Cambridgeskip

Certainly you can do that, but what you get voting are those that feel particularly strongly one way or the other about it. And the result may not be representative. So you may say to that well if they can't be bothered to vote they don't really matter. But nevertheless they may have an opinion and that may result in their continued membership or otherwise. The really tricky part of any survey is getting the opinion of those who aren't really passionate about the question but nevertheless have an opinion. And they typically make up the majority. Take a look at how many users use this forum. And how many of them have commented on this thread. Maybe one of the mods could give us the stats? Doesn't mean that those who haven't don't have an opinion.

It's tricky. I've had to do an extensive survey internally for my employer when we were looking at IT skills and the problems go like this..... The mechanics of setting up some kind of voting website are in themselves pretty simple. Trouble is that if you simply set it up and invite people to use it what you get is a self selecting sample. Whatever features of that sample it is that cause that particular group to choose themselves, you get their bias in your results. Which makes the results a waste of time. So then you have to select your own sample. And in doing so you have to do your level best to make that sample representative. And the variables on doing that are endless. In my situation we had to get a sample that was representative of age, gender, pay grade, current job role. In your case lets assume you are going to survey those of boy scout age and above plus parents of all youth members. You'd need to balance it across age, state, urban v rural, gender and a million and one other variables. And you need to get it balanced within each one as well. The number crunching is difficult and needs people with pretty good training in stats to do it. That doesn't come cheap. It can be done, have no doubt about that. But to do it and do it right you are going to have to stump up the money. Less you pay the bigger the margin of error.

I can imagine that place is properly spooky! Makes for a great story to tell the scouts. The strangest place we've stayed at is called Lochearnhead Scout Station. It's a closed down railway station that was bought up by the scouts over here when the line it was on closed in the 1960s. It's now used as a centre for scout mountaineering courses. The railway theme has been maintained but the buildings turned into campsite facilities with log cabins built on the track bed. Good view of it in this photo of our contingent that went earlier this year here. You can see some of the old railway memorabilia on the wall in this photo of the dining room.

A couple of weeks ago a former scout dropped into scouts to say hello, simply as he was passing and wanted to see how we were all doing. I was quite touched! His older sister, also a former scout, has done similar in the past

I disagree. If you are going to look at action X, regardless of what you hope to achieve by action X, then looking at others who have already done action X and seeing what the outcomes of that for them were simply makes sense. It doesn't presume anything. For example if you were to look at the likely outcome of lowering the speed limit on the road you would look at the outcome for other countries who did it. Doing so doesn't imply the desired outcome is anything. You might be looking at in terms of what reduces casualty rates in road traffic accidents. Yet the countries that you are looking at might have done it to reduce traffic congestion or reduce carbon emissions. Looking at their outcomes doesn't presume that you are looking to do either. What your desired outcome is is entirely down to you, it matters not one jot what others were trying to achieve who did it.

No David. Looking at evidence, when faced with a choice, considering what happened in similar situations and using that to help predict what might happen in different scenarios is the argument of logic, reason and science.

I don't think that's what people are suggesting. It's a case of looking at evidence, ie what has worked all around the world, in the majority of countries and cultures on every continent. It still doesn't mean you have to do it because of that, it's simply a case of if you are considering it looking at the ample evidence that there is out there.

It was a bit like pulling teeth watching them do it. One scene (not the one above) took 17 takes and still needs reshooting due to a dreadful bout of the giggles. We'll be doing some shooting on our next camp as well. The bell tower sounds amazing!

So... among all the worries and stress on here let's not forget that scouting is ultimately meant to be fun. So I thought I'd share this! The troop have started putting together a welcome video for new recruits, telling them everything they need to know before they begin. There's more to film and quite a bit of production still to do but among the clips already done, this is what some of our scouts thought was a very important thing for new recruits to be aware of (Filmed in the attic of our group HQ). Happy Friday's everyone! And don't have nightmares.....

