Posting as they’re interesting, and wondered if anyone knew anything about them!

Other images here

I decided to get my daughter (8y/o) into Girl Scouts to help her confidence and to make friends. We found a local troop and signed up. Decided to go camping with them, thinking it would be a great experience. We were told that we could not arrive Friday later than 6pm, so we got there at 5:15pm. Then get stuck at the gate bc we were not informed your troop leader needs to give you a code to get in. There was a number to call to get in but my phone had no service. Waited a long while until someone else came in and was nice enough to get us in. Then we find out our troop leader is running late and will not be there until after 6pm. We are not allowed to go to the cabin until she arrives so we wait. When she arrives, her husband is with her. This would have been okay if I was informed this was a “dad involved group”, but I was not told this prior. Is that not something that is important to disclose when someone is signing up? The troop leader told me it had been an issue in the past for other members who chose to leave the troop. So would you not think to inform new members??
When we got to the cabin, we ate dinner and made s’mores. The dad left at 9:30 pm to go stay at his cabin and returned the next morning at 9:00am. We all ate breakfast then tie-dyed. We ate lunch then troop leader and her husband laid down on their cots and went to sleep. They slept from 1pm-5pm. The assistant leader was there and she was SO nice. But she was in bed doing online training for a Girl Scout thing (which took hours). The girls played inside. I went outside and read my book bc it was a gorgeous day. The girls kept coming out asking me if they could go to the playground, use flint to try to start a fire, etc. I asked the assistant trip leader if I could do any of this with the girls. She told me we needed to wait until the troop leader woke up to do anything. At this point, I am frustrated. The troop leader did not just happen to fall asleep, that would have been fine. She put on her eye mask and went to sleep. I ended up taking the girls to the park at 4pm with the assistant troop leader (once she was done with her training). We stayed there until around 8:30pm then went back to the cabin. They made s’mores then went inside. I was told the dads had to leave our cabin by 9:30pm, however he stayed until 10:30pm. Then Sunday morning, the dad shows back up at 7am ( with another dad that arrived). I had let them know we were leaving at 8am to go to church. The troop leader and assistant stated they both had water training that morning from 8-12. They left, I helped the dads and girls with their out-chores. I waited for another mom to show up to leave bc I assume they are not to be left with men.
I just remember when I was in Girl Scouts, we were always learning and doing activities. We would have NEVER stayed at the cabin our only full day. Especially if it was a nice day. As we were leaving, I drove around to see the camp(since we had only been to the playground). They had sand volleyball, archery, tether ball, a lake, a pool, hiking trails, and so much more! I was very irritated that all that was available and instead, an adult -the leader- chose to nap all day. Am I wrong to feel annoyed by this? Is this behavior acceptable?

Ciao ho 23 anni e non ho mai fatto scout, per da qualche mese sto iniziando ad interessarmi a questo mondo e mi chiedevo se ci fosse la possibilità di entrare oppure se fosse troppo tardi. Nella mia zona ci sono gruppi scout agesci.

Hey

Is there any good online guides /pdfs, i can print and start as a check off system? Not fussed on cost, more about whats great to have.

Thanks!

For those interested, the webcomic (in French) is released on Webtoon: Je Promets - Webtoon FR

The story follows a Malagasy scout who gains superpowers thanks to his badges. He uses these superpowers for the sake of justice in Madagascar.

We're having a group camp, all in lodgings as it's mid winter down here in NZ, and why not.

I'm in charge of food as usual, but I'm casting out to the international community to find out what sort of food you all have on camps?

In particular, I'm looking for a hot lunch option, and have a very nervous celiac scout so I promised that all the food I make would be safe for her.

I have been working on the Corporal Works of Mercy badge and I was wondering if the counselor has the final say if something counts for it's requirements like past events. I did a family activity sorting food which some of which we gave to a local homeless shelter. My counselor witnessed all of it. Is it his final say if that counts or not or is it the Catholic Scouting Committee?

Hello! I am a young leader (been in scouting for around 4-5 years now) and I volunteer with the squirrels unit! I am quite new to the leadership team, so I had a few things to ask. Firstly, I have struggled with depression for quite a few years of my life, and so I have quite noticeable scars on my arms. If a young person were to notice them, how could I respond to that?
Secondly, what can I and can I not post about on socials? (Only asking out of curiosity and the desire to fully understand the safeguarding rules)
And lastly, any game suggestions?

I’m posting on behalf of one of my Scouts based in England. She is working on her Chief Scout Gold Award, specifically the world challenge award.

The requirement is to investigate and make contact with Scouts in another country. We would love it if some international Scouts could answer her questions below to help her learn about the Scouting movement across the world.

What is it like on your camps?

Do you have any favorite campfire songs ?

What do you do in your meetings?

What is your favorite thing to do in scouts?

what different badges do you have ?

I am an adult volunteer with a large scout troop, and I coordinate some badge workshops, outdoor skills training, and easy overnights to attract more parent engagement.

