Cambridgeskip

Imagination is powerful I'll agree. But I'd dispute that it's as powerful as non scout kids seeing, properly, what their friends in scouts are doing. This album is of a day out windsurfing. When these photos went on line we had a big spike in kids appearing on the waiting list. The scouts that went were showing their friends what they had got up to and word quickly spread. The website photos give our scouts the tools they need to go out and do their own recruiting. Like I said, recruitment gold.

Understood! While I understand why you are doing it that way I do think you are missing a trick though. Photos of scouts doing fun stuff with big smiles on their face is the best recruitment tool we have. Think about that photo of the canoe on the shore, put a photo of that same canoe in the water with a smiling scout in it and you have recruitment gold.

From reading this thread I don't think the culture regarding photography is really that different on the two sides of the Atlantic, which is why I'm slightly puzzled by your comment. I too take a lot of photos of scout events and the majority of them end up being posted on our group website. If we're talking about the photographer protecting themselves then I would argue that taking photos of children and then having a clear purpose for that, ie the promotion of a scout group via its website, puts the photographer in a far stronger position than taking photos of children full stop. Let me clear, I am not for one moment saying there is anything inherently wrong with the latter case. Unless I've misunderstood?

Interesting question and I would say it probably depends upon the context. Say you came here to the UK the answer would vary. Can you wear it as part of your uniform? - There isn't anything specific in our rules that says either way but I think it would be a total jobsworth of a commissioner of any sort that told you you couldn't. Would you be considered to have done all your leader training? - It would depend on what the nature of your training and experience is. All our leader training can, at least in theory, be passed by "prior learning", ie if you can demonstrate that you have done it outside of scouting then as long as your local training manager is satisfied then you get ticked off. For example I am a first aider where I work and the qualification I do for that every 3 years is considered fine to pass our leaders first aid module. I'm guessing that the rules in other countries will vary. Certainly any other country would recognise your woodbadge in terms of it marking you out as a fully trained leader from where you have come from.

Well that was it. They're gone! They went out with a bit of style. As is often the case they brought a load of chocolate in to dish out. These two though stood one of the hall, turned their back on the rest of the troop and through them over their shoulder for the others to catch. Pure theater to the last. I'll miss them. No scouts next week as it's school holidays, week after we've got 3 new ones coming through the door. New bonds to form, new adventures to have.

After all that..... it seems I'm going slightly senile. Next week is their last week. Oops! Good thing too. He was off sick, we were missing a few last night, some kind of winter vomiting bug going round the school most of them go to.

Just though I’d share a thought on a couple of members of my troop. It’s their last night tonight. They are 2 of a group of 4 who will be moving onto Explorers, and these 2 will live long in the memory. You try not to have favourites among the kids that come through the troop over the years but some….. well some just make you smile. These two are the best of inseparable friends. It’s a boy and a girl. They’re not a couple, despite the ribbing they get off the rest of the troop. She’s PL, he’s APL of the same patrol. He could have made PL, he’s certainly got the gift of the gab to do it and is highly influential among the troop, but they didn’t want to be separated into different patrols so they stayed as a pair. They are by no means angels. There’s plenty of mischief from the pair of them. There’s plenty of back chat, “banter†and occasional over stepping the mark, but none of it is meant to be nasty. It’s just teenagers pushing boundaries. Besides, scouts would be seriously dull if all we ever got through the door was angels. During a first aid refresher a couple of weeks ago she managed to tie his arms and legs together with bandages without him noticing. One of the funniest things I’d seen in ages! They have some proper team spirit to them. Their patrol, while by no means the cleanest, tidiest (their patrol kitchen at summer camp…. Oh good grief!) or most smartly dressed in the troop (uniform can be shambolic) are clearly the most tight knit in the troop and properly look out for each other. Without them the troop is going to be a calmer, tidier, more disciplined place. It’s going to be a lot less fun though.

