Friendship in Scouting

I want to share my reason why I love training as a scout leader, keep studying the scripts in a way...

I now do a refresher for the wood badge in the Scout Section and doing Module 13, I read this:

"...adults and young people join scouting primarily for the
adventure, fun and friendship, and they leave if they don’t get it."

I love the simplicity of this statement!

In my personal experience, I think most leaders are doing a great job in the adventure part and also in the fun part; I can certainly see that those two areas are significant in our planing and preparation for activities and for the program but what about the friendship?

This is in my mind the most difficult one, queue the Scout Law:

- A scout is friendly and considerate.

According to the law, we scouts, at any given time, must be convinced that our fellow scout is a friend who is concerned about us. In the past there was also the phrase that the scout is a brother to all other scouts; this older wording is still there in essence, if we choose to phrase it so is there for us to use it.

What a challenge! How do we tackle that when we generally see friendships between our young and adult members develop naturally but we also see issues, sometimes even a constant friction between some members.

Here are some thoughts
because I do believe that when we know what to look for it is easier to find it.

We are bound by a promise to keep the scout law, that means that we must make a constant effort to think of a fellow scout as a friend and to be considerate. This is the starting point, we cultivate friendships to a patrol and troop; we don't have relationships to friendships.

A scout believes in the good intentions of others and listens to what his friends, fellow scouts, like or don't like and acts accordingly.

When they resolve any issues between them, then their friendship is hardened, tried and tested.

This can be issues of behaviour or even practical issues; planning an activity, working as a team e.t.c.

So that's exactly what we must encourage to happen; allow them to cultivate friendships between them.

How can we practically do that?

In scout leader minute at the end ceremony, we can remind all that we are friends.

In Scouts own we can use this subject to instil the approach that we start from friendship and build up.

During resolution of issues, encourage the word friend, friendship and concern.

Look and identify a good friendship or gesture and praise it.

Distinguish between bad behaviour and bullying. Bullying is not tolerated and has no space in a friendship and therefore in the troop or pack.

Run a program about friendship, what other friends they have and do they know that all scouts are friends and have consider each-other.

Include this sense of friendship, what friends do and don't do in the code of conduct.

Scouts Troop Forum - Code of Conduct

It was great to see so many scouts returning to our regular meetings from their summer holidays. So starts Winter 2014, a new term and it brought us a new scout too who looked happy and active and participating, how great is that!

We started with the flag break, which went weird, it looked like the flag was knotted to a strong hold and didn't want to break away, it was funny!

Some Trust Games
We started the evening with three trust game, aiming to team building, trust and cooperation.
Three small quick games were planned; Toe to Toe fall back, that was done with in very little time, back to back from seated to stand which only a few managed to do so we might try that again soon and last was the Helium Stick, which took awhile to start it up and work it out but they soon got the hang of it...

These three games took a short time to complete, shorter than I thought but they worked out really well for a quick warm up. Scouts had to hold hands, stand close to each-other and cooperate so doing it as a team is was an excellent warm up for the rest of the meeting.

The Troop Forum
By 20:10 we started the main activity, we had 4 stations with a headed flip-charts on each:
Good Stuff
Bad Stuff
What We Want To Do
What We Want From Our Leaders

We split the troop on 4 teams, a marker each team to visit and write what they think on each piece of paper.

A leader was at each station and helped them to decide what to write. We did not control the outcome but we did regulate the quantity and quality of what was written so they don't fill the poster in one go and leave some space and content for the next team.

This took about 30 minutes to complete, the things they came up with were clever and novel, they took the work seriously but also had a lot of fun putting leader's name on the Bad Stuff list, well one leader's name but that was "joking"...

By the end of it we had 4 posters full of statements, wishes, issues and praise! we put them all on a table and we sat around it to go threw them and discuss some more, we explained what was the meaning of this activity and that we will now write a code of conduct per patrol.

The Code of Conduct
We could define it as simple list of positive statements about how we come work play and leave our regular meetings. It should also show us the way to apply the Scout Law in our Troop Meetings. Another way to see it is a manual in which we define how a specific and regular Troop Meeting is attended. Some facts define this, for example our hall is rented, not ours, the time we have together is limited and the evening of the week we meet is set, so we need all of us to think and agree what is the code that will help everybody take the most out of it.

To highlight this, a Code of Conduct for a Camp would be a different one. So would be the Code of Conduct for next year too. What is important is the process of deciding it for the old scouts to figure out what worked last time and the new scouts to understand what we are and what we do and how the law applies. The only thing the adults have to do is ask questions, what about? how is that? where is best? etc.

The fact we all sat and thought it out is enough of an agreement, we will type it out and share it with all but that should be enough. I personally dislike the word "contract" and producing it distributing it for signature etc. no need, not scout like and just plain lame!

The Scout Law is always governing this as it does every scouting activity; it is good to make it clear and reference the law with every opportunity. So if in our code of conduct we state that we need to be punctual and on time for our meetings we can also remind ourselves of the Scout Law where it says:
6. A Scout makes good use of time...

Scout Run Games
One of the points that came up in the troop forum was playing games the scouts like and not the same games over and over again.

