The big society - or a small mind?

I’ve followed the story of the Warwick Sea Scouts quest for a new HQ in the Courier and can’t help but reflect that in true British style a success is being turned into a problem. Cllr Linda Bromley’s letter last week is a case in point. It is surely a matter for satisfaction that sea scouts are so popular among young people that they have outgrown their old building, one which hardly enhances the landscape, and that there are still hardworking volunteers who are prepared to take on the project of building a new one. I write as a father whose children benefited from scouts and guides in their formative years and I can’t over emphasize the importance of the scouting movement in developing the values so necessary for young people to take their place as the good citizens of the future. Now I’m delighted that my grandchildren are currently away at summer camp and being guided in their turn. Over my lifetime we have been well blessed in Warwick with hundreds of voluntary youth leaders who have given up millions of hours of leisure time and holidays to maintain activities for our young people both in uniformed organisations and less obvious groups. You could say that they operated the big society long before politicians coined the mantra “The Big Society”. It’s even more important that this is maintained today when Cllr Bromley’s party is cutting the County Youth Service and the County Music Service. Maybe there is a practical problem but that’s all it is. Cllr Bromley should direct her efforts to joining volunteers, local politicians of all parties and hopefully our MP, whom I note has a lot to say about “The Big Society”, in finding a solution. Given the advantages we have in our lovely town, it shouldn’t be impossible to adapt to the riverside site and raise the extra money necessary to design and build a practical and aesthetically acceptable building. That would ensure that our future citizens continue to be brought up in the right way, something we will all benefit from, even the