Occasionally you get a YL here who isn't really there to be a YL. They don't want to quit scouts and they don't want to go to explorers. They don't tend to last very long as a YL! Of my 3, 2 are former SPLs from the troop and one got recruited by one of the others from their world jamboree unit. All 3 are fantastic and I can see them rapidly maturing and developing.

Thanks for the ideas chaps. The one that is interesting is letting patrols form themselves. While it is occasionally done here it is very rare. I think the reason is that we don't tend to have the big groups of new starters moving up from cubs in one go that I think you have. They come in a trickle throughout the year. So I had 2 new starters after Christmas, I think I'm getting 3 up from cubs after Easter (typically they move on at the end of a school term) plus a 2 or 3 more from our waiting list.

Most people here will never heard of Green Bar Bill! I only have through looking at this forum.

We can, sort of. We have something called the Young Leader scheme whereby Explorer Scouts can effectively become apprentice adult leaders with Beavers, Cubs or Scouts. With scouts though they are specifically not meant to act like a PL or SPL. It is about training them to be adult leaders when they turn 18. I currently have 3, aged 17, 16 and 15. It is recommended that there are no more than 3 with any given colony/pack/troop.

Given that the patrol method is perhaps that bit stronger in the USA than this side of the pond I thought I would pick some American brains (also because I’m typing this from work and our work network has suddenly decided I can look but not post on Escouts, the UK equivalent of this forum!) The scout section in the UK is younger than for you, running aged 10-14. 14 is the standard move on age to explorers (14-18). They can stay at scouts till they are 14 years and 6 months, and in practice more chose to do this than go straight at 14, at 14.6 though we have to kick them out to explorers! Hence we can’t give our PLs quite as much responsibility as you do and it generally needs that bit more adult input to make sure PLs councils happen, that they come up with workable and affordable programmes and that camps run smoothly and safely. That’s not to say that PLs don’t take responsibility, it just takes that bit more input, training and nurturing. With that in mind…. I’m about to go from having quite an old troop (in UK terms) to being quite a young one. As things stand I have 31 on the books with 9 of them either 14 or just about to turn 14 with all of them heading off to explorers by early April. Allowing for those moving up from cubs after Easter I am expecting a troop of around 28 which looks like 4 patrols to me. My age profile will be; 3 x 13 year olds. Of whom one is brand new to scouting. 9 x 12 year olds. Of Whom 2 are brand new to scouting. 2 will only just be 12 and 1 is an intermittent attendee. The rest will be aged 10 or 11. It’s the youngest age profile I will have had while running the scout section. I have no problem with a program appropriate to their age and experience. What I am pondering is how successfully the patrol system can run with that age profile and what I can do to help it run smoothly. No particular question in mind other than thoughts or ideas?

A few random thoughts I guess in some ways we are vey lucky in the UK. A stat for you, I live in the city of Cambridge which is part of the county of Cambridgeshire (Cambs). Our police forces are broadly organised on county lines. Some stats, Cambs is 620 sq miles with a population of around 807000. Two major centres of population in the form of Cambridge and Peterborough, with most of it being small towns and rural villages. With the possible exceptions of certain bits of Peterborough it is a pretty safe place even by British standards. There is not a single street in Cambridge that I would be concerned about walking down on my own at night. There's one or two where I would keep my wits about me I'll grant you, but nowhere that I would go out of my way to avoid. However even I was surprised to learn that during an incident last year the an officer from Cambs police fired a gun for the first ever time. In its entire history no member of the police in Cambs had fired a weapon in anger until 2015. It wouldn't surprise me if there are many other counties with similar stats. We have our more dangerous places. There are bits of Manchester and Nottingham that I would steer well clear of. As Ian says though, we live in a very different world here. We don't have any proper wild life. Badgers are as scary as it gets! With the exception of the Scottish Highlands nowhere is very far from anywhere else although I think even that has a higher population density than Wyoming or Alaska! Maybe it's just some underlying culture. A book worth reading - Risk - the science and politics of fear. I forget the author. A truly excellent read. Some staggering statistics are in there. I think in the UK we are something like 300 time more likely to be killed in a road traffic accident than by a terrorist. Yet people are more scared on terrorists. A child is more likely (I forget by how much) to be killed by lightening than be murdered by an adult they don't know. Yet people are more scared of "stranger danger". It wouldn't surprise me if the stats were pretty similar for USA as well. There was interesting number crunch demonstrating the safety of flying. Following 9/11 a lot of people in America stopped flying and drove long distance. Deaths from RTA's spiked. You can flex the stats many ways but there is hard evidence that more people were killed by switching from flying to driving in the 12 months that followed than were killed on that dreadful day itself. We live in a weird world.

