OurWay Archive

Nights Away Procedures

Need a little help planning and running a nights away event? Click here for a handy checklist prepared by Windsor & Eton District.  They have also provided a copy of their Nights Away Notification Form which could provide ideas for your own.

 

Submitted by Paul Allum 4 February 2005

Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year Festival provides many opportunities for ideas for programme material for all sections.

In 2005, the Chinese New Year falls on February 9 but the celebrations or festival runs for 15 days. The Years are given animal names ona twelve year cycle.  2005 is the Year of The Rooster and in the Chinese Calendar it is 4702 and has the name Yiyou. In Chinese it is written as

Programme Ideas

New Year decorations

Making a rooster or a rooster picture -  why use the picture above as a template. Make a giant rooster but copying the picture on to a transparent sheet and use an overhead projector to project in an enlarge form on to a bed sheet or a paper sheets fixed to the wall.

Cook some traditional Chinese New Year fare - why not serve it to the parents and raise some funds for a worthwhile cause

Nian Gao
Nian Gao (baked)
Jin Dui
Yau Gwok
Chinese dumplings

Learn to use chopsticks (Refers to Japanese chopsticks which are shorter but it has a useful picture of how to hold chopsticks)

Learn to write some chinese characters such as numbers

As you can see there is a lot of information available on th internet in this area.

Submitted by Geoffrey Mitchell 16 January 2005

Free Play Music

Need some music for a presentation, a CD of the summer camp pics or a Beaver Scout performance for the parents? If so you may be concerned about copyright laws etc. There are a number of websites which offer free play music subject to some limitations. You will need to check out their terms and conditions and one which may meet a number of needs is www.freeplaymusic.com

Submitted by Geoffrey Mitchell 9 January 2005

Assault Course in Bracknell

There is a really good activity base at THE LOOK OUT in Bracknell called GO APE which is an assault course. Minimum age is 10 and minimum height is 1.4m.  More info is at www.GOAPE.co.uk They also have assault courses at Grizedale Forest, Sherwood Forest, New Forest and Thetford Forest.

Submitted by Jamie Macdonald 8 November 2004

Sports

If you ever need some help with Sports, most council run centres have staff that are encouraged to come out to the local community and bring along activities for young people to enjoy. Contact you local sports centre to see if there are activities that the centre can bring to your local Scout HQ and make a really unusual fun night. Click here for a list of local sports centres

Submitted by Jamie Macdonald 8 November 2004 

Beaver Scout Sleepover

Here is the programme of the Sleepover that I organised with Ruth Gray for our two colonies last year.  The Sleepover started on Friday evening and finished on Saturday morning.

Submitted by Cath Bryant 16 November 2004

Software for scheduling an activity weekend or day

Taceham Hundred has a Access database which allows someone who is organising an event with a lot of activities to take the heartache out of scheduling. It holds the individual records of the young and not so young people on site, these include contact numbers while their away, medical information, permissions etc. It will also generates reports for activity Leaders, section leaders, or indeed anyone who needs a list of participants or helpers to be in a certain place at a certain time. We have used it for two District camps and it does work. For more information go to

www.tacehamhundred.org.uk

 and "click" on the webmaster button.

Submitted by Pete Kearley 11 November 2004

Home Contact Folder

Every activity which involves  nights away, or an international expedition or involves adventurous activities outside the home district requires a Home Contact.  It is good practise to have home contact for any Beaver Scout or Cub Scout outing or activity away from your normal meeting point and any adventurous activity even if it is in your own district. Make life simple by spending a couple of hours assembling a Home Contact Folder which you can pass to whoever you selected as Home Contact.

An arch-level folder provides plenty of space without fear of opening the rings and spilling the contents. Suggested contents:

•  An introduction page with a contents list*
• Copy of the step-by-step guide for the Home Contact from the Home Contact factsheet*
• Contact information for the expedition or activity#
• Contact information for the local Scout organisation in the event of an emergency (eg DC)*
• Copy of the briefing instructions for the expedition or activity#
• List of participants - use your membership list with participants highlighted#
• Copy of permission forms if relevant with updated contact information#
• Copy of health forms for all members of your colony/pack/troop/unit including Adult Volunteers*
• Copy of the Scout Association Home Contact Guideleines - click here to view*
• Copies of  the 'information to be recorded form' from the Home Contact Guidelines*

The items marked with a * will not change from month to month so only the remaining items marked with a # need changing for each event.  For the activity contacts - list all that possible numbers and simply cross out those which do not apply to a particular event. Make two of these folders, one for the Home Contact and one for the Expedition or activity. The folder provides the Home Contact with all the information they need, makes clear what to do in an emergency but minimises the work you need to do as section leader. If you have a regular Home Contact make up a folder and leave it with them; just send the items specific for each event by email. 

Submitted by Geoffrey Mitchell 12 November 2004

 

Visit the parents

As a section leader visit prospective new young people and their
families before the young person starts.  It is good to explain what happens on a colony/pack/troop night, what awards etc can be gained and for the parents what support the colony/pack/troop will need from them. You should never be short of parental help for camp or other activities. Who knows you might recruit new leaders.

Submitted by Lynn Smith 7 November 2004

Getting to know people

As a District or Group or Section Leader try to make time to meet with each member of your team annually for a 1 to 1 talk, you will get to know them and their situation in and outside of Scouting better. I find from experience the leaders readily give more support to activities and requests for help.  

