Good deeds are always worth it!

A good turn a day was one of the original concepts of scouting over a hundred years ago. This has been one of the things that scouts have been made fun out of for: Everyone, I'm sure, has heard something like: "Ah, you're a scout! So you help little old ladies across the street then?" A good turn has turned into community service activities, fundraising and lots of other great charity activities. But I do think that we shouldn't miss out the "a good turn a day" from the program.

Especially the younger members need the clarity of that concept: A large community project is difficult to grasp, and collecting money is easy, and undemanding, and if it's not followed up by proper discussion, or, like in Akela Joy's case a concrete, tangiable result of the effort.

I try to do my good deeds. Not that I think about it very often, I just try and be as a generous and helpful person as possible. It's not that difficult: Holding the door open for a collegue, helping a lost student out in the liberary, sharing lesson materials... Sometimes I "pay it forward" and buy a bag for the next shopper in line, or ask the staff at my favourite café to treat the next customer to coffee on me.

A good turn should be done not expecting any thanks or rewards. The satisfaction of knowing you've made someonelses day a little bit easier should be enough. And, if you believe in it, it helps your Karma.

This winter it has been rather easy to get the good turns in, as there has been ridiculous amounts of snow to shovel, and the neighbours have been poorly, so my husband and I have tried to do their bits of pavement as well as our own. They've kept an eye on our house when we've been away and are always so nice, so it's not a huge effort.

The greatest reward is knowing that we've helped out. An unexpected bonus was the two envelopes we recieved today. One was a voucher to use in our favourite coffee shop, one had a substansial sum of cash. We tried to give it back, but they wouldn't have it, so we've decided to use it for a family meal in a restaurant. Good karma.

An interesting observation

Still got a couple of texts left to write, and as usual I'm very greatful for every interuption. There is very little time for "proper" scouting at the moment, so I was glad of the oportunaty to give two of my Challengers a lift to the cottage in the woods.
They had originally planned a sleep-over in the Hut in town to get started constructing their bath tub raft for the legendary Bath Tub Race in Säve in April, but had forgotten to book, so they rearranged the weekend: Instead of driving up to collect the tubs, they took the rest of the gear up into the woods instead. We had a lovely chat in the car about leadership: comparing their group in scouts with the theatre group they are both part of, discussing the need for a leader in a group, inofficial group leaders, haow to deal with them and how to win and keep the trust of group members. I think we all learnt a great deal.
The woods were white and silent. The first part of the road had been cleared, but soon we were wading through knee high snow. The two accompaning dogs loved it, but I felt slightly silly, as I had shoes on rather than boots. When their friends arrived I left them there to go back home to write, but I rather wished I could have stayed there.
On my way down to the car (appr. 10k) I made an interesting observation: It took less energy, and went a lot quicker to jog through the deep snow that to walk! At least I now have had a little bit of exercise.

Book meeting

I went to Borås to meet Fredrik, who is in charge of the project group around the new program and also in charge of overseeing the books for the scouts, and Sara, who is also writing the material. We had a productive meeting over a pizza, and decided a new time plan and divided the last texts up between us.

This weekend I'm to put my board game on paper to send to the graphic designer, and I need to write an article on mentorship in scouts. It's a fairly new thing at this level, which makes it a little bit difficult, but I'm fairly confident that I can present the idea in an understandable way.

Next week I have another article on leadership within the the Challenger group to finish and lots of texts to scrutinize, pictures to decide and whatnot.

6th of March all the texts need to be done. I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Let the festivities begin!

