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ianwilkins

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Everything posted by ianwilkins

  1. ianwilkins
    If we had any factories left*, hooters are more likely to be the thing that goes off to mark the start and end of shifts, and lunch, and the all important tea break. Car horn is just that, the horn. * We do but... As it happens, I have been to the only Hooters in Britain. On a stag weekend of course. It was entertaining, and the company was good. I certainly wouldn't have described it as sleazy, and I'm not sure the lasses were being exploited, but I did feel a certain amount of unease about objectification via the standard not exactly baggy uniform, and the subsequent pressure on the
  2. ianwilkins
    Gosh! Seems to have kicked off a bit! I'm sorry you've chosen to take that interpretation. I'm a fellow scout, you are my brother*, rest assured I meant no offence. Having moral values, and trying to "do your best" to be true to them, it is not the easy path we, or our scouts, have chosen. * Or as we now say in the UK, "part of the worldwide family of scouting". This is what I meant. This is exactly what I meant. My beef is with the parents that do this sort of thing. The same ones that go barrelling into school to castigate the teacher when their kid gets disciplined. Pr
  3. ianwilkins
    Double standard because of a perceived sexual nature of something? Surely not!
  4. ianwilkins
    She'd be dressed as a rabbit no? Perfectly suitable for a nature pavilion no? You just don't seem to get dirty mags in the woods anymore*. I blame the internet. * Although, maybe I'm not looking for them anymore, and I don't go to the woods as much.
  5. ianwilkins
    Go for it. I think the more society mixes, the more tolerant it becomes. Back in the 80s, in the UK, I was in scouts, we had a weekend camp for our troop at a small campsite owned by the municipal council, not by scouts, not much more than a clearing in the woods. We turned up on the Friday, set up in patrols, retired for the night, next day, while doing some activities, some hairy bloke turned up in his van. "What are you lot doing here?" "Um...what are you doing here?" "I've booked this site for our party tonight!" "Well we booked the site for our scout camp!" Discussions ensued.
  6. ianwilkins
    There's a certain age, and a certain boy (or dad, or, indeed, mum, as can be the modern way) who may objectify hooters "girls". Maybe once they'd spent some time on camp with them, they'd see they were just normal people like themselves. Who happen to have to wear a different uniform. Is that a bad thing?
  7. ianwilkins
    I think I have something similar after pirate fancy dress...at an explorer scout camp.
  8. ianwilkins
    If I knew it was pirate bandanas all round, I'd probably try and get a pirate captain's tricorn hat or something, maybe for your SPL son that's running it, or maybe just for me. We have fabric tubes over here trade name of Buff, non trade name possibly multifunctional headwear, I would expect you can get them with skull and crossbones, ah yes... http://www.buffwear.co.uk/buff-adult-headwear/original-buff/skull-amp-crossbone-buff Bit pricey though. Actually, not that unusual to see the odd scarf worn heretically as a bandana over here. And I know you can get skull and crossbone
  9. ianwilkins
    No one has poisonous snakes. They're venomous.
  10. ianwilkins
    My daughter is currently doing her Duke of Edinburgh Bronze (the lowest level for the youngest, she's 14) through her school. I'll just talk about the expedition parts as that's the only relevant thing here: She did two hikes, two days in duration, with camping overnight. The first was a practice, to basically make sure they had the right kit, make sure they could map read etc. They had an adult walking with them for the first couple of hours, checking their competence. Overnight they were at a campground where there were a whole bunch of teachers and helpers, and all the other teams, also
  11. ianwilkins
    The Dump is still up... http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/
  12. ianwilkins
    Please bear in mind that I'm posting this from across the pond, so you may have rules or advice to which I'm not party. Maybe consider having a page and a group. A closed group for current members, to communicate when and when you'll be doing something, event sign ups, and so on. Remove people when their children move on. Then an open page that's basically an advert for your troop, showing all the fun things you do, so granny can like the page and see the pictures, camping tips, etc. You'd have to be careful what you post, and the settings under which you post, and the settings for the pag
  13. ianwilkins
    His parents sound delightful . A week away from them... Sorry, not very scout-like of me.