Submitted by Lynn Smith 7 October 2004

Disposable Waterproof Camera for your next activity

Fed up with messing up you expensive camera and want to take pics of those magic moments on the river, in the swimming pool or just in the rain, then why not try a disposable but waterproof camera. A FujiFilm quicksnap camera with flash and a 27 exposure film is available from Asda and other places for  £7.88. You will need to get the film developed and printed which makes it about 50p a print. Remember this a waterproof camera the results are pretty good see a pic by clicking here. Underwater, the camera takes pics up to 3m away.

Submitted by Phil Mitchell 3 November 2004

Bouncy Castles

Harmanswater Primary School hires out a bouncy castle http://www.hwps.ik.org/ - follow the link to the Parents page

Submitted by Kim Papps 23 October 2004

A winter weekend for Scouts

Residential experiences in the winter period can be great fun but not all are ready to face the rigours of camping in October through to March.  So why not stay indoors for a change, and Youth Hostels provide possibilities all across the country.  The Group, Troop or Unit needs to be a member but this is free to Scout Units. Contact the YHA - see the entry in the ResourceBase for the  contact details. At the Youth Hostel you may wish to cater for yourselves using the Members Kitchen or stay in style and pay for the evening meal and breakfast available at nearly all hostels.

One weekend we have run a number of times with great success is to travel by train to Chepstow and then hike along the River Wye to the Youth Hostel at St Briavels Castle. Yes it is a real castle - your scouts will love it. In the evening we would have a patrol-based cooking competition - buy the food in Chepstow before the hike. On the Sunday we hiked across to Lydney where there is an unmanned railway station for the return journey (you will probably need to change trains at Newport or Gloucester). The Sunday route in particular, provides some good opportunities for map reading. You get to see some great scenery especially along the River Wye but is fairly sheltered so it is still ok in the winter months. If you go on the train rather than a minibus it is a good opportunity for Scouts to experience a self-contained expedition with no vehicles, you will of course want to pitch the route at an achievable level. The final part from the river to the hostel at St Briavels is a bit of a slog for the less than  fit members. 

There are many other Youth Hostels where similar weekends or even longer can be based. Not all hostels are open throughout the winter months, but if you have a reasonable sized group you can book the whole hostel through the rent-a-hostel scheme and then you will be the only ones there.

Submitted by Geoffrey Mitchell 23 October 2004

Expedition planning

The County organised a successful expedition to Slovenia during the summer of 2004. The programme included: mountain activities; water activities; exploring the country; Explorer Belt Award; and DofE Award. The organising team managed all logistics including: vehicles (coach; van; minibus; cars); travel (air and overland); base camps; programme logistics; food; finances; insurance; training programme; etc.

Members of the organising team will be pleased to share knowledge and experiences with others planning expeditions.

Submitted by Mick Stocks Project Leader: Slovenia Expedition 2004 23 October 2004

Raising Our Profile

When you send any communication by post from your Group, Unit, District or Team why not afix a self-adhesive label to it proclaiming the origin of the communication for example

East Reading Explorer Scouts

Fun, friendship and adventure for

young men and women aged 14-18 years

in East Reading, Earley and Lower Earley

explorerscouts@eastreadingscouts.org.uk

24 hr hotline 0709 200 1712

www.eastreadingscouts.org.uk

 

It also serves to let parents know the origin in the case where it is sent to a young person. Self-adhesive labels are readily available from Staples and elsewhere Avery L7162 (J8162 for inkjet printers) is a useful size. To help compose the labels you can download a useful addition to MS Word the Avery Wizard from the Avery Website. This helps set the label size etc. Click here for details.

Submitted by Geoffrey Mitchell 23 October 2004

Free Answerphone Service

A free answerphone service is available via www.yac.com. This provides a telephone service, one feature of which is an answerphone. The messages are sent by email as .wav files to an email address of your choice. The payment of an annual fee allows you to record a personalised message. See www.yac.com for details. The Opportunties@Scouts4Me works in this manner.

Submitted by Geoffrey Mitchell 22 October 2004

A similar service is operated by DM Club - www.dmclub.co.uk

When someone rings it it gives them a list of options and for each option it phones leaders in a set order; i.e. on selecting 'Cub Leaders' it rings the CSL, then if there is no answer it goes onto the ACSL, and so on.

It is completely user programmable, you can record your own messages, or type them in and a robot will read them. It can also take a message.  This service is completely free.

3rd Newbury find it very useful as it means that the leaders, do not have to give out our personal telephone numbers in publicity material.

If you want to hear their system phone the 3rd Newbury  Group number on 0700 5 942 267.

Submitted by Danny Scroggins August 2005

Nights Away System

 

An adult leader running an activity which involves a night away must inform their District Commissioner or appointee. In Maidenhead District they use a web-based entry form which can be view here. This provides prompts for the information required and delivers it by email to the correct people.

Submitted by Ray Tucker 18 October 2004

Activity Notification

An adult leader running an event which involves adventurous activities must inform their District Commissioner or appointee. In Maidenhead District they use a web-based entry form which can be view here. This provides prompts for the information required and delivers it by email to the correct people.

Submitted by Ray Tucker 18 October 2004

ResourceBase

Berkshire Scouts ResourceBase is an on-line resource centre for adult volunteers involved in Scouting across Berkshire. The ResourceBase is searchable and contains programme ideas, events, locations and much much more. Got some good ideas? send them in to resourcebase@berkshirescouts.org.uk

Click here to link to the latest entries in the ResourceBase

Submitted by Geoffrey Mitchell 17 October 2004