Scout Adventures (The Scout Association)
Scout Adventures are a network of activity centres run by The Scout Association. They offer outdoor facilities, adventurous activities and experiences for members of the Scout Association, other youth organisations and school groups. The centres typically have capacity for hundreds of Scouts simultaneously, often including indoor accommodation in addition to camping. Staffed by qualified instructors, they offer adventurous activities and training for adult volunteers and young people following the badges of the Scout programme.
Purpose
Scout Adventures exists to deliver outdoor learning, adventurous activities and residential experiences to members of the Scout Association, other youth groups such as members of Girlguiding, and school groups. They are a commercial division of the Scouts and any profits made supplement the income of the association. They follow the Scout method when delivering activities, with principles such as learning through doing a key tenet of their approach to outdoor learning.History
National campsites pre-2005
During Scouting's early history the need for camp sites and activity centres to train young people and undertake Scout activities and practice Scout skills has been evident. By 2004, over 700 sites were owned, run or had connections to Scout groups, districts or counties/areas with The Scout Association owning 14 sites outright. These were:| Site | Location | Details |
| Broadstone Warren | East Sussex | Owned by the Scout Association, leased to East Sussex Scout County. |
| Bradley Wood | West Yorkshire | Owned by the Scout Association, leased to West Yorkshire Scout County. Acquired in 1942. |
| Chalfont Heights | Buckinghamshire | Owned by the Scout Association, leased to Greater London Middlesex West Scout County. Acquired in 1938. |
| Downe | Orpington, Greater London | Owned by the Scout Association, leased to Greater London South East Scout County. Acquired in 1929 and opened in 1933. |
| Earleywood | Berkshire | Owned by the Scout Association, leased to South Berkshire and South East Berkshire Scout Districts. |
| Frylands Wood | Croydon, Greater London | Owned by the Scout Association, leased to Lewisham Manor Scout District. |
| Gilwell Park | Chingford, Greater London | Owned and operated by the Scout Association. Acquired 1919. |
| Great Tower | Lake District | Owned by the Scout Association, leased to West Lancashire Scout County. Acquired in 1936. |
| Hawkhirst | Northumberland | Operated by the Scout Association, leased from Forestry Commission. |
| Kingsdown | Kent | Owned by the Scout Association, leased to Oxfordshire Scout County. |
| Longridge | Buckinghamshire | Owned by the Scout Association, leased to Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Scout Counties. Specialist boating centre, for water activities and based on the River Thames. |
| Phasels Wood | Hertfordshire | Owned by the Scout Association, leased to Hertfordshire Scout County. |
| Perry Wood | Surrey | Owned by the Scout Association, leased to Horley Scout District. |
| Tolmers | Hertfordshire | Owned by the Scout Association, leased to Hertfordshire Scout County. |
| Walton Firs | Surrey | Owned by the Scout Association, leased to Surrey Scouts. Acquired in 1939. |
| Youlbury | Oxfordshire | Owned by the Scout Association, leased to Oxfordshire Scout County. |
In February 2004, the Scout Association took the decision to sell a number of these campsites and instead focus their efforts on four national centres of excellence. It was noted that while there were many great camping sites, the range of adventurous activities on offer at each varied and so these four centres would be developed into high quality activity centres, run by the Scout Association directly.
The sites no longer owned by the association were sold with the proceeds being used to form the National Campsite Fund, which funds the improvement of the four new centres of excellence and any new sites that may join them at a later date. The last of this fund was used in the 2014–15 financial year. The majority of the sites that existed were sold to the local scout counties or districts that had been running them up until that point. The exceptions to this were Kingsdown International Scout Campsite, which was sold in 2005 to a private group which retains discounts for visiting Scout groups, Longridge Scout Boating Centre, which was sold to user group The Friends of Longridge Trust before becoming The Adventure Learning Charity in 2014, Perry Wood International Scout Campsite, which was not taken on by the local district and closed with the site redeveloped for housing in 2013 and Walton Firs Campsite, which was sold in 2008 to the Walton Firs Foundation who continue to run the site as an activity centre for youth groups maintaining strong links with the Scouts.
