Cambridgeskip

I took the advice and went to see a travel agent today. They found a very good deal to Buffalo price wise but it does mean a change in Chicago (big scary airport to get kids through!) and returns at an unsoicable time and of course a slightly longer drive (about 2 hours drive to our ultimate destination rather than 1 hour from Toronto). The best they found to Toronto was actually a direct flight with Air Transat at 700. The problem being we're flying at a time when it is school holidays for UK, USA and Canada. The indirect ones I've found on the internet so far all seem to magically acqui

Thanks for that chaps, I'll do some more snooping around! In terms of major airport v regional airport is that the bigger airports tend to be more expensive. Similar to Charlotte the next cheapest route is a change in Rekyavic with Iceland Air (I'd find an icelandic scout forum to ask similar questions on but my icelandic is about as sharp as my quantom physics) A small contingent is 6, 2 leaders and 4 scouts. It's something we are doing on a small scale this time round with a view to doing something bigger in the future.

Hi I wasn't sure which forum to post this in but I just wanted to pick your brains about airlines in the USA. The deal is that my troop in the UK has recently discovered a troop with exactly the same name in your friendly neighbour Canada. We've arranged an exchange programme with them for next summer and are currently looking for the cheapest way to get a small contingent from here to Toronto. A lot of internet searching has so far shown the cheapest routes to generally be via the USA with the cheapest of all being a change in Charlotte Douglas (you will have to forgive me that

So a few comments from my personal experience. I have recently despatched one lad with aspergers onto Explorers aged 14 and have had another one recently start. Both display very different personality traits. What has been the same is that we have had very supportive parents from both. Something to remember is that kids with aspergers need very simple and clear instructions and guidelines which, importantly, you MUST stick to. These not be any different to those laid down fro anyone else, they do not get special treatment just through having a diagnosis. If you lay down rules with cl

SSScout - the vast majority featured are UK scout section age range ie 10-14. There are no cubs featured. There is a glimpse here and there of explorer scouts (14-18 year olds) they are the ones with caramel coloured uniforms. We have a couple attached to the troop as part of the Young Leader scheme (14-17 year olds can serve as what effectively amounts to an apprentice leader). We don't have Rovers as such. We have Network Scouts for 18-25 year olds. In theory this is a youth section. In practice it functions as more of a social club for younger leaders. 3 of my ASLs (equivalent of ASMs)

Qwaze, cheers for pointing that out. We had a similar problem with the last one we posted but I can't recall how we fixed it. I'll go in and play with the settings and see what I come up with.

I've been playing with windows movie maker again and wacked something together of what we got up to during 2012. Enjoy!

Fred, I think you've missed the point. No one is proposing removing God from the programme. We're talking about an additional version of the Promise, not a replacement. This is not a political issue, no one has forced this on TSA. TSA has chosen to go this way to reflect its membership and the society in which they live. As you point out, the scouts themselves deal with this perfectly well day in day out without excluding anyone and they just see the addition of an additional version the Promise as perfectly normal.

Last night was the first scout night since this news story broke. We had an easy going creative night and it gave me a chance to spend some time talking to some of the scouts. I had 4 working with me, a Christian, a Budhist, an Atheist and one who's just not sure. Getting their point of view on this was really quite refreshing. In short, none of them could understand what the fuss was about. They were actually a bit surprised to learn that religion was any problem in terms of joining anything. They are used to people having different beliefs and are all quite able to discuss theirs withou

Thought I'd weigh in here from across the pond. First was BP gay? Don't know and don't frankly care. It matters not a jot to me. As for the original post. Frankly this is not before time. It is clear that atheist members are with us both as youth, openly, and as adults saying the promise with a mental cross of the fingers. All this does is officially acknowledge that. A run of the eyes over Escouts (UK equivalent of this forum) shows that it is largely supported as well. I look forward to us being entirely inclusive and not to have to try and defend a policy that I find it impos

Thought I'd weigh in here from across the pond. First was BP gay? Don't know and don't frankly care. It matters not a jot to me. As for the original post. Frankly this is not before time. It is clear that atheist members are with us both as youth, openly, and as adults saying the promise with a mental cross of the fingers. All this does is officially acknowledge that. A run of the eyes over Escouts (UK equivalent of this forum) shows that it is largely supported as well. I look forward to us being entirely inclusive and not to have to try and defend a policy that I find it impos

Do your universities and colleges. Have such things as scout and guide clubs? If not it sounds like they need them. They are a huge success here and help recruit and retain younger leaders. The one in Cambridge essentially has 3 roles. It has a social role for just keeping the scout and girl guide fraternity together, it has a service side, laying on a number of events for the district each year (the annual indient hike for the scout and guide age range is superb) and finally they provide a match making service, placing students who want to be leaders with local groups. It has been such a

It's interesting watching this thread unfold as it shines a light on different scouting cultures around the world. The impression I have of scouting in the USA is that it is very family orientated with a big emphasis on parents leading the programme before moving on in time. At the other end of this spectrum are countries like Hungary. In 2005 I took a group of scouts to the European Jamboree and we became quite friendly with a Hungarian unit. The leader in charge of them was just 19 and his assistants were of a similar age. This struck me a startlingly young to be running an internationa

I don't know the full detail of national affiliations to WOSM but I suspect that a lot of assets would become the property of WOSM and that somebody somewhere would be asked to establish a WOSM affiliated scout body.