The Centinary Celebrations have been commenced. On Thursday a group of industrious leaders built the exhibition in the Town Hall and on Saturday we had fires going outside, selling hotdogs and giving out Billberry soup to passing shoppers in the biting cold. It was nice to stand by the fires in the crisp winter sun, and in spite of the thermometer showing almost -10 we kept warm all morning. And we had the moving pictures to look forward to.
It was so cold when we arrived after having picked the gear up in the Hut, that the electronic locks on the Town Hall had frozen and we couldn’t get in to start the exhibition video projector up. As it had been down into the -20ies in some places, the security company had loads on their hands, going around to check alarms and water pipes in village halls and old people’s homes around the council, and it wasn’t until 11 we got into the hall. By then the fires were lit, the first sausages were nicely charring away on the grid and the first pot of bilberry soup was heating up.
A few children took the offer of grilling their own, while most hot dog buyers made do with the ready grilled ones. Surprisingly enough we didn’t have any mishaps with sausages falling into the fire, and the blackened, cauldron like pot of bilberry soup bubbled away nicely and it’s content spread warmth, not only to us, but to quite a few of the passing Saturday shoppers.
A steady trickle of interested people went through the exhibition; curious parents with small children, ex-members of various ages and a few people who just wanted to get in from the cold for a spell. All in all it was a great success.
Just after three I hurried into the old cinema, that is as old as the group and some, and now, rumour has it, holds one of the best photographic museums in Europe. The audience this afternoon consisted of scouts, active ones and former members, who were hoping, or dreading, to catch a glimpse of themselves in old films that had been dug out of cupboards and drawers for the occasion.
First we got treated to a rare cartoon with Woody Woodpecker to get us into the mood. It was a nice reminiscence! Then an old film from the 50ies, when the group had a small hut in the woods by a nearby lake. Ladies with big handbags and small hats were chatting, while serious looking men with trench coats and hats were exchanging pleasantries, while stylishly dressed scout leaders served coffee and cakes and Scouts, Cubs, Brownies and Guides were trying to behave in front of the camera. Then films from the 60ies: An international scout camp at Stegeborg, near Stockholm, where exotic looking scouts from all over the world had been caught on camera and smiling faces that we recognised. Comments about how exiting it had all been, in spite of the mud, the rain and the mosquitoes were heard around the room from slightly greyer haired ladies and gentlemen, still very much recognisable from the silver screen images.
Then videos from the early 90ies, where leaders who are still active, looking so much younger then, were singing the same songs to kids that are now grown up and some sitting in the room with their own children, who are now ready to join. The birch woods around our cottage were as intensly green back then, but less dense.

Two hours flew by, and we all felt that we could have watched a little bit more. We also heard from the audience that there are more films out there, and more people who would have come if the roads hadn't been so icy. So we're hoping for a new screening in the summer.

Unfortunately I hadn't time to stay around to chat, as I had a birthday celebration to attend (not mine). I spent a good part of the rest of the evening in a wooden hot tub in a neighbour's garden, in the moonlight and -12, with ice in my hair and stars in my eyes as well as in the sky. But that is a totally different story.

District council

This year's District Council was held in Halmstad and I went in the capacity of District Training Officer, to be able to pick up on what wishes the groups have for the comming year's training. There is a huge interest in training at the moment, that is so important to tap into, but unfortunately it is so difficult to respond as we are a very small district. Fortunately we are surrounded by some very much larger districts, whose courses we can send our leaders to.

Also, a representative from the Jamboree team was there to talk about Camp in Camp and advice the groups on how to organise it. What a huge organisation! But it'll be great!

As usual we had great food, a good laugh, and came away with many thoughts and lots of new inspiration.

I helped make this!

In the post today was a copy of the first edition of the new Scout leader reference book with the new program! 270 pages of facts and hints about how to be the best scout leader, and a super person, with lovely, contemporary pictures, lovely layout and a lovely new smell of ink and paper.

I helped make this!

My name is not on the cover, and I'm not even mentioned in the credits, but I helped make this by reading through most of the texts, "diversity checking", that is making sure that the texts are inclusive of minorities and the examples are equaliy distributed between men and women, that there are a variety of skin colour, cultural referenses and so on.

This summer I helped "market" it, by answering questions and taking in opinions of the "dud" at Scout Forum, meeting scouts and leaders from all over Sweden, from all different scout organisations in Sweden. I even talked about it with Americans and Japanese scout leaders.

Today it arrived in the post, and I'm so proud!

In a months time the Challengers' book need to be finished. This weekend will be spent ardously at the keyboard. Then my name will be in the credits. And I will be so proud.

Starbright

I so wish I could show you what the sky was like tonight! But it was too dark for pictures when we got to the golf course with our tobogans. The clouds raced like pink candy floss over a velvety background, and it looked like one of those close-ups from a gangster film, you know when the gangsters are going to by guns or drugs and they nonchalantly roll out this black velvet cloth with lots of sparkling stones on it. It was awesome!

We ran up the slope and raced down it, time and time again, until we were out of breath, swetty and rosy cheeked. We were laughing, and screeming and having fun. We were alone on the slope, noone else but scouts would be crazy enough to go toboganning in the dark. One of the girls had suggested it, but noone really had any tobogans. "We've all grown out of tobogans in our house" said one of the boys, who will be 18 this spring. Lucky that the leaders had some!

When we were leaving to go back to the hut, and the hot chocolate, we had a text. The Rovers were snowracing in the next slope! So we got in our cars and drove for a kilometer and visited, had a test run of that one too, before we turned back to the hut.

What a wonderful outdoor experience!