Scout Activity Centres
In 2005, the Scout Association launched four enhanced Scout Activity Centres that offered residentials, camping and high quality activities on offer to members. The four initially chosen at the announcement of the plan in February 2004 were Downe Scout Activity Centre, for the Southern Home counties, Gilwell Park, recognised as headquarters of the association and spiritual home of Scouting, Youlbury Scout Activity Centre, for the Northern Home counties, and Great Tower for the North of England. However, when the Scout Activity Centres launched in 2005, Great Tower was not among them and a new centre for the North, Hawkhirst Scout Activity Centre, was launched c. February 2007. Despite not having any on-site activities, the central London Baden-Powell House was also listed as a Scout Activity Centre alongside the others from the launch until 2011.Towards the end of the decade, the Scout Association began to expand the number of Scout Activity Centres that met the standard of the centres of excellence. The first of these was Ferny Crofts Scout Activity Centre in the New Forest, becoming a partner centre on 1 September 2009. This allowed the site to benefit from joint training, marketing and common strategy but continued throughout to be owned by Hampshire Scouts and run by Hampshire Scouts staff. The expansion also triggered a refresh of the Scout Activity Centre brand, moving from clean and fresh typography and a local square icon to a more rugged and dirty typography that emphasises mud and the outdoors along with the localised icon. Two more sites, Great Tower Scout Activity Centre in the Lake District and Woodhouse Park Scout Activity Centre near the mouth of the River Severn became national centres on 1 April 2011 and a further two, Crawfordsburn Scout Activity Centre in County Down, Northern Ireland and Yr Hafod Scout Activity Centre in Snowdonia, Wales, joined on 6 September 2012.
Scout Adventures
In September 2016, the nine sites re-branded to Scout Adventures with a logo that uses the scout fleur-de-lis symbol significantly in line with the main Scout Association brand at that time. The name change was reported to better reflect what the organisation did and its focus. At this time Ferny Crofts withdrew from the Scout Adventures partnership, choosing to continue under their own direction and remain a successful activity centre run by Hampshire Scouts.A further expansion occurred in 2017 with the addition of four centres. In July, Buddens Scout Adventure Centre in Dorset became part of the grouping, remaining owned and operated by Dorset Scouts, but opening up Scout Adventures to the West Country for the first time. Then on 1 September, the three National Activity Centres run by Scouts Scotland joined the Scout Adventures network: Fordell Firs Scout Adventure Centre in Fife, Lochgoilhead Scout Adventures Centre on Loch Lomond and Meggernie Scout Adventures Centre in Perthshire. These three, similar to the other recent partnership centres, continue to be owned and run by Scouts Scotland. The visual identity was updated from 2018 to the current logo using many of the same principles of the previous look but applied the Scout Association's new simplified fleur-de-lis and typeface.
Impact of Coronavirus pandemic
The 2020 Coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19, affected the Scout Adventures centres significantly with all having to close and cancel planned activities and bookings while still incurring costs. In August, the chief executive of Scouts Scotland spoke out about the real threat of closure affecting their three activity centres, Fordell Firs, Meggernie and Lochgoilhead Scout Adventures centres and called upon the Scottish Government to provide additional support to the sector.In October the Scout Association announced that they would be reducing the number of adventure centres following the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic, citing a need to reduce staffing costs and assets, enable the association's depleted cash reserves to be replenished, and to allow for local groups badly affected by the pandemic to be helped.
Operation of the centres at Buddens, Dorset, and Woodhouse Park, Bristol, were returned to the counties that own them in 2021, with the latter being operated by Avon Scouts, and the former being operated on Dorset Scouts' behalf by adventure education group Rockley. The centre at Downe in Kent was closed in 2021 and sold in October 2024 to Friends of Downe Activity Centre. Furthermore, the association sold Baden-Powell House in central London, the former headquarters of the association and hostel, in August 2021 to independent school Mander Portman Woodward. When considering the sites for closure, the association took into consideration factors including local provision, such as whether other activity centres owned by Scouts are available nearby, and the needs of the site, such as whether investment was required or how the site was used.
In early 2021, the Scout Association once again took control of Broadstone Warren Scout Activity Centre in East Sussex, which had previously been owned by the association but since 2004 had been run entirely by East Sussex Scout County, after the county could no longer run the centre. Later that summer, Crawfordsburn was removed as a Scout Adventures centre with the operations returning to Scouts Northern Ireland. In November 2024, the Scout Association further announced the closure of Hawkhirst Scout Adventure centre in Northumberland from 31 March 2025, citing the lack of bookings since the pandemic and the investment needed in the site.