10 Things You Never Knew About Scouts...

1. Scouting is for girls as well as boys. Young women make up almost 10 per cent of the Movement in the UK and half of all our leaders are women. Young people between the ages of 6-25 can join at any stage of their development.
2. Scouting is a global movement, active in more than 216 countries and territories and has more than 28 million members worldwide.
3. For 100 years Scouting has now been changing the world for the better, with projects occurring all over the globe that tackle local issues and make a difference in local communities. Examples include communicating with children about the dangers of HIV, re-educating child soldiers in Africa and raising money for homeless children around the world.
4. There are only six countries in the world that do not have Scouting - China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, Andorra and Myanmar.
5. Scouting is great value and there are few other organisations which can offer so much for so little. Typically, a year's Scout membership costs less than a single ballet or swimming lesson.
6. Robert Baden-Powell, the Founder of Scouting was recently voted the 13th most influential person of the 20th Century in the UK.
7. Famous former Scouts include Paul McCartney, Natasha Kaplinsky, Stephen Spielberg and David Beckham.
8. Each day 100,000 people in the UK take part in Scouting activities.
9. ‘Scouting for Boys’, Baden-Powell's blueprint for the Scout Movement is the fourth most popular book of all time after The Bible, The Koran and Mao’s Little Red Book
10. What do the youngest person to climb the 7 highest summits on each continent, the youngest person to walk to the South Pole, and 26 out of the first 29 astronauts have in common? They were all Scouts or former Scouts.