5 minute read
Scouting Returns to Tanglin
Scout’s Honour
Becca Taylor is Group Scout Leader of Scouting at Tanglin, the most recent in the group’s 30-year history. She tells us how the group has been faring during the pandemic and why she’s determined for it to succeed
In 2013, Becca Taylor requested a place for her six-year-old son at the local Beavers group. She liked its emphasis on participation and being active, and connected with its ethos: “to do [one’s] best to be kind and helpful, and to love our world”. There was just one problem: for the group to offer him a spot, another adult leader would need to be found.
“Another parent and I put our hands up and decided we’d do it together,” she tells. “Seven years later I found myself group Scout Leader – I guess it snowballed!”
American-born Becca heads up 1st Singapore, one of three scouting groups in the Garden City. Part of the Rest of the World (RoW) district within British Scouting Overseas (BSO), it is among 16 groups that span the globe, from the Falkland Islands, to Kenya, Russia and China. The BSO provides UK scouting to 3,000 young people and is facilitated by around 600 adult volunteers like Becca.
Most children start in the organisation as Beavers (between six to eight years old), before moving on to Cubs (eight-and-a-half to 10 years old), then Scouts (ten-and-a-half to 14 years of age). At Tanglin, there are currently three Beavers groups, a Cubs group and a Scouts group, with both boy and girl members. While the group supports personal development, it’s also “just fun!” says Becca.
“Often – and particularly when they are young – you are spending time with your own children and their friends. You share experiences that you probably wouldn’t otherwise. I’ve found myself at a camp on Bintan Island, jumping off a rope into the sea; dragon boating; designing and building kites... it’s just fun!”
The Scouts group is led by five core values: Care, Respect, Integrity, Cooperation and Belief. Becca notes there is a natural overlap with Tanglin’s own core values and says that, while group meetings and outings are fun and enjoyable, they also serve a long-term purpose. “Our famous motto is ‘Be prepared’; and that’s what Scouting does: it prepares you for life. We are supporting young people in their personal development and helping them to make an active contribution to society.” One of the ways that children have been encouraged to contribute is through charitable work. Before the escalation of the Coronavirus pandemic, the Scouts supported local community organisation Happy People Helping People through both donations and active service. “We went to a nearby hawker centre to help serve food to elderly people and give out NTUC FairPrice vouchers,” Becca says. “It was a very rewarding experience for all of us.” The group also helped clean and polish shoes collected by the Beavers to be sent out by the Ten Feet Tall Shoe Bank to people across South East Asia.
And the work of the Scouts, though an SRC, is also very intertwined with the Tanglin calendar. “We are usually involved in the Christmas Fair and the Summer Fête, alongside the Girl Guides,” Becca explains. “We fundraise at events like those for the
Before the pandemic, Scouts groups enjoyed nights under the stars at Camp Sarimbun (above) and a key role at the Remembrance Day service at Kranji War Memorial (far left).
Gurkha Contingent.”
The very nature of the groups means their activities were hit hard by COVID-19. But Becca, alongside Beavers, Cubs and Scouts leaders, was determined to keep the momentum going. In January, after almost a year of remote participation, Beavers and Cubs meetings were able to resume at Tanglin, with Scouts – which had linked up with another school-based group, 3rd Singapore – meeting together off site.
“Before the start of Phase 3, Scouts had several video calls with specialists, such as a plastics campaigner who explained how they can be more resourceful in reducing plastics usage. Now they can meet up, they have completed some fairly challenging local hikes; that’s something that was very missed. We are so happy to have Beavers and Cubs return to Tanglin. Although parents can’t ‘see’ it, the energy is back.”
With the groups now mostly operating as normal and a local vaccine rollout underway, there is a hope that the usual calendar of events will be able to resume one day. “There are events for which we work together with the other two Singapore Scouts groups. At Camp Sarimbun, for instance, we celebrate [the British observance] Guy Fawkes Night in November with a bonfire and camp, and around 250 people come together for that. Those types of occasions are really integral to what we do.”
As ever, Becca is keen to find volunteers among the Tanglin community who will be able to support Scouts. “We have welcomed Year 12 CAS students to Scouts in the past and this year we have two Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award participants who have been helping us; the role is known as ‘Young Leader’,” she explains. “Scouts is a great option for volunteer service – the students tend to bond very well with the younger children because they are closer in age, so it’s something that benefits everybody.” children. “It’s a great chance for young people to be with their friends at school in a space that’s outside the curriculum,” says Becca. “If a child is having a tough day, they know they have their Beavers, Cubs or Scouts friends to hang out with and just have fun. It’s a family in itself.”
“The more people that volunteer, the more smoothly groups run. We’re hoping that parents or teachers will want to join in, too.”
Mainly, she is proud that all the groups have continued to thrive, and make positive contributions to the lives of Tanglin Scouting is just one of several volunteer groups currently running at Tanglin.
To find out more about British Scouting Overseas, go to
britishscoutingoverseas.org.uk
To find out more about Girl Guiding Overseas, go to
