Diary of a Scout Leader

All the best things are inflatable

Some things are just better for being inflatable...
(before any of you dirty minded people go there... no I am not talking about dolls!)

Like castles...

... or beds...

... or even a Church...

This church blows... (up)

What has this got to do with scouts I hear you ask, well, I arrived at the hall on Monday to see this:

And what the bejabbers is that I hear you cry?! (you're just full of questions today arn't you)

Well, the explorers asked to do some star gazing while we were program planning with them. Unfortunately, being in the UK, the weather doesn't generally help with the whole scheduling to go out and look at the stars thing. Actually, the weather in the UK has generally been messed up of late (late week the temperatures were about the 20C mark, this week we have snow... go figure). So instead of taking the kids out of the hall to see the stars, we brought the stars into the hall.

That's right, it's an INFLATABLE PLANETARIUM!

How cool is that!

Once everyone had entered through the tunnel, we had a short slide show about the universe. Apparantly there are an extra 4 planets that I didn't even know about, it wasn't that I had forgotten their names... I had never actually heard of them!

Had you heard of Ceres, Haumea, Makemake and Eris?!

I'll excuse you while you take that in.

Ready to carry on? Good.

After my tiny little mind had popped in the presentation, we moved onto a tour round the stars in the planetarium. The whole of the inside of it was dotted with the stars (and the planets, which were set up as that there were actually outside) and we got to watch as they spun round through a 24hour cycle. It was beautiful, and I wish I would have been able to take a photo or a film without my phone lighting up and screwing with everyones vision.

To make it up to you for not having a video of that... here's a little song that I pops into my head whenever I think about the universe:

Note: Obviously a number of the pictures (and the film) don't belong to me... please don't sue me

THIRTY!

Before you say anything, no I have NOT just turned thirty... I have years between now and becoming old

The biggest change that I have found in moving to the explorers has to be the number of them.

For the past couple of years, while I was with the 9th Lincoln, I was dealing with about 9 kids... the explorer unit has 30. Thirty, three zero, that's a lot of bodies. And it's taking a while to get used to handling that many. I'm seriously having to think more about exactly how everything will run just because of the increase in people.

Suddenly having 30 explorers also means that I have about 30 names to learn, and about 30odd nicknames to boot. Unfortunately I am not one of those people that can just pick up names really easily. Give me at least a year and I may just be able to remember that your name starts with a J... Jim, James, John?... oh sorry Brian!

Regardless of the size (THIRTY!), any new group of scouts will react differently to the same activities. Which has been my next biggest change. I've had to learn how this set of 30 teenagers will react to activities. How would they be with Global issues? Crafts? What sort of games do they like? So, how better to find out than to try some different activities with them.

We've had a variety of different activities over the past couple of months. Everything from disability awareness nights, to market nights (which I have covered on here in the past) to egg drops, cake decorating and even a pub quiz.

They had to ID different muppets in the Pub Quiz picture round... this one is apparently me
... try not to laugh too hard

These, I will admit, had varying degrees of success... the disability night, for example, was a nightmare (but a valuable reminder on practicalities of running activities for 30). So, I'm not going to go into that really, there were plenty of other nights that were a success that I can talk about instead.

We had some interesting methods employed with the egg drop challenge.

We had crumple zones, and parachutes and shear dumb luck in abundance.

The drop zone... I was stationed under the stairs, like a egg craving troll

The cake night was, for obvious reasons, one of my favourites. But boy did it require a lot of prep! They all got 2 cupcakes to decorate each, we also did a team challenge where they had half an hour to decorate a 6inch cake, the winning team got to take home all of the 6inch cakes. Which, when you factor in that it is for 30people, makes for a LOT of cake. 60 cupcakes and 6 6inch cakes to be exact, and all home made (by me) to try and keep the costs down. We also got them making hot chocolate spoons and funnel cakes... mmm funnel cakes *drool*....

ahem, excuse me

Don't know what came over me there.

Anyway, here's some of pictures that I managed to grab between being coated in icing sugar!

The Guns n Roses 6inch cake... All the team cakes had to be covered in fondant

The team working on the Field of Sheep/Pandas

A yellow mothers day cake

This team tried to curry favour by making a scotland cake... they didn't realise that the other leaders were being independant judges

Some of the cupcakes

The final cakes, the green one won the challenge

Not that all the nights are messy. This week we had a Skills Night. Each of them had to teach a skill to everyone else.

All I'll say is that the demonstration on how to mow the lawn using another explorer as the lawnmower was PRICELESS!

