Re: longridge


Sorry Chris, I just don't get it.

Maybe because the few people we do have are pretty good at making up
programmer ideas. Maybe because Fiona and I tend to fly by the seat of
our pants.

we all do that!

Panto season is coming... Oh no we don't :-)


Do I need to sit down and work out a programmer on the computer if I
know that we will be doing amateur radio for the next five weeks,
backwoods cooking , hike training etc.?

but what about finding some new ways of doing old stuff? i can't
believe that anybody would use it as a proper planner like this
0-5 mins flagbreak
5-15 mins x
15-45 mins y

but it is excellent for finding new things.

I doubt that there is much there that isn't already available for
those who look. I've been using the Internet for resources for years
and one thing that irritates me is the duplication of resources.

An example, and excuse me whilst I go and put on my flack jacket and
helmet, and dig myself into a foxhole, is on Group websites which
repeatedly use the same information wrapped up in their framework.

Scoutbase carries perfectly good examples of Equal Ops, Constitution
etc in POR, and it carries the uniform description, location of badges
and all sorts of information. Yet many Scout sites just repeat that
same data which they could easily deal with by directing parents to
Scoutbase - or - by pointing out that, certainly for Scouts, that the
badge positions are as indicated in their record book.

It is, coming back to my original point, re-inventing the wheel.



i just looked up backwoods and it suggest


tracking provides tracking symbols. v useful.

Got plenty.

virtual brownsea island camp with instructions (cool!)

Virtual camping hmmm

some backwoods recipes

Available already, many, many times over.


if you search radio, it gives a game of radio hide and seek using 2
way radios

Not difficult to devise with a little imagination, is it?

Now then, hiking:

how about this,. Mobile Incident Hike
An incident hike that doesn't require a dozen or so adults sitting
around in the woods waiitng for teams to find them! At least one
responsible adult hikes around a short circular route with each team,
carrying the instructions and equipment needed for the incidents. By
varying the locations of the incidents for each team, and having half
the teams walk the route in reverse, each team should meet up with at
least one other team during their hike, but no two teams should be at
the same location attempting the same incident at the same time.

Done that before now.


or

3-Layer Clothing System
A group discussion about the correct clothing for Scouts and Explorer
Scouts planning a hike as part of their outdoor activities programme.

Er, sorry, I don't need POL to tell me about that. I've known about it
for about 40 years and teach it regularly.

the list goes on.

It does indeed

Ewan... i am sure you learn from other leaders... give POL a go.


The point I was making was that HQ squanders money on projects that
have no real demand. I'll accept that there are people in Leadership
roles who did not spend their youth working with campfires, or
camping, or reading Woodcraft books, the wolf cub manual, Scouting for
Boys, Four Boys in the Great North, or North American Indian history
by survivors and contemporaries such as Geronimo, Black Elk, Buffallo
Long Lance, Lame Deer, Chief Joseph. Or books by Edgar Rice Borroughs,
or from Look and Learn. Not to mention our latter day bushman, Ray
Mears. Who have not walked, camped, sailed, kayaked, whatever, tested
and written about their experiences and products that they have used
may need access to such information. However, that information is
already available and accessible through Google without any
registration. Is the information any less valid because it comes from
the Upper Chumbawanga Bison Lodge, if the idea works? No it isn't.

As the great man said, look wide, then look wider. Bringing everything
in house in a world where almost everything is now accessible at the
touch of a button is doing the opposite.

However, linking to another thread, it would be a considerably
valuable resource that could be provided by WOSM if the WOSM site were
to collate such material and the National Scout Organisations were to
link to that site as a central resource. Then individuals could add to
the resource at a central point instead of re-inventing the wheel.

Let me add another dimension. If we direct everyone to our own
internal resources, that has some potential merit in that it may make
life easier for some. It makes accessing resources a "Scout" service.
However, it keeps us "in-house", looking inwards.

By searching wider, by visiting American, Australian, Singaporean,
German, whatever sites we can find not only those same resources but
also different approaches and different concepts with an international
flavour. How much more interesting to know that the games we play, the
skills we use are also used, maybe slightly differently in another
country. I found a game we play here on a Thai site. The Thai site
explained the religious significance of the game - not given in the UK
- and it presented an opportunity to introduce Animism into the
programme. I have a few games that are fun to play but have their
source in aboriginal cultures for training hunters and developing
co-ordination and skills.

My argument is not that no-one uses POL, although we don't tend to,
but that the resources are already available and that looking wider
for material can be much more useful. Therefore POL is in that
respect, re-inventing the wheel. It was quite one thing to re-invent
the wheel when all we had was paper resources. But now, the Upper
Chumbawanga Bison Lodge site is just as easy to access ( if it exists)
as Scoutbase. So we have re-invention rather than education.

But, that may just be my twisted mind at work - I rarely do things the
easy way.

Ewan Scott
http://www.claytonwestscouts.org.uk

http://www.whitleybeaumont.co.uk
.