Cambridgeskip

A response from the other side of the Atlantic....

I have had a very similar situation in that I had a 12 year old scout told me that he thought he was gay but wasn't sure. A tricky one. What I did was be as honest as possible with him.

I told him that he was going through puberty and that his hormones would be all over the place for some years to come. He was at an age where he was discovering who he was, it may turn out to be gay, he may turn out bi and that some people have homosexual feelings during puberty but turned out to be straight. What ever way it was going to turn out was perfectly ok.

I also said that while I was happy to talk to him that if he was confused then his parents were probably the best people to talk to. It was however entirely down to him who he told and when and that I would certainly not be telling anyone other than another adult in the unit (in such situations I think it is a good idea that for my own protection that another adult is aware of the conversation I had) I said that it is a sad fact that there are people who would react badly to him telling them he was gay and hence it was probably a good idea to chose who he spoke to with care.

He seemed quite comforted by that!

For tents with wooden poles we have a branding iron for marking the poles and use blobs of paint to mark which poles make up a set. We've never marked the canvas itself as I suspect it may damage it (I'm happy to be corrected on this though!)

On our more modern tents we just write on the labels on the various parts of it.

Based on that extra info from Lisabob then I think there is clearly an issue with the leadership here. If someone brings weed to camp once then frankly the brown stuff happens. The reaction, as soon as it was identified, should have been a firm and blunt warning that it will NOT happen again.

Turning a blind eye is, in my opinion, actually even worse than openly condoning it as it means things are totally out of control.Sounds like the leaders here need some serious retraining.

A view from across the pond....

I think there are two seperate issues here. What happens at scouts and what happens elsewhere.

In terms of what happens at scouts I'd say it is laid on the line. He doesn't bring drugs to scouts, he doesn't come to scouts while under the influence, he doesn't posses them while in uniform. On that front he gets one warning and one warning only. After that he goes. If he is selling them to other scouts then I'd call that not worthy of a warning, he goes as soon as it is found out. The sharing side is a bit more grey. If he is sharing with already willing participants then they all get the one warning. If he is being more influential then I would veer more towards asking him to leave. But where the line is will depend on the circumstances in each case. We all know our respective kids.

What happens outside of scouts.... Now there is a difficult area. What happens if he cleans up his act at scouts but carries on smoking like there's no tomorrow? I'd say he stays at the troop for now but it will depend on the peculiar circumstances. We have a duty to protect the young people in our care. What happens if he upsets someone in the supply chain? These people can be unpleasent. I'd have to keep a very craeful eye on how this progressed.

As others have said, quite a thread to plough through (although from the dates this does seem to have been resurrected from some time ago? Or have I misunderstood?)

Anyway, speaking as leader (in the UK) with a lot of girls in the troop I can say there is nothing to fear. It hasn't meant that scouts has changed in terms of being any less outdoors based, if I was allowed (we have an agreement that photos of scout events are only publsihed on a password protected site) I could show you photos of girls cooking on fires, chopping wood with axes, white water canoing, camping, climbing etc etc.

That is not to say though there are no differences at all. Girls are different to boys, there is no doubt about that. They mature earlier, both physically and mentally. At the younger end of scouts (10-14) the girls always have the advantage in physcial games. At the older end they are nearly always at a disadvantage. As a general rule I find that the girls are more corageous when it comes to the adventurous activities, the boys though are much better team players.

Having girls in scouts means that leaders have to consider some different issues but none of them are anything to be worried about or feared, none of them will change scouts fundamentally. We generally find that the girls who join scouts are a very different type to those who join Girl Guides. We had a joint wide games night with a Girl Guide group once and you just had to look at how they were dressed. Yes there were wooly hats and gloves on both sides but I don't think there was a single bit of pink or a single flower on anything my girls wore!

Final note regarding someone saying more IT badges than first aid were awarded in the UK - that's because IT is studied in school and scouts will simply tell leaders what they have covered and often this ticks off one of the IT badges so they get it. Simple. It's nothing to do with a change in the programme!

I think there is a lot of sense above.

Cambridge is perhaps 30 minutes drive from London Stansted airport. If I turned up there tonight with my passport and 200 in my pocked I reckon I could get on a plane to 20+ countries. Turn up there with 400 and the whole of Europe is my oyster and parts of North Africa as well. I am very lucky, it's just the nature of Europe.

If someone turns up at any given airport in the USA with the equivalent of 200 in their pocket how many countries can they get to? Canada? Mexico? You might just get to Greenland on a cheap deal, if you're in Alaska you can probably make Russia. If you're in Hawaia (I probably spelt that wrong. Sorry.) then you'll probably get nowhere. Same can be said for residents of other large countries like Canada, Brazil or China. They would all struggle to get to many other countries.

Equally though the USA has a far more diverse culture than many countries simply because it was built on immigration. Yes in the UK we have a sizeable Pakistani community and a growing Polish community (although most Poles are only here temporarily) and in North London a strong Irish community but beyond that we have nowhere near the diversity the USA has.

Garrison - it is true that some people in Europe particularly do behave in a somewhat snobbish manner towards the USA. For the most part it is unwarranted and unfair.

However it is worth remembering that the physcially smaller nature of European nations and how so many languages and cultures are packed into a small land mass means that it is part of the European attitude to compare and contrast ourselves with each other and inevitably that attitude spreads to comparing ourselves with other non European nations.

