Now I’m embarrassed to be a Scout leader. Why? Not because of all the stereotypes, dib, dib, dob, all that. We’ve heard all that before. But because of you. You, the Scout leader, have been posting some horrendous stuff online.

Some embarrassing stuff. Swear words, slagging other Scout leaders off, swearing. Sometimes it’s really embarrassing to be a Scout.

I know at the moment it is weird times in Scouting. We’re not meeting face to face. We’re not camping. “I should be camping this week.” All that kind of stuff. I know it’s frustrating. I’m feeling the same, guys. But we don’t have to be rude to one another. We have to respect each other. It’s in the Scout Law.

So let’s just remind you about the Scout Law. In particular, point three, a Scout is friendly and considerate. It says in the Scout Law. And point seven, a Scout has self-respect and respects others. These are in the Scout Law. Yet we have a high percentage of Scout leaders that don’t follow it. They don’t live it. Yeah? And this has been proven over the last couple of days. In particular, leaders who have just been rude, blatantly rude to Gilwell Park when we have Leader webinars, swearing. Okay, things aren’t going to be perfect. Things aren’t going to be a hundred percent, but we’ve got to respect people. And swearing, it’s just not on.

I’ve been seeing posts where people are putting up risk assessments to try and get back to Scouting. Awesome. It’s great that everyone’s trying their hardest on moving forward. But if you don’t agree with them, it’s probably best not to say nothing at all. If you’re going to say something, say it in a positive way. Critique them and say, maybe you could tweak this way. Just don’t be rude. Would you say it to someone to their face? Probably not. But people have enough power to think they can cyber-bully someone. They can text it, they can type it, but they wouldn’t say it to their face.

So guys, as Scout leaders, let’s respect each other. Self-respect. You don’t need to be rude. You don’t need to swear. And if you’ve got nothing nice to say, as my Nan would say, don’t say it at all. Yes, we can have our own opinions. Yes, we can have our own thoughts, and it’s okay to go against people. We don’t always have to agree with what people are saying. It’s just one of those things in skills for life, isn’t it? We don’t always agree.

Right, that’s my rant over. I hope you feel the same. And guys, come on. Let’s just be polite and share the love. That’s what Scouting’s all about. Being polite. And if you are struggling with Scouting and you’ve hit a massive low, check out my vlog about the reasons why you shouldn’t quit Scouting.

Here’s my Vlog version of this