ianwilkins

Looking at the website... http://www.lanternfestnys.com/ I'd have no hesitation about doing a cub outing there. It looks fantastic. Looks like LEDs inside paper/wood models that don't fly. It doesn't say anything about mass releases of flaming sky lanterns. So from what I can see, no problem. I can see why, if they did do a release, you'd be more hesitant about going. There's been lots of negative stories over this side of the pond about damage to wildlife and livestock, and setting barns and building on fire etc. They were basically a fad whose time has passed. In my opin

One of mine came up to me one evening and said "Ian, I think I've done my Queen's Scout Award" (roughly Eagle equivalent, i.e. highest award in UK scouting), I asked them to prove it, the next week two of us leaders sat down with them and their evidence and went through it. Sure enough, it was all there, and then some. E.g. Undertake a 5 day and 4 night residential project in an unfamiliar environment with people who are not known to you. They went to Svalbard for a month and did some glacier measuring or something. All was good, we applied and the award was approved without a hitch. No surpri

Across the other side of the pond, but money is money. Our Explorers pay once a term, so three times a year. That pays for - weekly activities* - central insurance/admin fees - equipment - rent of meeting location * Though sometimes, to stretch the money further, if we're doing something fun and expensive we might ask for £5 ($6) or something to go towards it. When we have weekend camps, we don't have them monthly, more like 4 or 5 a year, the Explorers generally pay what it costs for the camp. So that can range from £15 ($16ish) for somewhere cheap + food, to £60 ($65ish) f

I guess, like Europe, some parts of the USA are more flammable than others. In the UK it's only really in high summer (and sometimes not even then) we need to be a bit careful with fire circles, fire buckets on standby, and not building a huge pyre. When we went to Portugal, their "campfire" was a 9" square hole in the sand, and when the flames came too far out the top, that was too big. But for them a stray spark could cause real and widespread havoc. Their wood chopping skills were limited to not much more than kindling. When they came to us the following year, we were in 400 acres of forest

I don't know, maybe click on the green arrow and I'll let you know if I get a notification. You can go and look at your profile and under "reputation" it'll show you all the posts that people have up or down ticked. If you hover over any user's name in green in the grey stripe between the posts, you get a pop up that shows that user's reputation, amongst other things. I suppose it's supposed to show it the user is a greenhorn or if they write a lot of stuff people (dis)agree with. My most popular post is one about an accidental biker/scout camp in the 80s, and I've only ever had one d

Wasn't Fleagle in The Banana Splits? Oooh, my memory, I'm sure we had silly patrol names on summer camp, but I can't remember a single one. I mean, apart from when we had flags for the best patrol and worst patrol, the best had a crown on, and the worst a pair of Y fronts. I think one patrol got it several days in a row and just renamed themselves the pants patrol. Losing something in translation but I couldn't ruin the alliteration.

Well, at the DNA level... Actually, I was watching QI the other day (esoteric UK "quiz"/comedy panel show), and they were talking about some rule of averages, or the rule of normal, or some other name that I've forgotten (fat lot of good that did then!). In australia the office of statistics worked out the "average Australian" from their stats, and discovered there wasn't a single australian that was their definition of average. So really, when you look at it, we do have commonality at some level with everyone, but we are all different. To quote The Life of Brian Brian: "You're

At the end of the day, BSA, BPSA, TrailLife, if they want to grow (or stop shrinking), they need to appeal to more people, be appealing. To the parents who need to think it's something they want their kids involved in, and to the kids, to enjoy doing it. Everything else is noise.

Hi F-P, It's not really a league, the intention is to go once as a troop/pack/unit/whatever and record the scores on that night rather than over a series of nights. Our thinking being that most trips bowling with scouts are a one off treat, not many around the world that go regularly. I shall expect your boys to be near the top of that results table. Ian

Except the waiting lists are almost certainly a product of lack of leaders. I know of groups that could open Beavers Cubs and Scouts tomorrow, just from their waiting list, if they could magic the 6-9 leaders it would require. On your second points, I agree entirely. The UK Beaver motto is "fun and friendship". Seems about right. Learning by doing. Learning as an adjunct to having fun with your mates. Ian

Trust me, it's fairly paranoid in the UK too. Or rather, it is bad enough that it definitely puts some volunteers off. I still get stuff like "been away playing with the little children" every so often. Though I think it's better than it used to be. We definitely had a bad patch, well, probably tying in with the falling numbers. I think the parents are fairly happy as we've put quite a lot of effort into making sure parents know about police background checks and our child protection policies. And their kids are there having fun so it's easy to think the best. Ian

