Waiting List

Unfortunately, more young people want to join our sections than we have places for. It’s a success story, but one that means unfortunately some people have to wait.

How Houghton-Le-Spring Manages Joining Lists

1) By running a joining list across the whole district, we ensure that young people can access scouting as quickly as possible, access is not limited to your nearest group only.

2) The district regularly reviews its joining list and ensures that young people are on the list for the right section. Unfortunately some of our lists are so long at the minute that young people who are over 7 years old go straight on to the joining list for cubs because they are unlikely to get a space in beavers before they turn 8.

3) We aim to enable parents and carers to track the progress of young people on our joining list by publishing details online (without sufficient information that a young person could be identified to anyone other than a parent or carer).

4) We do not publish young people who are under 5.75 on our joining list. Once a young person reaches 5.75 they will move on to our list on the basis of when their Want to Join Request was submitted.


How Can You Help?

Our team of nearly 200 vital volunteers work to provide adventure to over 800 young people in Houghton-Le-Spring District and it's only by bringing in new volunteers and developing new models of scouting that will enable us to create more opportunities for young people.

Volunteering can be flexible and you don't have to be available every week as we can work around shift patterns and other commitments, it might be that you decide to volunteer for 6 months and see how you enjoy it. We promise that volunteering with us will be hugely rewarding and that you'll have just as much fun as our beavers, cubs and scouts.


Contact Us

If you have any questions about our joining list, please contact joining team by emailing join@hls-scouts.org.uk.

If you are interested in volunteering, please take a look at the volunteering opportunities we currently have within Houghton-Le-Spring and contact our volunteer manager.