Leaders Responsibility

Boy, 6, dies on Beaver Scout trip

We take our Brownies away on camp, we have walked through woods at night, we walk on roads, by water, pond dipping, trips to London, well all sorts of exciting things really.

We aim to do exciting things, to give children "Mountain Top Moments", we wouldn't be doing it properly if we didn't.

Even in our weekly normal meetings we have a responsibility to do safety checks at the start of a meeting and during each activity. We have to spot the precariously stacked chairs left by a previous hall user, the spike left in the playing field.

All the time we talk about head counts: do we have enough leaders per child? Do we meet the basic criteria? Is that sensibly going to be enough for this activity?

What has happened today is a reminder of why we must go through these checks and follow the rules but also a reminder that even when we do, things can go wrong and what a massive burden of responsibility we have.

This is such a sad sad thing to have happened today.

My heart goes out to the boy's family and also to the Scout Leaders.