Going Up Ceremony - what is it and why do we do it?

As soon as a Cub turns 11 years old, they either move up to the Scout Troop, or they leave the Movement. We always aim to have them join Scouts instead of leaving and I am happy to say that, in the past 5 years, of the 30 Cubs who have stayed with the Pack until they turned 11, 25 have gone up to the Troop and of those, 19 are still Scouts.

This is one of our purposes - to produce good Scouts for our Troop. Those Scout troops without a Cub pack have difficulty recruiting new members but if a Group has a Cub Pack and the Pack Scouters teach the Cubs properly, they will love Cubs and in turn, will be excited to become a Scout and will love it just as much. This is what we aim to do at 1st Muizenberg.

This year we have had a total of 6 Cubs going up to Scouts:

Niven – invested in 2017 at the age of 10 years,

Andrew – invested in 2017 at the age of 10 years,

Dominic - invested in 2014 at the age of 7 years,

Brian - invested in 2015 at the age of 8 years,

Chloe - invested in 2015 at the age of 8 years,

Jack - invested in 2015 at the age of 8 years.

Niven and Andrew were only with the Pack for a fairly short time but

both made their mark and were both Sixers soon after joining. In fact, they were in the same Six for the first 6 months then Niven became a Sixer and Andrew moved to another Six to become a Sixer himself. Niven’s first Sixer was Kaelan, who is still a Scout.

Brian was invested as a Cub by Meagan who at the time was an

Assistant Pack Scouter (jungle name Bagheera). He was in turn invested as a Scout in July this year by Meagan again, who is now our Troop Scouter. Chloe & Jack were invested together as Cubs, and were in turn invested together as Scouts in July this year.

Brian, Chloe & Jack's Sixers when they became Cubs were Todd, Michael and Enzo respectively. All these 3 Sixers went up to Scouts in 2016 and are still Scouts. Those kind of connections create life-long friendships and produces a tight-knit "community" of Scouts and Cubs.

Regarding the Going Up Ceremony itself, it is a special occasion. It is an important event in the Cub’s life as the day he or she made their Promise as a Cub. We celebrate the Cub's achievements in their Cubbing career and use this ceremony to say Goodbye as a Pack and say Welcome as a Troop. The Cubs stand in a semi-circle (Parade Circle) on one side of the hall, the closed part of the circle in the middle of the hall and the Scouts stand in a “horseshoe” formation at the other side of the hall. In between are the Scout Group Leader (SGL) and the Troop Scouter.

The Pack says goodbye to the Cubs who are leaving, shaking hands all

around and then the semi-circle opens up and they walk through with the Pack Scouter. We have a tradition at this stage of the proceedings to do the Pack Yell (Woof, Woof, Woof). The Pack Scouter then introduces them to the SGL who in turn introduces them to the Troop Scouter. The Troop Scouter shakes hands with the Cubs, welcomes them to the Troop and introduces them to their new Patrol Leader.

The approach to the whole Going Up ceremony is one of pride and happiness that another Cub is joining the Troop.

On most occasions, they are invested as Scouts later the same night. They do need to have attended 3 Scout meetings beforehand.

The Scout investiture is a very special ceremony which is attended only by the Troop Scouters, the Scouts and the new Scout’s family.

We hope that all our existing Cubs remain with our Group for their whole Scouting careers, up to the age of 18 years old. Once they reach the age of 18, they can join a Rover Crew of which there is a new one in our District, and they can choose to train to become Assistant Troop Scouters and continue the cycle of passing on their knowledge to the younger generation.