Re: Guides - Bed roll???

John Moppett <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tony Mochan wrote:
Actually, I'd always thought that the "bed roll" was a special way you
folded a blanket, to make it into a "bag" to sleep in.

Well, you (Tony) asked for what the Guides did... which we tend to call
a bedding roll.

Nope, but this technique is very useful. Guides would otherwise bring
the sleeping bag in a bin liner. So you are confronted with 24 identical
bags, which are a nightmare to pack in the van!! My wife bought a small
rope machine from a guy who is always at Gilwell big events. Each year
the Guides make a short rope, with different colours of their choosing,
so when the van is inploaded they can identify their bedding roll by the
cord.

Unless you label your groundsheets or can guarantee different rope, the
above isn't actually guaranteed.

There are various other good reasons:

- You don't have to provide anywhere to store bedding under cover until
the tents are up if it's raining. Yes I know a tarp laid over the top
will do, but they often dip and puddle and if the YP lift it up not
carefully when "their" tent is ready, then other people's stuff gets
wet. Also, if the grass is wet and you put an under tarp down then if
the over tarp isn't over the edges of the under tarp, you get puddles on
the under tarp in which stuff sits. This precludes all those problems
and you can get on with the job of getting tents up. Note that bedding
rolls should be stacked with rolled edges down, so there's a clear run
off of water.

- The bedding roll survives handling better than using plastic bags and
lasts till the end of camp

- The bedding roll comes with enough ground*** for the bed - useful in
Icelandics or other tents without groundsheets - though you do have to
teach the YP to share by overlapping their groundsheets so that they get
a nice floor without wet patches.

- Putting the PJs into the bedding roll guarantees that they are
findable when the YP finally go to bed

- It tends to make them treat their ground*** better, especialy if you
forewarn them that it's their only protection from a cold horribly damp
night and we don't have spares. (Well, we do, but we're not telling
them that.)

- It keeps a consistent "dry side" and "wet side" (hopefully, modulo
making sure the overlaps with their neighbours are dry and when
re-rolling, making sure it's always dry to dry, wet to wet).

- Rolling the bedding roll back up daily (after airing) in damp weather
means that at night it isn't all cold and damp when you get into bed at
night. You do need to air it though because of sweating at night, so
you don't roll it up immediately you get up but open the sleeping bag
out and go and make breakfast.

- Rolling the bedding roll back up means there is much more room in the
tent during the day, it stays tidier and stuff doesn't get as dirty,
torn or wet (assuming squabbles, food and drinks which we generally
"ban" from tents but YP are YP).

- Putting up a bedding rack for storing bedding rolls and kit bags
during the day reinforces team work and use of pioneering knots.

- YP helping each other, especially the PLs and APLs helping the younger
members reinforces team work and leadership skills. A tent which
doesn't help each other for this task usually has much less time to do
chores before the fun is due, so may miss out on some of the fun. For
small 10-11 year olds, doing a bedding roll alone is a struggle.

- Putting up a bedding rack or at the very least re-rolling the bedding
gives the grass a breather, meaning the damage done to a popular site
over a season is less.

- Putting away kit every day helps to prevent loss/damage of belongings
as well as preventing them disappearing away from chores, changing
clothes or brushing their hair every 5 minutes (generally only a problem
with certain YP but we all have some)

- It makes it easier to find rubbish from sweet wrappers, stray
hairbands and socks etc.

I could probably think of more, but that's a handful without thinking
about it.

Anyway, telling a YP some of these reasons makes them so much more
likely not to grumble about it than just telling them to do it.

AEndr

--
White Rabbit: I'm so late! I'm so very, very late!
Mad Hatter: Well no wonder you're late...Why, this clock is exactly
two days slow!
-- Lewis Carroll
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