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Cambridgeskip

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Everything posted by Cambridgeskip

  1. Bit late to the discussion but a couple of things to add. Like Qwaze said, small thankyous and comments for when scouts have done things well. An example we have a new adult volunteerinng with us at the moment. She's been with us a few months. Naturally the scouts have gone through the stages they always do with a new adult. First they were a bit wary. That's been and gone. They she was their favourite. That's been and gone. Now they're pushing her boundaries a bit. Standard. Anyway last week I noticed one of our patrol leaders quite specifically being supportive and giving her advice on
  2. So myself and a couple of other adults at my group have been chewing over an idea the last couple of weeks that I thought I'd bounce off folks here. I did try getting a discussion going on a UK forum but alas it got side tracked into a debate on GDPR (data protection law over here). While GDPR is a concern let's put that on the back burner and talk more about where this might go. Anyway, I am lucky to be at a group that is now 108 years old. So it has quite a history! In that time thousands of people must have passed through the group either as youth members or as adult volunteers. W
  3. I think there is a natural feeling among humans to belong to something bigger than ourselves. That feeling is at its strongest in our teenage years which is why scouts and other uniformed youth organisations are so successful. Jamborees take that instinct to the ultimate degree. People want to belong, teenagers even more so. Jamborees let them do that.
  4. Wanted to share this one, it's one about parents. Too often we hear moans about parents but I had a moment with a couple last night that just left me with a smile on my face. First to rewind the clock to my teenage years in the 1990s. I grew up in Hertfordshire, just north of London. The thing to understand is that what you chaps would call "high adventure" is typically run at county level here with many counties having a particular specialism. For hertfordshire it was mountaineering and for running trips they had their own out of county base at a place called Lochearnhead in the S
  5. In addition Rainbows (GGUK equivalent of Beavers) starts at 5 instead of 6 and Brownies starts at 7 rather than 8 so they tend to get "first dibs" in those sections. I'm pretty convinced that's part of the cause.
  6. Three colour neckers (like the UK national one) are an absolute pain to make neat and tidy. A tight woggle (slide) roughs it up so much. Do yours ever wear it "Dutch" style, with the ends of the necker going in opposite sides of the slide? Or with a friendship knot instead? Mine tend to do the latter on camp, sliding the woggle up one side to avoid losing it. I don't get too stressed about what style mine go for, in fact I quite like that mine look a little bit scruffy and grungy
  7. I guess it depends on what you mean by a UFO. If you mean it in its literal sense, ie something in the sky you can’t explain then yes. I once saw something green zoom across the sky. And I’ve never read anything that explains what it was. However I don’t believe it was an alien. It was probably just one of the more rare types of meteor or similar that occur from time to time. If by UFO you mean something I suspect to be alien life then certainly not. And I would be very surprised if this planet has ever been visited given what we understand about the speed of light and the distance
  8. Not really a scouting story but one doing the rounds here that I thought you chaps might be interested in is the Mi Amigo 75th aniversary fly past today over Sheffield and Cambridge this morning. For those who have never heard the story Mi Amigo was a US bomber in the Second World War based in the UK that crashed on its return from a mission over Europe in 1944. The story of what happened though is quite moving. Unable to make it back to its base due to damage it had to make a crash landing. Initially to avoid crashing into local houses in Sheffield the crew attempted to land in a public
  9. Wow! I have never really been into that style music but even I found that extraordinary. That''s a couple of minutes very well spent.
  10. Interestingly over the weekend applications to join IST as part of the UK contingent reopened at the weekend. No mention of shooting instructors specifically but it does look like they are running short. Quite right it's a big commitment. I would love to be part of it but throw in travel time and it's the thick end of 3 weeks, I can't commit to that kind of thing.
  11. Thank chaps, looks like it should get through! Looking at the area it's in it's something we don't really have here. Looks like absolutely vast farms with virtually no one living there. The only areas we have that empty are the Scottish Highlands which is basically mountains and not much else.
  12. Not really scouting related but this seemed the best place to post this. Mrs Cambridgeskip has to send a parcel to someone in the states that has bought something she was selling on eBay. The address she’s been given consists of the persons name, town, state and zip code. No street or house number. Quick google search on the zip code takes us to the middle of a field in the middle of Minnesota, nearest building looks like a farm. Nearest town is miles away. Does that sound right? Is the parcel likely to make it to the right place with just that? Ie is a name and zip code enough in a rural area
  13. It can me a bit variable but 4-6 weeks is quite standard, although we may hang on longer if there is a particular camp or event where we want to carry out the investiture. and actually mass reciting of the promise is pretty rare! I don’t know of any troop that do it week to week. The only time it really happens is at St George’s Day events where there is often a promise renewal.
