Cambridgeskip

Hello from the U.K…. Been a wee while since I posted round here. Anyway I thought I’d swing by as I’m currently at scouts and it’s all gone a bit American! And I’m stood in a corner with not much to do with the PLs in danger of making me redundant. The scout program here while using the patrol system tends to use it as a way or organising a troop rather than the patrols being totally independent. At the moment however I have all 5 patrols doing their own thing having planned it all themselves. (Some looking a bit more organised than others but that’s teenagers for you) I’m in serious danger of having nothing to do. Two patrols pioneering, one cooking and the others getting creative with photography and clay respectively. A couple of adults are keeping an eye from a distance. The other two have vanished off to tidy up some camping gear. its all looking a bit American! anyway hope everyone is doing well, I must pop by here more often

There is no set way of doing it in the U.K. How my troop does it is that when one or more PL is moving onto explorers the PLC (including those leaving) collectively select their replacement. Patrols are more of a way organising the troop than a troop being a way of organising the patrols! More the point though is that this kid just didn’t understand the idea of youth members having any say on who the youth leaders are

Some ponderings from across the Atlantic.... This week at scouts one of my younger (11 year old) scouts brought a friend along. Nothing all that unusual in that, it's how we've had new sign ups in the past. However this time it wasn't a friend who was particularly interested in joining, he was just staying with a friend for a couple of days so tagged along for the evening. So far so good. I had a bit of a chat with him and he was particularly curious about the patrol system and in particular the concept of patrol leaders. It just did not compute with him that we have older scouts in charge of younger scouts, that scouts are expected to follow instructions from PLs, that PLs are invited to make decisions about the troop and what we do and how we do it. And when I explained that PLs collectively apoint APLs and collectively select their own scuccessors when they move on (I know that particular point is a bit different to you!) he was utterly bewildered. It just did not compute at all. Given that I know BSA are that much stronger on the patrol system than we are over here I wondered if you encounter similar. That kids who are not scouts just do not get it in terms of youth leadership?

Quick question, last night I was trying to access my PMs from the mobile version of this site but for the life of me couldn't find them! Can anyone point the right direction for them specifically from the mobile site?

This one is at the actual Kings Cross station in London where it is in the Harry Potter books. The staff originally put the sign up as a joke and it became a tourist attraction in its own right. We passed by on a trip to London and one of our new recruits asked to be invested there. We attracted a bit of a crowd!

Good afternoon all! Been a little while since I frequented this part of t'interweb Anyway just doing the rounds and posting my troop's review of the year. Been a strange one. Started in semi lock down and ended up somewhat normal! If you've got 5 minutes then enjoy

Never knew that! Things you learn. That said I generally try to avoid most things royal related.

Yes it will become the Kings Scout Award. Not quite sure what you mean about facing right or left??

At the risk of this getting political…. We had the same head of state for over 70 years without so much as anything inconvenient as an election. I think the U.K. could learn something from the USA on that front.

We're luck enough in Cambridge UK to have a small local airport, not suggesting you come over hear (although there is a convenient runway!) but if there is one near you it is a fascinating visit if you can arrange it. We do it every few years and the scouts all love it. Highlight is normally the maintenance hangars, seeing planes in pieces having various things done to them. The owner is also a troop old boy so does it for free. Alas we've never been allowed in the control tower. Reason being Cambridge is close enough to London Stansted that it is the first choice divert airport if they have to close the runway. If we had 30+ kids in the tower then from the word go they would have planes bound for Stansted landing before we even got them down the stairs! Someone above mentioned visiting an observatory. Again great fun, especially if you get the right weather for it. Also great fun if you have one nearby is a birds of prey resuce centre. We visited one as part ofour summer camp this year. The kids loved it!

Hi all We've just had a family leave our group and move from the UK to Boulder Co. They have found a scout troop for their older son to start with there but are struggling to find a cub pack for their youngest. Anyone here from that area? Can you recommend a pack at all?

Small incident with my scouts last night that really made me smile. we had an evening punting on the river in Cambridge. For those unfamiliar it’s peculiar to Cambridge and Oxford and a handful of other places with shallow rivers. Anyway as we could only put 5 scouts on each punt it didn’t quite work out as punting in patrols. So we asked the scouts to organise themselves into groups of 5. So far so good. But we’ve got that one scout who is a bit of an outsider. Goes to a different school to the rest, comes into scouts from quite a long way out. Doesn’t fit in quite as well as the rest. And then…. I saw one of the PLs make a bee line for him and bring him into her group with a big smile. It’s a small thing but one of those moments when you realise you have the right kids as youth leaders.

