I am an Explorer Scout Leader in Scouting in the UK. Once you get over the crypto-paramilitary uniform issue, and the perfectly understandable questions from friends about one's sanity and motives for giving up 42 days a year to helping other people's teenage children learn leadership and personal skills, it becomes just about the most rewarding and humbling experience that an adult can have.
This weekend we took 12 of our new members to a modest local event to celebrate St George's day. The gateway they built is in the picture below. Those young people have, over the last 4 months, designed, tested, pre-built a model and learned all the skills required to construct this object weighing about 1,200lbs and standing about 14 feet high. It took 8 hours to build (it was their first pioneering project) and it was only up for 5 hours before they had to take it all down.
To see a group of young people bond together, solve problems, achieve their target and get the applause of about 400 people is a rare honour. I'm deeply humbled by them, and determined to bring some of this learning back into my professional life.
To learn more about Scouting, and how you can help, see here.
davidjwbailey dot com 