Cambridgeskip

One of the campsites my troop love going to, Phasels Wood just outside London, has a huge population of these little critters. They are properly loud at night! And to add it to it owls love eating them, so the place has a big owl population too. Doesn't make a for a peaceful nights sleep!

Thought I'd share a moment from my troop here in the UK that made me smile yesterday and really made me appreciate the patrol system. Bit of background, it was only last week that we were allowed to meet face to face again since November, and even in November we'd only been back a few weeks. Not much real scouting been happening! Naturally we lost a few kids along the way including 3 of our APLs. Alas! Anyway that meant that one of the first things to do was appoint new APLs and the PLC went ahead and chose them (we tend to do that collectively here rather than each PL appoint their

I haven't read the full thread (work conference call in a few minutes) but an observation from here in the UK. I run a coed troop and a few years ago we had a joint meeting with the Girl Guide troop who use our building. And sure enough some of my boys started acting up in just the way you describe. And this was inspite of them all already having girls in their patrols and the troop more widely. In addition the both in scouts and guides were girls they went to school with. My observation is the problem isn't girls as such. The problem is girls in an unfamiliar situation. Put the girl

Things have certainly moved on here since December! Just after Christmas we went into a full national lockdown with only the first hints now of coming out of it. Scouts is all online, although we have had some fun getting them through their chef's badge. Attached is the winner of the cake decorating contest. We set the theme of what you love most. Got to say I was impressed with this! We're hoping for a return to face to face after Easter and hopefully camps in late summer or autumn, if I was putting money on it I couldn't see that being before September but you never know. Better not be

The evening with the night shelter went really well. I certainly learned a lot! For me personally one thing was seeing how things eventually make a difference. At one time we had a problem here with people leaving the military ending up homeless. They'd become institutionalised, often living in barraks with everything provided for them from age 18, then left 20 years later with no knowledge of how to exist in the civilian world. Anyway a good friend of mine from my university days is an officer in the navy and was telling me a couple of years ago that a lot more effort is now put into dev

Thank you! He;s a lot better now but still not 100%. He is nearly 80 so not entirely surprising!

Evening! So it's been a while since I put my head in around these parts. Read a couple of things but not really had time to comment. As well as this covid nonsense life has also seen me move house, my business take off, my dad fall ill and generally be somewhat busy. However I thought I'd swing by and see what's happening and let those interested know what scouts is looking like this side of the pond. Back in March all face to face scouting was stopped due to covid. Some groups started meeting online via Zoom etc, some stopped meeting altogether. My lot have gone with zoom altho

Interesting thread to see from this side of the Atlantic. We have no dangerous wildlife! The only advice we really have to give our scouts is don't wave you arms around wasps and in farming areas don't get between cows and their young. Other than that it's pretty safe. Quite scary to see stuff like this!

Alternate promise was from around 2013 sometime. Although even before that for youth members at least there was not requirement to actually have a religious belief. You just had to make one of the (all religious based) offical versions of the promise to join.

I suspect that Scouts Canada will simply be the latest in an increasingly long list of national organisations doing this. Scouting is a movement, it has to move with the times. Just like in the UK Scouts Canada are not ditching religion but simply making room for those with no religion. And that can only be a good thing, bringing people together with different beliefs.

You can change the word all you want but people will still use it. In the UK we changed "master" to "leader" in the 1960s, I forget when, and half the people I meet outside of scouting still refer to scout masters. I really wouldn't worry about it.

Being British with our 27 thousand words for rain or whatever it is I thought I'd throw in some comments.... First of all yes jacket and trousers rather than ponchos. Ponchos really are quite useless. Quite simply too many different ways for water to get inside. If you want something waterproof then make sure it is water proof. In practice I too rarely use waterproof trousers, they can be a bit too sweaty and awkward, they really only go on if the weather is utterly torrential. I don't know what the brands are like your side of the Atlantic but here you can pretty much pay what you w

Hi Joris I'm based in the UK and have a couple of observations. Firstly yes, we have had very occassional comments that we are some kind of far right organisation. Mostly they come from very foolish individuals and it has caused very few problems. Secondly one of my assistant leaders is half German and has spent time with British and German scouts. She does say that the perception in Germany is very different. The group she was associated with in Berlin very rarely wore uniform at all.