Obviously, muppets etc don't belong to me... please down sue me!

My money is on Noddy

New year... new house... new scouting role

nothing like jumping in at the deep end!

Sorry while I compose myself, I find that picture hilarious

...

*bites fist*

... sorry, I got to look at that picture again....

Right, what was I talking about... ah yes, me starting explorers. And what a way to start, before I had even been down to a normal meeting night I was away camping with them at Gilwell Winter Camp. I've been to Gilwell a couple of times now, but this was the first time I was at Winter Camp.

The weekend wasn't exactly wintery, but it was a grand opportunity to get to know some of the explorers. Like how they had a competition to see who could pull using the line "Do you like apples?"

Who would have thought that they would be Good Will Hunting fans?

And being mildly disturbed when one of them actually succeeded!

Or how one of them had a random dream, an extremely random dream, it was about a fight to the death between the Hulk and Noddy... he subsequently ended up with the nick-name of Noddy.

Personally, my money is on Noddy

Winter camp also gave me the opportunity to catch up with some mates from previous events. In some cases instead of 'catch up' read 'bother'... as in the potter puppet pals.

I literally bothered one of them like this. The other I joined on the leaders pub quiz and we came joint 7th out of 39. I think I know who got off lightly.

The day after the camp I got to actually start explorers officially, with my first meeting at the hall. It wasn't much to write about as it was program planning... so I'll skip a week, to when we did the life auction.

I did it a while back with the scouts, but as there are more explorers I added some more lots to the auction: like a house of your dreams, being a trend setter and travelling. The explorers seamed to really get into it and there was even some fights for some items.

All in all, a good start I think!

Blackout

*SIRENS*

It's time for a blackout people!

You shut those curtains Margerie

Okay, maybe not the type of blackout where you have to paint your cow...

Nice brush strokes... but no, not this type of black out Debra

I'm talking about the internet blackout.

That's right I am (kinda) joining the internet blackout for the protest against SOPA/PIPA... if I knew how to actually black out my website then I would for the 24hours. But seeing that I lack that knowledge you're going to have to put up with a post by my good self.

Mayeb I should invest in one of these...

Wikipedia handily has some information about the whole thing if you want to learn more about it... right here

If you're in America then PLEASE contact your Congressman to let them know that you are against SOPA/PIPA. With the number of pictures that I borrow for punchlines and jokes I would be shut down... even though I don't make any money from this site! If you are not from the US, like myself, then try contacting your Ambassador in the US... they are there to represent you after all.

So concider this site blacked out, and close your eyes or something!

UPDATE: Here's where you can add your name to the petition:

ANOTHER UPDATE: The blackout is now over... you can have your links and buttons and other useful stuff back now!

Times they are a changing

Well... just about everything has changed over the past month. I think if any more was to change then I could seriously rival this guy

And no comments about me being two faced.... okay?

The biggest change has to be that I have FINALLY moved house!

HUZZAH- *villagers rejoicing*

And what is more I actually now have internet in said house. I have got an app for blog posting from my phone, but I hate using it as it isn't really user friendly, especially for adding photos/videos etc.

While I was moving I was also finished up with the scout section. We had finally managed to get a hold of the Lincoln Mountain Activity Team to run a session for us at a climbing wall. The sprogs absolutely loved it, some of them were up there like a shot, as spry as monkeys they were... and about as loud

... SCOTLAND LOOK AT ME!!!

Yes that's nice, now get out of the way of that other line...

... I'M AT THE TOP!!!

I can see that, now be careful when you set off as you'll swing into that overhang...

... *THUD* ...

... *sigh*

I got to have a couple of goes myself, just to remind myself how long it has been since I climbed, and they had this automatic belay device which frankly scared the bejabbers out of me. Normally you have a person at the other end of the rope that would control your decent should you fall, decide you can't go further or even reach the top. Which is comforting cause they can talk away to you and they support you the entire time. This thing doesn't kick in until you reach a certain falling speed... and it's useless at conversation.

But generally a night that ends with the sprogs asking if they can do that activity again is always a winner.

My last week with the scouts was another Cinema night, like last year. We got a projector and screen and a choice of DVDs and they got to pick a film to watch... and periodically someone would pry the pringles away from my hands to pass them round the sprogs.

They have a good taste in films those sprogs, we watched How To Train Your Dragon... but this was partly because Jo (one of the leaders) vetoed all the Muppet movies. Apparently they scare her for some bizzare unknown reason. I mean seriously, how can you be scared of the muppets?!

