Moggie

I must admit that I assumed that's what you meant but still find yuor question confussing. What is it you want to know?

I'll try to provide an opinion on what I think you're asking:

Monarchies come in many shades just like democracies, from absolute through to constitutional. In the UK the absolute power of the monarch was first constrained by the Magna Carta in 1215 followed by Habeas Corpus, Petition of Right and the Bill of Rights all in the 17th Centuries.

What purpose does the Queen serve? Well, in the UK the Queen is:

Head of State for England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands (The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are technically not part of the UK and have their own governments)

Head of the Government (legislature (Her Majesties Government and Her Majesties Loyal Opposition) and executive)

Head of the Judicary

Head of the Established Church in England and Scotland

Head of the Armed Forces (traditionally the Royal Navy do not pledge allegiance to the Queen but to the Admiralty Board, for whom the the Queen is the Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom)

So what does it all mean? Well in the US you elect your Head of State by electoral college, if I understand correctly then a President could in theory be elected by gaining enough electoral college votes despite not getting a majority vote of the people. So you may have a dislike your head of state. To get around this you instead pledge allegiance to your flag and to the Republic.

So you could replace Flag with Queen and Republic with some other clunky expression and get a simillar(ish) perspective.

In many countries the President is almost a purely ceremonial position i.e. Ireland and Germany

Cheers

Gareth

I don't quite understand what you mean by absolute monarch, given how few remain in the world, or is your question really about monarchs in general?

Cheers

Gareth

"As an aside, I wonder if the gains seen in Scouts Canada and the Scout Association (UK) can be attributed to the fact that both now admit girls to their cub and Scout programs? I'd be interested to know whether the number of boys involved has gone up or down, as well as whether they are gaining members at the expense of the Girl Guides."

From the SA website on our side of the pond- "This year Scouting has seen an increase in adult volunteers with growth up from 1.6% to 2.6%. There have only been two other occasions in the last 23 years where the growth of adult leaders has exceeded 2%.

Female membership is up 11% across the UK, smashing the 50K barrier. A surge of over 5,500 new girl Scouts means that over the past 12 months almost as many girls as boys have signed up to the adventure of Scouting.

Girls have been part of the adventure since 1976 and this year female membership pushed well past the 50,000 mark to a record 56,470. This means that girls now account for 14% of all youth members of the Scout Movement - But its not only female membership that's on the increase - the entire Movement, from six to 25 year olds, is expanding for the fourth year running, with Explorer Scouting for 14-18 year olds seeing its biggest ever increase."

I'm not aware the Girl Guiding is suffering as a result of the our Co-ed policy, I know in my own neighbourhood that guiding is thriving just as much as scouting is.

Cheers

Gareth

"Expect the Australians to lose scouts and lose relevance."

Why?

Cheers

Gareth

Basementdweller

1974 girls became eligible to join venture scouting, after that a slow progression of integration until 2007 when all groups (except some specifically closed groups) and sections became fully co-ed. This time scale was also discussed in this thread

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=343982#id_344381

Cheers

Gareth

It might be wise to have little understanding of how the UK constitution works:

The UK is a Constitutional Christian Monarchy, note no mention of secular democracy and the specific expression of Christianity. The Queen is Head of State, Head of the Established Church (Church of England and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland) , Head of the Judiciary, Head of the Armed Forces etc... There's a trend here ;-) So a promise to the Queen as Skip states is a promise to the nation. There is no general pledge of allegiance as is understood in the USA. They do exist and are used (joining the army, RAF, Police, MP or naturalised citizen) and the pledge is to the Queen. (If you join the Royal Navy then traditionally the oath is to the Admiralty and not the Monarch.)

Young people in the UK are assumed to be travelling their path to spiritual understanding so are not excluded from scouting. Adults in the other hand do make a declaration of faith (often assumed to C of E unless you state otherwise).

The constitution is not captured in a single document but in a series of Parliamentary acts (Magna Carta, Bill of Rights etc...) and unwritten conventions.

In the UK there is no separation of Church and State, Bishops (Lords Spiritual) sit in Parliament, in BPs day that relationship would have been even closer than it is now.

Cheers

Gareth

boomerscout said

"Always with the same group, and these groups naturally get smaller & smaller as the boys get older. Wouldn't you soon be too small to do much of a group activity?"

Why do you assume the group get smaller or have I miss-understood your comment?

