Cambridgeskip

Certainly there are WOSM scouts in Russia. The only countries where there aren't are Andorra, Cuba, Laos, Burma and North Korea.

Trying to embed a video from facebook here but it won't seem to work, what am I doing wrong?

Thought I'd type a few observations on scouts tonight..... So tonight we had the scouts planning this term's patrol camps. Now it's worth remembering that UK scouts are 10-14, so a PL is typically 13 or 14, the average age is younger that your side of the pond. So while we camp in patrols when on camp proper patrol camps, with just the patrol camping with no adults with them isn't something we do as often as you. It is quite a big deal and something we might only do once or twice a year, Anyway, once they were settled and planning it was interesting to walk round and observe the di

Wow. That sounds so strange. To be rejected as a volunteer here you basically need to have prior convictions for violence/sex offences/theft in all it's forms. That or a group exec who don't know what day it is. We do have some of those. A leader from my group has just tried to transfer to another group nearer her house. Despite being a woodbadged cub leader with 18 years experience she had to ambush an exec meeting to get them to actually acknowledge her existence. That was due to incompetence rather than suspicion though. To be honest a non parent leader is to be welcomed as in my experi

Maybe it's a transatlantic cultural difference but here in the UK I've never had any kind of problem in not being a parent of a scout. In fact certainly at my group the majority of adult leaders are not. To be honest I think there is an advantage in not being a parent. It means that the scouts see you a bit differently in a way I can't quite put my finger on. Is it really so unusual to have non parent leaders in the USA?

I've never actually banned anything, mostly because I've never had to. My mob are pretty creative when it comes to menu plans. Ive seen patrols cook their own bread from scratch on camp. Pretty impressive! I also one patrol make a perfect Spanish Tortilla for breakfast. I've seen the same patrol completely wreck one as well! That's not to say I wouldn't intervene. I think if a patrol were showing me a menu made up of poptarts and the like I think that words would be being had in the PL and APLs ear along the lines of "I don't have many fixed rules, don't force me to introduce them".

What Stosh said. Remember that for small local newspapers the whole thing is run on a shoe string, If you make their life easy, if you provide them with something well written, properly proof read and most importantly with good quality high res photos then what they have is something they can copy and paste into column inches without having to pay a journalist to write it. You get publicity, Everyone except sadly the journalists trying to make a living, wins. We live in a wicked world, but sometimes that can be turned to our advantage,

There's a similar but broader based book called Risk - The Science and Politics of Fear by Dan Gardner. It's a fascinating read. I've lost count of the number of people who look at me like I'm from Mars when I tell them that their child is more likely to be killed by lightning than an adult they don't know and that if they want to keep their child safe the absolute most important thing to do is teach them to cross the street safely.

Potentially adft question.... what are BSA uniforms made out of? UK uniform shorts are cotton so pretty unsuitable for hiking, canoeing etc. Even if it was, say, nylon based I would have thought standard kit for white water would be a wet suit, splash cag and boyancy aid??

Something to throw out there, how many of you have ever encountered French scouts? If you've not then do a google search for "Scouts France", what you see there is what you get. French scouts don't really do smart, or well turned out or formal. But they do do uniform. The shirts won't be tucked in, half won't be buttoned up, neckers are normally in friendship knots rather than in woggles. They frankly look a scruffy bunch of oiks, but they are unmistakenly scouts and they nearly always have smiles on their faces. The kids have taken ownership of the uniform. One might even call

Precisely! And on that note, one of my scouts is half German and when she visits family in Berlin goes to a German scout troop. Talking to her about that is fascinating. As I'm sure you can imagine German history makes them very very mistrusting of uniformed youth organisations. While scouts there do have uniform it is almost unheard of to be seen in it in public and indeed many scouts don't even own it.

I think that awareness of healthcare issues is a local thing. Cambridge is a small city, population of around 160000 plus around 30000 students. It does though have one of the country's biggest teaching and research hospitals in the form of Addenbrooks. In addition it is the heart of the pharmaceutical industry in the UK. Many of the kids in the troop have got parents who are doctors or researchers or have friends or neighbours who are. Hence there's a much higher awareness of issues surrounding health among them.

Qwaze, feel free to use and abuse those questions. I'm still waiting for some kids to submit theirs so I'll add to the list in due course.