Exactly what we are doing here in the UK. Zoom has become the forum of choice for every age group and we use all the above. The other thing to remember about the two deep rule is that presumably that is the rule for your normal troop nights? What we are trying to do at our troop here is try to retain a sense of being as close to normality as possible. So our zoom meets are at the same day and time as our regular troop nights. We still have flag break (I share my screen and show a video from youtube of a flag break and ask them to stand up, to attention and salute during it), we still use

I'm getting Linkedin and new build homes!

Not a totally unfair observation! I know that my lot, while quite good natured, can take a little prodding to break the ice. At our last summer camp we were invited by a neighbouring troop for a 1 August breakfast and promise renewal to mark the Brownsea Island aniversary (is this a thing in the USA? It's become quite popular here since 2007), it took a little bit of prodding to get them to mix and mingle a bit. An interesting observation a friend here made was whether it might be a class thing. Fact is my lot are unashamedly quite middle class given the area we draw from. If you look at

I've not been in the military but I have many friends who have been or currently are. One thing that is consistent whether they went in as recruits or officers is they tell me that new officers, fresh out of training, may technically be superior in rank to their sergeant (or equivalent) but in reality especially for that first 6 months (but also after) when they are in it for real they look to that sergeant who is their deputy and who probably has 15 years in both age and experience on them for guidance on how things are really done. And if they don't they are a fool!

I had some interesting conversations with my older (13-14 year old) scouts on Thursday night. With an expedition style hiking camp coming up in the spring I ran a session for the PLs and APLs about dealing with emergencies and how to take control of things if something goes wrong. We did a few role plays where I invited them in turn to be the one in charge in various scenarios including first aid, being lost, dealing with busy roads etc. As we went through I gave them some coaching on body language, tone of voice, keeping instructions simple, all that sort of thing. Generally how to come acros

Nights like tonight don't happen very often in the UK scout section, where PLs are aged 13 and 14. Nevertheless tonight I ran flag break, flag down and pretty much nothing else* instead the PLs ran the night.** The 4 adults present stood to one side and let them get on with it. One interesting observation though was while 3 of those adults were quite experienced and happy to take that step back one is a parent where the family recently moved here from China. While scouting has started to reappear there it is generally not a thing. He was clearly not used to simply standing back and lettin

These people walk among us.

To add to Ian's comments, I too find it hard to recognise the UK that article depicts. Like Ian as well I am lucky. I live in Cambridge. A relatively small city at approx 160K local residents and around 30K students, and also a very wealthy area, but an urban area nonetheless. And I can say there is not a single street or area that I would feel in any way unsafe visiting. There are perhaps 2 or 3 streets where, should I find myself walking through them at 2am, I would keep my wits about me and not wave my wallett or phone around, but nowhere feels unsafe. Some of our larger cities do

To add to the last one, Neil Armstrong actually took his scout world badge with him to the moon! If memory serves it is on display at world HQ in Geneva.

I like to tell my scouts the story of the only time I've put someone in the recovery position for real, the moral of the story being don't make any assumptions. It was about 15 years ago now. It was late in the evening and myself and Mrs Cambridge Skip wrere walking home when we came a cross a man slumped on his hands and knees in the gutter. It was a busy road so we helped him onto the pavement. He was very unsteady on his feet and sluring his speach to the point that he was incomprehensible. We were also right outside a pub. Our assumption (and we all know what that is the mother of!)

Some of mine have done the circus skills badge but alas no trapeze involved. Simply impossible to find the facilities!

Just to add.... the link you provided is for the scout age range which is 10-14 year olds. There is a similar list here for explorers, 14-18 year olds, the two sections essentially overlapping what you call Scouts BSA. There are similar lists for Beavers (6-8) and cubs (8-10) Those badges marked as "staged" can, at least in theory, be done at any stage from 6-18. In reality the younger sections do the lower end ones and the older age ranges the higher end. For example at my group our cubs, as standard, look to complete emergency aid 2 before moving to scouts and we look to get them throug