Sunday 25 November 2012

How To Write Up Your Log Books...

Hi Guys! Log books, log books, log books! I hate them, truly I do. For the past five years or so I seem to have been nagging scouts about writing up their log books and all to no avail. Is it any wonder I hate the damned things?

Actually, that's not strictly true! If I hate log books so much I wouldn't be typing this post right here, right now. This blog is a log book. The word blog is an abbreviation for - guess what? Web-log. That's right this blog is a log book...

While searching for some Scouting Ireland forms yesterday I discovered a nice little guide on how and why log books should be written up. Simply put a log book should be your best friend during your journey through scouts, it's a record of what you get up to, where, when and with whom, this, guys, is your memory! It's something that you can pull out when you're older and reminisce with your own kids or even grandkids.


More importantly it is a vital part of securing that illustrious Adventure Skills Badge that you've been hankering after for ages. Each of the AS badges ranges from level 1 - 9. They cover the whole of a scout's journey through the sections from Beavers through to Rangers and beyond. Recently there has been an argument raging that level 9 badges are too hard for your average scout to get. The argument against this train of thought is that level 9 is something for scouts to aspire to...

Imagine, at 9 years of age all you want to do is have mad adventures - well, I did at anyrate! I wanted to jump out of an airplane and free fall to earth without a parachute just for the sheer fun of it. Funnily enough I still rather fancy the idea of it despite the fact that I'm not as fit or healthy as I used to be, suffer from asthma and have chronic back and joint problems. Yes, I still want to do crazy things and since I joined Scouting Ireland as an adult scouter I've done plenty...


Anyway, the point is that Stage 9 Adventure Skills badges aren't necessarily for everyone, but they do serve to inspire young people to get up and get going in terms of making adventures happen. So what if you want to pilot a helicopter when you're 9 years old, maybe by the time you're 29 you might actually get do do it, earlier if you're lucky! There are very few people in this world who do things like that, mainly because they don't know how to do things like that, after all things like that are very much outside of most people's reach aren't they?




Scouting is a lifestyle, including all sorts of skills and pleasures. For adults one of those pleasures is seeing young people realise their dreams, achieve what other people might consider to be unrealistic or simply mad!

We sometimes use outside experts in doing this, but imagine the joy of being able to take a more active part in making this happen? Being able to teach hands on in scouting is a joy, just imagine teaching someone to do this...

Scouters are encouraged to go for gold, whether it be level 6 AS badges or level 9, it's great to be able to assess young people and help them get those precious badges. To do this we've to be two levels above those we're assessing...

Looking at the photos in this post reminds me of the first time I tried rock climbing and abseiling. These are things I've always wanted to do, but didn't know how or where to go until I became a scouter. Admittedly my cliff wasn't as big as the large climbing wall above, but to me it was huge! I doubt if I personally will ever get very far in terms of rock climbing as my upper body strength isn't what it could be, but I know plenty of scouters who've got to the high levels in terms of this particular skill and who are only too willing to share their knowledge and skills in this area with young people.

I also know scouters who go climbing actual rock faces in the Scottish mountains during winter time, just because they can! So, the moral of the story is write up those log books, do it on line or on paper, take photo's, draw sketches, learn how to understand route cards, plot your coordinates, etc and make a record of each and every adventure you take part in. Sooner or later you'll be able to present your log book to your scouters in the full knowledge that it, and it alone will secure you that coveted adventure skills badge.

Without your logbook this is going to be more difficult than you might imagine. Remember, we have a natural tendency to forget even the most exciting and best of things simply because we're human! To help you with writing up your log books Scouting Ireland have published this guide, click on the link and be magically transported to a place where log books are no longer a mystery...

AND finally, get writing up those Log Books!

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