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Volunteering at Scouts is changing to help us reach more young people

Volunteering is changing to help us reach more young people

Volunteering is changing at Scouts. Read more

Discover what this means

Show off your YouthShaped Cardboard City

Based on everything’s that’s been planned, led and explored in your Cardboard City, decide how you will represent your experience.
Plan a session with this activity

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Before you begin 

  • Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely. 

  • Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers. 

Contribution to the YouShape Award

This activity may contribute towards the ‘Represent’ section of the YouShape Award, depending on the Scouts section you’re in. If this session completes the requirement for an individual or a group, you may want to hand the ‘Represent’ badge out at the end of the session. Remember, some people may not want to receive their badge or be celebrated individually in front of such a large audience. People may prefer to be given their badge in a normal meeting, rather than at an event.

Setting up this activity 

Run the activity 

  1. Gather everyone together. It’s time to celebrate your cardboard city. Ask everyone what they enjoyed, what they liked doing, what they’d like to do more of, what could be better and what they learned.  

  1. Now it's time to think about how you want to represent your cardboard city, and wider YouShape Award, to different people you know. This is an organic process. You should find ways to link your maps, your city and what’s been played with in the Cardboard City with your own group, local community and wider world. Remember, sharing things digitally is also a great way to represent what’s been explored and discovered, just make sure you have the correct photography permissions in place.  

  1. Some people might write stories, some people might write letters and others can do drawings or collages. People can choose to work individually or in pairs or groups, too.  

  1. Here are some ideas: 

    • How could you share what you’ve explored with the community? For example, if you had a post office in your city, could you send letters or pictures to a local care home to show them what you did?  

    • Who could you invite in to visit your cardboard city? Is there anything you’d like to ask them to create in your city? What could they contribute? For example, if you had any mayors or leadership in your cardboard city, could you invite in your local mayor, MP or local leaders? If you had a hospital, could you invite people who work in hospitals or local medical facilities.  

    • If you really like your maps, you could draw up plans and present them to parents and carers, share them with another section, or even write to someone in your local town planning department.  

    • Is there a local business in your community that you’d like to support? You could gather donations for a charity shop and take them there. You could create posters for a local dentist or gym to encourage healthy lifestyles. You could hold a fundraising event for the local animal sanctuary.   

Reflection

This activity was all about bringing together all your YouShape Award work to show off your themes and achievements for the Represent badge. What was your favourite part of this Cardboard City activity? And what was your favourite part of the award?  

You chose something to tell other people about that you planned, built or played with in the Cardboard City. What did you choose and why did you choose it? What did you like about this? What have you learned while doing the award? 

What was it like telling people about your work if you chose to do so? What would you do differently next time? Did people enjoy it? Did they ask you questions or what to know more? 

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.

Phones and cameras

Make sure parents and carers are aware and have given consent for photography.

Make it accessible

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Squirrels YouShape Award: Represent