NEVER let anyone put you off what you really want to do.
This advice may seem quite plain and a little bit obvious to start off with but you may find yourself surprised by the number of people, the younger generation in particular, who don't follow their interests because they worry about somebody else's views.
I have been a member of 1st Cleethorpes Sea Scouts since joining the group as a Beaver at the age of six and stayed in Scouting all the way through to Explorers, this is something that I'm very proud of.
However, I've known people to come to scouts and, I hasten to add, enjoy themselves but yet the very moment they leave at the end of a Friday night session.
They pretend to have nothing to do with it so as not to damage their own image.
This strikes me as more than a little odd. I am aware that there are some rather uneducated opinions cast on what it means to be in an organisation such as Scouts or Cadets, but if you really do enjoy doing something, why let other people's opinions put you off pursuing the passions that you find interesting and exciting?
At the last count there were more than 30 million people worldwide in the scouting movement alone, and the fact of the matter is this many people simply can not be wrong.
I've never really been afraid to talk about being in the scouts to other people and most of the time I am pleasantly surprised to find that they think it's cool anyway. Any negative comments I have always been able to brush aside because I know that I've learnt to do things at scouts that I would never have had the opportunity to do anywhere else.
The skills we learn at scouts are skills for life, as well as all the sailing, power-boating, hiking and camping, to name but a few of the activities we do.
There are the really important ones like first aid, leadership and social abilities, making it something that is often an asset to have on an application.
I'm always taking on new challenges with it and any competition is always of the healthy variety.
Often I know that it can be difficult starting something you've never done before, particularly when it's the first time, but now I can go every week safe in the knowledge that I have met a new group of friends who share my same interest and dedicated leaders who have, and continue to, put a very large amount of their own time into the running of the group.
But most of all, the main reason that I've gone continuously week after week on a Friday night is because I enjoy going, and when you enjoy something as much as I enjoy going to scouts then you shouldn't let anybody else tell you any different, especially if they haven't actually tried it for themselves.
Lots of people have a variety of different hobbies or interests, there is always something more bizarre and more often than not it's the ones who try these obscure hobbies that are the more interesting person and they should not be faulted on it.
I'm not saying that you need to walk around with a huge sign advertising to the world that you belong to one of these organisations.
But if somebody mentions whatever it is that you do, whether that would be scouts, cadets, playing a musical instrument or one of any number of other things, you should be completely open about it.
If you have confidence in the extra curricular activities that you do and show that you enjoy them then the more other people will respect the things that you do.
Who knows you may even be able to persuade them to have a go themselves.