Cambridgeskip

I think you should use force with a great deal of hesitancy. When you chose that option you have to accept that young men and women are going to their deaths and that civilians will inevitably get caught in the cross fire.

Perhaps coming from a much smaller nation militarily I see this from a different perspective but I can see very few military interventions by the UK which I think were justified in my life time. The Falklands was one, (although how the hell we pulled that one off is still a mystery) Kosovo the other. Possibly the first Gulf War although I'm still not convinced that all non violent means were exhausted there.

As others have said the cause must be justified and you must be able to achieve your objective and get out again.

I disagree that you have to be prepared do what is necessary. Fact is you could mop up an awful lot of Taliban positions by carpet bombing villages or even go further, how about tactical nukes? I'm sure that no one here would be ready to justify that level of force to win in Afghanistan. Or how about committing the entire US military to it, or that of all NATO countries? That might be sufficient. Would you be prepared to do that if it proved necessary? I doubt it. I'm sure we would all prefer to admit defeat than go down that road

It certainly is a stunning location. If you're not familiar with UK geography Northumberland is on the England-Scotland border, one of the most sparsely populated areas of the country. The lake is Kielder water, the largest man made lake in the UK and might even be in Europe. It's about 40m deep so yes, the water is pretty chilly! The site itself is one of the 8(ish) sites run at a national level so is one of the UKs flagship sites. Most camp sites are run at county level (equivalent of your scout council??)

As it happens while we were there was also a non scout youth group there who were surprised to see girls in scouts. Word still hasn't properly got round in this country either!

Only thing to note from my perspective on the coed front is that for the second year running young love blossomed during summer camp. It was nauseatingly cute to see two 12 year olds tip toe around each other with not much clue about what to do. Awwwww.....

When I was running cubs I had a leaders meeting at my house.

Part of the leader team was a 16 year old explorer scout. She came in, helped herself to half the food in my fridge, pinched my favourite hoody and put it on "'cos it looks well cosy" and fell asleep on my sofa.

I took that as a compliment!

Qwazse - You're very kind! That was taken at a kind angle and doesn't show the hair retreating around my temples..... The falconry was great, the site is 30 mins hike from a birds of prey rescue centre so the two places have a great relationship.

Packsaddle - it;s an oldie but a goodie that track. Did Republica ever make it to the USA? They were huge over here in the 1990s.

Eamon - One day maybe! There were many in the UK who were very anti before the change, nearly all are total converts now. We have a great bunch of girls.

Hello folks

So with my group still not having a proper website (eventually we will) we've made out first foray onto Youtube with this production - Summer Camp - The (ahem) Full Motion Picture.

If you've ever wondered what I actually look like, that's me at 4.05 on the left. Enjoy!

I think it depends on why you are asking the question.

If you are specifically looking to develop the skill of using a tent and only what you can carry on your back then no it isn't. And there are good reasons for developing those skills, cabins don't exist everywhere.

But I would look at scouting more widely. If you are looking to develop young people into being responsible citizens through adventure in the great outdoors then what is wrong with light weight back packing to the middle of nowhere to use a mountain cabin which you are expected to keep in good condition for the next lot of people to use it? This is a place I used as a scout

http://www.claviantica.com/culra/index.html

Seems to me that in that case there's nothing wrong with a cabin.

There's a place for a tent and a place for a cabin and both have a place in scouting.

Just reading this thread with interest.

What is exactly is a merit badge counselor? Is it a leader in the area with specialist skills or is it someone that is brought in from outside? How does it work? It's not a system we really have this side of the pond from what I can make out.

Sounds to me like this SM is not thinking carefully about what the difference between what the requirements and say and what that actually looks like in practice.

Example, last night one of my scouts querried why he had not yet been awarded his Outdoor Challenge. Requirements are here if you're interested

http://www.scouts.org.uk/supportresources/2661/outdoor-challenge/?cat=56,135,157&moduleID=10

Now you can see that one of the requirments is

"Set up a suitable stove, and prepare a meal using a stove." I pointed out to him that he had yet to complete this.

"oh yes I have!" He said. I looked at my magical badge record spreadsheet. "When?" I asked.

"I cooked pancakes back in February." he says.

Now it sounds to me like this SM would have accepted that as fulfilling the requirements. He prepared some food on a stove so we'll tick it off.

Now in my bok that doesn't cut the mustard. i want to see a proper meal with multiple things on a plate and preferably resembling a balanced diet, not a desert that a half competent cub could knock up.

I would be fascinated to see what this SM thought fulfilled the requirements. I'm going to guess that actually he has a problem saying no the scouts.

Hello both!

Thanks for the replies, I'm not ignoring you.

I am about to disappear on our troop summer camp for a week (weather forecast - rain, wind, rain, drizzle, wind, rain. Did I mention rain?) so will PM you when I return.

