About The Boys Brigade

Boys’ Brigade local groups (companies) cater for children and young people during their school years.
Each company meets usually on a week night in a local church or school hall and is part of a church’s life in the community. The company has three sub-groups called ‘Sections’ seeking to cater to the specific developmental and social needs of each person within their age grouping.

• Anchors – Pre Primary to Year 2
• Juniors – Year 3 to Year 6
• Seniors – Years 7 to Year 12
• Information for Parents
• BB Uniform

Children and young people can join the relevant section for their age at any time across the year.

BBWA Enrolment Form

Anchor Section

For per-primary through to year 2 school aged boys.

The Program

Anchors Section where there is special emphasis on fun with activities such as games, craft, stories and outings and the chance to gain three Activity Badges. If you know anyone in this age range and your Company has this Section get them along!

What do Anchors enjoy about their group?

Anchors just enjoy:

• Playing great team games
• Listening and telling stories
• Doing craft
• Earning some really neat badges
• Having lots and lots of fun
• Making good friends

What else is there to know about Anchors?

You get to wear a special uniform, different to what you wear to school so everyone knows you belong to Boys’ Brigade.

Your leaders will help you to learn new things about yourself, your friends and your world.You can go on with Boys’ Brigade right through until you leave school and become an adult – that’s a long time away for sure.In the meantime you will have a lot of fun times with good friends.

Junior Section

For primary school aged boys.

What do Juniors love about their group?

Juniors love to …

• play great games
• learn lots of new skills
• earn badges to wear
• do lots of cool stuff with their leaders

Junior sections usually meet on a week night a in church or school hall in your area and also get to go on day outings, camps and competitions with other groups. The nightly program is usually around 1½ hours.

What do Juniors get up to?

Everyone wears a uniform so you belong to the group and for others to know that you are in Boys’ Brigade Juniors.

• build a soap box (ask a parent if you don’t know what this is)
• have an overnight campout
• learn how to play a new sport
• get into competitions by yourself and as a team
• do lots of things you never thought you could

You can also get into earning some of the badges on offer through completing certain activities.  The activities are grouped together into 5 zones –

• Body – fit for fun
• Mind – think and do
• Spirit – God and me
• Community – me and my world
• Creativity – make and do

Juniors have heaps of fun with lots to challenge you and make great friends along the way.

The Achievement Scheme provides a varied and challenging program tailored to each age level to develop each member in all areas: Spiritual, Educational, Social and Physical.

Senior Section

For high school aged boys.

The Seniors Section Award System encourages and rewards members to challenge themselves further, especially to engage more directly in their local and wider community and issues that impact on their peers, themselves and the world as well as exploring further God’s creation. There is so much life out there yet to be discovered!

As a member of The Boys’ Brigade Australia you have become part of a large family not only with members in your own Company, your own State or Territory and across Australia, but also throughout the world.

BB is about developing you over your whole life so that you and others can and want to impact the world.

Everything we do in BB strives to achieve that – the weekly programs, the camps, the Award System, the mentoring your leaders offer in and out of formal BB activities, the leadership development opportunities, the wider and global fellowship of BB, and anything else that you can imagine BB can do.

Inspired and continually connected to the Creator of all of creation, BB is about helping you, others and the world be what it could be: a universe where  everyone and everything is, lives out and continues to innovate as God intended them to be, what has been called the Kingdom of God.

Plan your time wisely to obtain the greatest personal benefit from your membership of your Company and the wider world of the Brigade.

Make it your aim to gain the highest award, The Queen’s Badge, as part of your Brigade experience. In so doing, you will have conquered mental, physical and emotional challenges that will help you grow and be throughout your life “all that tends towards a true Christian manliness.”

Continually look out for as well as take hold of the opportunities to be recognised for your leadership skills, with the highest honour of formal leadership positions.

And most excitingly, watch out for and seek out the opportunities to experience the greatest alternative reality (often called the ‘true way’) of sharing your life journey with God himself.

For Parents

Program

As children and young people grow and develop, the program becomes progressively more adventure based, always challenging them and developing their skills at their own level and pace.

Leaders

While providing a positive male influence, the BB program also helps train adult leaders (Officers) who then are equipped to provide activities that bring age relevant adventure and challenge activities such as hiking, camping, bush skills, rope climbing, orienteering, canoeing, games and sports, and computer games competitions, just to name a few.

While the leaders (Officers) are running the program, as the opportunity arises they are also able to get alongside and mentor the young people in all aspects of life, helping them to ‘discover the leader within’, developing their strengths and encouraging them in less strong areas to have a go at things.

Safety

A risk management and Child Safety policy is employed within each local group, ensuring the safest environment as they experience life and challenge either as individuals or together within a team. All Volunteers must hold a current Working With Children’s Card and have been appointed by the local Church Leadership.

Structure

Everyone wears a uniform as a symbol of belonging to the group. Week night and weekend programs are structured to provide rewarding and challenging experiences within a behaviour model that seeks to honour and respect the individual, the group and the environment.

The structured awards programme is specifically designed to encourage a child or young person to look beyond themself and their comfort zone. Many kids are only interested in one type of activity – perhaps sports, or computer games. Our programme includes these interests and at the same time encourages them to try out different activities they are not familiar or comfortable with, maybe for the first time. This provides for a balanced all round program that includes spiritual and social input, as well as physical and educational activities.

Cost

We also know that the cost to parents in sending their child to Boys’ Brigade is an important consideration given the many pressures on family budgets. The BB program is significantly cheaper consistently than many other sports and activities that can be undertaken by children and the variety is greater in BB.

Wider Boys’ Brigade organisation

Local groups network together at regional level (sometimes called Battalions) and in your state to run big events and activities that are only possible with the combined resources of the wider organisation.  Events such as

• Leader Training Courses
• Pan Australian Camps every 3 years

Want to know more?

Contact the WA state office or phone 0437 746 699 and we will help you with any questions and put you in contact with a company in your area.
Alternatively you can give us your contact details and we will get someone to respond to your enquiry.

Object and Motto

The Object of Boys’ Brigade

“The advancement of Christ’s Kingdom among Boys, and the promotion of habits of Obedience, Reverence, Discipline, Self-Respect, and all that tends towards a true Christian Manliness.”

Advancing the Kingdom of God through training certain habits and recognising we should strive throughout our lives to live out the ideal idea of maturity.

The Motto

“Sure and Stedfast.”
The Motto comes from Chapter 6, verse 19 of the Book of Hebrews from the King James Version (translation) of the Bible (notice the misspelling of steadfast is intentional as it quotes this verse!):
“Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast”.

The Purpose Statement of BB in Australia

“The purpose of The Boys’ Brigade in Australia is to provide, in cooperation with the local church, a supportive Christian community for boys and young men to assist in their Christian growth, balanced personal development, and leadership training, and to assist the church reaching out into the community.”

BB Holistic (Four-sided) Program

Inspired by another Bible verse (Luke 2:52), BB empowers you to develop all areas of your life: educationally, physically, socially and spiritually; believing that we will enjoy and succeed in life immensely more if we have experienced and developed skills or experiences across many diverse areas. That’s why the regular BB program continually balances these areas. Any interest, skill or passion you have or might want to pursue, there is always a way BB can involve it.

BB Uniform