I've not got much to add to CambiidgeSkip's posts, but that's not going to stop me... I do have census figures in a spreadsheet for the UK, sadly, I only have total figures up to 1994, then section figures from 1997, then detailed figures, including gender split, from 2007. His numbers are pretty spot on, numbers were dropping all through the 90s, and turned around in the early 2000's. Moreover, looking at the gender splits since 2007, the growth hasn't been in just girls joining, at the expense of the boys, there are more boys involved in all sections, as well as more girls. The r

And just to say, [trumpet fanfare] registration is now open.

We had one try and make Caramel Peas. The little that made it out the pot was ok I guess, if you like caramel shot through with peas, but I think we had to throw the pot away, or clean it with a wire brush fitted to a drill.

I did spend a bit of time looking at this, and sadly a bit of money, before finding I'd got the "wrong" stuff. Well, I was so close, we had some 3-4" diameter spars, far too smooth. 12mm hemp rope was a bit too thick and stiff for that diameter wood. The length you cut the rope also depends on generally what size wood you'll be using. The answer is then, it depends. Sorry for mixing metric and imperial. Hope that's not too scary. What I did enjoy, and some of my explorers enjoyed, was learning the sailmaker's whipping, and whipping all the ends properly. One of those oddly satisfying s

Yes, maybe parents deciding their kids should join scouts and guides are better at handing on mental resilience or something? Here's another source if you're having trouble accessing the first one... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-37923133

Ok, it's a UK study, and it appears to be a strong correlation rather than a causal link but...it appears, if you didn't know already, that we do a good thing... https://www.newscientist.com/article/2112209-scouts-and-guides-grow-up-to-have-better-mental-health-at-age-50/

What? You have trouble getting strike anywhere matches? You mean the likes of which Clint Eastwood would strike off his stubble in cowboy films? (Yeah, may be misremembering a little here, but he was hard as nails so...) Well there's a thing. We can get them anywhere that sells cigarettes, brand of Swan Vestas usually. Can light them off most hard rough surfaces. Brick, some rock, metal. Of course, when we got them as scouts on summer camp, you went around trying to find things that you could light them on, until you had none left to light the fire. Oops.

For the benefit of this transatlantic brother scout, what is an Ordeal? What happens at an Ordeal? Is it actually an ordeal?

Probably around early/mid November. Cost is $8 for as many teams as you like, and the optional badges are $2 each, with $6 for postage (for how ever many you order). That's US dollars by the way, rather than Australian or Canadian.

Hi all, hope this doesn't transgress some advertising rule I'm not aware of... I'm running Jambowlree again this year, and it would be great to get some more teams involved. Jambowlree is the (unofficial) World Scout Ten Pin Bowling Competition, Dec '16 - May '17. Entries will be open in November. It's open to all sections from any country. Last year we had entries from Australia, Canada, USA, Ireland, Slovenia, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Cyprus, Qatar, South Africa, and New Zealand. So you'll definitely be taking part in an international competition! Premise is simple... Go bowling

I'm getting the meat sweats just reading that list. And it does look like fun. Ian

Good thinking. Draw their fire onto the sternest defences. As it happens, the award of merit is a gold coloured emblem on a green ribbon worn around the neck http://www.harboroughscouts.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/merit-awardcropped.jpg You also get a badge, with an embroidered knot on it, to sew on above the right breast. I'd imagine that wearing the ribbon with an adult BSA uniform would definitely catch the eye of the badge police, and the curious. I could tie them up for ages banging on about my "good deeds" while everyone else sneaked past.

Could they, he said, listening out carefully for the badge police, just wear the foreign award badge on their BSA uniform? I know in the UK leaders are entitled to wear the Queen's Scout Award on their adult uniform. I'm sure there's a suitable place it could go, like on the right breast where it's supposed to go on the UK uniform. After all, they're entitled to wear it. They haven't earnt Eagle so can't wear it, seems fair enough. An interesting question though. I have an Award of Merit knot badge, awarded for outstanding service to scouting, if I moved to the states and volunteered...wou

Aaaah, Baden-Powell, he had some wise words: “A week of camp life is worth six months of theoretical teaching in the meeting room.†“A boy is not a sitting-down animal.†“The most important object in Boy Scout training is to educate, not instruct.†“There is no teaching to compare with example.†“We do not want to make Scout training too soft.â€