Category: Scouts

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Bit of a Dilemma

Over the summer three of our Scouts left us to join Explorers as they are now 14. At the same time, we've got six new Scouts joining us from the Cub pack. This means we have had to create a new patrol and three new patrol leaders.

And there lies the problem. We are a young Troop, the oldest members are about 12 and the majority are 10. Some of the Scouts who we have considered for Patrol Leader were those who caused us some problems with their behaviour earlier in the year.

So after a lot of thought, we decided to make some of the 'challenging' Scouts patrol leaders, but on a trial basis. They have until mid November to prove themselves and they are under no illusions that if they prat about, they will lose their position.

I do believe that if they put their minds to it they will all succeed. In fact, one of them decided that there was a specific game he wanted to play last week, so we agreed and he arranged it and told everyone the rules. It went well!

So I'm feeling cautiously optimistic that with the extra responsibility will come a bit of sense and a bit better behaviour and manners.

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Community & Green Fair

About a month ago I was sent an email by our DC telling me about a Community & Green Fair that was to be held at our local high school, which incidentally was my old school. We were asked to do a stall to promote Scouting.

The DC sent the email to the other two Groups in the immediate area and the Local Explorer Group, so we organised a stall and arranged to man it.

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We got there yesterday, set up and then waited for the crowds – which didn’t come! We got the feeling it wasn’t well publicised and the fact that it was throwing down with rain didn’t exactly help!

There were some great displays of belly dancing and a group doing Chinese Dragon dancing which helped to pass the time!

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However, despite the fact we didn’t see many people, there were kids from the school there and we had a chat with them and drummed up some interest. We also spoke to the school’s new Head and some of the teachers and got some good contacts there.

So although we didn’t recruit hundreds of kids for all three Groups and Explorers, if we encouraged at least one young person to join, then we succeeded. It’s on again today, although I’m not going, so it will be interesting to see how it goes on.

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Scouting & Politics

After my post below about the Scout Association going to the party conferences to raise awareness about young people’s issues with our politicians, comes this interesting post from Clarke on his Scoutmaster blog.

Although he quotes the BSA’s rules, it applies to any Scout no matter what country.

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Something for Us

Last night, my fellow Scout Leaders and I did something unusual. We did something for us and not for the Beavers, Cubs or Scouts! We had a BBQ at one of our houses. It was a time for us to all get together, with our families and have a nice evening  together without any distractions!

It’s a good thing for us all to get together socially and be able to chat and have a laugh in a situation where we’re not thinking about the next activity or who is doing the dishes and are they being done correctly.

I hate to say it, as it’s HR speak, but it’s a great team building exercise. We get to know our friends and their families better and as a consequence we get to work together better as well.

So it’s worth while taking time for yourselves once in a while, to be relaxed and recharge the batteries. In fact the BBQ was a perfect way to finish the summer holidays.

We’re all raring to go next week with the Autumn term’s programme!

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Scouting Sunday at the Political Conferences

Scouting and politics don’t usually mix. Scouting is not a party political organisation, but can have some influence over our politicians. So with the party conference season upon us, the Scout Association have organised events at each of the major conferences to talk about youth issues like knife crime, obesity, volunteering etc. They’ve also asked that members contact their MP to ask them to go along. So I’ve contacted ours! It’ll be interesting to see if he goes and what he has to say about it.

He should write back to me as I wrote to him about the event, so I wait with baited breath!

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They’re Like Buses…

Nothing for ages, then two at once!

Just read Jerry’s blog and he’s posted that a friend of his has started blogging as well. Shawn appeared on Jerry’s podcast a few weeks ago and with their discussion, it helped me with a problem I was having with the Scout Group’s web site (see here).

So go to Commissioner’s Corner and see what useful things Shawn has to say.

Now that’s a blog from Africa and one from North America recently, how about a Scouting blog from one of the other continents?

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A New Scouting Blog

I’ve come across an interesting blog by a Cub Leader in South Africa. Looks like Joy’s Pack have a really great time! I especially like the post about going on safari!

Take the time to look!

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International Friendship Camp

I popped out to Kibblestone last night to see our Scouts who are spending the week with our friends from 36th St. Wulstan’s and a group of Norwegian Scouts and Rovers at the International Friendship Camp.