It might be a couple of years old but I remembered this thread last weekend. I was with my scouts at Winter Camp, a national event that takes place at Gilwell, and noticed that they had installed the Gilwell Heritage Trail. It's a series of signs, explanations, pictures etc around the site talking people through the history of the site. There is some incredible stuff there and well worth a look if any of you are ever in London. I'd always thought they didn't make as much of the heritage side of things as maybe they could there but they've now done a really good job. (Only complaint was that the face of Big Mac, the campsite clock, that's meant to show Jamboree Time didn't show either Japan or USA but GMT!)

Been there and done that! Slight problem.... most of the more robust two man tents both from Vango and others are now designed to have 2 separate entrances, one each side, for the two occupants. I'm more after one that has the traditional front door with a single porch section. They do one called the Sirroco that is more what I'm after but before I shell out £180 I'd like to see what others think!

Yes, Bob a Job was just that and yes it was phased out many years ago for a number of reasons although child protection was one of them. It's sort of been brought back in recent years as Scout Communities Week although this is more aimed at getting scouts doing community service work than it is for fund raising. The best fund raiser we normally find is bag packing, so packing groceries for customers at supermarkets. In terms of money in for man hours used you can't beat it!

They did and it didn't really work! The scout shops run by national HQ were sold off entirely some years ago. It's now an online shop Some districts and counties run their own shop which vary. My own local one is very much about uniforms and badges although there is some outdoor kit as well. Glasgow scout shop has an online presence where you can see what one looks like in terms of stock.

Cheers for the pointers, I shall have a rummage round for reviews etc.

There's also the fact that "pound" as in currency derives from "pound" as in weight. The first coins to circulate in what would eventually become the UK were whatever the maker wanted them to be. Then eventually some king or another, I forget who, took a pound (weight) of silver and divided it into 20 pieces that he called shillings. That's why the UK pound is also referred to as "pound sterling" because it derives from sterling silver.

So my trusty Vango Hydra has finally bitten the dust after 12 years of sterling service. It's now leaking like a sieve and no amount of reproofing seems to be stopping it. To be fair I have persistently thrashed it in that time. So I'm after something new. I'd happily buy another one but it's no longer made! I'm looking for recommendations for a two man tent. I'm most concerned with robustness and staying dry than space and comfort although a large porch area would be a bonus. Hoping to come in at less than £250 ($375 ish I think). here in the UK I normally head towards Vango when looking at tents but just wondering if you chaps have any other brands I might not be aware of? Any thoughts?

I've seen it from both sides. When I was a kid I was bullied at school and scouts was where I was happiest. As a leader I've seen kids that have been bullied. What can you do? 1. Youth leadership is of course a central part of scouting. However there are situations where the adult leaders have to be the alpha male/female. Bullying is one of them. Should any adult leader identify a case of bullying within the troop/pack/unit they have to be the brick wall that the bully runs into. Total zero tolerance. That doesn't mean there should be no way back for bully. There has to be room for changing their ways but the emphasis has to be on making sure it stops. End of story. 2. There's the old saying that you can lead a horse water but you can't make it drink. Same with kids talking. You can't force any given scout to confide in you what is happening in there life. But you can make sure that you are available, that you can be trusted and that you will listen. It's not always easy. We're all volunteers, we have families, jobs other things in our lives. But be available where you can. 3. The scout law and promise. I know of a leader who tells his scouts that the law and promise can be summed up in the words of Bill and Ted..... "Be excellent to one another". And there's a lot of truth to that. Getting the kids to understand that so the problems don't occur in the first place. I'd type more but just about to head off to camp!