  14. It's certainly something we do in the UK. The actuall process varies somewhat but it looks broadly similar. As a troop we try to do it somewhere memorable if at all possible. My favourite was on a trip to London we invested a new scout on the spot where Nelson Mandella addressed both Houses of Parliament, we also did one at Gilwell with BP's statute forming part of the horse shoe described below, but what it looks like is; The troop forms a horse shoe with the adult leaders standing in the open mouth of the horse shoe. The new scout is called forward. I ask them if they've enjoy
  15. BSA have an opportunity in 2019, in the form of the world jamboree, to have some really good PR. While only a tiny proportion of your scouts (indeed any nations's scouts) get to go it is nevertheless a very big good news story that the national media will show an interest in. I do hope your national HQ has this firmly in their sites! On its own that does not produce new recruits. Local units have to do that and then have the program to retain them, but what it does is provide a positive backdrop for local units to work with to go out and start recruiting.
  16. During that strange no mans land between Christmas and New Year I finally got round to uploading our troop review of the year to Youtube. Enjoy! I'm off to eat some more mince pies....
  17. Money can't take back trauma. I don't think anyone would argue that it can. What it can do is help provide financially where that trauma has resulted in them suffering indirectly. Someone with suffering with long term mental health problems may struggle to hold down a job or start a business or may fail exams etc.
  18. Happy to, although given what side of the Atlantic I’m on I’d suggest Skype as the way forward
  19. Broadly the same as in urban areas! once again coming back to our population density nowhere is really very far from anywhere else. So some rural districts have multiple villages each with their own scout group and typically an explorer scout unit that sits in the largest of the villages. Some have their own bullilding, some will use a church hall. Just like in urban areas it varies quite a lot. The least populated areas are the Highlands and Islands of Scotland where most places are a long way from anywhere and to be honest I don’t really know how it functions there.
  20. We’ve reached a point in history where if you’re not on the internet you don’t exist. Every unit to have an internet presence. It doesn’t have to be an all singing all dancing website, it can just be a Facebook page. Whatever it is it needs two things on it; 1. Photos or video footage of the scouts doing fun stuff. Forget courts of honour, award ceremonies and smart uniform. That doesn’t sell. Make it climbing and canoeing and the like. 2. An idiot proof method of signing up or getting in touch. If it’s an email address make sure someone checks it. If it’s a phone
  21. So... there's several elements to that question. In terms of constitution yes, most scout groups in the UK exist as a charity in their own right with their own executive committee, who are trustees of the charity, own all their own assets and have their own money. When a new group is created it is typically done so by either the scout district or scout county where they identify the need/demand for the new group. Typically volunteers from district and county level take on the leadership and exec committe roles on a temporary basis until they can recruit parents or other volunteers to take
  22. If you were to speak to one of my assistant leaders who is an atheist he’d say something along the lines of the following. Bear in mind I’m summarising his words from a long conversation one night. that it’s his belief that we are one small speck in a mind bogglingly vast universe. That the laws of physics and the fact that they created this universe fills him with wonder. That we are here only once. That the earth is the only place we have found, so far, where humans can live. Indeed where anything can live. That we are the only species who’s has developed intelligence to the point where
  23. While that exists I would add that in practice very few scouts actually use it. And mine have more opportunity than most! After Christmas I will have 43 scouts at full strength. As well as the UK I have scouts where they or their parents were born in France, Italy, Ireland, USA, Canada, Hungary, Germany, Poland, China, Netherlands, Columbia, Norway, New Zealand, Israel, Sweden, Egypt, Spain. In the recent past I've had Ghana, Chili, Estonia, Australia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Zimbabwae, Bosnia, Argentina, Denmark. There are probably others that I've forgotten! Basically most are quite
  24. Not at all. I think though it's worth expanding though. First of all the UK is not as religious a country as the USA. The rate of religious belief has been falling steadily for many years. While at the last national census a small majority had some form of religious belief it is not out the question that it will have fallen below 50% by the time of the next one. Second even for those of us (which includes me) with a religious belief we have never as a nation been all that comfortable talking about religion and faith. It's the kind of thng we might only discuss with our very cl
  25. I can't speak for Canada but in the UK the position is that atheists are entirely welcome. There is an atheist version of the promise but it is just one of 4 different versions which reflect different religious beliefs. You can read them all here. That does not mean duty to God has been dropped entirely. Exploration of your own beliefs is still part of the program but they do not have to be religious. I don't know what other groups are like but probably around 60-70% of my new scouts choose one the of the faith based version of the promise with 30-40% making the no faith version
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