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There are Scouts from Ireland, the USA, Norway, Russia, Belgium and Germany being hosted by British Groups. This is a great opportunity for our Scouts to mix with Scouts from other countries and cultures. Of course, the slightly embarrassing thing is that virtually all the visitors from abroad who speak English as a second language do it very well, where as we are very poor at other languages. Of course, my Scouts all now know how to swear in Norwegian – it’s the first thing they / we always learn!!!

All the Scouts from both UK and Norway are having a great time, despite the poor weather (it’s been raining a lot!)!

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The Happy Couple

We went to the wedding of old friends of ours on Saturday. I’ve known Dave since he was about 11 and he used to be one of my Scouts along with his two brothers. It’s quite odd to think that I knew them as kids and now one is married with his own children, one has his own family and had another daughter about three weeks ago and the other brother is now in the Army!

Also there were some of my old Scout friends from when we were all kids. We’re all now ‘grown up’ and ‘sensible adults’, all married or in long term relationships and with a fair few kids around, but we still keep in touch and see each other (not as often as we’d all like) and are just as daft as when we were 14 or 15!

Once when camping with Scouts, we, as Leaders were setting up a game when we asked what the teams were to be. One of the Scouts piped up and said it should be ‘us against the adults’. It took a moment or two for us Leaders to realise that the Scouts were talking about us!

I think the trick is to keep a young outlook on life and even though you are now sensible and responsible adults, being silly every now and again doesn’t hurt and keeps you young!

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The Happy Couple

Anyway, here’s to Dave and Beccie, and the hope they have many happy years together!

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Being Prepared – Or Not!

Some of our Scouts are camping next week at the International Friendship Camp that’s being held at Kibblestone. They are going with one of our local Troops, 36th St. Wulstans. They are hosting a group of Norwegian Scouts and it looks set to be a great week.

As some of our Scouts are going, we were asked if some tents could be borrowed. Not a problem! So on Tuesday, me, our assistant Scout Leader and St. Wulstan’s Group Scout Leader went to get the tents. They were got out and I suggested we check them, but it was decided that they would have been put away properly so there wouldn’t be any problem.

Last night I got a phone call from St Wulstan’s GSL who was Kibblestone saying that the main guy ropes were missing! As they are using traditional Patrol Tents you can put you can put them up without the main guys, but it’s always best to have them in case of bad weather (the only time I remember one of these coming down was when we caught the tail end of a hurricane in 1986!).

So out we went with the guys. It did make a pleasant evening out! However, it proves the point that you should always check the kit before going out and therefore you are Being Prepared!

I can’t say that I’ve never done anything similar before. Once, as a Scout, we went backpacking and when it came to put up the tent, we found there were no pegs! It was my job to check the tents and somehow I’d missed the fact that there were no pegs. Luckily we managed to put the tent by improvising with sticks and rocks. I must admit I wasn’t too popular for a while that day!

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Scouts Hurt in a Road Crash

It looks like a group of Explorer Scouts from the UK have been involved in a crash between a bus and a lorry in Ontario, Canada. Luckily there’s been no fatalities and injuries are not life threatening.

Let us all hope they’re all ok and can get on with their holiday soon.

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Keeping Records

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to ensure that all our Group’s records and documentation is up to date and accurate. And as far as I can tell it now is! However, this has lead to at least two bookshelves full of files and ringbinders full of paper and quite a lot of space taken up on my hard drive! What all this does mean is that everything is now quite organised (I wouldn’t like to go so far as to say totally organised as I’m not quite that efficient!) and I can put my hands on the right document quite easily. Of course, with looking more into our history, the amount of documents and photos have grown quite a lot, but now we at least know our own past.

Bearing all that in mind, I’ve just started to transfer all the Scout’s details onto their new record cards. Earlier this year, the badge schemes were slightly altered and new record card were created accordingly. One good thing is that now the kid’s personal details are now on a separate card, which can follow them from Beavers to Cubs and onward.

The trouble is, we haven’t been too good at filling the current cards in smile_embaressed.
So this means that once all the info is copied and when we start back, I’m going to have to speak to all the Scouts individually and make sure all their details and their badge work is up to date. Hopefully this should mean that a few more badges are awarded and that we can ensure that the Scouts who are close to being awarded one will get what they have worked towards.

Once we’re all up to date, then we must ensure that these records are kept up to date. After all, there’s nothing worse than a Scout working hard for a badge and never receiving it because the Scout Leader isn’t very organised!