I do recognise the the potential for a closed shop mentality, particularly with the adults, that's where you need a good Group Scout Leader (GSL). Ultimately if the programme is poor then both young people and adults vote with their feet.

Cheers

Gareth

Thanks for the replies,

Cheers

Gareth

Daft question from across the pond;

Do US cubs only camp with their parents? if so why?

Cheers

Gareth

We use the the explorers all the time with the cubs and beavers. The interaction is different between beaver and explorer than between beaver and adult. Recently the Explorers planned and ran a brilliant incident night hike for the cubs. It shows the cubs that the stuff they are starting to do now is relevant and useful as they develop throughout their scouting experience.

I think one way to look at the linear group method is:

Beaver Scouts; introduce the concepts (for patrols read lodges, a little bit of nights away)

Cub Scouting; give skill to the concepts (Sixes led by sixers and seconders, more camping)

Scouting; Developing the skills themselves (patrol method, camping et..)

Explorer Scouts; Exploiting those skills for themselves

Cheers

Gareth

This link should take you to a pdf file showing you where the badges go on TSA uniform, it's not supposed to a free for all, but equally we don't go about measuring their placement either

http://www.scouts.org.uk/documents/Memberresources/Uniform_diagrams/Scout-uniform.pdf

The core uniform consists for a scout:

Neckerchief,

Woggle

Shirt (scouts, explorers and adults)

Sweatshirt (Beavers and Cubs)

Trousers (many scouts just wear jeans to troop nights)

This link will take you my group website have look at what they wear, looks perfectly scout like to me ;-)

http://www.1stwestbury.org.uk/index.php?page=photos&menuid=9

Cheers

Gareth

In the UK we operate on the Scout Group principle (the situation is similar in many commonwealth countries). You can join the group at 6 as a member of the Beaver colony, progress through cub scouting and join the troop at 10 yrs old. At 14 1/2 you can join an explorer unit. The group is manged by a Group Scout Leader, and each section managed by its own scouter. I must admit we treat the attached explorers as members of our scout group rather than a completely seperate unit. Many towns have multiple units so choice can exist, (depends largely on finding sufficent adults who will give up their time to support scouting). Where I live we have only one scout group and attached Explorer unit. We are an open group and so not sponsored by any church.

Pros?

The scouts know all the leaders in the group and so makes events easier to organise (donn't have to introduce new people all of the time).

The scouts get a sense of continuity throughout their scouting journey.

As leaders we get to know the kids really well, see them grow and develop in young adults.

Able to share resources efficently

Parents in town know who to contact to talk about scouting.

the same with civic organisations - one point of contact, easy

Cons?

You can very easily fall into "group think" where the only way to do things is our way!

If the programme isn't managed carefully progression through the group can become very stilted and unimaginative

petty squables can affect the whole group.

Does it Work? It does for us

cheers

Gareth

Venture scouting in the UK went co-ed in 1976ish, this co-incided with but not as a result of the introduction of the Sexual Discrimination Act 1975. The rest of the time table is as Skip reported.

In my group we had several debates about co-ed scouting; given that the choice to go co-ed is irrevocable you can understand the initial reluctance. In the end as a group we introduced co-ed in the scout troop first. This being based on the premise that if co-ed was introduced in the younger sections then girls by default were eligable for the older sections, plus we had (and still have) very extensive waiting lists for beavers and cubs.

Having girls in the troop didn't have a significant effect on the dynamics of the troop other than patrol camping, which required greater planning to manage sleepping arrangements and still keep the patrol ethos.

This happened in about 2004 for us, so when three years later it was announced that co-ed was to the norm it wasn't such a culture shock.

We have co-ed scouting in all three of the groups sections and the attached Explorer unit, it seems to me that we still deliver a quality scouting experience for the young people rather than just for the boys (we visited the US with the troop in 2010 and having girls with us didn't seem to cause any anguish). The local Guide groups haven't complained that we are poaching their girls.

Cheers

Gareth

Prestwick, sorry my only deals have been with HMS GANNET, RNAS PRESTWICK. Couldn't say much else about the town.

Sorry

Gareth

Cucumber sandwiches, mmmmm with just a little add salt or a nice slice of ham.

Cheers

Moggie

Cricket, a game played in what is considered summer in the UK but winter by the rest of the world.

It consists of two teams, one team will attempt to defend; using a piece of wood (bat), some sticks (Stumps) that have been pushed into the ground, each team has 11 men.