This story doing the rounds really is tiresome. Let's be clear, no one, certainly not children, have been banned from saying anything. The document is a style guide, pure and simple, issued as guidance for anyone putting out written comms to ensure consistency. To be honest I didn't even know we had a style guide till this story came out. Although if you work for any organisation of more than a few hundred people you probably have one that you've never read. The only people who look at it are marketing people. It's a load of stuff and nonsense and part of the whole tiresome trope about "woke" taking over the world or some such other drivel.

Indeed! I think she was just too polite to say it

Thought I'd swing by and share this. A short video made by one of my scouts for the teach a skill part of her Team Leader challenge award. Enjoy! (Warning, it's not for the squeamish!)

A UK scouter writes.... Having a celebrity chief scout is by no means the only factor behind rising numbers in the UK. There was far more to it than that. In the late 90s scouts in the UK was dying on its feet! Broadly because it had stagnated. While there had been the odd tweak here and there there had been no significant changes to the program, uniform, branding, or anything at all really. In 2002/3 there were wholesale changes inclduing age ranges, uniforms, award scheme, branding. Having a known face is great, but it wasn;t the be all and end all of the turn around.

Evening all (Or it is over here anyway!) so swinging by and saw my name in lights so thought I'd respond..., Anyway I think the first thing to note here is that this membership "surge" is really just recovering members that were lost during covid. Kids sign up to scouts because they want we offer. Which is basically being with your friends outdoors. The rest is just noise. When during covid we had to move online, and even when we were face to face it was inititally quite restrictive, a lot of kids quit. And if you look at news stories from this time last year it was reporting a huge drop. So really its all about recovery just now. Indeed even with this big jump we still aren't back to pre covid numbers (although my group is!) On some of the other topics raised.... I remember from previous threads being told that it was unusual in BSA for adult volunteers to be anything other than parents of existing, or at least very recently departed, scouts. In the UK that is less common. Certainly many adults are parents but it is certainly not unusual to not be. Looking at my group, from Beavers to Explorers we have a total of 28 adults of which only 3 currently have children in the group and 3 more used to. Not sure what effect that has in practice but it is what it is! Patrol system. UK could be better at the patrol system. The 14 year old scouts/explorers cut off certainly doesn't help. As older scouts become properly useful we use them! However, fact is that it was the change to that age range that marked a turn around from years of membership dropping to numbers rising again back in 2003. I do though think that the Young Leader scheme is excellent. This is where 14-17 year old explorer scouts effectively become apprentice adult leaders with Beavers, Cubs or Scouts. It ahs helped us produce multiple adult leaders

Now that is a great idea! Not sure how the hospital will react to us trying to get one into her. No harm in trying though!

We don't really have ranks as such here. The nearest we have are the Chief Scout awards. So within each age group there is a Chief Scout Award to work towards Beavers (6-8) Bronze Cubs (8-10) Silver Scouts (10-14) Gold Explorers (14-18) and Network (18-25) Diamond, Platinum and Queens Scout. So my scout is working towards her Chief Scouts Gold. To do that she has to complete all 9 of the scout section challenge awards plus any 6 activity badges (what you would call merit badges) of her choice or 6 staged activity badges at an appropriate staged level (staged awards can be earned at any age from Beavers through to Network, I certainly wouldn't could First aid stage 1 for a scout but would count stage 3 or 4.) She's super keen though! Our last camp she plunged off into the woods during some free time to do some foraging for edible plants and is never happier than producing a fire from soaking wet wood! Alas we don't really have much material for that sort of thing, something I think we could do with working on! I might point her towards some BSA material and get her to work towards those instead

So I'm after ideas.I have a 12 year old scout currently in hospital. I won't go into full details as that's not appropriate but it's not covid. She's had a week in ICU and will now be on a general ward for several weeks after which it is going to be months of rehab.She is an absolutely mad keen scout. Not one of the comes along but it's nothing special types. She's in the sign up for everything, covered in badges brigade.So we're looking to try and provide some kind of program for her that she can do in hospital and/or at home. So involving stuff either she'll have to hand or we can easily get delivered. One tricky bit is that probably for a few months yet it can't involve her having to move her legs. Crossing our fingers that will change in due course. It's not urgent, I think she and her family have not enough on their plate right now with adjusting to what is a possibly life changing situation! More something to put together over the next couple of weeks.So looking for ideas. Any thoughts?

