ianwilkins

Can I just say, over here in the UK, plop means something else*, so your mentions of plop camps has been amusing me since I first saw them mentioned in this thread. Thanks for cheering me up! * let's just say a bodily product that rhymes with "hit". Ian

Food! One of my favourite things! I feel quite strongly about getting the kids to cook, most of our lot will disappear off to university come 18, end up in a shared house, meeting up with many of them years later, they often comment on how everyone else made such a fuss of the "house meals" being overwhelmed at cooking for 6 or 8 instead of 1. On most of our camps we've had central catering, with the duty team/patrol cooking for the whole camp, so cooking for 6-8 is easy compared to 30 or 40! Of course, this is usually done in more of a field kitchen than on open fires. We do also try and

My explorer scouts love to hammock, mostly. Some have made their own string/rope ones, and those ones always seem to be the ones sleeping on the floor come the morning, I guess the net isn't very even, so while there's no rock lumps, there's dips, hollows, and tight bits all over. This last summer camp we must have had around 15 out of 20 in hammocks. Quite often they double deck them, i.e. two hammocks one about another, then the tarp over the top. I've suggested that in windy and wet conditions this may not be ideal. They know better apparently ;-) They have triple decked them before, and I'

That is your pool of future leaders right there. keep fishing, keep baiting the hook, and you should be able to reel the odd one in.

Ok, I have figures split by gender since 2007.... 2007 Census 2014 Census Increase 2007-14 % Increase 2007-14 Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Beavers 89,455 9,420 98,875 104,173 18,472 122,645 11,697 7,610 19,307 13.08% 80.79% 19.53% Cubs 120,901 12,952 133,890 128,721 24,654 153,375 7,011 9,961 16,935 5.80% 76.91% 12.65% Scouts 87,767 14,775 102,542 97,848 26,866 124,714 9,214 10,723 19,937 10.50% 72.58% 19.44% Explorers 21,634 7,023

Your points in a random order... And, are they really growing? Who knows. As it happens, I know about the UK, have kept up to date a spreadsheet of census figures for the last few years. All sections have been growing every year since 2007. It's not massive growth, between 2% and 4%, but that's better than the 5% annual drops we were seeing for the 10 years previous. I think the crux of the issue is that actually you're right, if you're going co-ed to boost numbers, you're starting off on the wrong foot. I don't remember that scouts in the UK went fully co-ed to boost numbers, they

True story. I know a leader who, fed up with lack of support for any fundraising, turned round and said to the parents, you have a choice, join in, or we put the fees up by £30 ($45 ish) a year, or maybe more, and scrap fundraising. They unanimously voted to be chequebook parents. In a way, the leader was deeply saddened at the parents missing the point somewhat, then he thought about all the spare time he'd just made to go do his own hobbies...

As someone British, running one of the older sections, since you asked, I'll answer.... Firstly, the age ranges, scouts is 10-14, explorers 14-18, Network 18-25. I run an explorer unit hands on, and am a manager for the leaders in the other two units in the area, I also know quite a few other explorer leaders. I would say it's a broad church. Some units successfully have the explorers running more or less every weekly meeting. I don't, I can't quite manage it somehow, the time taken to encourage them to be running something, and them to organise it, is time we could be doing something.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding, but your local council were telling individual scouts they would have to pay seventeen *thousand* dollars to attend the Japan Jamboree? If that's the case...(a) how on earth did they justify that? and (b) no, that doesn't sound like a good value trip at that price at all. Cruel to make it that much for something that they'll only have one chance to go on as a participant.

Are you saying the individual fee for participants is $17,000? How on earth does it get so high? We in the UK were charged about $4500, as a top tier country our Jamboree fees help those from poorer countries go. I'd guess USA is a top tier country too. Yes, I have my doubts about the Jamboree too, a lot of effort for the few, when we should be providing for the many. On the other hand, it still looks amazing, and I wish I'd gone to the Japan one, and I hope the three we sent had a ball. Ian

You should see people's faces when the bus pulls up and there's 36 kids/leaders queued up to get on. Only had one grumpy sourpuss (that I noticed) that moved rather than listen to any more of my explorers endless inane chatter, and it wasn't me. Being in our scarves seemed to be a conversation starter if anything. Met some nice people. It's not something we've done before, but it's certainly something to consider for the future.

Sorry for the slow replies. Been on scout camp. It's now an independent campsite for youth groups generally rather than scouting specifically. It got sold off by HQ and in order to get enough grant money to buy it they had to open it up a bit. I go to a few county meetings there. Road noise is probably worse than when you were last there. We, and when I say we, I mean, my explorers, rather than speaking for the UK or anything. We never have separate events for boys and girls. How does having it mixed go? Interesting. Actually, I'd say 99% of the time they're just rubbing

We are too also mostly volunteers with day jobs. The "chain of command" is all volunteer too. So my "scout boss" is a volunteer, the District Commissioner, in charge of all the scouts in the district (about 800 inc leaders in our case, this varies hugely). His "scout boss" is a volunteer, the County Commissioner (about 6000 inc leaders, again, varies hugely by county), and so on. The chief commissioner of the UK is a volunteer (basically the boring bits the chief scout used to do until they went down the celeb route), mind you, I've no idea when he actually does any of a day job, if he has one

I'll "do my best" as they say. Ian

Hi folks, Ok, I've posted a few times already, so I'd better introduce myself. Hi, I'm Ian, and I'm an Explorer Scout Leader in Surrey, England. Explorer scouts is a mixed gender section for 14-17 year olds. I'm in overall charge of three units of Explorers in our local town (official title "District Explorer Scout Commissioner", but that feels a bit grandiose for little old me), and double up as a leader in one of the units because I don't want to be one of those manager admin people that never sees any kids, I like running things with the kids. I've been a leader since I aged

For a little international perspective, in the UK we have "Scouts" which is mixed, but it wasn't ever thus, and "GirlGuiding", which is girls only. The change to mixed scouting, well Ventures (15-21) were mixed from the mid 1970's. If memory serves they made it a local decision (sound familiar?) to go mixed in other sections in the early 2000's, then making it more or less compulsory around 2010. I was a leader of a Venture Unit at the time other sections went mixed, and there was resistance from some who feared they would have to "girlify" their programme. As far as I know, this hasn't ha

Yes and no. In the UK for example, there's no rules that say boys and girls can't share a tent. Mostly though, it doesn't happen. I've put Explorer Scouts (aged 14-17) in a large tent together, so there's 8 or so in one tent. I know some scout troops who do patrol camping, they all go in together, but most tie themselves in knots with separate tents for girls. Usually I do camp boys and girls separate. Sometimes on hikes I've put the one girl in a team into a tent with two boys, mum said "more fool them (the boys) if they try anything". A fellow leader went to Sweden in the 80s with Ventu