Scout Post

Scout Post takes place every year and involves the young people of the group delivering Christmas cards in the Radcliffe area. Special post boxes are in various locations a few weeks before Christmas and you can buy stamps from any of Post News, Burley’s, Woodside Stores, Spar and the library. They cost 20p.

The stamped cards can then be “posted” at any of the above outlets by midday on the last Saturday before Christmas.On that afternoon they are delivered by eager Beavers, keen Cubs and scudding Scouts. Not only are they cheaper than 2nd class post but they can be posted long after the 1st class post deadlines. One final thing is that the money generated is used to enhance the local scouting movement and a chosen charity each year

It is not only Radcliiffe we deliver to but also Bingham and St. James Park / Saxondale. Despite the reasonably wide area we have had cards for Bottesford, Lincoln, Havant, Taunton and South Australia! I delivered the first by bike but, wimpishly, posted the rest! One year we got a load of cards where the only information was "John and Margaret", "Mick and Gill" etc. We worked out who the sender could be. It was and they all got there! A rather sad card addressed simply to Doris which said inside "To Doris from Doris" didn’t. Very few pass our “Enigma code” team!. In case you wondered... Lapland is just off our patch.

The Scout Post in Radcliffe was started by Carol Ward in 1981 following a government bill to weaken the monopoly of the GPO. Subsequently it was run as a team effort, then by Tony Dale and now by Stuart Collins. It happens now in many parts of the UK with Edinburgh moving 500,000 cards a year. Radcliffe delivers about 6000, but at about two per household we hope to do better. So please consider using the Scout Post this Christmas and then the local post office for the rest of the year to help keep it open!

Some useful links about Scout Post generally