So when our senior scouts suggested a couple of games we were quick to give them the initiative and go for it. Both games were excelent and even us the leaders enjoyed playing them.

The first game was "Pink Nickers", a musical chairs type game, run by Lilly.
All the scouts sit on chairs around in a circle facing out, one scout is in the middle and calls out various characteristics that identify our scouts, for example; name starts with S, wears black shoes, has long hair e.t.c. Every scout who posses that characteristic must stand and quickly run around the circle of chairs and sit down again. The last scout is out and turns the chair facing inside the circle and the game continues.
When "Pick Nickers" is called, all scouts must run around the circle. The last scout facing out is the winner.

The second game was "Inky, Pinky, Ponky, Wonky", a Splat type game, run by Jess.
The scouts stand on a circle and with their left hand behind the right hand of the scout on their left.
This way the right hand can slap five to the left hand of their fellow scout to the left.
We start by slapping the phrase "Inky, Pinky, Ponky, Wonky" going around clock wise, and calling a number from 2 to 10, e.g. 5 which continues the slapping to the countdown, 5, 4, 3, 2 and on 1 if we slap the other scouts left hand they are out if they are quick and we slap our own we are out and if we also are quick and avoid our hand we continue in.

Both games were explained well and run well by our young scouts, very impressive as this shows the team has come together!

That was the end of our evening with a flag down ceremony, which went as funny as the flag break! what was wrong with our flag? maybe it wanted to be on a few more weeks of summer holidays...

1st Scout Camp

Camping is the most essential scouting activity and last week we had our first camp of our new scout section for the 1st Jennett's Park group. It was only for 2 nights, the 21st to the 23rd of March, two cold nights but packed out activity days.

It was in part a group camp, with the distinction that the scouts would camp a bit further away from Cubs and Beavers and mostly run their own program.

Camping at Earleywood was always going to be a muddy/wet affair but the weather was not too mad. Cold nights, yes, a fair bit of rain, hail and small wind storm but most of the day time and Saturday was dry and we even had sunny spells.

Most of the kit and equipment, mainly for the kitchen mess, was borrowed from 2nd Crowthorne and the Explorers. Leaders then filled in the gaps of essential kit we needed. All in all we had everything we needed for a weekend camp!

This was the camp that we all got invested into our new group, raising the demographic up by 1400% being the newest invested scout section for 25 years in the District! We now all wear the red and yellow neckers and soon the group name and other badges will be stitched on our uniform.

Our main activity was planned to be a pioneering project but we did not have time to do this because we got involved with backwards cooking, fire-lighting and an impromptu wood chopping frenzy!

We were lucky to have a friend in scouting, our DC who goes by the name of Hagrid and knows a thing or two about fires, got us to prepare our ember fire grills and the grand fire for the Saturday night group event around the fire circle.

Picking sticks of all shapes and sizes, getting the fire-lighters, kindle and wood to cook, preparing the food and cooking it for lunch does take a lot of time and group work. We also set alight a tilley lamp, but with the vapolux working we managed without the tilley.

Dinner was Leader's special spag bog, very good indeed! none of it would be possible without the amazing impromptu cardboard box cooker screen (patent pending). Who would have thought that the gas rings, as heavy and pro looking as they are, they would struggle to boil a pan of water!!! We knew this because breakfast took a bit too long to prepare that morning.

Saturday night was all about the camp fire circle. What Song? if you prepare only 5 6 songs you will ask this question about 10 times. As a new group with lack of older scouts who "know about these things" we have quite a restrictive repertoire but this is something we can easy fix. Did anyone notice? Nah! Beavers and Cubs had their songs, we scouts had ours, the night went just fine, with loud voices and good fun around the very hot fire, in contrast to the very cold night.

We went to bed with our pink hot-bean teddies straight from the microwave oven and a cola bottle full of hot water... at least I did... Thanks Cubs!

Sunday looked dry so we did run both wide games we had planned for. A Scavenger hunt, with a cryptic message attached to it and the very successful rope trail, where the scouts in pairs, one blind the other guiding, had to negotiate a route marked with string through a small copse of woods.

Lunch time was catered by our amazing Cub Leaders, who invited us to join them for a sandwich and hot drinks. Then it was time to strike the tents and pack it up before the rain comes back again. No such luck. I must've rained for 5 minutes and made a wet mess of all tents and tarps. Drying them up was an electric affair...

Parents came and scouts went and the campsite empty of scouts but with still some tents unpacked and drying. Two nights away is a squeeze to run with inexperienced scouts, some of them knew how to strike a tent but some didn't manage to focus on the job and with time ticking away you have to work hard to get everything packed away, especially when the tents must return to their owners that night.

Leaders worked from pick-up time, that's 14:30 till 17:30 on site to pack up and clean up, leaving it better than they found it. It was past 19:00 at night when the kits were returned and with tents still drying in a living room.

We did sleep well that night!!!

P.S. A big "Thank You" to the scout groups who helped us make this camp happen so early in our scouting experience. without your kit and support it wouldn't be possible! Thank you.