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Top Tips, Blogs & Pod Casts

I was listening to Jerry’s Scoutmaster Minute Pod Cast show 17 on Saturday (where do you get the time Jerry???), and one of the things he and his guest Shawn were talking about was promoting their Packs and Troops. When talking about Pack / Troop etc. web sites, one of the suggestions Shawn had for these sites was to have a calendar. He suggested Google Calendars as a good, free solution. I was aware of Google’s calendars, but had forgotten about them.

A few weeks ago, I totally redesigned our Group’s site (I went from a Joomla based one to a WordPress one) and I found a calendar plug in, but it didn’t work properly! You could see the current month, but not go forward or backwards – most unhelpful! Anyway, after Shawn’s suggestion, I’ve put the Google Calendar into our site (which was easy) and I’m now in the process of populating it. The main thing is that it works ‘out of the box’ and is free. These are both important for organisations where there isn’t a lot of ‘computing knowledge’ (not meant as in insult, just an observation) and they don’t want to be spending oodles of money on non activity and meeting related items. Job done!

I got me thinking of all the computing ‘freebies’ out there that can be used by Scout Leaders to promote their Groups / Troops etc. without spending lots of money on commercial products. So below is a non definitive list of programmes that can be used on your computer to help the promotion and organisation of the Group / Troop etc.

However, a quick thought. There seems to be a considerable number of Scout Leaders (I’m using the all encompassing UK term here) in the US, who take the time and effort to produce web sites, blogs and pod casts with the purpose of passing on their knowledge and experience to others in the movement, especially the BSA (makes sense to talk of what you know!). I enjoy reading these and listening to them all and keep coming across new ones all the time (just listening to An Hour A Week? by Cubmaster Chris for the first time). And while these are interesting and provide good ideas, they all, of course, relate to the BSA, which runs their Scouting slightly differently to the SA. So where are the blogs etc. in the UK? The answer is, I don’t know! My blog has started to become more Scout based in the last year or so, but I still talk about other stuff. But I haven’t found anything similar. Escouts provides forums for Leaders to discuss issues.
In the mean time I’ll still enjoy reading and listening to what my colleagues across the Pond have to say!

So here’s the list of useful, free programmes –

  • Ubuntu Linux – Got a PC and don’t want to have a less than legal version of Windows on it and can’t afford to buy one, then try this. A relatively straightforward operating system, which comes with most things you will need to surf the net and type stuff. Does need a bit of technical know how though.
  • OpenOffice.org – Want to type letters etc. but can’t afford Office (this isn’t going to be an anti Microsoft rant – see later), try this. It has a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation functions which are all compatible with MS Office.
  • PDFCreator – Make all your documents available to all by being able to create PDF files.
  • Firefox – A great browser which has lots of add on’s available – IE Tab, Morning Coffee and Foxmarks being my favourites.
  • Windows Live Programmes – Windows Live Writer (which I’m using to write this) to publish to blogs, Windows Live Photo Gallery to view and fix your photos and Windows Live Messenger, MSN Messenger as was. There are a few others, but these are the ones I use. See, told you the list wasn’t and MS bash!
  • Paint.NET – A image manipulation programme, which is almost as powerful as Photoshop and around £600 cheaper!
  • WordPress and Blogger – Provide free blogging software and hosting.
  • AVG Free – Popular anti virus software. Something to never be without, especially if you use a PC!
  • Zone Alarm – Popular free firewall software. See above.

There is loads more out there, just check out File Hippo, but that will do for my list! A lot of the above are cross platform, but some are Windows only.

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ARRSE

No, I’m not going all Fr. Jack, ARRSE refers to the British ARmy Rumour SErvice.

I received an email last night from a frequent contributor to those message boards saying how he’d stumbled across my Scout Group’s web site, that he was impressed with our Remembrance Web Site and that he’d posted something to that effect. Since then we’ve had loads of hits on the site!

It’s nice that it is appreciated by someone who is not from a Scouting background, but a military one. These are the people who really know what war, fighting and remembering are about.

It also made me realise that these men who were Scouts in our Troop, have not been forgotten and we now know something about them and even what a couple of them looked like thanks to some recently discovered photos. They are no longer just names on a memorial, but they were real people who did the same things that we as Scouts, 60 – 90 years later, still do.

Here’s to their memory.

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A Scouter

I hope Gary, the Lone Star Scouter doesn’t mind me lifting this directly from his blog, but I think it’s so true –

If you are paid to do Scouting, you are called a Professional.
If you are not paid to do Scouting, you are called a Volunteer.
If you pay to do Scouting, you are called… … A Scouter.