Cambridgeskip

Feel free to rip it off, I didn't write it And yes that hour a week. I think that's what I have left for sleep!

A couple of years ago a Girl Guides leader sent me the post below, a spoof job advert for a Guide leader. It's very tongue in cheek but makes the point. It might be time for this to find its way to the parents who are making such ridiculous demands of you; JOB DESCRIPTION: Long-term team players needed for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organisational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and sometimes 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy and/or snowy weekends. Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required. RESPONSIBILITIES: Must be willing to be hated at least temporarily, until the next fun activity. Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly. Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the other end of the room are not someone just crying wolf. Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers. Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and co-ordinate production of multiple projects. Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks. Must be willing to be indispensable until the time comes to move on. Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million "things" made from fun foam, wood, string, wiggly eyes, feathers, glue and such like. Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product. Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility. HOURS OF WORK: Variable - ranges from 1.5 hours per week to every available waking moment. POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT AND PROMOTION: Virtually none. Your job is to remain in the same position for years, dealing with individuals of different ages at different times, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you. PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE: None required. On-the-job training offered on a continually exciting basis. Training sessions also available, to be taken with a wide variety of people in exactly the same position you are. OTHER QUALIFICATIONS - must have a dining room table to give to Guiding, as well as bookcases, space for boxes, craft supplies, camp supplies, and other paraphernalia. WAGES AND COMPENSATION: Money-wise - none. This is offset by smiles, hugs and tears, either your own or those of the people in your charge. BENEFITS: While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered; this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth and free hugs for life if you play your cards right.

Our 2012 summer camp.... one patrol had a member, we'll call him Smithers, who had a habbit of going conveniently missing whenever there were any chores to be done. Gathering fire wood, cooking, cleaning up, You name it, Smithers would be missing and magically reappear when food was ready. PL and APL, having tried nudging him in the right direction, decided he needed a huge great shove. One morning, regular as clock work, Smithers vanished just as they were getting a fire going for cooking. PL and APL got everyone in the patrol to work like demons, doing everything faster than it had ever been done before. The result? When smithers reappeared all the bacon and eggy bread had been cooked and eaten, Smithers was left with stale bread and jam to eat. Smithers was unammused and came over to the leaders patrol where we were munching on some really rather good sausage sandwiches. He seemed to think that we were going to sort him out. "Is the bread mouldy Smithers?" we asked. "No" he confessed. "Is the jam mouldy Smithers?" we asked. "No" said he. "We we suggest you eat it then" said we! Smithers became a rather more hard working scout after that. The moral of course is ensuring that there is both a stick and a carrot. You work hard you get the carrot. You don't, then you get the stick.

First of all you do have to accept that scouts will be a higher priority to some than others. I my troop of 40 I reckon we have around 8-10 who turn up to absolutely every evening, camp, outing etc. We probably have 20 or so in the middle who are there for majority of things but not everything, 5-6 who are a bit flaky, there maybe only half the time and of course the 2 or 3 who we hardly see. But I think everything else has the same issue. Music groups, sport teams etc will have the same thing. The super scout there every week is probably the kid who only turns up to athletics training once a month. I guess the question is what the consequence should be in terms of their standing in the troop. While a troop should be scout led it should also be adult guided. When it comes to selecting new PLs and APLs I do brief the PLs on the kind of thing they should be looking for (bear in mind our PLs in the UK are only 13 or 14!) and while I normally accept their recommendations I make it clear that I reserve the right to over rule them. The scouts also love doing patrol camps on their own (ie no adults with them at all). I have minimum standards that I expect before a patrol leader is allowed to lead one. If they don't make the grade then they are not going. That kind of things certainly encourages attendance!

One part of me is comforted by that quote. It's not just my country that has barking mad politicians. The other part of me is quite creeped out that actually all politicians might be the real McCoy nuts. That quote is truly priceless.

Perhaps I haven't followed US legal ranglings, but precisely what rights are homosexuals being granted that other "social groups" are not? I'm somewhat confused.

I think there's effectively 3 different questions happening here. 1. How do you avoid excess food? I don't know how things work in the USA but here in the UK all money is expected to be routed through the troop. So you can't have a situation where patrol members simply give money to a scout planning the menu and let them get on with it. So as adults we have a little more control. When it comes to planning a camp out we give them a template to fill in which comes up with the costs. Included in that is that we expect them to spend £5 per scout per 24 hours (ie 3 meals). They then buy the food and they get reimbursed from the troop when they bring me the receipts. That, for us, normally avoids masses of excess food. Sometimes there is food left over but not boxes full! 2. How to get rid of excess food. Our scout campsites mostly operate on there being a paid full time warden and paid part time deputy warden then volunteer staff at weekends and school holidays. A few of the very biggest ones have additional full time staff. All of them are expected to pay their own way on food. So typically any left over fresh food including meat, dairy, fruit and vegetables, is given to the staff who typically put them in the deep freeze for the following weekend's staff. Non perishable, pasta, rice, tins etc come back to our HQ and are stored in rodent proof plastic boxes for use at future camps. We have a regular clear out to make sure nothing is kept past its use by date. 3. What to do in your situation. It was up to the patrol to dispose of the food, so they should deal with it. Buck stops with the PL. Leave the boxes exactly where they are (unless they are right in someone's way of course!) and invite him to deal with them. If he had delegated that already to someone else who hasn't done it then it sounds like an ideal life lesson. Delegation is all very well but occasionally you get dropped in the brown sticky stuff. No. Life isn't very fare is it?

