8th Airdrie Boys Brigade

31/10/2026

A new Boys’ Brigade museum and activity centre is opening in Falkirk Town Centre in November! Boys’ Brigade and camp memories

The BB Memories Museum & Activity Centre officially opens on Saturday 14th November. The new space will preserve local Boys’ Brigade history and give people somewhere to come together, with room for community activities as well as the museum itself.

If you were in the Boys’ Brigade yourself, or have family or friends who were, it’s a great chance to look back and share some memories!

On the day, you can also drop in to Try a Craft and make something quick and simple to take home, such as a greetings card, an i-cord flower or some papercraft 🧶

The project has been made possible with support from Centric Projects Family, a charity that helps community groups bring empty commercial units back into use.

It’s brilliant to see another empty unit being brought back to life in Falkirk Town Centre 👏

📅 Saturday 14th November
📍 Unit 13, Howgate Shopping Centre (previously USC)
🕐 Time: 11am

Pop along and help celebrate the opening!

29/10/2026

Great opportunity to help support work of the Company, all sponsorship raised goes directly to enabling activities, capitation and insurances throughout the session.

19/10/2026

Our National Competitions for 2026/27 are getting underway and it's fantastic to see our largest number of entries and biggest participation for a number of years! 🙌

We're looking forward to seeing 618 teams from 163 BB groups across The Boys' Brigade UK & RoI and The Northern Ireland Boys' Brigade getting involved across our seven competitions - 🏸 Badminton ♟️ Chess 🎮 Fifa ⚽ Football (Company & Seniors) 🤔 Masterteam (Quiz) & 🏓 Table Tennis - with an estimated 2,800 young people set to take part!

Each competition will run across several rounds over the coming months, with the National Finals set to take place in March & April 2027. All the very best to everyone taking part! 🏆

13/10/2026

REMINDER

No BB meeting this week, enjoy the October break.

05/10/2026

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 On this day, 4 October 1883, a Glasgow Sunday school teacher gathered a group of boys in a mission hall and started something that would reach every continent.

His name was William Alexander Smith, later Sir William Smith, and the hall was the North Woodside Mission Hall in Glasgow. Smith taught a boys' Bible class, and he had a problem that many teachers of the time recognised. The boys were restless. They drifted away from classes and out of church, and Bible stories alone were not holding them.

Smith had also served as a volunteer officer, and he knew the pull of drill, uniform, belonging and a clear goal. He put the two together. The result was the Boys' Brigade, a company of boys with a semi military structure, drill and gymnastics alongside Bible classes and church parades. Its stated object was 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. Its first motto was Sure and Stedfast, taken from the book of Hebrews.

It was an idea that fitted its moment. Victorian Glasgow was crowded, industrial and full of boys with nowhere to go on a dark evening. A uniform cap, a belt and a place in a squad gave a lad from a tenement a place to stand up straight.

The movement spread across the United Kingdom very quickly. By the early 1890s it was worldwide, and by 1910 there were about 2,200 companies with some 10,000 officers and 100,000 boys across the British Empire and the United States. Today it is said to have around 750,000 members in about sixty countries.

Several of the world's youth organisations that came after it owe something to that Glasgow hall, and the Boys' Brigade is still marching on, a hundred and forty years later.

If your grandfather or great grandfather wore a pillbox cap on a Friday night in a church hall in Glasgow, Ayrshire or Fife, then you have a small piece of that story at home. It may be waiting in an old photograph. 📷

04/10/2026

On this day in 1883, a Sunday School teacher in Glasgow decided he’d had enough of chaos in his classroom.

William Alexander Smith was a businessman and Volunteer soldier who couldn’t keep his boys in order — so on the evening of 4 October 1883, he threw open the doors of the Free College Church Mission at 329 North Woodside Road with two friends, the Hill brothers. They called themselves “the Dauntless Three.”
The first session was pure drill. No boy could fall in if he was even a minute late. But it worked — fifty-nine names in three weeks, boys aged twelve to sixteen.

That one evening became the world’s first uniformed youth organisation. It pioneered organised camping for young people in 1886, and Baden-Powell later drew on it when he founded the Scouts in 1908.

From a mission hall in Glasgow to 750,000 members worldwide.

04/10/2026

03/10/2026

Happy 143rd Founding Day to The Boys' Brigade worldwide! ⚓⚓⚓

On this day, October 4th, 1883, Sir William Alexander Smith founded the very first company of The Boys’ Brigade at North Woodside Road in Glasgow, Scotland. What started as a single group of boys has grown into a global movement that has shaped the lives of millions of young men over the last 143 sessions.

As we kick off this milestone session, we remain firmly anchored in our twin pillars: Religion & Discipline. We continue our mission to advance Christ's Kingdom among Boys and promote habits of Obedience, Reverence, Discipline, and Self-respect.

To all our Officers, Volunteers, Anchors, Juniors, Seniors, and Alumni—thank you for keeping the BB emblem flying high. Let us continue to be Sure & Stedfast in everything we do! ⚓⚓

How are you celebrating BB Founding Day today? Drop your company number and memories in the comments below! ⚓👇



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03/10/2026

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