With regard to girls I suspect it's quite simply that because in the form of Girl Scouts girls are seen ot have an equivalent organisation. Seperate they may be and with a different emphasis but the similarities and history are massive. Hence its just seen as like having boys and girls only schools. Seperate but equivalent.

With regard to atheists I suspect it's a case of there being two kinds.

The minority who will have nothing to do with a religious or spiritual organisation and generally have no wish to be part of it so the question never arises.

The majority for who they don't believe in any form of God but are quite happy tojust say they are Chirstian or whatever on the application form.

Hence it doesn't become a problem.

If it does emerge that they are atheist it doesn't raise quite the same reaction of horror among existing members as being gay for some reason does. People shrug their shoulders and let them get on with it.

At least you effectively only have 2 parties to chose from. In the UK the whole thing is a total mess.

Because we have 2 major parties (conservative, Labour), 1 medium sized party (Liberal Democrats) and a whole bunch of minor parties we have a situation where I dont think in living memory one party has ever got more than 50% of the vote. So by default we pretty much always have a Prime Minister that the majority of those who voted did not vote for!

In more recent years this has been exasperated by the drifting of the Liberal Democrats (our 3rd biggest party) to the left. Traditionally they occupied the centre ground but from the late 1980s onwards have gradually moved toward the left. This means that with the exception of foreign policy (they are much less interventionist) they are almost indistinguishable from Labour.

Hence at our last election we have a situation where the largest party in Parliament was the Conservatives but still with a minority of the seats and of the vote. The majority of votes cast and majority of seats won were actually by left of centre parties (Labour, Lib Dems, the Scots, Welsh and Irish nationalists and Green) and yet we ended up with a Conservative Prime Minister!

If that isnt an argument for massive constitutional reform I dont know what is.

Good Evening (on this side of the pond anyway)

Is anyone's else's troop planning on taking part in Jamboree on the Air 19-21 October?

http://www.scout.org/en/information_events/events/jota/the_55th_jota_2012

We're planning on being involved and I'm looking for a group across the ocean somewhere to be lined up in advance as I am trying to add a bit of a twist to things. We're having a spy themed camp that weekend and I'm looking for some scouts from elsewhere to help provide some clues to my lot to help them solve a great mystery.

Reply below or ping a PM if you are interested in being involved.

I do like the fact that they will be using fire steels as well!

CA_Scouter - By your question I think this is a case of British slang that doesn't cross the Atlantic very well! "Cloth Ears" is quite a common nick name over here for someone that is never listening. You certainly wouldn't use it for someone who genuinely is deaf or partially deaf or that has learning difficulties. It's more for that one who just doesn't pay attention.

More funny was "Go Pack". Go Pack is quite a common brand for fold away tables, benches etc that you may well take to camp. One lad, on the first day of a two week camp, managed to get the label off of a new table stuck to the back of his trousers and failed to notice. It was there for days. The camp itself was a big jamboree affair with kids from all over Europe who obviously didn't know who he was. Hence when approaching him they would see a label that said "Go Pack" stuck to him and just adopt him as it.

A friend of mine started helping with Cubs when he was 16 as part of his Queen's Scout Award (equivalent of Eagle Scout) and got the Jungle Book name of "Baghera". This was quickly shortened by the cubs to "Baggy". He's now 34 and known by everyone everywhere as Baggy. His parents call him it, his friends call him it, his colleagues do. Until recently he was in The Territorial Army (roughly equivalent of National Guard I think) and even there he was known as Baggy.

Fan though I am of nicknames (yes, even from adult to child) I think it is worth taking heed of some of what Calico Pen wrote. You do need to watch out that nicknames are appreciated as it can hurt. proud though I was of being Batman at Scouts, an environment where I was happy and accepted, I was bullied at school and was known by names there that I hated but which I quietly accepted to try and fit in better. You don't have to get paranoid about it. A quiet word with the kid in question to suss things out should be enough but it's still worth taking the time to do.

I actuallyt hink that nicknames are very important at scout age. It is an age where individuals are discovering and developing their personal identities and to be adopted by a nickname is often a sign of enderement and acceptance amongst your peers. I was known as "Batman" when I was a scout (due to the amount of stuff I would have in my pockets, someone once said it was like Batman's utility belt, the name stuck!)

Either at present or previously my troop has had Baguette, Sick Note, Daz, ASBO, Pyro, Chilly, Loopy, Cloth Ears, Mars Bar, Go Pack, Junior the list goes on. To a well meaning by stander some may even have sounded insulting but ultimately they are just about kids finding an identity and is a long way from name calling. If a kid doesn't like something they are being called then I will ensure that it stops and the PLs will enforce it.

Ok, so different side of the Atlantic and slightly different age range (10-14) but my troop is 35 strong with 5 patrols of 7, a few observations on a medium to large troop

Good things

Critical mass, there are nearly always enough scouts to make a given event viable.

