Blossom gets Award for Merit
St Georges day this year was held at Conkers and the ceremony is a chance to recognise Young people and uniformed Adults involved in scouting.
Our very own Cub Leader David “Blossom”, received the Award for Merit on 24th April 2022 at the St Georges Day parade. Awarded for outstanding service, it implies keen, conscientious, imaginative and dedicated
service over a sustained period, of at least 12 years duration. It requires nomination, approval by the district commission, is monitored by the National Awards Advisory Group and submitted to UK Scout Headquarters. It was the highest award presented on the day and the only award where the citation was read out in full to show the importance of the work that Blossom had done.
Blossom also received his 20 years service award and a wood badge for his role as Asst Scout Leader at 4th Ashby.
This is the citation that was read out:
David “Blossom” joined Market Bosworth Scout group in 2017 to stop the scout group from closing and he has been a major positive influence on the scout group. He came with 10 years of experience in Scouting and boy did we need that.
Growing the section: Blossom had successfully grown the Cub section from 9 in 2017 to 20
in 2020 when Lockdown struck. He managed to retain 14 young people over lockdown by doing online zoom session.
Since we have returned to face to face scouting the amount of young people drawn to the Cub Section has exceeding our expectations and we have opened a second night. We expect in Jan 2022 to be recording 40 young people for the Cub Section across the two nights.
Embracing new things: I think Blossom would agree that he never signed up to do zoom sessions when he join
ed Scouting. Instead of shying away from it, he embraced it and actively found out what other sections were doing to see how he could improve. He worked closely with his assistant leader and arranged for activity packs to be sent to the Cub Scouts to help with the weekly session
Embracing the whole scouting experience: Blossom is an inspiration to a lot of adults and young people as he embraces the whole scouting experience, from helping at security at Charnwood 2019, warden at Willesley, Section Leader at 4th Ashby de la Zouch, County Archery team supporter, Archery and Nights away permit holder. As well as supporting us at Market Bosworth with scout hut improvements, helping identify what kit is needed.
Blossom has been through a lot of change in recent year/s with his personal life and with Scouting from online to new cub sections and he takes it all in his stride. He has been very loyal, helpful and is very much respected from the young people to Leaders to the Executive and it would be amazing and our honour if he could be recognised.