As a parent Renegades has been invaluable to me.  My child has a good group of friends and they rely on online gaming to interact outside of school much of the time.  Living in outlying villages of a small town, getting face to face time with friends isn’t as easy as popping down the road to call, as I did at his age.
 
So the bulk of free time is spent online gaming and waiting for friends to come online or organised visits to and from friends.  When they do meet, inevitably they are back on screens.  Renegades is the group where the majority of his friends go together; hike, ramble, hang out, gaze at the stars, are trusted to finetune incredible telescopes to pinpoint areas of the night sky and make sense of it, learn to chop onions, make pizzas from scratch, foraging walks identifying what’s safe to eat from killers, camp outs, digging up clay and sculpting a bowl, Chinese fireworks and cultural insights from around the world. All this to a gentle chat about how these things relate to them and to their lives.  While digging clay from a stream to make bowls, he learnt how this was part of Man's evolution; from making something to hold water, to decorating it and so on.
 
Even fundraising for Renegades involves the children.  In a culture where parents organise everything and where parents pay (to children, often invisibly), the Renegades Christmas Fair involved the children too.  Over the years I have made a lot of cakes for various PTA sales and attempted to involve my children unsuccessfully.  Minimal interest.  For the Renegades Christmas Fair he wanted us to make traditional Swedish Pepparkakor (thin ginger snaps) to sell in little bags, in the traditional shapes not often seen outside Scandinavia.  I was impressed by his interest and thinking: Swedish Candles had been made to sell and he thought this complimented it.  He planned ahead, making the dough days before (best flavour), then helped roll, cut, wash, bake, cool and carefully pack them in little bags.  He stamped little labels and took them along to put out for sale.  
 
At the sale, he decided that tasters may help drive sales so this shy 11 year old walked around asking people if they would like to try a traditional Swedish Pepparkaka and then led them over to the stall where the full bounty of delights parents and children had assembled was presented. 
 
After lockdown, the loan of 3 single pop up tents meant that he and close friends could have a sleep over, camping in our garden.  The children did not have their own small tents and it would not have been possible without Renegades resources.  All the children enjoyed it and one overcame his fear of sleeping outside alone.  My son slept outside for several nights, enjoying the night sky and stars, the hedgehogs visits and ‘some space’.  The friendship bubbles have closely mirrored his Renegades bubbles, so our exposure hasn’t increased.  The children have learnt the ground rules of COVID-19 prevention with ease by attending the group – change of clothes, wash hands, mask on then sanitise on arrival, social distance and so on.  I think this experience regularly with a small group of friends has been so beneficial.
 
As a parent, I cannot thank them enough.  For me, they have made such a difference.  They provide balance in a world of organised playdates and working parents.  They bring the outdoors into the world of children who would gladly spend all day staring at a screen or raging against the injustice of screen-free time, who are either not confident or not free to roam fields and woods as many of us did as children.  Renegades also provide a seamless bridge between tweenies and teens through their activities.
 
As my son has told me many times Scouts give badges to show that they did / learnt something, but with Renegades they just do it, know they did it and why – no badge but it feels better because they aren’t proving it to anyone else, it was for them alone.  His example is building a good fire – a badge doesn’t help you keep warm, building a good fire does.