My impression of the USA, although admitedly I have only been there once, is that Americans are more curious and knowledgeable about other countries than many Europeans give them credit for but that that curiosity does not always extend to wanting to adopt any aspects of those cultures. I am not saying that they should have to by any means but I think that if they don't then they do lay themselves open to being labled as insular.

I do hope it's not too late to add to this as I think that actually similar issues exist all over the world on this so I hope that some inout from the otehrside of teh atlantic may be helpful (if it's not just ignore it!)

From what I can make out your Arrow of Light is equivalent of the UK's Chief Scout Silver withe Moving on Award requirements thrown in as well.

Retention rates of those that move from cubs to scouts vary drastically, my particular group has a pretty good rate, others have better, some have worse. First to answer your specific questions

Anyway, regarding your specific questions...

1. Yes, we actively recruit older cubs

2. The leader teams from cubs and scouts communicate a lot and make sure we know pretty much a year in advance who will be moving on when and we ensure that the cubs and parents are aware of this. A few weeks before moving on a scout leader and a couple of scouts attend a cub night to talk to the cubs moving on and their parents and also run a couple of scout style activities for the older cubs. When they start scouts until the time that they are invested they are welcome to continue going to cubs as well. For those first few weeks we also buddy them with a scout who has been in 6-12 months who is near their age but still experienced enough to show them the ropes.

3. Just the one due to the group system in the UK

4. We don't have to actively recruit! They tend to come to us asking to sign up.

On a more general note I think that communication between cub and scout leaders is essential so that scout leaders have an idea of what the cubs have already done. If you have a cub pack with a really challenging programme then it can seem like a step backwards if the programme for younger scouts is aimed a notch lower than that for older cubs.

Also visibility, we try to ensure that at least once a term there is some kind of joint cub and scout activity and once a year that they camp together. It helps get the cubs in the mindset that scouts is simply part of the same thing and not something different to be worried about.

I hope that is helpful!

Barry

At the risk of going down a bit of a different road to the original topic it's worth remembering that until 2005 scouting in the UK was also losing members (I don't know about the rest of Europe). I can't really comment on whether youth organisatons losing members in North America is anything to do with them admiting homosexuals but I think in the UK we were losing kids because we had failed to move with the times on a number of issues. In around 2004 there was a whole sale shake up of scouting here from the uniforms, to the age ranges, to the award scheme and importantly HQ starting a proper PR department. All those aspects turned things around but none of them did it on their own.

All received this time, it looks really useful. Thank you!

Possibly I'm being a bit dim, but I can't see where to pick up private messages? They are not being emailed to me and I can't see where to fidn them on the site.

Help!

ScoutBox - you're sure what could help? Slightly confused there! Did you PM me and it's not come through properly?

Eamonn - thet would be Little Abington, we use it quite a lot, it's close enough that we can spend evenings there. It's due to have some new facilities put in some time soon and the village now has its own scout group that operates from there as well!

Ah fantastic, yet more welcomes!

I will probably start diving in to more threads in the coming days but please feel free to grill me about anything your curious about re: UK scouting

PS - if any moderators are reading, living in the UK I don't have a US zip code to sign up so I "stole" one if you see what I mean. I hope that is ok.

A UK scout leader writes....

You know it's slightly odd the amount of attention this is getting both in the UK and here given that gay and bisexuals have been welcome in the scouts in the UK for many years now (in fact I'm not old enough to remember when they were not). Whether they have been made to feel welcome is a different story, certainly I think they have been at the various groups I have been involved in over the years.

I'm sure that some people will find anecdotal evidence of individuals behaving in a manner that was not welcome, whether that was intentionally agressive or was simply from a misunderstanding. The same thing can be said of hetrosexuals. You have enough people involved in one organisation for long enough and individual events will happen. It's a fact of human existence.

Think of it another way. At a two week jamboree with 30,000 people there then statsically somebody will die. It doesn't mean that jamborees are inherently a bad thing.

Ooooh lunch time is here and I can take a peak back.... I guess it's still pretty early across the pond *does the sums on his fingers*

Anyway thanks for the welcome, a slight flesh out on me...

Got enrolled into cubs when I was 8 by my mum entirely against my wishes (I was a procoscious child) when we lived on the edge of London (if news othe Potters Bar train crash in 2002 ever made it across the pond, that's the place) and they never managed to get rid of me!

I went right through cubs, scouts, venture scouts and ended up volunteering as a student cub leader while I was at univeristy in Durham (If your UK geography is hazy find Newcastle and Sunderland on a map, it's directly south of Newcastle and directly west of Sunderland), moved to Cambridge after that, ended up at another group then some idiot put me in charge of cubs. A few more years later we had a reshuffle and now I have 35 10-14 year old scouts on my hands in an utterly ramshackle HQ. One of my girls is going to Sweden in the summer for the jamboree (huzzah!)

Anyway I will probably type in English English (if you get what I mean) so if something makes no sense just shout.

Yes, I saw the thread about gay scouts, it made er..... interesting reading. I will comment further over there. And no worries, I can handle flamers!

Quick intro as work calls (I'm 5 - 8 hours in front of most of you)

I'm a scout leader and formerly cub leader in the UK specifically in Cambridge (as the username suggests)

Thought I'd sign up as I'm slightly curious about scouts in other corners of the world.

Like I said, pretty short!