Cambridgeskip

So last night my PLs had a PLs council in advance of the summer term and among the various things they want to do one stood out as unusual. They would like to have a go at American Football. Apparently the pads look fun! So as it turns out their is a local club who I will be getting in contact with to see if they can help us out by giving the troop a bit of a taster session. But what I was after before that is to get some idea of the culture of the game, because to most in the UK it is completely alien. Most people think of it as "like rugby but they wear huge shoulder pads and helmets" and that's about all most of us know. (And that the Superbowl winners are crowned "World Champions". You'll have to forgive us for finding that funny. Sorry.) So tell me, what sort of age do kids start playing it? Is there a junior version of it? (We have "tag" rugby where you tackle by just tapping the opponants hips and they have to drop the ball) Is there a slimmed down version of it like we have 7 aside rugby and 5 aside football (soccer)? Do girls ever play it? Do scouts ever play it? What else should I know? Yours culturally out of his depth.

The harsh lessons are often the once learned best. On our 2012 summer camp one patrol had an individual who managed to magically vanish whenever it came to cooking, fire wood etc. One morning the rest of the patrol waited for him to vanish and worked like demons on breakfast. A bit later the scout in question came over to the leaders camp and complianed to us that his patrol had eaten all the eggy bread and bacon while "he'd been doing something else" and given him only bread and jam. Alas if it was sympathy he was after he'd come to the wrong people. We were too busy enjoying our eggy bread and bacon Said scout is now an awful lot more diligent about his chores

It's pretty similar this side of the pond (albeit Queens Scout or Queens Guide DOES count for a lot) The pressure being put on kids to get grades at school is insane. Last summer I nearly wept when I had a couple of 10 year old, yes 10 year olds, pulled out of a camp by their parents because they had to revise for exams. I don't think I had any home work at all when I was 10, let alone too much to spend the weekend getting muddy in the woods. The amount of mental health issues now being suffered by older teenagers over their GCSE and A levels (exams taken at 16 and 18 respectively) is going through the roof. And it's tragic.

That is really interesting to read how it is your side of the pond. Over here a noisy camp fire sing song is just part of the culture . Most scout campsites will have a specially created camp fire circle which can get hundreds and in some cases thousands around a fire in some kind of bowl or amphitheatre. During spring and summer the site will often organise a central camp fire on a Saturday evening. Most songs are quite light hearted with things like "you'll never get to heaven" and "40,000 feet". Typically it finishes with something traditional like "Go well and safely" or "Kum by ah". Genuinely interesting how things vary across the world.

On the particular question of knots, how is this being presented? Are you/PLs teaching knots or are you tying it in (I’m here all week folks J ) with something else, eg we are doing a climbing trip so we are going to cover climbing knots in advance, or teaching lashings as part of a pioneering project?

So on the thread about lights out someone said that their troop didn't do singing as the SM didn't hold with it. I'm curious, is that common in the USA? Or is that simply an exception? Assuming you do like a good sing song, what songs are popular? Does it vary across the country? Has it changed over time? I'm really curious!

How does the programme work on your camps? The reason I ask is a bit of biology..... if you go to bed straight away after being very active your metabolism will still be very high. So you get into bed and you find yourself wide awake. So if there is a wide game or a noisy camp fire then the scouts go straight to bed afterwards they simply won't settle for at least half an hour. We try to make a point of there being some quiet time before bed. So on a troop camp whatever the evening programme has been we will finish up with half an hour or so sat round the camp fire with a hot drink or toasting some marshmellows before bed, importantly that's regardless of how late it is. Even if we have been at a jamboree type event and they have been to some kind of entertainment that has gone on till late we will give them some time to sit down and chill out and slow down before they go to bed. As a general rule after slowing down like that they want to go to bed as well. So off they go and out like a light!