Sounds like you are trying to move to the "group" system like we have in the UK. It has it's advantages but I don't think it provides answers to the bigger problems that many of you refer to on here. What it can do is provide additional support for adults. I am the equivalent of SM but above me I have a Group Scout Leader who can take up slack on admin and management issues. Which is great. But the other side of that coin is that either you have the resource to provide that support or you don't. If you do all this would do is formalise the arrangement. If you don't then it won't prod

Exactly what Beavah said. There is a whole world of difference between being able to build a fire ready to light and then actually lighting it and then subsequently keeping control of it. Similar to Joebob when I was a venture scout my unit were asked to run a camp fire for a group of Beaver Scouts (6 and 7 year olds this side of the pond). What we created was a blazing inferno. Any other time this would have been fine (remember in the UK we are rumoured to have 197 words for rain, nothing is EVER dry!) but we were in the middle of an unusually hot and dry period. The camp site we were on

I am mildly dyslexic and still can't distinguish between lose and loose even after your post. Sorry! (Can handle you're and your though, it's multiple vowels that really give me a problem)

I really don't think there is a hard and fast here. It will depend on what they've done, it will depend on the circumstances in which they did it, it will depend on who exactly did it. I have in the past confronted people on the spot. I've also waiting for a quoet moment to calmly discuss it, I've reported it upwards. It's horses for courses in my opinion.

Best of luck to everyone your side of the pond about to get hit by this. My SPL is currently in NYC on holiday with her family. Her facebook status suggests she's a wee bit nervous about this. Just praying that she comes home with a few yarns to tell round the camp fire and nothing worse :s

NJcubscouter - political ads in the UK can be pretty nauseating as well but there are also heavy restrictions on how many they can broadcast and how long they are hence you can avoid them if you want to. Prime Ministers question time is, to be honest, just a bit of a circus and doesn't really do much justice to parliamentary democracy. Our politicians can be utterly vile and obnoxious when they want, and that goes for all the parties. Equally though I have seen examples, particularly from backbenchers, of outstanding work, ensuring that important issues are properly debated in the house.

I haven;t read this entire thread. There's so much bickering I frankly can't be bothered. Suffice to say though that the UK Scout Association has a PR disaster on its hands with this one. In terms of the official line see Moogie's post above this, sets it out pretty clearly. What appears to have happened is that the kids flatly refused to make the promise. What's worth adding is that this is something that the TSA has been tip toeing around for sometime. Essentially WOSM rules say you have to have a religious promise. TSA has trodden a very fine a line in terms of trying to ben

It's difficult to put across just how shocking this case is to the British public. Jimmy Saville himself was always seen as a classic British excentric and national treasure. His charity work was legendary, the tv show Jim'll fix it was iconic, (I wrote into it myself as a kid, desperate to drive a train, and the episode where a group of cub scouts had lunch on a rollercoaster is one of the most repeated bits of tv ever) everyone knew he was from age 8 to 80. His career was seemingly endless. And now this. That someone so public was getting away with it for so long is truly chilling.

"Once you deceide to ignore that rule, where do you stop? Is then 20 Merit badges enough for eagle, or 12 nights of camping for OA? " NDL - i think the difference here is that there is a clear and obvious reason for that rule. Eagle Scout is designed to be the highest award that BSA can give a youth member. It naturally requires high standards. Perhaps some folks think it should be changed but ultimately there is a reasoning behind it that everyone can see. With regard to homosexuality there is no clear reasoning. Yes you can point to passages from the Old Testament but BSA is not an

Seattle Some questions for you. 1. Define "Natural law". I can find you US federal law, state law of the various US states, UK law, laws of various religions all written down because they are laws created by various groups of people to givern the way their communities live. So what is natural law? I am confused. 2. If use of genitals to procreate is approved and not involving them are not does that mean that the following are "disaproved" of a. Sexual relations between a married heterosexual couple using contraception? b. Sexual reltions between a married heterosexu

When I ran cubs I used to read semi regularly and generally stuck to the Jungle Book. There are some fantastic stories in there, not just the Mowgli stories but many of the others as well. The tale of Rikki Tikki Tavi went down particularly well. It generally worked best when the kids were tired round the fire late in the evening. I used to get them to close their eyes and forget that they were in leafy, cool southern England but it was over a hundred years ago, they are in India, it's hot, it's humid and somewhere out there a wolf is walking through the trees.... I've never tried it with