Rizzo is, of course, my favourite.

I mean, if it was something like Mimic with mutant cockroaches start attacking people just for the fun of it then I could totally understand (ok, I'll admit that I only got about 5minutes into that film before giving up), but this is the Muppets! Well, I suppose that we'll accept all sorts to be scout leaders.

But Muppet-haters is getting close to the line...

And that was my last night with the 9th Lincoln Scouts!

*sniff*

I've had a brilliant time with the sprogs of the 9th Lincoln Scouts. They are a fantastic set of kids and I wish that I could take them with me... and I've told them all that I expect to see them at future explorer events.

I was going to put in about me starting with Dodgers Explorers, but quite a lot happened and this post is already rather long so I am going to be kind at cover that later.

And given that I didn't put up a festive message, please accept this little video (except if you're weird like Jo... )

... Don't say I'm not good to you!

Golden moments

One of my scouts has managed to gain her Chief Scout Gold Award!

*does a little dance*

For those of you outside of the UK, or just outside of scouting. The award is the highest award that a member of the scout section can get. Out of the 9 possible challenge badges available in the scout section, they have to complete 8 of them. And those challenge badges ain't exactly easy... they take months to complete.

So I will happily admit that I am rather proud at the moment.

Lincoln District held an award ceremony at RAF Waddington this week for all those that gained the award, and I got to tag along as her leader. We had a tour and got to see some parts of the base that aren't open to the public before the Station Commander presented the awards.

Unfortunately the spot lighting kinda caused a bit of a glare on the award itself! Hopefully the professional photos that they took turned out better than my iphone ones.

I did collar her before leaving the hall tho to get another photo.

Congratulations Jess!

Note: before any of you say anything about my 'no photos of the sprogs' rule... I asked for specific permission from her and her parents if it would be ok to post a photo here to mark the occasion.

Apparently I'm now an elf

One of the explorers in the Jamboree Unit just posted this on the groups facebook page and I just had to share it with you...

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

That's the 4 unit leaders!

... I have to say, hats off to the lad, it's definitely the most bizarre thank you I've ever received.

Twister + Record Cards + Investiture = An Impossible To Title Blog Post

Tonight was a bit of a mash up for the scouts as the radio station we were planning to visit never got back in contact with us. M'eh, it happens... you plan things, you try to arrange them and for some reason the planets don't align and it doesn't go ahead.

This is why we have back up plans.

I will admit that it was Mim that came up with this particular back up plan. (Yeah, buying a house really takes up a lot of your time... they should come with a health warning or something)

Also... be careful of giants

After a quick game and introducing a newbie (a cub moving up- huzzah!) we got on with one of our activities for the night. OS Symbol Twister! We taped 16 OS symbols in a 4x4 grid on the floor, one grid for each patrol.... and then we randomly shouted out hand/foot and symbol combinations.

Sprogs should not be that flexible.

Both hilarious and disturbing at the same time, arms and legs all over the place.... one tiny little scout cowering completely underneath her PL. Slightly more disturbing when one of the sprogs asked "where's my left foot...?" *facepalm*

Once they had finally all fallen over Niall and Jason went on to do 4 and 6 figure grid references with them, while I pulled one of them aside and went through their Record Card, and it was a good thing that we went through it, as we had found that she had completed a couple of challenge badges.

The end of the night came along and I got to present a whole host of badges, most of them challenge badges.

And what's more I got to invest a PL.

Yes, I invest my PLs. It isn't normal practice, but I've found that it helps give them some confidence in taking on the role and it helps the others recognise the authority that they have. The investiture runs like any other investiture, but with a modified promise that I came up with.

Patrol Leaders Promise

On my honour I promise,

That I shall lead my patrol to the best of my abilities,

And that I shall remain worthy of the position of Patrol Leader,

For the sake of my Patrol, my Troop and the Scout Movement.

It doesn't seam like much, but my scouts have taken it all to heart. You should have seen the beaming smile he had when I told him that I was going to invest him as a PL.

Does this mean that I will need to change the name of my blog?

You know how recently I have been kinda teasing you... saying that I have some secret stuff going on and that I couldn't tell you about them until the time is right.

Well, the time has come!

*villagers rejoicing and dancing in the streets*

So huddle in and pinkie promise swear you won't tell anyone...

*deep breath*

.... I'm changing sections to be an Assistant Explorer Scout Leader!