An observation from watching my coed scouts here. A few years ago we had a joint evening with the girl guides that also use our building on a different night. We went to the local campsite for a wide games and camp fire night. Two things were interesting to note. Firstly the girls in the respective troops looked different. Those who were scouts basically dressed properly for the outdoors. Boots or trail shoes on their feet. Walking trousers, goretex, etc. The guides were all polka dot wellie boots and pink bobble hats. There was a definite difference in attitude! More interestingly was attitude of the boys. Yes there was some fooling around. But it was aimed entirely at the girl guides, not the girls in scouts. Those that they saw all the time, that were not a distraction at all. The only distraction were those who were a novelty.

Equivalent of PLs and APLs in Cubs! We don't have dens in cubs in the UK. Instead (and actually I think most of the world?) we run a pack with typically 15-30 cubs at any one time which is divided into Sixes. As the name implies these are groups of typically 6 cubs across the cub age range (8-10.5) with each one having a sixer (PL equivalent) and a seconder (APL equivalent). A beaver Colony (6-8 year olds) will also typically, but not always, be divided into lodges with a Lodge Leader for each one. Of course at that age they don't have the same responsibilities as PLs but do things like buddy new cubs, break the flag, feed back from their sixes to leaders on program, look after their six box. That kind of thing. A six will typically sleep in the same tent on camp, one of our traditional heavy green canvas patrol tents.

An observation about what happened in the UK when we started with local option. Obviously while groups had the choice between being single sex or going coed the girls all went to those groups who were coed. Then in 2007 we went fully coed. A decade later and many of those groups that stayed all boys are still either all boys or have very few girls, simply because the girls gravitate towards those perceived as girl friendly. So those groups have a disproportionate number of girls compared to the national average. I suspect you'll see something similar in time.

So..... just back from the selection weekend. As it happens in the end the questions for the interview set were dictated from further up the food chain so I didn't get to be creative. I will say though that this was one of the hardest decisions I've ever been involved in. A panel of 5 of us had to get 18 scouts and explorers down to just 6. The standard of human beings in front of us was extraordinary and having to say no to some of them was frankly heart breaking. That's life I guess. You will though be having 6 outstanding young people from one corner of england joining you in 2 years time!

I think it's exactly because those differences between boys and girls are recognised that we haven't ended up with girls dominating. Boththe adult leaders and the scouts can recognise that so we end up with a healthy mix. What I have noticed is that when we have any kind of inter patrol competition it's patrols with a boy/girl. pL /APL pairing (either way round) that tend to dominate the competition. Related but different difference is that for weekend camps we tend to get a disproportionate number of boys sign up and for longer week long trips a disproportionate number of girls. I've also heard of troops where it's the other way round and others where no difference noticed so might just be our neighbourhood!

At full strength we can muster 13 adults with the scout troop. Bear in mind that's well above average! Of those their back ground is 6 x went all the way through scouts and ended up as an adult at the end. 1 x went all the way through girl guides and came to us as an adult leader 2 x went all through the scouts and came back as an adult a later in life 1 x mum who was never a scout or guide 3 x volunteered completely externally For many groups an occasional "family camp" does exist but is not the standard camp. It may be an annual fixture or maybe just every 2 or 3 years. The main point of them is to get parents along for a fun weekend and encourage them to volunteer and often includes the group AGM as part of it. It certainly doesn't dominate the program as such.

Feel free to keep firing away with questions on or off line. I was speaking to one of my ASLs last night about this. He joined up as an 8 year old cub, is now 73, and other than 3 years off when he first had children has been around ever since. He said that when girls were first admitted to all sections he was sceptical but had to admit that it had been a success. Other than higher pitched voices they really weren't any different to the boys. In previous conversations he's said that while some of the tents might look different and the uniform has changed scouting doesn't really look all that different to when he was 12 years old.