Qwaze - you are right that having mixed sex leadership is a good idea if you have a mix of boys and girls. However, with the experience of taking girls to camp I can tell you that you've got the right answer for the wrong reasons! It's nothing to do with attraction. If you are an adolescent girl who has some kind of injury or problem in an intimate area you'd probably prefer to gouge your own eyes out with a spoon than have me or you treat it. It's a woman you want on the scene. I have had a 10 year old girl take the skin off her back which required her taking her top off to treat. And very grateful I was to have a female leader on the scene to deal with it. (Not half as grateful as the scout was!) Similarly, when I was a scout, I got stung on my behind by a wasp. (I now check down the toilet bowl before sitting down. Let's face it, it could have been a LOT worse!!!) Again I would rather have put lit matches under my finger nails than have a woman treat it.

Bit late to this thread but thought I'd throw in my comments. I was bullied at school, much like this situation it was mostly verbal and harrassing rather than physical. One of only two big regrets I have in my life (the other one is quite funny and can wait for another day) is that I didn't turn round to the two worst offenders and lay them out. Looking back with adult eyes I can see that I would probably have been suspended from school for a couple of weeks but it would have saved me several years of misery. It sounds though that, like it was for me, throwing that punch probably isn't realistic for your son. Walking away though is. So walk away. Who knows, maybe a few of his friends will come with him. And if the troop starts to lose significant numbers maybe someone will turn round and ask why. The SM at the troop needs to get a backbone as well. I'm all for boy lead (or girl lead this side of the pond!) but ultimately there needs to be an alpha (fe)male in the troop who's word is law and that is the SM. I would not tolerate this sort of behaviour in my troop and I would expect the support of the various layers of management above me in dealing with it. The bully gets one second chance and one only. After that they go or I go. Simple as that.

I put The Hunt for Red October on during a long coach journey to camp last year, the boys loved it (least said about the girls reaction the better!) A Bridge To Far is also great for showing people carrying on against the odds but may be a little long at the thick end of 3 hours. Glad to see Time Bandits on the list. I've seen it many times and never tire of it. Young Sherlock Holmes is also worth a look.

Huzzar Sorry for the delay, I had to go and look for the numbers. Numbers of UK Scouts looks like this based on census taken at 31 Jan each year 1997 - 607369 1998 - 579451 1999 - 554,440 2000 - 526747 2001 - 496447 2002 - 476992 2003 - 461985 - Note, the wholesale changes to the age ranges, programme, uniform etc took effect from April 2003 2004 - 450,557 Peter Duncan becomes Chief Scout (Children's TV presenter) 2005 - 446000 2006 - 446,352 2007 - 453315 2008 - 467676 2009 - 482446 - Bear Grylls becomes Chief Scout 2010 - 499889 2011 - 508946 2012 - 525332 2013 - 536787 So to be honest I don't think the turn around can be pinned on Bear Grylls. His presence and the good PR it brings is one of a number of factors that has turned it around. Others being generally better PR and Coms from HQ. A good programme, A more functional and more fashionable uniform. The 2007 world jamboree and centenary and the change in age ranges that better reflect peer groups. Hope that helps!

Moose, I certainly don't claim UK scout numbers have spiralled because of more liberal values. To do so is just as absurd as saying Canadian numbers have dropped because of it. In both cases it is far more complex than that. Anyone that tries to pin either on policy on sexuality is being at best simplistic.

Moose, I certainly don't claim UK scout numbers have spiralled because of more liberal values. To do so is just as absurd as saying Canadian numbers have dropped because of it. In both cases it is far more complex than that. Anyone that tries to pin either on policy on sexuality is being at best simplistic.

I struggle with that idea. Scouting should not be all about competition, but from time to time a bit of competition does them good. And if we are preparing young people for the real world then we need to introduce them to the fact that there will be winners and losers. Eventually they will get interviewed for a job and the fact is only of those interviewed will get that job. The rest are not going to be sent home with a week's pay for taking part.

Re: Canada.... Numbers declined steadily from 1965 onwards. In 2002 they had a major reorganisation. By 2005 the decline had stopped and indeed since then they have shown a modest increase from about 99000 to 101000. Indeed my troop is twinned with one in Canada who are thriving. Given that I don't think anyone should be pointing at recent liberal attitudes for any fall in numbers anywhere.

