Being a Cub
When you join Cubs, you’ll be introduced to lots of new activities, people and things. Here’s everything you need to know.
Cub Promise
As a values based movement we all make the ‘The Promise’ an oath that helps us to be our best
Activities and what you’ll get up to
Prepare for excitement and adventure! Try huge variety of activities surrounding areas of fitness, global and beliefs; be creative and get involved in your local community. Learn exciting outdoor skills and take part in adventurous activities, as well as camps and residential experiences.
Awards
Completing the award, challenges you to do more, learn more and be more. See what’s on offer and start your journey to the top.
Uniform and badge placement
You don’t need a uniform to join. But once you’ve settled in, you’ll start speedily earning badges, and you’ll need to know where to put them!
Moving up to Scouts
Eventually, it’ll be time to say farewell to Cubs and embrace your next big adventure.
General Information
The Cub Pack offers a wide range of skills and services to help them to develop, learn and to enjoy themselves. We are open to any young person in the age range 8 to 10 years of age. Cubs can be recognised by their dark green sweatshirt tops. There are loads of fun things that you can do as a Cub Scout. You will get a chance to try lots of different activities like swimming, music, exploring, computing and collecting. If you do them properly you will get a badge which you can wear on your uniform.
Cub Scouts also get to go on trips and days out, to places like the zoo, theme parks or a farm. Sometimes you will be able to go camping with the rest of your Pack. This will mean you sleeping in a tent and doing loads of outdoor activities.
All sections rely upon a ‘training’ scheme in the form of badges to track progress of the cubs and to provide a feeling of achievement. However, cubs is not just about badges, the ‘games’ and activities are very important to scouting, not just because they are enjoyable, but because they are also important in the young persons development.
26th Cubs Frequently Asked Questions
Where does the 26th meet?
The 26th is an exciting and different type of Scout Group, as we do not have a permanent meeting place. Instead, we will hold our face-to-face meetings at various locations around Milton Keynes. Our meeting places may include some of the parks, The Quarries Scout campsite, and other groups’ Scout huts.
We will also meet online via Microsoft Teams, We will provide you with an Office365 account to access Teams.
When do you meet?
The Cubs will normally meet on Tuesday evenings, starting around 6pm and ending around 7:30pm. There will sometimes be events on other evenings or on weekends.
What equipment do I need for online meetings?
You will need an internet connection and a device capable of accessing Microsoft Teams – a tablet or mobile phone will be just fine if you do not have a computer or laptop. (Hardware Requirements)
All required software and accounts will be provided by Milton Keynes Scouts and will not cost you anything.
You will also need paper, pens/pencils, scissors and glue. Sometimes leaders will ask if you have other equipment at home, if you do not have anything please let the leaders know in advance and they will support as best they can.
What is Microsoft Teams?
Milton Keynes Scouts have an educational licence for Microsoft Office365. This means that we can provide an online classroom, which is safe and secure for our youth members, through Microsoft Teams.
Due to school lockdowns, you and your child may already have experience of Google Classroom, Zoom or similar applications, Teams is the Microsoft version.
Microsoft Teams provides us with the ability to hold online video calls, share documents, photos, videos, and provide activities to be done at home in a safe environment where only other members of our Cub pack can see it. We have restricted the Cubs access so that they are not able to message each other or leaders directly, in line with Scout Association safeguarding guidance and Yellow Card.
Our Microsoft licence enables all our youth members to have free copies of all Microsoft Office packages, which they can also use for schoolwork as well as for their Scouting activities.
How often will we meet face-to-face?
This will depend on what badges, #skillsforlife and experiences we are working on and the time of the year. In the warmer months you can expect more face-to-face meetings and in the colder months there will be many more online sessions led by leaders or ‘at home’ activities for parents/guardians/adults to do with Cub members independently.
How do we access the online meetings?
Each youth member will be given a MK Scouts email address, and links to Microsoft Team meetings will be sent to this email address. The software we use is Microsoft Teams, this can be used either as an app or in any web browser. Note that you can download the app and Microsoft Teams can work better on an app than in the web browser.
What does ‘at home’ activities mean?
At home activities are where leaders provide ideas for you to do at home to work towards badges. These might include activities, which are easier done at home such as learning to make a bed, those which take longer than is available in a Cub meeting, or ones where there is a choice and Cubs can decide to do different things depending on where they live, and the equipment they have available.
We will also offer options to complete anything we did in our meetings at home so you will never miss out on anything, even if you cannot attend.
How much does it cost to be a member?
We offer a 4-weeks free trial period, after which we will ask you to pay subs of £15 per month (£60 per term). This includes all membership fees, provision of a group scarf and all badges.
There will also be additional costs for out of the ordinary events such as camps.
If you have any concerns about the costs, please speak to the Group Scout Leader, Jenny Ryder as we may be able to offer support.
Do Cubs wear uniform?
Yes, Cubs wear a uniform. The uniform is a green sweatshirt. This can be bought online from Scouts.org or from the Milton Keynes Scout Shop – orders from the Milton Keynes Scout Shop supports our activities locally. There will also be times when we might ask you to wear something different such as school trousers for smart events or sports kit.
If you have any concerns about affording the uniform please speak to the Group Scout Leader, Jenny Ryder as we able to offer support.
Is there any support for transport to the face-to-face meetings?
At this stage we cannot offer any support with transport, if this is preventing you from joining the 26th please complete our survey to allow us to demonstrate the need for funding to provide this type of support.
Will the Cubs earn badges?
Yes, they will and hopefully lots of them. As parents/guardians you will have access to the parent portal in our online system Online Scout Manager which will allow you to see the badges your child is working on and what other activities, they need to do to complete them.
What do parents need to do?
As parents you are also part of our group and from time to time we will need, and ask for your support. This might be in coming along to meetings to lend a hand or helping with fundraising. If you are interested in getting more involved, please speak to our Group Scout Leader, Jenny about joining us as an adult volunteer.
How will we know where to be when?
All our sessions will be published on this website, visible in Online Scout Manager Parent Portal and within Microsoft Teams. If you are still not sure where you are supposed to be you will be able to contact the Cub leader directly. Occasionally, the leaders of the group may send out additional information to your MKscouts email address.
I am not a very technical parent, will there be help available?
We’re very keen that technology should be a barrier to joining the 26th Milton Keynes, if you are a technophobe or have one of those aura’s that breaks tech when you get too close, please don’t let that put you off. We’ll do our best to help you all the way.
Sixes
Scouts borrows a great deal of its structure from the Lord Baden Powell’s experience in the military. The cub section is known as a Pack, with cubs being organised into Sixes. We have the following Sixes in our Cub Pack:-
Each Six is made up of around 6 cubs of a range of ages and new cubs normally join a six in which they know at least one person. Each Six is led by a Sixer helped by a Seconder; these are cubs who have demonstrated their competence, good behaviour and been a good example to those in the Pack.
Cubs Leadership Team
Dave
Cub Team Volunteer
Amit
Cub Team Volunteer
Susan
Cub Team Volunteer
Tim
Cub Team Volunteer
Sital
Cub Team Volunteer
Bianka
Cub Team Volunteer
Nagore
Cub Team Volunteer
We welcome parents as occasional helpers or to pop in to see what is going on.