There are a number of reasons why I am wanting to make the move, but the main one is that is it a section that I have always wanted to work with and all my recent work with the Jamboree reminded me of that and made me want it even more. I haven't made the change yet tho. That's going to happen after Christmas, to give me time to get all my loose ends sorted out in the scout troop (like updating blooming record cards).

You actually have no idea how much I wanted to tell you all that sooner. I shadowed an Explorer Unit here in Lincoln for a couple of months to get a feel for the section and I loved it and I wanted to share it all with you. Like the refugee experience, or the murder mystery night at halloween or the Guy Fawkes night... but I couldn't as my scouts didn't know I will be leaving them.

Not long now until Christmas, and I am so excited!

Oh, and that other secret project of mine... all in good time... you'll find out soon enough.

I did warn you they would get messy...

Recently (well, recent enough...) it was halloween!

You know, that time of year when sprogs dress up, asks for sweets and the challenge for scout leaders everywhere is to throw a party. My rule of thumb with this: the messier they leave the better.

But before I share with you my recipe for a messy child, I'll share with you some photos of the pumpkins that we got them to carve.

Recipe for a Messy Child

Ingredients:
Sprog x many
Costume x one per Sprog
Apples x numerous
Water x bucket loads
Marshmallows x more than a mouth full
Flour x a bouquet
Doughnuts x enough to choke a giant
Treacle/Golden Syrup x enough to grease a small monkey

Method:

Inspect sprog in costume, it may be necessary to remove articles for movement/breathing proposes
Float apples in buckets of water
Insert sprogs head
String up doughnuts on a rope so they all dangle freely. Coat doughnuts in treacle/syrup
Hang doughnuts above sprogs heads and let them apply treacle and syrup to face/hair/body/costume as they attempt to consume them.
Once all sprogs are damp and coated in treacle/syrup, bring out marshmallows on a plate covered in a large heaped pile of flour.
Insert sprogs head, flour should stick rather successfully to water and treacle mixture

We finished off the night with a game of Fluffy Bunnies. If you don't know what that is, you take turns putting a marshmallow in your mouth and saying 'fluffy bunnies'. You are not allowed to chew or swallow at any point or you're out. Needless to say, this was played round a bin for them to eventually throw up into.

What's a halloween party without a game that includes vomiting?

They all loved it really, chasing each other round and putting treacle and flour in each others faces, drooling down their tops while trying not to spit up marshmallows. Of course when their parents showed up and saw how messy they were it was 'horrible'...

I've since learned (from one of the parents) that it took one of the sprogs several days to remove all the treacle/flour.... SUCCESS!!

Lest We Forget

Today is the 11th day of the 11th month and at the 11th hour we will pause to remember.

Usually scouts will attend church this Sunday, in full uniform and in parade to mark the occasion. My scouts wont. Not because we don't remember, but because the Salvation Army church we are linked to goes elsewhere to help others mark the occasion. So we usually have our own form of remembrance.

The past couple of years I have dedicated a whole scout evening to remembrance, and one of the things that I have always struggled to get my head round... and something that I am sure that the scouts have struggled to grasp... is the shear numbers involved.

When told about the numbers that died, the numbers are so huge that my brain just can't imagine anything that size. So a while back I worked out a way to highlight it, a way to make the numbers real. I think I have talked about it in the past, but never actually posted up the numbers and the process, so here it goes.

I found out, from the internet, how many grains of sugar are in a gram (15.432 on average) and then figured out how many grains were in a 1kg bag of sugar. Then equating 1 grain of sugar to 1 soul I worked out how many bags of sugar were needed to illustrate the numbers.

The numbers were still huge.

So I took along one bag of sugar, and emptied it out across the floor. Getting the kids to see just how many grains were in that one bag... and then went through how many bags were needed for each war and other events to help put things into perspective.

And here are those numbers:

World War 1                      15000000-20000000 dead             972-1296 bags
World War 2                      40000000-72000000 dead             2592-4666 bags

Genocides of Nazi Germany     4871000-11000000 dead          316-713 bags
Auschwitz-Birkenau                  800000-1500000 dead             52-97 bags

Indian Ocean (boxing day) Tsunami         230210 dead              15 bags
Haiti Earthquake                                      222000 dead              14 bags

9/11 Attacks (excluding hijackers)           2977 dead                   0.19 bags
7/7 Bombings                                          52 dead                       0.003 bags
War on Terror                              at least 47183 dead                3 bags

These numbers always humble me, and remind me of how privilaged I am.

Thank you, for all that you gave, I will try to live my life to the fullest and remember.

