Leader's Names

I've had a couple of questions \ comments on Scout names recently, so I thought it might be of interest to know how the names we use to refer to Leaders, Young Leaders, etc have come about in 6th Rugby Beavers and Cubs.

For Beaver Colony Leaders the 6th Rugby tradition, for longer than I've been part of the team, is to allow the Beavers to vote for their Leaders' Scout names. So the Beavers named me Toad 7.5 years ago. And although none of those Beavers are still with 6th Rugby (some are now Explorers), they still call me Toad! And before Toad there was Skunk helped by at various times by Gruffalo, Butterfly, Spider, and Beetle. And before Skunk there was Hedgehog. We now also have Oak AKA Ann-Marie, and Fruitbat AKA Ruth. When Ruth joined the 6th Rugby leadership team she already had her Scout name, and kept that for her role in 6th Rugby. At last year's Beaver Camp, the Beavers voted for Woodpecker as David's Scout name for them.

For Cub Packs, leaders often take names from the Jungle Book. When Baden-Powell formed Wolf Cubs over 100 years ago, he spoke to his friend Rudyard Kipling seeking his permission to include elements of Kipling's book "The Jungle Book" in the Wolf Cub programme. Programmes evolve, and in 1966 Wolf Cubs became Cubs, and the links with the Jungle Book began to go, except for leaders continuing to take their names from the Jungle Book. So the traditional name for a Cub Pack leader is Akela. However, as I lead both Beavers and Cubs, and it'd be confusing to change names for young people moving from Beavers to Cubs, I've stuck with Toad. We also have Shere Khan, and I don't know how long Samuel has had that Scout name! Samuel of course is now an Adult Leader and even though he's at Uni in Birmingham often travels back to Rugby for Cub and Scout meetings.

We've been very fortunate at 6th Rugby to have Young Leaders support us. When giving Scout names to our Young Leaders, we've kept the element of #YouShape by allowing the Beavers and Cubs to decide, but (initially) limiting their choice to traditional Jungle Book names. So we have Baloo AKA Tom, Bagheera AKA Lewis, Hathi AKA Matilda, Chil AKA Darshan. Recently we've had too many Young Leaders for the available Jungle Book names, and have had to branch out. So we now have Rat AKA Thomas and Koala AKA Elliott.

Occasionally we need additional adult support, and had a think about what name we give to that adult support. One of our Young Leaders suggested Bandar-log. Another, although perhaps less well known, Jungle Book name for the monkey troop and that was voted in.

I hope that explains where our names come from. And also gives a measure of their importance to us.