Here in southern England we don't get proper winters the way you folks do. You have to get up to Scotland for that sort of thing! When we do camp in properly cold conditions (coldest I've taken kids out in went down to -8C over night, not sure what that is in F, sorry!) the one thing the kids often get wrong is that they put so many layers on that they completely fill out their sleeping bag. The problem being that you don't get as much dead air in there and it can actually make you warmer by removing a layer. I recomend that they keep a set of clothes for sleeping in and that set stays in their sleeping bag. It never comes out. We also cram them in a bit. 3 scouts in a two man tent, 4 scouts in a 3 man.

Er.... Stosh..... New Zealand got independence from the UK in either 1852, 1919, 1926, 1931, 1947 or 1973, depending on how you read the history books. Whichever way I'm not sure what the link is. If there is a link though I'd respectfully point out the way our numbers are increasing.

Lions sounds a bit like Squirrels. This was a section for 4-6 year olds which was piloted in Northern Ireland but was not deemed a success so was never rolled out more widely in the UK.

Ah the joy of rumours! It sounds like, if this is true, that it would reflect the UK and Canadian models. Our ages work Beavers 6-8 Cubs 8-10.5 Scouts 10.5 – 14 Explorers 14-18 Network 18 – 25 Its been that way since 2003. The big driver behind that was as King Ding Dong said, we were struggling to keep older teenagers. The change to that age range (previously scouts 10.5-16 and venture Scouts 16-21) has had its pros and its cons. Pros We have kept older teenagers in increasing numbers. My district has gone from 15 scout troops feeding into 2 Venture Scout units to 19 scout troops feeding into 8 Explorer Units. What you refer to as mentoring we call the Young Leader scheme. Explorers can act as almost apprentice leaders with Beavers, Cubs or Scouts. I have 40 scouts with a pool of 4 YLs who come along in 2s or 3s each week depending on what we need. It works well and has helped us breed our own adults. 5 of the adult leaders at the group started off as YLs. Cons The patrol method is much harder to operate. There is a limit to what you can ask a 13 or 14 year old PL to do. It’s not impossible. I have scout lead camps regularly, including with no adults present. But it does need more adult over sight. I would be happy for explorers to camp on an unstaffed camp site. Scouts I insist use a campsite with onsite staff if they want to go without adults. Peer discipline is harder to enforce as well. A 17 year old is far more intimidating than a 13 or 14 year old when it comes to bringing someone to heel. Again it’s not impossible, but the PLs need that much more coaching. Realistically though where did this rumour come from? Is this actually going to happen?

My troop has started replacing gas lanterns with LEDs. If you haven't used any recently then give them a try. The models that have become available in the last couple of years have been a revelation. They are light weight, the light given off is far more powerful than a gas lantern and because there is no heat the globes are plastic so far more dureable. Give it a try.

I can't comment on the BSA rules (obviously) but I would say go for it. As SSScout says it is the only universal bit of uniform across the world. Anywhere you go if you see a group of kids with neckers on you think "scout". In the UK the kids love them and get quite tribal about them. In any given district each group has their own design which varies massively. Some are one colour, some have a boarder, some are half and half, some are tartan. Back in my day as a venture scout my unit drew from 4 different scout troops. While it had its own design we used to cut the point of the necker from our old group necker and sew it onto the point of our new unit necker as a nod to where we had come from.

My pleasure, always happy to provide a few stories..... On campfires more generally they are a big part of the programme in Europe, and not just the UK. I've seen some pretty elaborate ways of starting them, my favourite involving stretching some fishing line into a climeable tree nearby and having someone up there ready to send something burning down the line into the fire to start it. Fantatsic fun! As for skits I'm a big favourite of the "Expanding machine" where various things get thrown over the top of some kind of barrier, typically a hung up blanket, and get thrown back bigger. Start with a twig, a log comes back, then a pebble and a rock comes back and finally of course someone throws a small cup of water over and gets a bucket full over them in return. I also love the "World's Uggliest Man". One scout has a blanket over their head and is introduced as a freak so ugly that no one can look at them. A couple of pre planted scouts are selected to look under the blanket. Each of them looks under and runs away screaming. More volunteers are asked for and someone, typically the adult leader in charge, is selected to look under at which point the uggly man runs away screaming. Cheesy I know but I've always loved it. For songs my favourites are "You'll never get to heaven", "My old man's a lavatory cleaner" and "Oh a layer". Don't know i fyou have those on your side of the pond?