Compeition - there is real competition for PL positions simply because of statistics. With a small troop you could easily have a position where there is simply no one of hire enough calibre to take it on.

Patrol competitions - always fun and you need multiple patrols!

Bad Things

When things go wrong they go really wrong. It's an awful lot harder to pull things back together with 30 scouts than it is with 6.

It can sometimes be hard to know all the scouts on a personal level

Admin is hard graft particularly when you don't have supportive parents

Moosetracker - It was basically a case of there never having been a publically stated policy until quite recently.

I don't recall when it was but I think in the late 90s there was a first stated policy that sexuality was no bar to being a leader and that was the first ever mention of the subject. I was a Venture Scout at the time and I remember it being a generational thing. My parents and those of my friends were all a bit shocked but to the scouts themselves most of us had just assumed it was the case anyway.

I have never met anyone that quit scouting because of gay leaders and I don't know of anyone that withdrew their child but equally I am sure it must have happened somewhere. Neither am I aware of any sponsoring groups withdrawing although there may be examples somewhere. Of course that may be because the largest number of sponsoring groups have been Anglican churches and they have traditionally been far more liberal that Catholic, Baptist or Methodist churches and also that sponsors generally don't get very involved in running groups.

But it may also simply reflect the more liberal circles I move in so don't take my experiences as necessarily representative of everyone!

Morning Moosetracker, and indeed everyone else.

Ah yes. Dear old Mitt. Didn't go down too well over here did he? Thankfully, for him at least, the country was so preoccupied with the Olympics for most people to notice him. Managing to upset the Conservative Prime Minister and Mayor of London who would normally be the Republican's biggest ally this side of the pond probably wasn't a bright idea but then I doubt it will cost him many votes on your side of the pond, if any at all. The Olympics are proving great fun. I've personally been to Badminton, Archery and this afternoon (or morning in your end of the world!) I'm seeing the 10m women's synchronised diving. And one of the football (soccer, nothing with pads and downs and such like) semi finals next week. Slumming it in the cheap seats mind, there's been a problem with corporate sponsors snapping up all the good seats and then not bothering to turn up. Sigh.

In terms of how our groups are structured there are essentially 3 sorts, closed, open and sponsored.

Closed groups are a tiny minority and are the closest we have to a chartering system. They are attached to and are run by some other body, typically a boarding school, with leaders coming from their staff and are open only to young people from that organisation. There used to be one in Cambridge attached to a private school until they seeded from the TSA and you could only join if you went to that school. Even then though the ONLY restriction that group could put on its membership above and beyond the policy of TSA was that members had to be part of that organisation.

The overwhelming majority are either open or sponsored. Mine is open (although historically we were sponsored by a local primary school but haven't been for many decades now) which means it is an independent charity affiliated only to TSA. We have our HQ which we own (although it needs knocking down and rebuilding) and recruit our own leaders and young people with no one other than TSA at district having a say over our leaders.

Sponsored groups are normally attached to another body, the vast majority being churches although some are also attached to Mosques, Synagogues and other places of worships and a handful are attached to schools. There is no requirement for any young person or leader to be a member of that organisation, indeed groups are not allowed to discriminate on religion however as Pint described the sponsoring organisation will typically have a seat on the exec committee so will theoretically have a say over who we recruit as leaders. In reality the exec is a rubber stamping body with the Group Scout Leader doing the active recruiting and district doing the interviewing and vetting (that applies to open groups as well). Typically the group meet at the church hall, pay a nominal amount of rent to the church but and have the church name as part of the group name (eg 14th Cambridge (St Lukes) Scout Group)

Does that cover everything?

Moosetracker - the general acronym used is simply TSA (The Scout Association) Our friends in Girl Guides are generally referred to as GGUK.

Acco 40 Re: your observation on percentages boys and girls in Canada, was that based just on that event or more widely?

It's interesting because my experience with coed scouting is that girls tend to favour less frequent but longer camp where as boys tend to prefer more regular shorter trips. If that is something that goes wider than just my troop it might be why you saw so many girls at an event like that.

"I have to thank you, Cambridgeskip, for making my day with your observation just now. You have an interesting mind."

*Takes a little bow and blames the Olympic Beach Volley Ball"

Seattle Pioneer - I think we agree with each to a certain extent. Boys and girls are generally different but not exclusively so which is why the majority of girls still want to go to Girl Guides in the UK and I suspect if BSA ever went Coed would still want to go to Girl Scouts in the USA. The answer could of course be for Girl Guides and Girl Scouts on both sides of the pond to offer a more adventurous programme. It just so happens that on our side the answer was for scouts to accept that minority of girls who wanted to sign up.