Stuff I've been doing while I've not been here

Recently I have been ______________________________

Baking like a fiend: Over the past year and a half or so I have gotten quite into baking. It started off with making some cupcakes and treats for my weekly 'Sunday Gathering' with my mates and quickly evolved into full on birthday cake baking and decorating. It's gotten to the point now that my friends are putting orders in, I kid you not.

I made this for my nieces first birthday

They're watching me!?

Only the other week I baked about 50odd biscuits. Some were getting posted up to my sister for her birthday, some to Cheshire to one of my friends who was going through a rough patch (cause receiving baked goods in the post is bound to cheer anybody up) and all the rest were getting sold in my office to help raise money for Jeans for Genes.

And I'm currently trying to figure out how to do a turn-table cake for someone in work and have been asked to do 2 wedding cakes!

Not buying a house: This is in spite of going to numerous house viewings (6 this week) and the estate agents getting to the "You've been looking for a while now" stage of proceedings. Which is basically them trying to tell me not to be so picky and buy a house already.

Sure the view would be stunning... but the commute would be terrible

And, unfortunately, it's not like my previous experiences in buying stuff. Normally when I go shopping, I walk into the store, see if I like stuff, put myself into a mini-guilt trip about wanting to spend money, leave the store, decide that I want it anyway, return to store, check out everything again (just in case something better magically appears on the shelf) and then eventually buy it anyway.

Dead easy.

Not like houses. That requires dealing with idiotic estate agents, arguments about getting things in writing, getting lawyers and people just to convince other people to lend me money. And the odd guilt trip about spending money... cause, well, it's still me we're talking about.

Buying a house would be so much easier if it worked like any other normal shop. Tho I would expect that the shopping trolleys would be huge.

So if anyone has a really nice house in Lincoln that they are willing to sell me for hardly anything I would be really grateful. I may even bake you something.

Getting most of the ground floor in the house I am currently living in torn out: Dan, the guy that owns the house I live in (he doesn't like it when I call him my landlord), came round with his parents to decorate the house. All was going fine, until the paint that they were putting up on the walls was flaking off as soon as it had dried. It was then decided that we should get someone in to check for damp.

Turns out most of the ground floor, up to about waist height, has really bad damp. Which would explain the huge bulge in the wall by the kitchen door. The guy came back about 2 weeks ago to gut the place and damp-proof and replaster everything.

Some of it still isn't dry... so he hasn't been back yet to re-attach the skirting boards.

Given that I hate tidying/cleaning at the best of times, I didn't want to clean everything until he has finished... cause that plaster dust gets EVERYWHERE. Even in rooms upstairs. With the door closed.

... everywhere...

Geocaching in formal wear: Yes, you read that correctly. Geocaching. In formal wear.

My friend, Stacey (who you may remember used to be the Scout Leader for the 9th Lincoln) got married! And, stupidly, she invited Mim and I to attend. You would have thought that having left the group that she would have taken advantage of the situation and be rid of us, but no.

While the photographs were being taken Mim and I saw this tower...

South Kyme Tower

... and I commented that the area was just begging for a cache. Turns out there was one... and it was within 200m of where we were standing. It would have been rude for us not to. And during the break between the meal and the evening do, when everyone went to the pub... we may or may not have gone out and got 3 more.

See... actual proper formal wear

Beating sprogs at monopoly: This one is actually scout related! We had a board games night at the scouts a while back and I played some of the sprogs at monopoly.

That was what I ended up owning... pretty much the whole board

Yeah... they lost. Badly

Signing myself up for more work: Yup, I am actually a glutton for punishment. I've managed to sign myself up for not one but two new scouty projects.

You can stop shaking your head in dismay now...

First, I've been asked to be a subcamp leader at Poacher 2013, something that I am rather excited about. I've never been to a Poacher camp before, so I am kinda getting thrown in at the deep end

The second thing is super-secret at the moment, so you are just going to have to wait. If I told you what it was then it would spoil the event. And we don't want that now do we? All I can tell you is that it requires a heck of a lot of planning and logistics.

Doing big secret stuff: Even more secret stuff. It's big. And it's secret. I so want to tell you ALL about it. But I can't. Not yet anyway. Soon... hopefully.

Yes, I do realise that I am a bit of a tease.

And finally...

Winning the World Music Networks Battle of the Bands: For the past year I have been a member of the Choir Invisible. And we've recently won the World Music Networks Battle of the Bands, which means that we are going to be recorded for one of their albums! Absolutely fantastic news you'll agree, so I have to go now and brush up on my swahili...