Support Explorer Scouts in Ludlow

Wall of honour

Every supporter, and exactly what they paid for

Named here, alongside the thing their support actually bought.

2026

Lodge of the Marches
£400 · Donation

Towards our Summer Camp in Pembrokeshire, going straight into the cost of getting there, and keeping the week affordable for every family who wanted to come.

“This is a cause we are happy to support.”
2019

Tesco
Grant · Camping equipment

Kitted out our camping store from scratch: patrol tents, an event shelter, a gas cooker, and the kitchen utensils and cutlery we still cook and eat with on camp.

Every Explorer who has camped with us since 2019 has slept under something this grant bought.
Your name here
The next one on this wall

Whatever comes next, whether a donation, a piece of kit or a grant your organisation put us forward for, is named here, alongside exactly what it paid for.
See what we're saving for

Why it matters

Explorer Scouts is meant to be for everyone

In practice, the trips young people remember for the rest of their lives, a week away, a proper expedition, a big day out, are the ones that cost money.

Donations and grants let us do three things: keep what families pay as low as we can, buy kit the unit could never fund out of weekly subs, and quietly help out where a young person would otherwise miss the trip.

Nobody is ever told they can't come because of money.

It also means the equipment belongs to the unit rather than a hire company. Kit is bought once and then used by every Explorer who comes after, including ones who were still at primary school when it arrived.

Where we've come from

A few years ago this unit nearly didn't reopen

Covid did something to Explorers that it didn't do to the younger sections. We only run from 14 to 18, so a couple of years of not meeting doesn't dent the numbers. It removes them.

The oldest aged out on schedule, and nobody came up behind them. We lost cohort after cohort that way, and there was a point where whether Triffid came back at all was a real question rather than a dramatic way of putting it.

It came back, and it has been rebuilt one Monday at a time since. There are more Explorers on the roll now than we can sleep, more girls among them than we've had before, and more joining when we go back in September.

This summer camp is the proof, and it's also the problem. Every tent the unit owns went with us and the minibus was full, and that was without the whole unit coming.

We are, very happily, out of room.

The shopping list

Four things we're saving for

None of them is really about the kit. The first two decide how many young people we can take at all, and we are already over that line. The other two decide what we can do once we're there.

01

Tents, because we have run out of them

We own six two-person tents. That's twelve spaces on paper and fewer in practice, because boys and girls sleep separately and a two-person tent then doesn't always take two. This summer's camp used every one of them, and the unit is bigger than that camp was.

Three more patrol tents is where we'd start: enough to sleep everyone currently on the roll, with slack for however the split falls and for the ones joining in September. Tents are the one piece of kit we lend to everybody, so each one the unit owns is a young person who never has to buy or borrow their own in order to come on camp.

Fund a tent and you haven't funded a camp. You've funded every camp it goes on for the next decade, and everyone who sleeps in it.

02

Seats, so the whole unit can go

That same camp filled the minibus. The whole unit doesn't fit in it, and nor does the next young person to join. Where we go is now decided partly by how many seats we can lay hands on, which is a poor way to plan a programme, and it caps the size of the unit for reasons that have nothing to do with how many young people want to be in it.

Help with transport, whether that's the hire cost of a second vehicle on the bigger trips or support towards one of our own, takes the ceiling off. It also opens up the trips we most want to run: cultural and heritage sites around the UK, the sort of places a Ludlow teenager doesn't otherwise get taken to, alongside the activities they come for.

Fund the transport and you decide how far these young people get to go, in the most literal sense.

03

A week's food, anywhere we choose to pitch

At the moment, where we camp is partly decided by how far it is to a shop. Ice blocks are melted by the evening and fresh food doesn't last beyond the first day, so someone drives out for more every day, on every camp, taking a chunk of the programme with them.

A 12V compressor fridge/freezer running off a solar panel and portable power unit ends the daily run. A full week's food stays properly cold on any site, with no mains hook-up and no shop needed within reach.

Fund this one and you're buying back hours of every camp, and the freedom to pitch somewhere for the walking rather than the shopping.

04

GPS trackers, so they can go on ahead

The whole point of a DofE expedition is that young people navigate it themselves, with no adult walking alongside. That independence is what makes the achievement real. It is also the part that keeps leaders awake.

A set of GPS trackers lets us give them the genuine article. They walk their own route and make their own decisions, and we know they're safe without ever appearing over the hill to check.

Fund these and you're not really buying kit. You're buying the moment a sixteen-year-old works out that nobody is coming to help, and that they've got it anyway.

Any of them can be met in full, in part, or by donating the equipment itself. Tents especially: one is worth having, and we would rather have one than none. If you'd like to know what something costs before you decide, just ask and we'll send you the real figures.

This is what it pays for

Recent camps and trips

The camps and trips this kind of support pays for.

Ways to help

All of these genuinely help, and none of them have to be large

A one-off donation

Any amount. Small donations pool together into camp places and kit just as well as large ones do.

Equipment

Camping gear in good working order is as useful to us as cash, and often more so. Ask us what's on the list before you buy anything.

Nominate us for a grant

Plenty of employers, supermarkets and community funds let staff or customers put forward a local cause. That is exactly how the 2019 Tesco grant reached us.

Clubs, lodges and businesses

If your organisation supports local youth causes, we'll happily come and talk about what we do, and give you a proper thank you here afterwards.

Questions supporters ask

If yours isn't here, just ask

We'd rather tell you than have you guess.

Who: Triffid Explorer Scout Unit, Ludlow
Ages: 14–18, volunteer-run
Salaries: None — every leader is a volunteer
Donations: Camps, trips and kit

Camps, trips, and the equipment that makes them possible, and holding down what families pay so nobody is priced out. Nothing goes on salaries, because there aren't any. We'll tell you specifically what your donation paid for, and put it on the Wall of Honour above.

A named thank you on this page, and on our social media when the money does its job. We're happy to come and talk to your group about what we do, and to send you photos of the camp or kit you funded. If you need a short written report for your committee or trustees, that's no trouble at all.

Yes, and often that's more useful. Camping gear in good working order goes straight into service. Do ask us before buying anything, though. We'll tell you what's on the list, which saves you spending on something we already have three of.

Plenty of employers, supermarkets and community funds let staff or customers put a local cause forward, and that is exactly how the 2019 Tesco grant reached us. If you spot a scheme we'd fit, tell us and we'll do the paperwork. You just need to point it our way.

Come and see where it goes

You don't have to decide anything today. Tell us what caught your eye and we'll send you the real numbers, what it would change, and once it's in use, the photographs of young people using it. If you'd rather see us before you decide, we're at Ludlow Scout Hut every Monday evening and you'd be welcome.

Start a conversation