break from running the programme and provide the cubs with something purely fun or active!

2024:

Chef – The cubs will learn about the five food groups and the importance of having a balanced diet, they’ll learn about basic food hygiene, and then they’ll cook a spaghetti Bolognese. The chef badge will be earnt.
Mental Wellbeing – The young people will learn about why our mental wellbeing is important, and how to take care and look out for one another. They’ll learn about the upstairs and downstairs brain, why feeling anxious sometimes is normal and how to make sure that you’re not harming the wellbeing of others.
Fire Safety and Backwoods Cooking – We’ll get to know the fire triangle, how to prevent unwanted fires and which fire extinguishers to use for what. Then, we’ll visit the local fire station and talk to people who put out fires (assuming we get permission) then we’ll move on to making fires, cooking very basic dishes on an open fire, keeping a camp-fire going and then safely putting out a campfire. We’ll do some of this at Whickham Thorns. Both the fire safety, and the backwoods cooking badge will be earnt.
Maps and compasses – It’s back to basic scouting skills with this one, we’ll learn about keeping a map orientated, using grid references, what a bearing is, the 8 points of a compass and we’ll use a map to navigate around Whickham when we go for a walk. The young people will earn their navigator level 2 badge after completing these activities.
Pioneering – To finish the year, we’ll work on our knot tying skills, but we’ll try our best to make this interesting, as we’ll be making towers, tying sticks to chairs to make chariots, and learn how to weave our own ropes from individual pieces of yarn. The pioneering badge will be awarded.

The cubs will also attend a winter activity camp at Hawkhirst Scout Activity Camp (Kielder), a group camp (with the beavers, scouts and explorers too) at Dilston Scout Camp (Corbridge) and a district camp (numbers permitting) at Dilston too.

Future:

International, Disability Awareness, Gardening, Scientist, Global issues, Entertainer, Money skills, Outdoor skills, Artist and Road Safety, Astronomy, Air activities, Local knowledge, Athletics activities and Emergency aid.

Who are cubs?

Cubs are young people aged 8 to 10½ who:

• Master new skills and try new things
• Have fun and go on adventures
• Make friends
• Are curious about the world around them
• Help others and make a difference, in their own communities and beyond

Every week, they gather in groups called Cub Packs to take part in lots of interesting and challenging activities – achieving anything they set their minds to, and having lots of fun along the way.

Cub packs are furtherly split into sixes which are small groups of cubs, lead by a sixer.

The cub promise

Most people will use this promise:

I promise that I will do my best
to do my duty to God and to The King,
to help other people
and to keep the Cub Scout Law.

Those who are not religious may choose this promise:

I promise that I will do my best
to uphold our Scout values, to do my duty to The King,
to help other people
and to keep the Cub Scout Law.

The cub scout law:

Cub scouts always do their best, think of others before themselves and do a good turn every day.

Badges

Badge Placement:

Activity Badges:

Activity badges are earnt after completing an activity in cubs, during a camp or outside of scouts altogether.

In cubs, after a badge has been earnt, a badge giving ceremony will take place at the end of term. If more than one badge has been earnt during that term, then each of the badges earnt will be awarded.

It is possible to work on badges outside of cubs. If you think you are entitled to a badge, approach one of the leaders with evidence that you have completed the necessary work / leisure activities and they will try their best to award you that badge.

Note, the leaders need to buy badges from the cub scout shop so the badges will be subject to availability.

You can view the full list of activity badges, and their requirements here.

Staged Activity Badges:

Staged activity badges are just like regular activity badges, except you can progress through different ranks depending upon how ‘in depth’ you have mastered the subject. For example, with the air activities badge, you will be awarded a level one after completing some basic tasks, but level five requires you to have actually been to an airfield and talked to someone who can fly a plane.

You can view the full list of staged activity badges, and their requirements here.

Challenge Badges:

Cub challenge badges are all about stepping out of your comfort zone. They require much more dedication and an element of bravery to be awarded. It is a good idea to go for these awards, as getting all seven along with six regular activity badges means you can get the chief scout’s gold award.

You can view the challenge badges and their requirements here.

Other Badges:

The world membership badge is very special – all Scouts around the world wear this badge. This makes us a part of the world wide family of cub scouts and is arguably the most important of all badges. The Scout’s badge is the arrow head, which shows the north on a map or on the compass. It is the badge of the scout in the Army because he/she shows the way.

The district badge, or Gateshead shows that we belong to the Gateshead district, and the county badge, or Durham shows that we belong to the county of Durham.

Uniform

Where do I get scout uniform?

You can purchase cub uniform for your child at Whickham Thorns activity centre in Gateshead. Here is the link to their website: Shop | Whickham Thorns Outdoor Activity Centre. Alternatively, you can send them an email directly: shop@gatesheadscouts.org.uk.

Uniform can also be purchased from the online shop. Here is a link to the cub section of the official scout uniform site: Cubs Uniform | Buy Cubs Uniform | Scout store, a shop for Scouts.

Cubs require the Green sweatshirt. All other uniform items are optional, however, please see below for our standard uniform list.

Weekly Meetings

• Cub Jumper
• Cub Polo Shirt (Optional from Scout Shops. Plain t-shirts can be worn under the jumper
• Scout trousers / Walking trousers (e.g. Craghoppers) / tracksuit bottoms (plain dark colours only) / leggings (plain dark colours only) / Shorts (plain dark colours only) NO BLUE JEANS
• Trainers (non marking soles) / walking shoes. No flip flops or croc like shoes to be worn
• Group Necker (provided by us when your child makes their promise) and coloured woggle (colour corresponds to your child’s six, also provided by us)
• Headwear for religious reasons

Church Parades / Other Official events

• Cub Jumper
• Cub Polo Shirt
• School Trousers / Skirt / Scout Trousers
• Black School Shoes
• Necker
• Black Socks / Tights
• Headwear for religious reasons