Pretty much every group at every age range has a waiting list. My troop runs at a maximum of 35. We set that simply that the main hall in the building we meet in will fit that number of kids in with space to still do something active. Beyond that it's just too crowded. At present we are full and of course we have those due to move up from cubs who we give priority to who will likely take the vast majority of places freed up when scouts move to explorers. In addition to those I have moving up from cubs I have 18 on a waiting list looking to join straight into scouts. Our neighbouring groups are in a similar state. A new troop opened in our district earlier this year. Went from 6 scouts night 1 to 24 scouts and a waiting list within a month. We can't open them fast enough. We have never had a problem with one sex or the other dominating leadership positions. You could though allow it to happen at scout level if you weren't careful. In the 10-14 years age range I find, and this is a massive generalisation, that girls are more likely to get whatever you ask of them right first time. When things go wrong though I find boys are more likely to think on their feet successfully. Fail to pick up on the latter and girls could come to dominate. Thankfully while I, as SL, reserve the right to over ride the decision of the PLs Council it has been years since I last did so, and we operate on the PLC electing PLs and APLs and they always seem to make good decisions.

Bit of a faff for a weekend camp but still brilliant for a full week away and difficult to beat. And yes, built like tanks. The last one we binned was, we think, in excess of 40 years old. There's a couple more the same age still going strong!

Quick answer as about to head out to scouts myself, others may pad it out more. Over all the ratio of young people is about 22% girls if I remember right with a slightly higher number in the older age ranges. Groups that were coed before they had to be tend to have more girls. So we run at about 40% at any one time. For adults I'm not sure what the ratios are but full strength my troop can call on 12 adults of which 5 are women. And yes we have the Young Leader scheme. So 14-17 year old explorer scouts can help at Beavers, Cubs or Scouts. I currently have two 15 year old explorers that come along to scouts.

To answer this from the younger 10-14 perspective.... The rules are that boys and girls need separate changing and washing facilities but are allowed to sleep in the same tent or room. In practice it is quite rare for that to happen. We've only ever done it at the end of a night hike and they all crash on the floor of our HQ and once on an over night ferry when it was rooms of 4 and the ratios didn't work out to be entirely separate. The troop has a selection of 2,3 4 and 6 man tents which they distribute depending on the make up of a particular patrol so that they have boy and girl tents. There's been the occasional "sleep over" where someone has been playing cards or talking to their mates in the other tent and has fallen asleep in there. But no harm done and I've seen no reason to intervene. We too have had the occasional couple but the kids manage it themselves. We've had no problems with PDAs or sneaking off. It all just works out.

First question is not a straight forward one to answer given he timeline. All age groups went coed on a local option basis in 1991. And at that time there were no changes at all. In 2002-2003 there was a root and branch change to the age ranges and program to the point where it simply wasn't comparable. Progression awards in cubs and scouts were replaced with challenge badges. Queens Scout was made tougher o get but given longer to do it. Simply no comparison. Have a look at badge requirements for scouts (10-14) Challenge, Activity and staged activity. Note that staged activity badges can be earned anytime between age 6 and 18! So bottom end are aimed at Beavers and top end at Explorers. I couldn't tell you all the badges from when I was a scout but I don't think it looks that much different. Then in 2007 all groups went coed. There was a program refresh a couple of years ago which kept the existing structure but made the challenge badges tougher. Recruiting mums... not really a problem to be honest! When I ran cubs and we needed a pair of hands we typically got mums stepping forward. But to be honest we don't really need parents that much. Most of our leaders come all the way through and age out to become adult leaders. I have one mum with the troop at the moment, none of the other adults are parents, at least not of any of our scouts. Virtually no impact on Girl Guides at all. In fact Girl Guiding UK is still bigger than TSA! Fact is the girls that join scouts typically don't want to be girl guides. In a single sex world hey simply wouldn't have done either. I have had plenty of girls join us by coming over form guides or brownies. I haven't lost a single one the other way.

