BROCKS EXPLORER SCOUT UNIT

Our summer camp locations are largely influenced by where the Explorers want to go and have included St Davids (2005,12,14), Coverack in Cornwall (2003,4,6,7,8,11,13 - this has to be our spiritual home!), Cromer (2009), and Cheddar (2010).

2007 was also the Centenary year of Scouting and two of our Explorers, Rachel and Naomi narrated the special service held in Westminster Abbey, and Naomi’s dad Richard who was then GSL of Badger Hill as well as being National CofE Chaplain for the Scout Association led the service. This included his aerial distribution of Quality Street in the Abbey which, as the Dean of Westminster later remarked, was probably a first for the Abbey…….

In 2008 we’d been going for six years and there was a growing feeling in the Unit that although we were happy to have the links with Badger Hill, being District based we weren’t strictly part of the Group and we should have our own identity. After some research we came up with the name “Brocks” which is an old country name for an older, wiser, craftier Badger. This neatly kept the link with Badger Hill and was also very appropriate for some of our Explorers who were ex-Badger Hill Scouts……..In July we changed our name to Brocks Explorer Scout Unit and also adopted our own scarf which is black with a cerise and lime green double border - designed by another Explorer, Rose.

n 2009 Theresa, mum of Rachael from 2002, spotted an advert for Streetcred, which offered grants aimed at the 14-18 age group in support of a “project”. We decided that our project was to have our own equipment instead of using Badger Hill’s which would give us much more flexibility with our activities. To cut a long story short, Theresa steered the application through including getting three Explorers, Kim, Lucy, and Simon to write and speak in support of it, and we were awarded a substantial grant which has resulted in us being one of the very few Explorer Units to have our own equipment.

We’ve always had several Explorers who are “Young Spokespersons” and who have had training to enable them to deal with press and TV on Scouting affairs. Bear Grylls took over as Chief Scout in July 2009, and two of our Explorers, Andrew and Lucy were involved in promotional video work with him several weeks before the announcement and were sworn to secrecy not to say who the new Chief Scout was.

Lucy accompanied Bear on the Breakfast TV sofa on the actual day and also managed to upstage Ian Hislop (Editor of Private Eye) who is a National Ambassador for Scouting. At a VIP fundraising event in Central London she gave him such an up-beat introduction that when he got to the stage his first words were “How the h*** do I follow that?”

One of the highlights of 2007 was when several members of the unit met the Earl of Wessex when he visited the Outdoor Centre at Kempston as President of the DofE organisation