  14. ianwilkins
    I took my baby to an evening once, he slept through the whole thing and was cute, wouldn't have put anyone off at all, and if you think I'd have woken him up so scouts could change him...no chance. I still see some of them that were there that evening, and freak them out by telling them my son is nearly 17 now. Many of them have their own babies now, in fact, some just about to start in our youngest section I should think. Now, BSA sometimes seems a little...erm...don't take offence....nerdy...definitely not a place for jocks anyway. I'm sure adding nappy changing to the programme will hel
  15. ianwilkins
    "You're confusing me with someone that gives a s***" Of course, you all swear like in the movies right? All motherlover this and motherlover that every other word. Oh, and the little sod explorer came out with a French swearword last night, directed at the alpha male of course, I reprimanded him as I knew what it meant. I guess they swapped to French as I was trying to get everyone's attention, and using my old fallback of "Attencion! S'il vous plait!" (excuse spelling) which I guess is effective as it's unfamiliar to their ears, yet they know what it means (I tried it in Italian onc
  16. ianwilkins
    I'm sure there are UK scout leaders that don't drink, I don't drink much, it's got to be said, but we quite often go to the pub after the meeting for a pint of beer. Maybe that's why we don't get many volunteers..."sheesh, if he needs a drink after a 2 hour meeting...I don't need that in my life!"
  17. ianwilkins
    I "do my best" not to. I deal with Explorers, not to excuse it, they are a bit older, it's not exactly words they don't here often. Some of them provocate and I profane. I have a very trying young man at the moment who needs to do a lot of growing up pretty quickly, he's 14, and possibly the most difficult Explorer I've ever had, his behaviour is off the scale. Do you have ones where you seem to be calling their name the whole night? One of them. Last night was worse as we met up with another unit, and the alpha male Explorer of that unit took exception to him, and they and their mates, seemed
  18. ianwilkins
    That's what I understand, at least with Girl Guides. I've heard this before somewhere else I'm sure, so I suspect in this case wikipedia is pretty reliable... The camp was a success, and Baden-Powell wrote the book Scouting for Boys, which covered tracking, signalling, cooking, etc. Soon boys began to organise themselves into Patrols and Troops and called themselves "Boy Scouts". Girls bought the book as well and formed themselves into Patrols of Girl Scouts while other girls and boys formed mixed Patrols. In 1909 there was a Boy Scout rally at Crystal Palace in London. In those days, for
  19. ianwilkins
    Bom Dia from the UK Thomas
  20. ianwilkins
    I know in the UK the HQ have looked at length of leadership, and for many, it's less than five years, and for many of the rest, they're "lifers". Is it those that get pulled into a section they fancy working with, then stick with it while their kid is there, then drop out? One of my fellow explorer leaders started as a cub leader for one of his kids, then jumped to being an explorer leader, as that kid had gone through scouts by then. His third and final kid must have left the section at least 7-8 years ago. Others seem to follow their kids up through the sections. I'm probably an oddity f
  21. ianwilkins
    "You should exercise your right to vote" "Ok, who should I vote for?" "The one that best exemplifies scout values" "I thought you said I should vote?"
  22. ianwilkins
    Very sorry for your loss Krampus. Losing one so young is really hard, and difficult dark times lie ahead. Know that your worldwide scouting family have your back.
  23. ianwilkins
    You mean like this? http://www.freemaptools.com/radius-around-point.htm?clat=51.507351&clng=-0.127758&r=804.672000307346&lc=FFFFFF&lw=1&fc=00FF00&mt=r Yup, 8 countries I think if I want to go international, but that's Europe for you. And yes, there are a lifetime of opportunities just in that little bit. One of those countries I've never been to, and I went to Switzerland when I was 1, so I don't remember it! Ian
  24. ianwilkins
    We had the same when the world Jamboree was in the UK in 2007, and as a tier 1 nation (or whatever they call it, basically, we pay the most to subsidise others), lots of people started off by looking at the price, $1700 (£1200), and people going..."Twelve hundred quid! For ten days in Essex!?!" (Essex has a reputation as being not the most picturesque part of the UK) But that was missing the point. It's the world scout jamboree, and it is where it is, and you only get one shot, as a youth, so you make the best of it. I've never been to a jamboree, but the fact that people will pay
  25. ianwilkins
    In conversation in another place, it seems that scouters, and scouts, tend to fall roughly into two camps, Jamboree Johnnies, and Bushcraft Bennies. Jamboree Johnnies will be able to justify these big national camps on all sorts of grounds that would be an anathema to the Bushcraft Bennies. Sounds like a great camp. Enjoy! Ian
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