LC, I think I'm being misunderstood here and apologies for calling you naive. It was un scout like. I do though stand by my point on how you promote scouting. I am not talking about hiding anything, I'm not talking about uniforms just for formal occasions. Of course not. What I'm talking about is if you are looking to promote scouting you have to treat it like anything, else you have to look at what "sells" and what gets people through the door. Let's forget scouts for the moment and think about other things. Imagine you're selling cars (I mean main stream car selling here,

So over here in the UK we have a TV show called question time on a Thursday night called Question Time. A selection of politicians together with a couple of journalists appear live on tv to field questions from the great British public. It's compulsive viewing and I know some of my scouts sit up late to watch it! Anyway we have a general election here in May and given this we have invited the candidates for the Cambridge parliamentary seat to come in at the end of March to filed questions from the scouts (aged 10-14). We've asked them to put their questions in advance, Partly to make

Of course uniform and formal moments are part of scouting. One of my proudest moments as a leader was when I took some scouts to Amsterdam. We went to visit the grave of a leader from our group who was a bomber pilot in the air force in the second world war. He was shot down and killed and buried in Amsterdam. The gentle and quiet respect showed by a normally noisy and rowdy bunch of teenagers that sunday morning in Amsterdam made me glow with pride. But. That respect and behaviour and respect came from already having bonded as a troop and thus appreciating those who had gone before

Reading through the various suggestions there is something lacking, the F word! Fun! You can have all the worthy community service events you want and a million and one photos in smart uniform and courts of honour etc. But that's not why kids or adults sign up. They sign up to set fire to stuff in the words, go climbing and kayaking and generally enjoy doing something muddy and/or adventurous. If that's what you and it's what sells then put loads of photos of you doing that out there. Far too many group websites, on both aides of the Atlantic, have a front page with a stilted photo of te

I'm going to comment on some of these. And I'm doing so from the perspective of being a scouter in the UK. In the last 15 years things have changed considerably in terms of demand for scouting and most importantly its image. One of the reasons behind that is that HQ have proactively tried to coach groups at the front line in how to promote themselves properly. So in terms of SS's suggestions..... 1. Yes. But don't expect it to work for scout age youth. Teenagers are not likely to read the local news paper. This channel is for recruiting adults and also for advertising to parents of

LC found a full length version of the film of Swallows and Amazons on youtube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE13WUjSkFM They've put in adverts so I'm assuming it's legal! Anyway, it's so middle class and English it almost hurts. I would add that the film version is far more "twee" than the original book was. Final point of note..... our troop went sailing last summer at a sailing club on a boat that was owned by Arthur Ransome who wrote the original book. Photos here http://12thcambridge.org.uk/scouts-summer-term-2014/

LC - my apologies for helping drag it off topic. Am happy to continue the discussion elsewhere. Back to the original topic (ish) a good book can really help inspire kids to get outside. As a kid I simply loved Swallows and Amazons. I don't know if it ever made it across the pond but its a story of a group of kids left mostly to their own devices on a sailing holiday in the English Lake District. It's a work of absolute genius and well worth reading.

Stosh, seriously? Seriously? It is some years since I studied science, but I did study Molecular Biology at university and still have a love of the subject. And I can tell you that yes, evolution is most definitely a science. It underpins the vast majority of what biology is all about. Canyou witness evolution in a lab? Yes you can. It's quite a common technique. Let's say, for whatever reason, we want to introduce a new gene into a sample of bacteria. This can be done by using something called a plasmid if I remember right. The DNA though won't end up in all the bacteria. So h

So this is something that I had to share. I'm assuming that you are all familiar with classic kids game hungry hippos. Well an enterprising scout troop has just turned it into a brilliant inter patrol scout game. This is genius We will definitely be trying this!

Fox slanting the report? Shurely shome mishtake?

On a similar note here are some photos from "back in the day" that we got hold of for our group centenary. Imagine photo number 3 being taken and appearing in public these days....... https://plus.google.com/photos/102300161421707243528/albums/5645958505148842033?sort=1

Roughly what Ian said. I deal with the scout secion (10-14 year olds) and while we would generally plan single sex sleeping arrangements if the ratios don't work we will put boys and girls in together. On an over night ferry to Holland we had 10 boys and 2 girls and cabins that held 12 so on that occassion it was mixed. Our last night of sumer camp they typically all just sleep under the stars so again it's all mixed up. So yes less uptight, but I wouldn't go as far as saying we ignore it.