A local Debate

This was the first evening for the Promise Challenge.  The general scope presented to the Scouts was that the local council was considering putting a new, unmanned skate park in a local park.  Irrespective of a Scouts actual view on this, they had to adopt a Patrol stance … either for, against, or not really in either camp.

We gave the patrols about 10 minutes to consider what the issues might be - and how the other groups might perceive this.  They then had up to 2 minutes to present their case, uninterrupted, then the other patrols could ask them 3 questions (so they would have 6 questions to answer).  We then moved to the next patrol and then onto the last.

After a quick game, the patrols then thought about the answers until we finally got them back for their responses - and the leaders gave their “decision” based on the information presented at flag break.

What could have been a difficult evening for young Scouts turned out to be quite good.  Within the patrols there were some good discussions about perceptions of young people, the problems that the council might face and how such a project would be seen.  Occaisonally the leaders would have to promote the subjects, but this was little more than a small prod.

All said, I was really pleased with the evening and the way it went - although I’m not wholly sure that all the Scouts left believing that the proposal wasn’t real (even though I carefully explained how I drew up the scope of the project!)