ianwilkins

...and never left the police station. Was at a fairly large camp last year and there were some police there doing a demonstration and general community stuff, and one came rocking up to the others with a big bag of fresh donuts...made me smile too.

Yes, I think the key is private ownership in Europe, and the space in the US. I mean, our local UK campsite is 7 acres in size (are your acres the same size? Anyway, close enough), the largest one I know of is 400 acres. There's a fair amount of National Parks, but they generally don't allow random camping. There are a fair few scout campsites, and vary from not much more than farmer's fields, to farmer's fields with a toilet block, to all singing and dancing activity centres. Though almost none have mess halls. Actually, in Scotland you can wild camp, and there's a test/trail going on i

Aaah, the old "only one country takes part but we'll call it a World Championship" trick. Only jesting, sounds like an exciting day, always good to meet lots of scouts from different places.

Squeeze? Urgh! I feel a bit queasy even thinking about that! I thought the reason they recommend thin tweezers and tick tools and definitely not fire or a cigarette or Vaseline or fingers is the danger of forcing the contents of the tick's stomach out through the mouth and into your bloodstream. Which is not the way you want nasties entering your body.

I would say this kid needs some counselling to get to the bottom of it, and finding ways to cope with it. I've had kids on the autistic spectrum not be able to cope with certain aspects of certain camps, one had to go home in the middle of the night. Not great. My uninformed and unprofessional guess is maybe he's catastrophising, and that's working him up, and him getting worked up is slipping into a vicious cycle where he's worrying about getting so anxious, which is making everything worse, making him more anxious, which is worrying, and all rationality goes out the window. He's probab

Yes, my aforementioned Rim of the World. It's a female scout, but she's a-la-mode a strong capable female character. We've had a comedy series over here in the UK called Ghosts, where someone inherits a house, has an accident and can now see dead people, one of the ghosts trapped in her house is a scout leader, comes across as well meaning and enthusiastic, though admittedly a bit of a nerdy voice, and no mention of paedophilia. Which was nice.

Rim of the World - film on Netflix Seems to have a girl scout, ish, or a scout that's a girl anyway, in it. Red necker, a troop number, random badges, shorts, and a Davy Crockett hat.

so...I'm an OBE now? Cool! Will there be a rota for the medal?

Brownsea Island has some small displays and heritage stuff, a kudo horn but not I think *the* kudo horn, it's quite interesting. Gilwell Park has a museum, much of it about Gilwell Park and adult training, but also some decent general artifacts, but I think they're about to rebuild it soon, at least, I think they were begging for money to do same recently. Gilwell Park also usually has BP's caravan, and his Rolls Royce, Jam Roll. Though, fair enough, these are not very practical options for most US scouts doing their Heritage Merit Badge, but there you go. Of course, the text of loads of

By and large the British Navy I should think. The English language is chock-a-block with words and phrases that have gone into general use that started in the British Navy. https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/nautical-phrases.html

A water butt is a large barrel that usually collects and stores rainwater. We have one attached to our rainwater down-pipe to harvest rainwater to put on the garden. You know our section for 6-7 year olds is called Beavers right? We don't have any fun with that. Just an irrelevant aside. Ignore me. Ignore me especially when I tell you locally we used to have a mascot costume for that section. It's name was Big Beaver. I had to ask for volunteers to wear the costume once. I can't remember how I phrased the opportunity, but I'm sure no one laughed at all, no no. It did turn out I was also t

Ok, seriously, in the interests of international knowledge exchange, what are you doing to your flags? On what basis are flags retired? If they touch the ground? The slightest speck of dirt? Are they use once only? 300 at a time? I'm taken aback. Ian

I've been a leader for over 25 years now, and I've never seen a ceremonial UK flag disposed of or destroyed, but your right, the official flag protocol is burning, or cutting up. Most of us are just trying to make sure we put the UK flag up the right way, so we're not telling other ships we're in distress!

Just to add, as a side note. In the UK we have wood-beads given when you complete your leader training, and you then become a member of the 1st Gilwell Park Scout Group, which has its own necker you can buy (a fairly drab thick woollen thing, I didn't bother). I'm 90% sure there is no official wood badge woggle in the UK that is restricted to wood badge holders only. I believe the 3 & 4 bead thing was phased out in the late 60s/early 70s in the UK.

Surely an Eagle Scout Factory is any troop that's producing more Eagle Scouts than yours. I mean, how can they possibly do that? 😇

We've already got Bonfire/Guy Faulkes Night. Or "burn an effigy of that catholic that tried to blow up parliament" night. Though the details are mostly lost in a hazy mess of low quality meat, drinking, sparklers, and fireworks.

Can't think why the UK doesn't* celebrate American Independence Day. 😇 All friends now though eh? * Well, some shops and pubs try and milk it for commercial gain, like St. Patrick's day but less green and Guinness, and more stars and stripes and hot dogs.

Out of curiosity, in the UK we're told that St George is the patron saint of Scouting. This is handy for a good number of us in England, as he doubles up as the National saint too. Quite often there's church parades, or fun days, we have a weekend family camp at our local site, there's also a parade for Queen's Scout Award (Eagle equiv. basically) holders at Windsor Castle. Basically, lots of things are going on around St. George's day. My question is...does anything like that happen in the US? I can't remember seeing anything, so here I am wondering if it's something that didn't end up

Are you lot really making references to British sitcom Keeping Up Appearances? I say! And then the briefest research suggests it's one of the BBC's most popular exports...well every day's a school day. Hi Onslow. Ian (UK scouter)

Sorry, diverging from advice... Tsh...5 in a tent? I see you five and raise you to 11, to start with... We went on a Jamboree on the Canary Islands a couple of years back, it was an experience. They supplied tents. To be fair, I'm sure they were doing their best, and it was only for a week and no one died so....anyway...we turn up at the site a few days after everyone else, and there are some people in "our" tents. The scouts with us were supposed to be somewhere else on site...there was some more people in their tents too. We went and had dinner, at about midnight, while they had a

Take your own tent. Or start hammocking. Go to bed when you want. Sort your sleep issues at home, and camp will probably follow. Mind you, camp is always a battle, I usually go to bed and am mulling over the days events and pondering tomorrow's. Never a great combo for sleep. Ian (48)

I'm not surprised they aren't happy! That's terrible. I'd guess this will be difficult to resolve with the organisers without one or more of them taking umbrage, but I do think such blatant gaming needs nipping in the bud. And apologies @Eagledad it's clearly more as you suspected/stated than I argued. I was wrong.

And maybe the girls were smart enough to realise there would be people that think like this and would re-double their efforts and be extra motivated to do well to prove them wrong. As it turns out, even if they did prove them wrong, those people belittling them would find another reason why it wasn't actually the girls efforts that got them where they are. Handy tip: If you're ever standing with my Explorers Scouts, don't ever refer to the girls as the weaker sex, they would...not be impressed.

Start with an overnight? Or a weekend nearby?

Yup, they are "mine". I was at a leader day the other week and I knew one of the leaders there, I told the others she was one of "my" Venture Scouts, which then made us both feel old, as Venture Scouts was replaced in 2002 in the UK.