In the spirit of Christmas I wanted to share something quite heart warming that I've picked up on at scouts over the last few weeks which culminated last night. It's about two girls in the troop. The first one we'll call Jane. Not her real name. Jane is a proper, grumpy, hormonal, adolescent. She is every teenage stereo type. Doesn't say much, particularly to adults. Is stubborn, mutters under her breath, can be a bit rude when she wants to be, answers back a lot. Can't remember the last time she arrived in correct uniform. Is normally burried in a hoody somewhere. Can come across as quite grumpy. Frankly not the kind of kid you expect to be a scout. Nevertheless she is. The second we'll call Sarah. Not her real name. Sarah has some quite serious special educational needs. They have never been properly diagnosed but you don't need more than 20 seconds in her presence to realise that she is "different." She struggles with any kind of complex instructions, reacts badly in various situations, struggles with decision making, comes across as much younger than she is. Socially she really struggles to fit in. What I've noticed though over the last few months is Jane and Sarah have become increasingly friendly. Jane looks out for Sarah and makes sure she knows what is happening and is joining in. No one asked her to do it. She just does it. Last night we had our elections for Scout's scout of the year to be announced next week. We ask each scout to vote for their top 3. (We have separate adults scout of the year award) I noticed Sarah hadn't put in her voting slip so I asked her if she wanted to. She told me she didn't know who to vote for or what she was meant to vote for them for. I told her it was her choice not that of the adults and I didn't want to suggest anyone as it was important it was her vote. She still looked confused. So I had a think and put it another way. I asked her if she had a problem, maybe had lost something or didn't know how to do something which of the other scouts would she go to first to ask for help. I actually expected it to be her PL who is a top lad and really does also go out of his way to help younger kids. However a big smile came over her face and she simply said "Jane". It was one of those genuinely heart warming moments

So sad. I don't know what it's like in the states but a child in the UK is orders of magntidue more likely to be abused by someone in their own household than anybody else.

Can bylaws be changed? It seems so strange to me to turn away willing and useful volunteers

Silly question but why not? Again I know I type from another country but whats wrong with an adult without a kid in the unit? My troop doesn't have any parent leaders at all, in fact I don't even have any kids of my own at all. Is this a specifically BSA thing not to have non parent leaders?

Typing from the UK so the culture is a bit different but some things to consider. Do you really want every parent involved? Fact is some just wont be suitable. You are looking for someone who is enthusiastic, a team playing, willing to understand and follow rules, willing to get dirty, willing to allow kids to learn by doing and not just hover them. Not everyone is the right person. Decide what it is you need someone else to do. It's very easy to say "I need help", but what do you need help with? Fund raising? Driving a van full of camping gear? Running a Den or Pack evening? Teaching a particular skill? Make a list of what exactly it is you need. Once you know what needs doing then go ask someone. Massed emails, letters, social media posts etc just don't work. Everyone inside and outside of scouting gets bombarded with them every waking hour. I had 3 pieces of unsolicited mail this morning advertising something. I couldn't tell you what. They went in the recycling bin without me even looking at them. Instead identify who you think might be useful and go and ask them in person, or in a phone call or whatever. Make it clear it is them specifically you are asking because it is that person that you want. It is amazing just how well people react to that approach. Accept that some people just don't have the time in their life and often the most useful people are all ready taken. There was a scout mum I once quickly identified as useful and approached her. Turns out she already volunteered with a local atheletics club, her church and a food bank and worked 50 hours a week as a doctor and some how found time to be a mum to 4 kids, she simply couldn't squeeze us in. A shame but that's often the way. Some people though can be flexible. It may be that parent you asked to help on a Tuesday night can't do Tuesdays but actually might be able to do some shopping for you or help fix something at the weekend or whatever. Make sure you hear them out. Be positive. I can't emphasise that enough. The message of "this pack will close without help" simply isn't very good at attracting people. The message needs to be "Cubs is fun! The people are great! Look! Here are photos or video of kids and the adults with them doing fun stuff and they are all SMILING".