Young Cub Scouts gain highest award

KATINA CURTIS

JOSH Boulton and Talitha Lay have become the first cub scouts in the Minnamurra pack to receive Grey Wolf Awards.

Cub leader Danusia Waite said the award, which is new, was the highest a cub scout could receive.

"It's really going back to basics. It's going back to what (Scouts founder) Baden Powell envisaged cub packs doing," she said.

"It involves a lot of individual work, there's leadership skills including preparing and leading a bushwalk and creating a resource for the group to use based on the Jungle Book and they have to achieve level two badges in all categories."

Josh, who turns 11 in August, said: "It took us, like, half a year to do everything we had to do to get all the badges and stuff."

This included two months to write up a report, which was sent to Scouting Australia's head office for assessment.

"If we didn't finish it by when we were 10-and-a-half, we didn't get it," he said.

Eleven-year-old Talitha finished her Grey Wolf Award in December and Josh in February.

Talitha said her favourite part was completing the pets badge.

"I had to write about my favourite pet and have a picture and what it eats and where it lives," she said. She wrote a profile of her guinea pig.

Josh's favourite activity was organising and leading a two-hour bushwalk.

"We went through Killalea on a bushwalk then canoed back across the Minnamurra River. Mine was on Clean Up Australia Day as well so we cleaned up along the way," he said.

The pair was presented with their awards at a special ceremony on Wednesday night at Minnamurra scout hall, which was attended by several regional commissioners.

Ms Waite said the group had organised a campfire, songs led by a barbershop quartet, a supper with special cakes and the cub pack would perform a skit they had written.