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Race to learn about the Chief Scout’s Bronze Award

A fast-paced game that introduces the highest award a Beaver can earn.

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You’ll need

  • Scissors
  • Bowls
Images of Beavers badges
PDF – 274.4KB
Download Images of Beavers badges

Before you begin

  • Cut out the badge images from the ‘Badge pictures’ sheet. Each team will need all of the Challenge Awards, and four Activity (or Staged Activity) Badges. If you have enough real badges, you could use those instead.
  • Put each team’s set of badges into a bowl or box.

Get ready to play

  1. The person leading the activity should explain that the Chief Scout’s Bronze Award is the highest award a Beaver Scout can earn. They should explain that a Beaver earns their Chief Scout’s Bronze Award by completing all of the Challenge Awards, as well as four Activity (or Staged Activity) Badges.
  1. The person leading the activity should help everyone to name all six Beaver Challenge Awards: My World Challenge Award; My Skills Challenge Award; My Outdoors Challenge Award; My Adventure Challenge Award; Teamwork Challenge Award; and Personal Challenge Award.
  2. Everyone should split into small groups. The person leading the game should give each group a bowl full of badge images, and an empty bowl to collect badges in.
  3. The person leading the game should give each player a number. Each team should have the same numbers in (so each team should have a player one, a player two, a player three, and so on).
  1. Each group should stand in a corner of the room with their bowls.

Play the game

  1. The person leading the game should call a number. The players with that number should run to another team, collect one badge from their full bowl, and put it in their empty (collection) bowl.
  1. Once everyone’s had a chance to collect a badge, the person leading the game should call another number, and the players with that number should collect one more badge from another group’s full bowl and bring in to their collection bowl. Groups should try to collect all of the badges they need to earn the Chief Scout’s Bronze Award: all six Challenge Awards, plus any four Activity (or Staged Activity) Badges.
  2. The person leading the game should keep calling numbers, and people should keep collecting badges, until a group thinks they have all of the badges they need to earn the Chief Scout’s Bronze Award.
  3. When a group thinks they have all of the badges they need to earn the Chief Scout’s Bronze Award, they should call out ‘Chief Scout!’. The game should pause while the person leading the game checks their badges.
  4. If the group has all the badges they need for the top award, they win. If they don’t, the game should keep going until a group has all of the badges they need.

Reflection

This activity needed everyone to work as a team. Did different people give and listen to directions? Were people’s teammates helpful when they were collecting badges? What was helpful? Maybe some people checked which badges were missing, or others passed on information about which badges were left where. How else can people support their teammates?

This activity also reminded everyone that achieving the Chief Scout’s Bronze Award needs people to work hard and get back up when things are hard. Did people practise those skills in this game? Maybe people struggled to find a certain badge and had to search everyone’s bowls, or maybe people had to keep going when they were struggling to find out which badges their team still needed. Do people think they’ll try hard to achieve their top award? What would they need to do to get there?

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Keep it simple by cutting out four Activity (or Staged Activity) Badges for each bowl, or cut out extra badges. You could even add extra (duplicate) Challenge Awards, or badges from other sections.

You could play a version where no one needs to move by spreading out each team’s badges, blindfolding one player, and getting the rest of their team to use words to guide them to pick out badges.

You could also just give each team a set of badges and ask them to choose the ones they need for the Chief Scout’s Bronze Award. If you do this, think about adding in extra badges (such as ones from another section, or even outside Scouts) to keep it challenging.

People can work in pairs if they need to, for example, if anyone needs someone to run for them, or a friend to describe what the badges look like.

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Beavers Teamwork Challenge Award

This is a great introduction to Beavers and the sorts of badges and awards people can learn. Why not run a Log Chew alongside this activity, so people can talk about the Activity or Staged Activity Badges they’d most like to earn, and what else they want to gain from their time in Beavers.

Encourage people to choose and talk about the Activity and Staged Activity Badges they’d most like to work towards, so leaders can plan the programme with this in mind.