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Name: Nationality: Volunteers at:
John Fenn Jr. American Cub Scout Pack 3017, Scouts BSA (formerly Boy Scouts of America) What’s the mission of Scouts BSA?
To prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law. There are four aims of Scouting: citizenship, character, personal fitness and leadership. The methods of Cub Scouting are: living the ideals, belonging to a den, advancement, family involvement, activities, serving the community, and the uniform.
Each Scout works with their parents and Den Leader to complete a range of activities focused on instilling values through hands-on learning. The programme is structured to leverage elementary students’ focus on progression and physical activities to keep them engaged, and then coordinate those activities to teach them to work together to achieve personal and group goals. Scouting is leadership and life-skill training disguised as fun.
What do you do there?
I serve as the Pack Cubmaster for Pack 3017, which has around 100 to 120 Scouts (both boys and girls). Our Pack is broken up into 10 to 12 Dens organised by age. Along with a host of other adult volunteers making up Pack Leadership and Den Leaders, I help organise themed monthly pack meetings (Sports Day, Halloween Carnival, Pinewood Derby, awards ceremonies and more) and ongoing bi-weekly engagement at the Den level to teach Scouts important life lessons. This puts me in the wonderfully enjoyable position of mentoring and coaching Scouts on what they should be learning when organising these events (think “Working with your friends to do this will help prepare you for working with co-workers later!”); I also need to ensure that all the moving pieces come into place for big events like our annual pack campout – 100 kids and 200 parents and siblings means lots of camp food and logistics to organise. I’ve always enjoyed drawing these kinds of lessons out of the activities our family does together, but I was really surprised at how much I have enjoyed doing it on a bigger scale with the full Pack.
Why did you choose to donate your time to Scouts?
I have two elementary-aged boys and early on I searched for a range of ways to make sure they were getting the full education beyond just schoolwork: integrity, kindness and all the critical things that form the foundation for kids to be responsible adults. I found that Scouts has a well-packaged, fun-to-implement, kid-focused way of doing just that (check out the Scout Oath and the Scout Law for a great summary of those goals: scouting.org/programs/cub-scouts/ aims-and-methods). Then I chose to step up as a leader in the Pack, because I have come to love imparting these values in more and more Scouts and seeing those Scouts grow and mature over the years.
What do you get out of volunteering for this organisation?
Primarily, I’ve seen my boys and a host of other kids develop the skills, habits and behaviours that will help them to become successful, confident, good people. In addition, I’ve made some great personal friendships and learned a tremendous amount about Singapore that I would never have learned had I not volunteered with Pack 3017. And it’s loads of fun!
How can somebody get involved?
We’re always in need of more Scouts and parents to build our Pack and Pack Leadership. To get involved, send an email to sgpack3017@gmail.com or registrar3017@outlook.com. Or check out our website, cubscoutsusa.com.sg.