Longcraig Scout Centre, like all other activity centres, has had to temporarily stop activities and any meetings with our members, until instructed otherwise.
But that doesn’t stop Scouts from thinking about water activities, and participating in a variety of digital material which may be of interest.
Forty-Five Paddling Films To Watch While You’re Off The Water
A range of videos from the RYA – aimed at kids but we’re all young at heart!!
Kids Fun Lockdown Activity – SAIL SMARTS with Jake – Learn and have fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRYeYlyaQdI
SAIL SMARTS 1 – KIDS ACTIVITY – OH BUOY! WHAT COLOUR? SAIL FROM HOME
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrTB53EGuAQ
SAIL SMARTS 2 -TIDES – KIDS LOCKDOWN ACTIVITY – SAIL FROM HOME
Longcraig– Recruiting for the future
Although the Centre is currently closed, we continue to think towards a day when we will be open again and out in boats on real water!
What better time to think about how you might be able to help us in the future! If you have any inkling to get involved either on or off the water, but with assisting the operation of a busy water activity centre, now could be a good time to get in touch. We can do quite a lot of preparatory work remotely, and in particular, explore with you where your skills or aspirations lie.
This is not confined to adults or leaders – we are happy to encourage anyone from Explorers, through our Network section, to also include (of course) any adults whether you are an existing leader in a section, a group supporter, parents and carers, friends, wider family and work colleagues. We do appreciate that at the present time, volunteering may not be top of everyone’s agenda, but if you have room on your agenda, have a think about it.
We can kick things off with one of our Coffee and Cake meetings on Zoom so we can explain a bit more about what we do and how we go about it, and why we need more folks to help out.
As a reminder, here are some of the role categories we are interested in supporting:
Water skills instructors/leaders:
Anyone who holds a recognised paddle sport, sailing or powerboating qualification is welcome to get in touch. We operate up to five evenings a week during the summer season, and every weekend, so we need a lot of volunteers to cover all of these. If you have a passion for sharing your skills with young people and help them develop their own knowledge, then this would be an ideal role for you.
Some water skills:
As above, but we can help you develop your skills and experience first of all to gain a formal qualification, which you can then share with others once you have the confidence level needed. In the meantime, you would be able to gain some of that experience by simply helping out with some of our activities, as well as separate dedicated improvement time for yourself.
Land based activities:
As well as our extensive water based programme, we have a number of resources (but not enough people to deliver) to support additional activities off the water which we can utilise either if the weather conditions are not ideal, or to supplement water activities on some occasions when we have to cater for large numbers. These can include indoor and outdoor activities, covering all ages of the Scouting programme. Ideal candidates might also help take some responsibility for organising and maintaining, and expanding, this sector of our operation.
Support activities:
We can split these into two parts – we have a small group who assist our water based instructors with preparing and running safety checks for young people before they go out on the water; escorting groups to their boating activities as required; then assisting with folks when they come off the water to help ensure everything is cleaned, stored and that the participants get suitably warmed up and into dry clothes if necessary. This can also include kitchen support – we have a comprehensive kitchen facility which can provide hot drinks, and can expand to barbeques and on occasion to meals and snacks.
The second part of this is simply (but obviously quite extensively!) the support needed to just operate an activity centre – from running repairs, to fuelling up boats and the tractor, to mowing the grass, cutting roadside verges, and some straightforward painting, woodwork, electricals and any skills that people can bring to this support role.
For all of these – getinvolved@longcraig.info and we’ll take it from there!
2020 – Scotland’s Year of Waters and Coasts
Clearly, due to the lockdown, most if not all of the events planned in the near coming months are now cancelled. It is not yet clear what the future plan is for this nationwide, year-long event – partial resurrection, or postpone until 2021, or something else?
We’ll try and keep everyone updated each month.
Ian Harrower
Longcraig Active Support Unit