Adult Volunteer

Help a generation grow, look after a park of some 49 acres that few Groups manage to have, and get to be a child again now and then. You do not even need to have been a Scout.

The mission of the Scouts of Portugal is to educate young people to play an active part in society. That is not a slogan on a wall: it is what happens on a Saturday afternoon, when an eight-year-old Cub finally gets, on the fourth attempt, the knot that would not hold, or when a fifteen-year-old Explorer runs an activity for the whole patrol on their own for the first time. The person standing beside them in both moments is an adult volunteer.

The privilege of having a park

And then there is the park. Some 49 acres of pines, eucalyptus and cork oaks in the heart of Ribatejo, with shower blocks, a field kitchen and a ceremony ground. There is room to camp under canvas, and buildings to sleep in when the weather says otherwise.

And there is room for far more than what is already there. The trees and the slope of the land would take a treetop course, a zip line, climbing and abseiling. The river Sorraia runs alongside and opens the door to water activities, canoeing included. None of that is theoretical: it is space waiting for whoever wants to build it — and that person could be an adult volunteer with an idea.

Unlike the reality of most Groups in the country, who meet in a hall and camp on borrowed land. We have a home of our own, and it hosts Scouts from north to south.

Looking after it is work: scrub to clear, boards to nail, taps to fix. But few people can say they help keep standing a place that thousands of young people have had, have, and will have the privilege of enjoying.

Nobody warns the adults that they have fun too

You will camp. You will cook outdoors and eat better than you expected. You will sing ridiculous things around a fire, learn to build a gateway out of rope and timber, and find out you can still climb a tree.

There are moments, while on duty, when you get to be a child again. That alone pays for the effort — and it is the part nobody writes into the regulations.

Leaving this better than we found it

Baden-Powell asked us to leave the world a little better than we found it. An adult volunteer does not do that with speeches: they do it by turning up, Saturday after Saturday, in the lives of people still working out who they want to be. It is slow and you almost never see it happening. You see it ten years later, when a former Cub turns up saying they are going to become a Leader.

You do not need to have been a Scout

The Association is clear about this: joining Scouting is free and should happen without barriers. The only condition is the willingness to take on the values of the Scout Law and the Promise.

A large share of the people keeping Group 66 running today arrived some other way: parents who came to drop off a child and stayed, neighbours who turned up to lend a hand one weekend, former Rovers who came back years later.

Nor do you need to run a section. If you want to work directly with young people, you train as a Leader and take on one of the four sections. If you would rather contribute differently, there is plenty to do: a park to maintain, accounts to keep, transport to arrange, a store room that needs hands.

The training exists, and it is not out of your pocket

ENFIM — the Association’s national training school — runs courses on a yearly calendar, for people arriving knowing nothing and for people who have been at this for twenty years. The Association also publishes training material and videos throughout the year.

The courses cost money. In practice it is normally the Group that covers it for those who commit: training a Leader is an investment by the Group, not an expense for the person volunteering.

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Drop by the headquarters on a Saturday afternoon, between 3pm and 6pm. Talk to whoever is there and see for yourself. That is how nearly everyone started.

I want to be a Scout