In terms of cub leadership I think that actually a mix of men and women works best because they bring different things to the programme. It's great having a man to show cubs how to use a soldering iron (incidentally get hold of some LEDs, some 9v batteries and some solder and making flashing Christmas cards is a great craft activity that goes down a treat with everyone from 6year old beavers to 18 year old explorer scouts) but equally having that mum figure for when you've been on camp 3 or 4 nights and an 8 year old is starting to wilt a bit is also great. (And yes I know, a woman can also use a soldering iron and a man can also do the TLC bit but I'm generalising here)

In wanting to offer an AHG programme alongside scouts you are in some ways using the option we have over here which is you can offer separate boy and girl programmes at a group if you wish. This is generally offered at groups attached to Mosques and Synagogues which are the minority but does exist. If you do get it going I'd be interested to see how it works.

You'll tend to find that for the cub programme having girls will make no difference to how thongs work at all. At that age there is very little difference to their physical strength or maturity.

At scout age it is different but not unmanageable. Girls typically hit puberty a good year or two before boys and so when you get to age 12 or 13 girls are typically taller, stronger and more mature. By the time you get to 15 or 16 though the situation has typically reversed.

You get different things from them as well. I find that the boys tend to be better at inspiring others, of standing up and being counted when things aren't great. It's raining, you're trying to strike camp, it will be the boys who are better at getting stuck in to getting it all tidied up. Or at coming up with programme ideas. The girls on the other hand will tend to be more organised, when you are striking camp the are better at having packed their kit the night before or for actually being able to implement programme ideas.

You also get a certain type of girl that wants to go to scouts rather than girl scouts/guides. It's best summed up by the fact that about 18 months ago we had a joint wide games and camp fire night with the girl guides that use our HQ. Their girls typically had pink wooly hats and floral pattered gloves and purple wellies with pretty patterns on. Our girls typically had walking boots and gore tex water proofs and not a hint of pink it sight!

Most of the more practical issues that a lot of folks imagined when scouting went mixed in the UK simply never materialised. We keep a supply of sanitary towels in the our HQ and on camp for if the girls forget or get caught out, they know where they are and look after themselves. We have separate tents for boys and girls most of the time and the kids respect that. And scouting has not been overwhelmed with girls, nationally it is about 15% girls.

A couple of things about those two films.

A lot of it was filmed at the one and only Gilwell Park. Gilwell is a little corner of paradise for kids. It's geography is extraordinary. While the streets around it are quite wealthy and middle class it is still only a stones throw from some of London's most deprived areas. The scene where they are sat round a fire is at a field called The Quick which is at the top of a hill facing west from where you can see Tottenham, where all last year's riots started.

Similarly the street scenes were filmed in east London, very close to the Olympic stadium that I am sure many of you are seeing on the tv even as I type. the imagery from the film is accurate. Parts of it have a massive gang problem with gun and knife crime rife. It's an area where I believe scouting could make a massive difference if it finds the volunteers. I doubt that scouting if it took hold would look like the traditional system of scouting but I would love to see it given a chance.

The moment where they pulled neckers out their pockets made me smile. In the late 90s the scout association did a big survey of scouts, both young people and adults to see what changes they wanted. They suggested dropping the necker from the uniform and there was near insurrection! I don't know what the situation is in the USA but here each group in a district has its own colours for its necker and the kids get very tribal over it. And those who ever get to wear the red white and blue UK necker are always very proud of it indeed (I have one and I treasurer it!)

The two films were used for different purposes. The 30 second one has been used on tv and is used as a very overt scouting advert.

The 6 minute version was used in a more interesting way. Various adverts were placed across the internet with pictures of very stereotypical looking inner city kids who frankly looked a bit intimidating with the phrase "what do you expect?" and it led to this website http://www.scouts.org.uk/expectmore/#.UBLrcrR8BLc which unless you look at the actual URL or scroll down is not obviously anything to do with scouting. You watch the film and half way through you twigged. The ideas was to challenge perceptions of scouting, both by adults and kids.

I hope we see more if it, it's certainly the first time anything like this has been tried here.

What SeatlePioneer said essentially.

We've all had a bad day before. I once had an unecessary segreant major moment with some scouts who I apologised to later. But I have never laid a finger on anyone and find it unnacceptable for anyone else to do so.

I don't know what your management structures are exactly in BSA but I think that given it is not the first time this has happened the issue needs to be escalated above the current SM. And that means both the actions of the ASM you referred to and the fact that the current SM needs support and/or training to deal with it.

Agreed. Some of the things our scouts talk about most when they come back from camps are things that were not part of the formal programme. It's more about the rope swing someone built in a tree, or the off the cuff wide game or the pink farie outfits 4 (all male!) PLs borrowed off some girls in another troop and insisted on wearing for 24 hours. (Had to be seen to be believed)

Put kids out in the woods with not much to do and they can be more creative than most adults!