Cambridgeskip

A sad day and my thoughts are with you and your family. Your mother wrote a lot of good sense on here and even when others disagreed she showed much good grace. She will be greatly missed.

Parents not letting kids pack for themselves drives me mad. On every camp there is always one kid who has not brought something because mum decided he didn't need it. A camp back in July we had a 10 year old scout turn up with only a pair of trainers (what you'd call sneekers??) for his feet because the weather forecast was warm and dry, so mum decided that the recommended boots or trail shoes weren't necessary. Shame about the on and off rain we'd had for a couple of weeks before hand leaving the large patches of mud and standing water. That kid had a very uncomfortable weekend.

Just discovered this thread and can I recpectfully suggest that folks on both sides take a moment to cool down? It strikes me that there is a uniform as laid down in BSA rules and if members follow it to the letter then so be it, they are simply being methodical and using at as there way of being respectful. Equally though this isn't the police or the marines, it's a kids oganisation. If there are those who are a bit more relaxed about their standards so be it, it's not going to be a disaster. Same goes over here in the UK. Some troops are emaculate. Others positively revel in their grungy image. Most are somewhere inbetween. All sides could try not looking down on each other.

Tahawk UK HQ, which is based at Gilwell, has an excellent archives section who may be able to assist. From the USA you could phone them on 0044 845 300 1818. That will put you through to the scout information centre. Ask whoever answers the phone to put you through to the archives section. The archives people are part time so may not be there when you phone and may take a while to find answer once you do get hold of them but they will do their best (pun fully intended. Sorry).

First congratulations! Second..... everytime this thread goes back to the top I keep thinking it says "beheading ceremony". Not sure what that says about my sub conscious..... As for where to have it as Kend500 said, that's down to you. Just think about who is going to be there and what they will appreciate. I'm not one for ceremony, when I got mine it was quick and to the point. Round the camp fire with my cubs. Whole thing took less than 90 seconds. Quick "seal of approval" from the cubs and that was it. The powers that be wanted it with full ceremony at district St George's day parade. Not my thing, all that fuss. Do it how you want to do it!

Oh we have far more variations than that! I'm a particular fan of what the Scottish call Harg... it starts off as a particularly thick mist that gets you pretty damp. As it gets heavier it turns to rain, without you really noticing. Before you know it it's been raining for two hours and you never knew! Some English call it "mizzle". Or there's that funny summer rain, the stuff that comes down deceptively gently but gets you far more wet than it has any right to. It's what we call "wet rain". I could ramble on all night....

All depends on the weather..... If first thing Sunday when they get up the tents are dry then they get dropped and packed ASAP so they don't get wet again. If first thing they are wet then they stay up as late as possible in the hope of getting them dry. The Eskimos may have 97 words for snow, we Brits have 10 times as many words for rain in all its many and glorious forms......

from across the pond... I work for HM Revenue and Customs, our equivalent of the IRS, investigating corporate tax avoidance.

I think you misunderstand me. I know that scouting doesn't have the same schedule issue as sport does, but just like sport it requires a level of commitment to achieve what a given scout wants to achieve. I bet you could find an internet forum somewhere where right now a soccer coach is typing about this 14 year old boy who has lots of talent but who has been told that if he doesn't come on more campouts or hikes he won't make PL or if he doesn't get through certain badges he won't make eagle. So that boy is missing practice sessions and matches or has possibly quit altogether in favour of scouts. It really isn't that different.

Thinking out loud.... is scouting really that different? We too require a certain level of commitment in order to do certain things. A scout who rarely, if ever, camps is not going to make patrol leader. They aren't going to progress through many of the awards. I personally insist that a scout has passed emergency aid stage 3 before they can do their expedition challenge. Again a scout who misses multiple thursday nights will probably end up missing out. The problem is that kids these days have an awful lot more choices than even when I was there age 25 years ago and compared to what one of my assistant leaders had, who is now 73, it's more or less a different world.

While I'm not obsessive about flag protocol (UK protocol of course!) I do like to broadly observed it. Some people say it's old fashioned or just a symble or whatever but so what? Think about this, when you meet someone new do you shake their hand? When someone proposes a toast do you raise your glass? I suspect you do. Those are just two examples of symbolism we have in society. Neither of them have any actual practical purpose (at least not in modern times) but they are gestures that as a community we have collectively decided and accepted mean something. Flags and now they are treated, while perhaps having a little more theatre to the whole process, is another part of that symbolism. I can't articulate exactly why that wider symbolism is as important as it is, (and certainly it goes wider than what a veteran might think) an anthropologist might do better, but it does matter.

