The 1st Iwade Scout group was formed in 2002.  Group Scout Leader Jo Richards was there at the beginning and tells her/our story here....... 

As part of their commitment to working with the community Hillreed Homes identified that there were not many children’s groups in Iwade and so I rang both the Guides and the Scouts to see whether they would be interested in helping to set up a group in Iwade.

As the Guides movement is only for girls and because the Scouts let in both boys and girls we decided that Scouts was the better option. I managed to speak with Rosemary Lukehurst who was in charge of encouraging new groups at that time and she met with myself and mum’s from the PTA of the school at the time. It was agreed that we would go for a Beavers group first and work up to Cubs when the time was ready.

Rosemary and a couple of other people from Scouts then went into the school, One dressed as a Beaver, to announce that Beaver’s were coming to Iwade on Monday nights at 6pm in the Village Hall and that anyone interested should attend. At the same event they convinced some of the parents to be volunteers. Meanwhile I had attended a couple of other Beavers groups meetings to see how everything operated, so although supposed only to be the introducer, I went along to the first few meetings and well the rest is history. All that was six years ago.

After a year it was clear that some of our older Beavers needed to go up to Cubs and so we arranged with the Village Hall for us to have it until 8.30. Paul Richards then joined us and with Lisa Andrews and the help of a couple of Scout leaders for the first few weeks ran the Cubs. But we struggled to get volunteers for Cubs so I joined in with that as well, which wasn’t really too much of a problem as Joshua my eldest needed to go up to Cubs. That was five years ago.

We have had a number of different parent volunteers over the years all of whom have been extremely helpful and we now have an excellent team and more volunteers than ever before. Beavers was a hit from day one and we now have 24 Beavers. Cubs has grown from strength to strength and the encouraging news is that they want to move onto Scouts. Angel and Jacob have been with us since the first Beavers meetings and so I am sure deserve some kind of medal, either that or we do!!.

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