Meet the Horsham Beaver Scout who has earned all 23 activity badges

After realising he had nearly achieved every single one of them earlier this year, Douglas Evans set himself the challenge to complete them all before moving on to Cub Scouts this summer, as well as finishing his Chief Scout Bronze Award.

Caroline McCurrach, Beaver Scout leader at 2nd Horsham Beaver Scouts, said: “Douglas has amazed us all with his enthusiasm for earning badges. It is great to see our young people learning skills for life while building friendships and having fun.”

In a busy two years, Douglas – who will soon turn eight-years-old – has learned semaphore, looked after his cat, grown a pumpkin, learned cooking and camp skills while working on his badges.

When lockdowns put a stop to face-to-face Scouting, 2nd Horsham Beavers carried on with their weekly meetings and ‘camps-at-home’ online via Zoom, allowing Douglas and the other Beavers to continue to earn their badges and keep in touch with their Scouting friends.

Douglas was close to his target, when out of the blue The Scouts UKHQ launched a brand new ‘money skills’ Beaver activity badge just a few weeks ago, the first new Beaver badge for several years.

Caroline said: “This did not deter Douglas – he set about researching and completing the new badge requirements straight away.

That brought the total to 23 activity badges on his turquoise Beaver Scout jumper which is the largest number of activity badges earned by a Beaver Scout at 2nd Horsham. It is a good job his mum, Trish, enjoys sewing!

“Douglas moves-on to Cubs this summer and has many new challenges ahead of him.”

Horsham Scouts need adult volunteers, so that more local young people can gain skills for life. Find out how you can be part of it www.horshamscouts.com/join/volunteer