Going back to the original point about changing culture. It's hard to do it in a big bang approach. Trying to will set yourself and the scouts up for failure. So take one step at a time. If you want the PLs or indeed any other scout to take charge then you have to give them the skills to do so. And I think the starting point is how they communicate. Last night our scouts spent a short part of the night packing away some tents that had been drying since our summer camp. One of the PLs was quite inexperienced and I watched him flounder for a few minutes while his patrol got under each other's feet. I had a quick word to him and what I said was quite simple. I said "There are 6 other scouts in your patrol, none of them are called "everyone", "guys", "you" or "we". Go through their names in turn, and give each name a job to do, using their name when you do so". Worked a treat. 2 minutes later no one was tangled in guy lines or tripping over each other and 2 minutes after that a clean dry tent was back in the stores where it should be. That idea of named jobs for named individuals is a very simple one that to adults (well most adults, not all of them) comes naturally. It doesn't always for a teenager. Give them basic skills like that, try and get it second nature and the rest, the more intangible scout spirit stuff, will flow as they are able to turn their mind more towards it.

Stosh A bit of first hand experience. A quick tot up shows that across Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, Explorers and Exec Committee my group currently has 33 adults, 19 men and 14 women. Between those we have 2 married couples and 1 dating couple. The rest are either married to or in a relationship with someone outside of the group or outside of scouting altogether or else are entirely single. There has simply never been a problem with spouses or partners objecting to going away as a mixed leadership team. It just doesn't happen. Maybe that reflects a difference in British and American culture, I don't know, but it's simply not a problem stood where I am. As I've said before, I think there are quite reasonable arguments for having separate male and female programmes but they are based on the differences in how boys and girls develop. This agument about mixed leaders though does strike me as mountain and molehill territory.

The point of the alternative promise is that it is just that. An alternative. It is one of a series of slightly different versions to reflect different faiths and beliefs. As to what the scout values are, to quote from the UK As Scouts we are guided by these values: Integrity We act with integrity; we are honest, trustworthy and loyal. Respect We have self-respect and respect for others. Care We support others and take care of the world in which we live. Belief We explore our faiths, beliefs and attitudes. Cooperation We make a positive difference; we cooperate with others and make friends.

I don't think anybody has suggested its about imitating anybody else. It's simply a case of saying that when considering should BSA go down the coed route it's a good idea to look at the evidence from other scout organisations that went down that path and how it worked or didn't work for them.

Barry It might surprise you that in some ways I agree with you. An attempt to increase numbers is indeed a poor motivation for admitting girls. My point is that there is no evidence that opening membership to girls has caused numbers to fall elsewhere. Similarly I agree that comparisons to Europe are not good ones. I would suggest that Australia is probably a better comparison culture wise. Large land mass, high population density at the coast, low density inland, cultural history of self reliance and socially conservative with a big outdoors culture. Australian scouts went fully coed in 1971. They have a numbers problem now but that is a 21st century problem and wasn't a problem in the 70s, 80s or 90s. It may surprise you even more that I think that there are perfectly reasonable arguments for having separate male and female programmes. There are also good arguments for combining them. Ultimately I don't think it matters either way. However I have seen that coed scouting does work and can work in all manner of different cultures round the world and my point is there is really nothing to be concerned about should BSA move in the direction. I'm hesitant to go off topic but as you brought it up BSA clearly has a problem with its numbers which has existed well before the change in policy towards gays. I haven't enough experience of the BSA programme, to understand where that stems from (although I have my suspicions) although the causes are unlikley to be simple or down to one individual factor.

Barry, I think you are being selective. Yes Canada has had its problems, but world wide scouting is mostly coed and mostly growing. If you are going to make comparisons you have to look much wider than one comparitor. I don't think that admitting girls is the solution to BSAs problems, although neither can I see it worsening them, but neither do I think it was the cause of Canada's problems. Talking to leaders at our twin group in Ontario it went much deeper than that.

Barry If you look around the world the majority of national scout organisations have gone coed. Some may look different to BSA auperficially as they have changed things like the award scheme or uniform underneath they are all very much the same, it's about getting young people outdoors and developing them into decent citizens. Why should BSA not be able to it successfully? I don't think they should have to by the way, I just don't get why you think they can't.