Did some of this at our 2013 summer camp. As well as a lot of the stuff above which we could let the kids just get on with some of it was also run by specialist instructors brought in (it was a jamboree style camp so this kind of thing could be paid for en mass). Now I thought I knew quite a bit of this backwoods stuff. Till I met this lot! They were all ex armed forces and some of them special forces. They ran a fantastic session on natural navigation. Put maps and compasses away, this was all done with what you could see around you. Now I already knew how to do it with the stars and with the sun and my watch but from they showed at least 8 different ways of finding north from using the sun and no watch, to different kinds of plant to building your own compass. (If you know what you are doing you can extract a magnet from a cell phone and put it back together in full working order. Best tried with an old one rather than the latest iphone......) If you can find someone that knows what they are doing on this kind of thing it is brilliant to get them to teach the PLs and then the PLs pass it on. Different methods of water gathering are also great fun and is great for inter patrol competitions.

Qwazse - understood, I wouldn't normally ask parents to drive more than about 90 minutes. The reporting requirements are certainly tight! Over here if its parent drop off then we have no responsibility in that respect. Another solution I guess is to hire a minibus/van/trailler and factor that into the cost of the trip?

Any way you can simply force the issue? For any given camp a note goes to parents simply saying "we are camping at location X, scouts need to arrive there at time Y" and its up to any given family to get their scout there and leave it at that. That puts the ball straight back into their court.

You can avoid the backpack but only if you do your expedition by horse, cycle or kayak..... https://members.scouts.org.uk/supportresources/search/?cat=56,141

Yes they are https://members.scouts.org.uk/supportresources/2661/outdoor-challenge/?cat=56,135,157&moduleID=10

I get what you mean. I think though that troops naturally find their level. At the moment I have 36 but think it's actually a few too many. I've found that when we run at 32-33 the only ones we have quit are those that move onto explorers at 14. As soon as we go over that number we tend to lose a few. And hey presto, I've had 2 scouts tell me just this week "thanks for the time but we won't be back after Christmas". What the limiting factor is in our case I don't know but I have a theory that every troop has a limit, probably based on space and number of adults available, above which it starts to struggle a bit.

To be honest I don't know! It's certainly true that the Girl Guides have changed their Promise. It's also though the case that it is not intended to exclude religion from the movement, they simply wanted one promise that could include all beliefs. Guides are still encouraged to explore their own beliefs and those of others. Religion has NOT been excluded. In terms of the facts of the case I am not familiar with the disciplinary process within Girl Guides. What I am familiar with though is the editorial attitude of the Daily Mail towards scouting and guiding which generally tries to make out that BP would be spinning in his grave. I am also familiar with the persistent bias and inaccuracies that the Daily Mail repeatedly prints on pretty much every subject you can imagine. Given this I simply don't believe anything published by them. Take a look at this blog for some of the best examples of their made up nonsense http://www.fivechinesecrackers.com/search/label/Daily%20Mail

Be aware that this report comes from the Daily Mail, a newspaper so right wing it makes Fox News look like a bunch of commies. Take everything you read from it with a massive pinch of salt. A few years ago there was a serial killer in the town of Ipswich, not far from Cambridge, was murdering prositutes. 5 young women were brutally murdered before he was caught. The Mail published an opinion piece describing the victims as "no great loss". A vile, revolting and frankly unforgiveable piece of journalism that the writer, Richard Littlejohn, should be ashamed of. I suspect that the facts of this case are a long way from what was published.

You'll love it, just don't accuse them of being from England What part of Scotland are they from?

Twocubdad I think you misunderstand me, in fact I think we are saying similar things just from different perspectives. Direct comparisons between North America and Scandanavia, indeed between any two countires/cultures are not very helpful simply because it results in massive over simplification of what are often very difficult and complex issues. Which is exactly why the writer pointing the finger at welfare is not helpful. The reasons behind the crime and gang culture will no doubt be complex and diffiicult to resolve. My comment about Scandanavia was simply to point out the absurdity of making simplistic arguments. And no, I don't have the answers to these problems either. I do believe though that anyone that starts waving simple answers around to complex issues is either stupid or has a personal axe to grind and is using the issue as a tool for doing so.