Flying be the seat of our pants!

Here we are, Kush and I, at the pub. One beer in and we are working out what to do next…
Half a term into running a brand-new Cub Pack on a council estate.

We have:

• A full Pack of brilliant, chaotic, unpredictable Cubs
• A team of leaders who are… mostly awake
• No money…
• A growing reputation (mostly along the lines of “It’s loud but the kids love it”)

And absolutely no idea what we’re doing.

Not in a bad way, in the “we’re flying by the seat of our pants and somehow staying airborne” way.
In the “every week feels like surfing a tidal wave on a biscuit tin lid” way.
In the “this is going far too well and that scares us” way.

But honestly?
It’s glorious.

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A Pack That Shouldn’t Work… Working

We started this Pack with a few borrowed tables, some dusty flags from the 70s, a second-hand Union flag that sheds threads like a moulting bird, and a hall that seems to attract more indoor broken glass than anywhere else on Earth.

We had a handful of kids.
A couple of leaders.
A mission:
give estate kids a club where they belong, that won’t bankrupt anyone.

Five weeks later?

We’re FULL.
Overflowing.
Maxed out.
People are knocking on the door saying:

• “When are you starting Beavers?”
• “When are you starting Scouts?”
• “Will you open Squirrels? My toddler is feral and needs something to do.”
• “Are you taking adults? My husband needs a hobby.”

Look, it’s lovely.
It’s heart-warming.
It’s affirming.

It’s also mildly terrifying.

We’re still learning which cupboard the glue lives in.
We’re still trying to memorise names.
We’re still arguing about where the rat cage should go.
One leader just found out today that Pack nights are every week and not “when you feel up to it.”

And yet… somehow… it’s working.

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We Have Leaders! Actual Leaders!

Somehow, we’ve built a team.

A gloriously mismatched, overworked, big-hearted team of volunteers who could all be doing easier things with their weeknights, like:

• laundry
• Netflix
• pretending the world isn’t on fire

But instead, they show up.
They show up tired, or stressed, or late, or confused about what the programme says this week —
and they still manage to pull off small miracles with these kids.

They are the backbone of this Pack.
The glue.
The caffeine-fuelled magic.

We have a chairwoman and a GROUP LEAD VOLUNTEER! Our amazing Kush from Wimbledon who really is a child psychologist!

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And Yet… We’re Still Making It Up As We Go

Truthfully?

We don’t have a grand strategy. Or money…
We don’t have a five-year plan.
We don’t have a carefully crafted roadmap to success.

We have:

• enthusiasm
• community spirit
• stubbornness
• leaders who won’t quit
• kids who think Cubs is “THE BEST THING EVER”
• and more love for this estate than we knew we could hold

The rest?
We figure it out on the fly.

Every week we try a thing.
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it goes sideways.
Sometimes we end up with vomit at the door, a surprise rat, and half a dozen new members.

But every week, without fail, the kids leave smiling.
Parents leave hopeful.
And we leave tired… but proud.

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“Will you ever run something other than Cubs?”

Look, apparently everyone wants us to open Beavers.
And Scouts.
And Squirrels.
And maybe Explorers.
And possibly a youth orchestra at this rate.

But me?
I’ll always be a Cub leader.
For now, anyway.

This age, this wild, brilliant, messy, honest age for me…
this is where the magic is.

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Final Thought

Half a term in, and we’ve already seen:

• confidence growing
• friendships forming
• troubled kids feeling safe
• parents feeling supported
• a community lifting itself up
• hope appearing in the noisiest, most unexpected ways

We might not know exactly what we’re doing,
but we know we’re doing something right.

So here’s to the next half-term.
To the chaos, the community, the Cubs, the leaders, the rat, the surprises, the victories, the disasters…
and whatever else this beautiful estate throws at us.

We’ll ride the wave again.
And probably scream a little.
But we’ll love every second.