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Young leaders, big weekend: our Explorers train at Lochgoilhead

Five of our Explorers spent a weekend at Scout Adventures Lochgoilhead on Scouts Scotland's Young Leader training course, funded by CashBack for Communities. Here's what they did, what they learned, and how you can become a Young Leader too.

Young leaders. Big weekend. Young Leaders Weekend. Explorers laughing as they build a human pyramid on the grass at Lochgoilhead

Five of our Explorers have just come back from a weekend of Young Leader training at Scout Adventures Lochgoilhead, and they’ve come home ready to lead.

The weekend was Scouts Scotland’s Young Leader Training Weekend, a residential course for Explorers who volunteer with younger sections. From Friday 6 to Sunday 8 November, our five joined young people from Scout groups across Scotland for two nights at the activity centre on the shores of Loch Goil, in the hills of Argyll.

A group of Explorers on the field at Lochgoilhead, half of them sitting on the others' shoulders, giving thumbs up under a blue sky
Young Leaders from across Scotland, and one very blue sky, at Scout Adventures Lochgoilhead.

What is a Young Leader?

Young Leaders are young people aged 13½ to 18, usually Explorers, who give some of their time to help run a younger section: Squirrels, Beavers, Cubs or Scouts. They plan games, lead activities and become the people the younger ones look up to. Alongside their volunteering they work through the Young Leaders’ Scheme: eleven training modules (A to K) and four practical missions, recognised with badges, mission strips and, at the end, the Young Leader belt.

The Lochgoilhead weekend packs a big chunk of that training into a single residential. Young Leaders leave having covered modules A to J. Module K (first aid) and the four missions are then completed back home with their own group, signed off in their Young Leader logbook by the leader who oversees their volunteering.

Wide games, abseiling and a hill walk

The course is mostly outdoors, and it mixes leadership training with real activities. Some sessions are run for the Young Leaders and some are run by them, so they get to try out leading in a safe, supported setting.

Our Explorers took part in three main activities across the weekend:

  • Wide games and team bonding on the centre’s field, getting to know Young Leaders from other groups (and building more than one human pyramid).
  • Abseiling.
  • A hill walk above Loch Goil, with views right down the loch.

Between the activities came the leadership sessions: ways to improve their leadership, and the protocols every Young Leader needs to know, such as how to write a risk assessment.

Two teams of young people building human pyramids on the grass in front of the centre's climbing tower, with autumn hills behind
Pyramid race in front of the climbing tower.
Young people building a human pyramid on the field while others watch, with a wooded hillside behind
Team challenges on the field.
A long line of young people standing side by side on the field, carrying one person horizontally along the line, with red wooden huts and hills behind
A team game that needs everyone to trust the person next to them.
View from a grassy hillside down over Loch Goil, with boats on the water and mountains under low cloud
The view down Loch Goil from the hill walk.
A rocky burn running through mossy woodland with ferns and tall trees
Mossy woodland along the burn on the way up.

In their own words

After the weekend, our Explorers wrote up what they’d taken from it. We couldn’t put it better ourselves:

The aim of the camp was to train us to be young leaders, developing skills by completing modules through activities and discussions during the days.

We did three activities throughout the weekend: wide games and team bonding, abseiling and a hill walk, learning ways to improve leadership and important protocols that are required while being a young leader, such as how to do a risk assessment.

We gained valuable skills such as leadership, communication, teamwork, problem solving and adaptability. We developed our understanding of learning styles and how to get information across to younger groups, such as audio, speaking, demonstrations and kinaesthetics.

We hope to use these lessons to aid our younger sections and take a turn in leading them, ensuring the younger section we volunteer in gets an amazing scouting experience. We also will follow through on our Young Leader badge and achieve our four missions.

That last point about learning styles is a big one. Some children learn by listening, some by watching a demonstration and some by having a go themselves. A Young Leader who knows that can explain a game or a knot so every Beaver or Cub in the room gets it.

What happens next

Back at the 144th, our five Young Leaders will put the training into practice with the section they help on a Monday night. Over the coming months they’ll:

  • complete module K (first aid) locally;
  • work through their four missions, practical leadership tasks done with their section;
  • earn their module badges and mission strips on the way to the Young Leader belt.

Under Scottish law, anyone aged 16 or over who helps with younger children needs a PVG check cleared before they start. We guide every Young Leader and their family through it, and it’s free.

Young Leaders lined up across the field at Lochgoilhead in front of an autumn hillside under a bright blue sky
Ready to lead.

Funded by CashBack for Communities

The weekend was funded through Level 2 funding from CashBack for Communities. CashBack for Communities is a Scottish Government programme that takes money recovered from crime under the Proceeds of Crime Act and reinvests it in free activities and opportunities for young people across Scotland. It’s a fitting use of that money: young people learning to lead, and passing what they learn on to the children in their section.

Thank you

Thanks to Jill King from Scouts Scotland for arranging the funding and agreeing to support our Explorers with their young leader training.

Thanks too to the staff at Scout Adventures Lochgoilhead for running such a brilliant weekend, and to our five Explorers for representing the 144th so well. We’re proud of you.

Interested?

If you’re aged 13½ to 18 and fancy helping to run Squirrels, Beavers, Cubs or Scouts, we’d love to hear from you. You don’t need to be an Explorer already: being a Young Leader can also count as the Volunteering section of your Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.

Read the full role on our Young Leader vacancy page, find out more on the Young Leaders page, or apply online. Scouts Scotland’s next Young Leader Training Weekend is at Lochgoilhead on 12 to 14 February 2027.