The other team will attack the sticks with a ball from 22yards away with the aim of hitting the sticks and knocking two smaller sticks (bails) off that had been carefully balanced on top. This area is called the wicket. The Ball must bounce atleast once on its way to the sticks.

If the defending player (batsman) successfully defends the sticks and hits the ball with his bat he has the option of running away to another set of sticks 22 yards away (the point from which the ball was thrown), this is called a "run".

The man throwing the ball is called a bowler, he gets six attempts to hit the sticks before another chap on his team is given this opportunity. The bowler must keep his arm straight when throwing the ball.

If having successfully defended the sticks and hit the ball, the batsman can be out if the other team catch the ball before it hits the ground or manage to hit the sticks before the batsman gets there.

The object of the game is to defend the sticks for as long as possible whilst running between the sticks as often as you can.

Once 10 ten men from one team have failed to protect the sticks, the other team has a go.

The matches last a reasonable amount of time - 3 days noramlly or 5 days if its a test, and are interrupted for lunch, tea and sleep.

The team with the most runs, wins

Hope this helps.

Gareth

"So, how do you chaps choose your next monarch?"

Very, very carefully, usually after much discussion in a pub over a few pints. If the post is vacant and no suitable British subject can be found we usually ask some German ;-)

Cheers

Moggie

"So what happens if a boy willingly explores having a faith, but then decides it is not for him?"

Young people under that age of 18 are still exploring and developing their spiritual self therefore an avowed absence of faith is only a bar for an adult appointment with the Scout Association

Cheers

Moggie

To quote Moosetraker

"is to get something like UK where the older boys from the other programs are coming back to the younger units to be Leaders"

This would be the Young Leader (YL) scheme (we're co-ed; so its young people to us rather than boys), it is an element that explorer scouts can choose to do as part of their development, from the TSA website:

"The Young Leaders' Scheme helps Explorer Scouts to develop and grow as individuals. It allows them to make a valuable contribution to their community and give service to others. The scheme also helps them fulfil the service elements of their awards."

Young leaders are first and foremost explorer scouts, in my group we have an attached explorer unit of which two have chosen to be young leaders and help with the younger sections (one with Beavers, the other cubs). Young leaders can help with their old troop but for this to work there needs to a time gap so that scouts see them as leaders rather than just bigger scouts.

As a scouter I like the way beavers and cubs are able to look up and relate to YLs in a way that they don't with adults.

Cheers

Moggie

As UK scouter I'd echo much of what Cambridge skip has said, although I'd take issue with a couple points:

Scouting skills have not been diminished but rather repackaged under the "everyday adventure" slogan,with a greater focus on participation.

Whilst with explorer scouts its taken a while to get the dynamic between group and district right; particularly with rural districts where its harder for the district focus to be created for the young people; I agree that progress has been made.

Having 13 yr old PLs is a challenge!

If you look across the 6-25 groupings you see that original aim of scouting has been maintained. with the patrol concept introduced with beavers (Lodges), developed in cubs (sixes, lead by sixers and seconders) through scouts (Patrols) and on to explorers/network where the groups/leadership become more ad hoc. Likewise as you progress through UK scouting the role of adult leadership changes from an adult lead programme (beavers/cubs/scouts) to a youth lead programme (Scouts/explorers/network).

Cheers

Gareth

I would like to recommend this web site as a good source for project ideas - try the 1st April projects!

http://www.pioneeringmadeeasy.co.uk/

regards

Gareth

I wish fuel was only $6 a gallon here rather than $2.40 a litre ( that's about $12/gal) it is here in the UK.

Cheers

Gareth

This is The Scout Association (UK) factsheet on the World Membership Badge.

http://www.scoutbase.org.uk/library/hqdocs/facts/pdfs/fs260016.pdf

Cheers

Gareth

This link will take to the World Scout Shop where that have a selection of scout branded Opinel and Swiss Army knives:

http://www.worldscoutshop.org/sommaire.asp?sid=0ZGO7X0K64A7I7AMA0NP2XB5&langue=2&prcid=197&menuprcid=0%2C197&prcidm=197

Cheers

Gareth

If you're interested the BBC produced an article on the NHS budget, they included many graphs but one that caught my eye compared spending on health care as a percentage of GDP. It would appear that most western countries spend roughly simillar amounts (7-8% of GDP)

This link should take you to the web page

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11686396

Cheers

Gareth