This is something that I find quite interesting to read because it describes cubs in the UK quite well. Family camping is extremely rare. Some groups might do it once a year but even that is the exception. It really is like a scaled down scouts with sixes instead of patrols. Of course it's far more adult intensive and adult lead than scouts and you may get a parent or two invited along to help out but that's about it. Do you really never have cubs camping just as a group of cubs with their regular adult leaders?

I've never tried separate patrols myself but no of troops that have, and it was a disaster, at least in the UK where the scout section is 10-14. The increased maturity of girls at that age meant the girl patrols dominated any form of competition every time. It might work your side of the pond where you go through to 18 so boys have an opportunity to catch up but I would personally be wary.

We've had fully coed scouting here in the UK since 1991 when it started as a local option. From 2003 all new groups had to be coed and any that went coed couldn't change back again. From 2007 all groups became coed. So it's been a slow process of change. Some observations. Scouts attracts a certain type of girl. I wouldn't go as far as "tom boys" but certainly they are pretty robust and keen to do an outdoor programme that girl guides either in reality or perception does not always offer. Hence girls are still in the minority, around 20% nationwide. It is higher in groups like mine where we were coed before it was compulsory, we're at around 40% girls, others hardly see a girl from one year to the next. Girls do have some differences though. Mentally the big one I've found is girls are more likely to get things right first time whereas boys are better at recovering the situation if they get it wrong. When selecting PLs it's important to remember that and not just pick the girl that gets it right every time, give the boys a chance to shine Physically they are more Dominant in cubs as they hit puberty that bit earlier whereas in scouts the boys soon overtake. It needs to be considered when it comes to physical contact games. In terms of practicalities there's very little to it. We make sure we have a supply of sanitary towels at camp and the girls know where they are, no real difference to the first aid kits and toilet roll. We have a mix of 2, 3 and 4 man tents to cope with differing boy-girl ratios in each patrol. Simple! Have girls influenced the programme? I hope so. We are a youth lead movement. If youth members are not having their voices heard and acted upon then we are doing something wrong. I would struggle though to point to specific changes that were a direct result of girls becoming scouts.

BSA units overseas arr only meant to have American citizens living overseas in those units. That comes from WOSM and applies to all national scouting organisations who have groups overseas. So in a similar way UK scout association groups in Germany and Belgium can only have British kids there in them It's to stop national organisations "poaching" members in other countries. LDS have a large presence here in Cambridge but the nearest BSA units are at the U.S. airbases at Lakenheath and mildenhall.

I'm just back from summer camp where we have been camping with my troop's twin troop from Canada. It's been a fascinating week as we have got used to the differences in language and customs but one thing that struck me was the difference at flag break. In the UK it is standard for the scout breaking the flag to walk across the horse shoe the scouts have formed to do it. The Canadians were shocked by this! They take a step back and walk clockwise round the outside of the horse shoe to approach the flag. That's something I've never seen before. So I'm curious, is that a general North America custom or just Canadian? We ende dup doing it the Canadian way all week. Although they are taking one of our flag traditions with them. When the adult leaders are eating or for any othe reason are not to be disturbed we fly The Jolly Roger (skull and crossbones) from a side arm on our flag pole. The kids are instructed that we are only to be disturbed with life and death issues when it is flying. If we are disturbed with anything that is not life and death it will rapidly become a life and death issue

Interesting looking in on this one. First it sounds like your uniform police are even worse than the ones in the UK! And I thought ours were bad! I think one of the reasons why neckers are so popular here is population density. I often read on here about patrols camping 300 feet apart and leaders likewise. For the most part the idea of having that much space on camp is frankly laughable! I'm just back from our summer camp. The site is 31 acres, there were 12 different troops/units/packs camped there and that was considered a quiet week! And that is pretty standard. As there are so many groups camped so close together and there's lots of mixing and mingling most troops insist that the kids where there neckers at all times so adults can identify their scouts at long range. On top of that programs generally, not just on camp, do tend to be more troop than patrol based. That means there tends to be an espirit de corps for the troop rather than the patrol, hence more pride tends to be taken in the troop colours, so they are keen to wear their necker to mark themselves out. We also have a very attractive national red, white and blue national necker that genuinely looks good and kids want to wear. In itself that has lead to more use of a friendship knot as the triple layers of the necker means it gets wrecked when a woggle (slide) goes up it.

First of all I thought I'd replied to this earlier this morning but it seems to have vanished so apologies if anything appears in duplicate. Uniforms.... Iceland have amazing hats, Switzerland the best neckers, Portugal use kilts instead of trousers or shorts, the French just make their's look really grungy. All in all quite a mixture!