She’s scout of this world!
Willow, ten, achieves a first with clean sweep of activity badges
A SCHOOL prefect has become the first girl scout to collect all of the current crop of beaver and cub activity badges.
Willow Woolhouse, ten, completed every activity badge possible when she was in the beavers, and last week received her final cub achievement.
In all she has collected 57 badges – all proudly sewn down the arms of her green sweater uniform.
Among other tasks Willow, from Stockport, had to learn to horse ride, become proficient in Morse code, teach herself to cook the perfect omelette and master a martial art. She also had to impress with her stargazing skills and make a bird box to get her DIY badge.
The only girl in her pack, she picked up her final badge last week – a photography patch gained with a series of pictures of her proud mother Beth Shaw, 42.
She’s one of very few girls to get every beaver and cub activity badge; Rebecca Hooper, ten, did it in 2009, when fewer cub badges were available.
It is thought that fewer than ten children have ever received every single activity badge in both beavers and cubs, which were opened up to girls in 1990. By 2011, more girls were joining than boys.
Willow said: ‘I feel really happy about getting them all. I can’t picture myself not being a cub or a beaver. It’s that friendship with everyone there that’s really got me.’ She joined the 3rd Bramhall beavers aged five because she lives close to the scout hut with her mother and science teacher father Robert, 39.
It took her three years to achieve all 20 beavers activity badges, plus the Chief Scout bronze award.
Her first badge – her favourite – was for cooking, and was achieved by mastering skills including making an omelette. ‘It was the first time I’d used a frying pan,’ said Willow. ‘Since then though eggs are my speciality and I’ve invented some recipes.’
She got 19 more, including ones for cycling, disability awareness and collecting. After moving to cubs aged eight she began to work through all 37 activity badges.
She will start scouts after Christmas and hopes to achieve all 62 badges there. She said: ‘I will be involved with scouts when I am an adult’ even though she hopes to become a cosmologist after getting into it while doing her astronomy badge.
Her mother, an operations manager who volunteers with the pack, said: ‘I’m really proud. These badges are difficult to get and she’s so enthusiastic about putting the work in.’ The Scout Association said Willow had shown ‘grit, determination and resilience’.