A couple of years ago I went to a gig and on the way in as I was putting my coat in I heard someone calling my name. Turned round and there was a familiar looking face, about 19-20 years old at a guess, clearly a member of staff at the venue. Then it clicked, he was one of my old cubs from my cub leading days! He had a job working the door at the venue to save money before going to university and had seen me and Mrs Cambridgeskip come in. We had a chat and he insisted on getting us both a beer on the house (he wasn't allowed one as he was working), moments like that are ones to cherish

Sun? What's sun? Seriously, while England has a certain reputation for being a bit damp this year has broken all known records. We've just had our 6th named Atlantic storm of the winter. They just haven't stopped, it's left appalling flooding in parts of Cumbria, Yorkshire and Lancashire. The summer was one of the biggest wash outs I can remember. On summer camp there was just one day out of 7 when we needed to get the sun screen on. The rest of the time it rained. And rained. And rained.

PS - albeit London ROH may be a bit of a trek for most of you chaps!

So I thought I'd share one of my troop's more unusual trips out that we had just before Christmas. A trip to the ballet! Now if you have just raised your eyebrows I few got raised this side of the Atlantic as well. It went really well though! Back in September we had a PLs council and one thing I asked them to come up with was some kind of pre Christmas outing. The answer I got was a trip to London (50 mins on the train from here) to go to the theater. Understandable, London at Christmas is quite special! What show I asked? Kids sometimes need some prodding. And they said the more child friendly ones like Wicked and We Will Rock You. So I checked ticket prices etc and found that this was not going to happen. You can't get a London theater ticket at Christmas for much less than £40 (about $60), throw in the train ticket to get there and we were looking at asking parents for £50 for an evening out. Most of our weekend camps cost considerably less than that. So I went back and said they'd need a rethink and gave them a suggestion. I knew from previous experience with a previous generation of scouts that the cheapest ticket in town is to be found at The Royal Opera House, which typically does either opera or ballet at any given time. It can also be the most expensive with seats in the stalls going for £230+ but there are cheaper seats for as little as £12. So I suggested that if they did want a theater trip why not try the opera or the ballet? I was initially met with some skepticism. "ballet?" they said? "Seriously?" they said. "Trust me" I said. "The nutcracker is on, you'll love it" I said. "We'll go for it" they said. Tickets available at £20, we went for it. And it was a cracking night! Partly its the setting. I don't know how many of you are familiar with London but ROH is not any old theater. Do a google image search and you'll see what I mean. We had some big "oohs" and "wows" going through the door. It had a proper sense of occasion. I'd had a few gripes before hand when I'd asked for smart uniform (mine are professional scruffs). Those without uniform trousers were told smart dark trousers or skirt. No jeans or trainers. They all though admitted to understanding why when we got there. Even the scruffiest in the audience had a collared shirt and smart trousers. Most were in suits with a few dinner jackets and ball gowns on display! The kids that went were a mix of those who properly wanted to go and those who were told by mum and dad that it would be good for them and they were getting the experience whether they liked it or not! To a boy and a girl though they loved it. Most had never seen professional ballet before and didn't know what to expect. And they were impressed! I had a group of 3 of our youngest boys being a little bit annoying in the first half with lots of whispering. i exchanged notes with the adult on their row at the interval and found it wasn't what I'd feared, restless boys prodding and poking but actually they were really impressed with what they were seeing and were constantly wanting to talk about it. It seemed a shame to have to separate them in the second half but we would like to be welcomed back A few piccies on our facebook feed if you scroll down a bit. So if you or your scouts are ever looking for a "something completely different" outing I'd certainly recommend it!