The view from across the pond…. One of my favourite American performers is stand up comedian Lewis Black. (Not everyone’s cup of tea I know). I recall in one of his shows him criticising one politician or another saying “You don’t have to give a dam, but you have to at least look like you give a dam. That’s the deal!†He’s quite right. My job means I’m involved in a lot of change management and even when you don’t intend to act on what people feeding back have to say you have to at least maintain a facade that you do. And that is something your HQ has failed to do here. As with Ian, you have my sympathies. What’s done though is done and for those who chose to stay with BSA I imagine that thoughts are turning to how you implement this. I’ve seen all kinds of concerns about going coed expressed by users of this forum over the years I’ve lurked and commented and I can say that not one of them is unique to the USA. Every concern expressed was expressed in the UK before we went fully coed and I have little doubt was expressed in every other scout association world wide before moving to a coed model. And yet world wide scouting is thriving. Take heart in that. It can work. It does work. Just take a look around the world. In cultures as diverse and different as Afghanistan, Japan, Brazil it has been made to work. I won’t sit here and dish out any further comments on specifics beyond joining Ian in saying we’ve been there and done it. Both of us run coed groups. Like him I am always happy to help my fellow scouts in other countries and if you want any questions on answers along the lines of what if? And how do you? And have you ever? Blah blah blah you only have to ask! Good luck, I doubt you'll need it though.

I'll stick with scout led! Although in this case yes it was one of my girls. In toe curling HQ speak it would be "youth shaped". Every time I see that phrase it makes me want to stick rusty pins in my eyeballs.

Last night at scouts was an odd one. It's a night that crops up every year. Basically the secondary school (11-16 year olds) that the vast majority of our scouts go to had it's open evening for those at primary school moving to secondary next september. As usual it meant the majority of our younger scouts were there as prospective students. The majority of our older ones were there helping run it. Happens every year. It means that as an evening it's not really worth planning anything as we get so few through the door. And indeed we had just 14 out of 35 tun up, with one patrol of 7 scouts down to just one scout! So how we ran it was simply said to those that turned up, what do you want to do? You have the run of the building, the field outside, all the kit, the knowledge of 5 adult leaders who are here. Go for your life! So they drifted off and did a variety of things. But it was two of the girls that really made me smile. One of them is one of our oldest scouts. She's 14 and a couple of months, chose to stay with us past 14 (which is standard move to explorers age) and is closing in on 14 and 6 months when we have to boot them out the door to explorers. She can be a bit of a grumpy, hormone fuelled slightly sulky teenager. Also there was our newest recruit. Who is 10 and 3 weeks old and only been with us 3 weeks and barely old enough to be a scout. Bright eyed, bushy tailed and full of the joys of not having hit adolescence yet! 4 school years apart so in child terms they may as well live in different universes! Older grumpy scout (who is an APL of a different patrol) quite simply took younger one, who's PL was missing for the night, under her wing. She proceeded to teach younger one CPR on a resus doll before taking her outside to where some of the older ones had lit a fire and were practising with fire steels and got her properly introduced with the senior members of the troop. All without any prompting from adults who got to sit back and chew the fat. Scouting doesn't always work as smoothly as it's meant to in the text book. Sometimes though, quite unexpectedly, you get to watch the magic happen.

11 years ago I was still cub leader and about this time of year as it happens we had one of our best days out we did. One of my old house mates from university was (still is) in the navy and was captain of a minesweeper. It docked in Kings Lynn, a small port about an hour from Cambridge, for a weekend and he invited the cubs to go and have a look round. Minesweepers may not be the biggest warships but for a group of 8-10 year old cubs? It left them absolutely awe struck! What was most amusing was the attitude of officers compared to the rates. One group got shown round by an officer and he did everything very sensibly and by the book. So when they manned the fire fighting gear it was a case of spraying it out into the dock. When the group shown round by junior rates got to that part they all ended up soaking wet! Similarly when they got to man the anti aircraft gun (checked by 3 different crew to confirm the magazine was empty first!) the officer did it 2 kids at a time. The junior rates got about 8 on at a time and spun it round at maximum speed. Great fun! What was most memorable was we had two new cubs to invest. We try to do it at interesting locations and where else seemed better? So we did it on the fore deck of the ship, the crew formed a guard of honour and my friend who was the captain held the pack colours for us. Getting a salute from the ship's crew afterwards was something they never forgot.