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S5-420-15 Gilwell Gazettes

S5-420-15 Gilwell Gazettes

 

I had a blast, serving as the Troop 1 Scribe for Wood Badge Course S5-420-15. Here are the Gilwell Gazettes I produced for the practical training weekends in March and April of 2015.  Starting with a pre-course issue zero that was used as promotion and then all the issues created during the two course weekends.

S5-420-15 Gilwell Gazette vol. 1, issue 0 (1754 downloads)

S5-420-15 Gilwell Gazette vol. 1, issue 1 (1349 downloads)

S5-420-15 Gilwell Gazette vol. 1, issue 2 (1572 downloads)

S5-420-15 Gilwell Gazette vol. 1, issue 3 (1289 downloads)

S5-420-15 Gilwell Gazette vol. 1, issue 4 (1333 downloads)

S5-420-15 Gilwell Gazette vol. 1, issue 5 (1700 downloads)

S5-420-15 Gilwell Gazette vol. 1, issue 6 (1915 downloads)

 

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Round Lashing Game

I've been leading the Pioneering Badge with a group of Scouts since February. A year ago, it's something I would've been unable to do. Leading this badge is one of my ticket items for Wood Badge - a highly involved Scout leadership program. Not having been a Boy Scout as a youth, this is kind of the closest thing I can do to earn a rank in Scouting as an Adult.

A year ago when I did the Wood Badge weekends of camping/training I was a disaster at knots and knew nothing of lashings and hitches. That's why I chose leading this badge as one of the five Wood Badge ticket items I have to complete - it pushed me. It literally took me a year of practicing knots, hitches, and lashings to be able to do this. I carried ropes and cords everywhere and practiced - waiting on planes, on planes, in meetings, etc.

What's the end result? I'm almost finished with the ticket item - but I've discovered that's not really the point. Above all, it's been tremendous fun - the challenge of the skills I had to gain and the process of leading the badge. I strongly believe in Nature Not Lecture - having Scouts gain skills during outings and activities, not sitting in a meeting room listening to a lecture. Leading this badge has proved to be a blast.

Here's a video of a little race I setup. It was my wife's idea - we saw a similar game on Survivor and she thought it would make a great game to teach the Round Lashing. She nailed it - the Scouts had a blast and were tying nice, strong Round Lashings by the end of the evening.

 

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One Man’s 90,000 People’s Trash

Last weekend over 90,000 people attended the Reading Festival in Leeds.
Reading Festival 2013 Trash 1
They left behind an estimated 150 tons of trash.
Reading Festival 2013 Trash 2
Let's take a closer look at that "trash". (Click the image for a better view.)
Reading Festival 2013 Trash 3
Yep - lots of brand new tents, many filled with sleeping bags and other camping gear.

"Camping gear is so cheap these days that people seem to make it part of their festival package budget, and don’t bother to take it with them when they leave," a festival spokesman said.

Despite a 'Love Your Tent' campaign imploring people to pack up and remove their camping gear, thousands clearly did not.

A quote from one attendee: "We never intended to abandon it but although it popped up really easily, it was impossible to get it to fit back in the bag properly. Everyone else was leaving their stuff behind so we did too."
Reading Festival 2013 Trash 4
Last year more than 20 tons of re-useable equipment was salvaged - and this year the figure is expected to be even higher.

This is sad, but at the same time it's a great opportunity for Scouts in the UK to get some free camping gear as the salvaged equipment is donated to Scouts and other outdoor programs.

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Tucker’s Eagle Project

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