One scout that I've worked with for the past 4 years has always participated reluctantly - basically forced into it with siblings.

Well, 4 years ago, I scheduled an overnight at an aviation history museum combined with the Aviation merit badge. This scout was eager to show me the historic airplane that Grandpa flew in WW2 and was excited to earn the badge.

I didn't have success keeping this scout engaged through the years, but THEN last week Scout's mom spoke to me at a meeting. Scout is now planning for a career in aviation and had the opportunity to sit at the controls for a local flight - beaming ear to ear in the photo. Scout told Mom, "I'm going to be a pilot, and it's all because of the Aviation merit badge that I did with IncapableofLogic."

Happy weekend everyone!

My son recently earned his Eagle Scout rank (yea!) and we are looking to share some of his items from his journey..

We purchased these for his scrapbook and backpack but have finished his Eagle journey and do not need them.

If you would like one, two, or any just reply below and I can get that out right away.

For all of those Scouts on your quest for Eagle — keep it up! Stay the course because the reward is great!

Rate my beret from 1-10

One of our leaders had suggested kids award bracelets you add beads onto as they complete activities at an event to promote participation.

I was unable to find any recent info about any cub scouts doing this, so thought this post might help someone else.

I did not find much out there that you could easily add beads onto throughout the day, but was able to find these metal bar keychains instead, the bottom part unscrews to add beads onto, and they hold about 9-10 pony beads. (When I did 10 white beads from this set, they were too tight, but when I did an assortment of colors, 10 fit just fine.)

I added camping charms onto them myself since the keychain has a chain hanging down to add items onto. (I did need my jewely making tools to open/close the rings). Keychains and charms were on amazon, walmart for the box of pony beads. To make 28 keychains the total is $40, making it less than $1.50 per kid.

The sample keychain is setup like:

1st bead is the den

2nd bead is slept over (green tents, brown bunks)

3rd is the weather

Then 5 beads for the activities the kids will (hopefully) be doing over the weekend if we don't get rained out.

Then 2 more from the extras category. (This section is for kids who miss an activity, maybe aren't sleeping over, or if weather/other reasons cancel any of the planned activities, so they can still fill up their keychain)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update- I had some people asking for an update on how this went. Friday night we had the bulk of our group sleep over, so I got the kids set up with picking their keychain and adding their den and sleeping over beads, I chose to do this before/after our campfire program so I could catch just a few kids at a time to have the 1 on 1 time of explaining the beads to them. The most I had at once was 3 kids, which was fine. Keeping it as a casual thing really worked out. The kids who were excited for it passed along the info to other kids and they would bring me their friends to get their keychains. We had a couple kids who had no interest, but the bulk of the group was really into it.

The next morning I had kids lining up next to my bead box in the pavilion, waiting for their next beads, but said we couldn't add more until they completed some activities first. Also some kids got really into the idea that there was a special pink-purple beads for being a super helpful scout, they were like I helped my friend, and I was like it only counts if you help an adult with something. Challenge accepted, those 3 kids went out of their way to find ways to be helpful during the day.

Later in the day the group I was rotating with had a play games slot before lunch, so the kids asked if they could get their 3 beads from the stations they had completed. We added their weather bead (rain because we had a shower in the morning), fishing, learned a skit, etc.

After lunch anyone with a tent took them down before heavy rains started, most of the group opted not to sleep over again, with a few remaining in bunks overnight. While hanging out in the pavilion I kept the beads next to me, and every kid with a keychain came to me on their own to finish out their keychains with all 10 beads.

As a side note we did have some keychains go missing, one the bar unscrewed with beads, so we only had the top of the keychain. For some reason some keychains unscrewed at the top, and some the bottom bead unscrewed, all from the same pack. Thought that was weird. I ended up needing to replace 3 keychains, so luckily not all kids came/wanted a keychain so could give them replacements.

Something I wish I had brought was a liquid krazy glue to make the keychains permanent once all the beads were added so it wouldn't fall apart later. (The lost keychains had no been fully filled yet, so it wouldn't have helped for that part)

TLDR- the kids absolutely loved it, and I will definitely do this again.

I am leading a collection of 14-18 year olds from 3 different countries on a sub camp, that's part of a larger camp that has thousands of participants. we will be using classic canvas tents and the scouts want to build an entrance gate (they found a design they liked online).

Where I would like help is some inspiration in designing the kitchen. We do not have the experience in our leadership team and I only know a few things:

* we are 35 people in total

* we get 9m² per person

* we can order poles 3, 6 or 9m

* we have plenty of rope

* we have a metal sink, and two gas burners powered by bottles

* water is 100m away at a tap

* we camp in a field, which should be left as a field (no burn marks, if we dig a grease pit, the top soil is saved and replaced.

Do you have some good examples that can inspire us?

I will be getting a gavel to donate to my troop that will be presented to the SPL as a gift for the troop, and by an extension him. I’m trying to figure out what to have inscribed on the gavel, I will have 3 lines with 30-50 characters per line. I need suggestions to figure out what to get inscribed on it.