2012 could see the return of a new version of Bob a Job in Scouting, or is it just Scouts doing a good deed?

A triumph for the Big Society. Next May will see the return of bob-a-job week. It will be in modern form. It will be called Community Week. Cash donations will still be welcome but it is more more likely money will be given online or by text.

Around 40,000 scouts are expected to undertake activities in Community Week. Sometimes there will be tasks carried out for private households in return for a donation to the local scout troop - although with the ruinous level of inflation they would probably hope that the old rate of a shilling would be superseded by something higher.

Probably the greater focus will be on a single project lasting a week and involving the whole group - perhaps polishing items in a museum or doing some gardening for a hospital of care home, or clearing woodland or building work on a local playground. The work will be done for free but residents in the local community who appreciate it will be invited to give money.

Scouting still involves tents and campfires. There is still a uniform including a woggle. They still tie knots. But scouting also involves a lot more. There is abseiling and archery. Canoeing and clay pigeon shooting. Karate and kayaking. Sailing and skiing.

Scouting is an international movement - although totalitarian regimes have banned it over the years seeing such groups as a threat to their indoctrination drive. rather than a voluntary, independent group they favoured conscription into a state run body. The Nazis closed the scouts and instructed young Germans to join the Hitler Youth. The Soviets did the same and instead established the Young Pioneers

Community Week promises to be tremendous show of strength. It will let the rest of us know what they are capable of. Of course it operates independently of the state or any political party. But it will still constitute a powerful rebuff to those defeatists who sneer that the Big Society is meaningless or some kind of nostalgic fantasy.