So I guess I'd better share the ghost story that scared the screaming heebie jeebies out the Cubs then...... Bear in mind that I was first told this on a night hike when I was a student leader by a fellow student friend who is professionally Scottish. What an accent to hear a ghost story in! A few years ago, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, stood an old house. It had been empty a few years and was a bit of a fixer upper. After laying empty for some time it was finally bought by a young woman in her late 20s. She was a very clever and very driven woman. A lawyer with an Edinburgh law, she wasn't married, had no boy friend and preferred to live alone with her beloved dog. It was a hot and humid summer day when she moved into the house. Being hot it was already difficult to sleep. As usual her dog slept under her bed and kept her company. After much tossing and turning she finally fell asleep. A few hours later though she woke up to the sound of a drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. It was like the sound of a dripping tap and seemed to come from the room underneath. She decided to fix it in the morning. She put her hand the bed to stroke her dog who, as usual, licked her fingers, then she went back to sleep. A few hours later she woke up again. The dropping tap was still going. Drip. Drip. Drip. Again she put her hand under the bed, stroked her dog who licked her fingers again. She rolled over and went back to sleep. A few hours later she woke yet again. Drip. Drip. Drip. The summer nights in Scotland are short and already, at 3am, it was getting light. There was no way she could sleep in the heat, and the growing light and that infuriating; Drip. Drip. Drip. She walked down the stairs to the kitchen and went to look for the dripping tap. But the tap wasn't dripping. Instead, dripping through the ceiling and onto the floor was dark red blood. She ran up the stairs to find her beloved dog and get out of the house. To her shock though, under the bed, she found her beloved dog and best friend lying dead and bleeding under the bed. Dogs. As it turns out. Aren't the only things that lick....... Sleep well everybody.

About 10 years ago, in my cub leader days, I was approached by a couple of cub mums who said they were reps of a larger delegation that wanted to pass on a message....... could I desist from telling ghost stories on future camps please, apparently several cubs hadn't slept for days following the last camp for fear of dead dogs under the bed....... Naughty Cambridgeskip! (Or Cambridge Akela as I was then) Both this film and the Canadian book sound awesome! I had a big horror film/book phase as a teenager. These could just get me back into it!

I've not heard of this this side of the pond but I would be pretty uncomforatble with it. One of the big things kids get from scouts is being away from their parents and gaining a sense of independence. Making mistakes without havign Dad present to witness them makes them a lot easier to learn from. Get the adults out of the kids hair and let them get on with it.

Thanks, I really hadn't appreciated that. I'd seen a lot on here about families going along to cub camps but hadn't appreciated that it went as far as being in the same tent. I just can't imagine cubs without camping! Beavers (6-7 year olds) camp very rarely here but for cubs most will camp several weekends in a year, it's just seen as part and parcel of being a cub.

Agreed. If kids can carry it then they are welcome to bring something along to liven up their water but the fact is that is going to be very limited by the time they have packed everything else and there is a limit to how much a growing body should be carrying in a rucksack. They drink water or they don't go.

In terms of organisation and planning, basically we did it! We sat down with the PLs and talked about what was available within cycling distance and what they wanted to do. From then on it was a case of getting on the phone and asking the various venues when they could have us. It took a bit of juggling in order to get them arranged in an order that made for a reasonable cycling route. Most places are very scout friendly and were willing to pretty much bend over backwards for us! As for uniform it's pretty much standard on camp to wear any old t-shirt and a necker. A lot of kids prefer a friendship knot to a woggle when on camp (partly because it makes the woggle harder to lose). We were asked to wear uniform shirts during the gliding at the request of the airfield so they can pick out guests from gliding club members. The kids actually quite like the neckers. I don't know how it works your side of the atlantic but in any given district each group has its own colours for its necker. So it starts to become a little bit tribal, particularly at district and county events. Kids take real pride in their group colours! There was talk of getting rid of the necker around the millennium when the uniform was revamped but there was near insurrection from the kids. There is also real pride from those who get to wear the red, white and blue national necker because they have either done an international trip, been selected for the world jamboree or various other reasons. You can see a couple of them in bther video.....

From my experience with cubs and younger scouts this side of the pond Webelos are probably just at the point where they can start doing this. For younger cubs it requires that little bit too much concentration. Keep it quite basic so that they can do it quickly and not have to learn more than a couple of knots. Something like Sedan chair. Aiming for things like bridges or catapults will most likely tax their concentration too much. They won't complete it so won't get to see what the work was all for. Am element of just running round the woods is always good but a few more structured things will get them more interested in being scouts. If you are looking for animal tracks take some plaster of paris with you and take casts of any that you find. How many have you got going? It might be possible to do enough so that everyone gets to take a cast home as a souvenier.

Has it occured to reenactors to make uniforms out of something other than wool and/or do it at a time of year when it'snot 95F?

I quite like that idea. We're an old troop (103 years old!) so have accumulated a few traditions over the years. Another one like that could be quite fun