The uses of knives as a Scout you need to know

 

Sadly in the twenty-first century knives get a bad press due to their misuse by high school aged children and young adults but there is place, a very important place in the context of scouting because a well designed pen knife will get you out of many a hole.

That's why you need one even if we don't take them with us to weekly get togethers and obviously when you do have them do keep them out of sight until actually required.

This illustration shoes their usuage well.

Calculating daylight remaining

Like a small number of people I do struggle with "Telling the time" which was a bit of an issue in very timetable settings such as school but there are otherways of working out roughly how much daylight you have and from that having some idea of time of day.

While the source of this illistration isn't one I endorse, it is actually really useful if you are out and let's say your watch fails or worse still gets lost.

Using a compass and map

 One of the most important things to learn is to orientate using a map and compass as allowing a little between magnetic and true north it is one of the most accurate ways available to you and doesn't suffer from "batteries are low".

Making a difference

Marching very much to the beat of your own drum in a procession.

This week it was reported a 10-year-old boy climbed more than 300ft down a ravine to save his mother who was seriously injured in a fall.

Oban Mountain Rescue in Scotland praised the boy who used his mum's phone to call the emergency services to give directions to their location.

The boy was also accompanied by his father and two sisters when the accident happened and she said to be "out of danger and comfortable" in hospital.

Details about this boy are scarce possibly for a reason but in order to do what he did he needed to have learned to climb, make a call and know how to help keep a person conscious but it seems quite possible he belong to some organization that may of taught this.

Sometimes we here so much negativity about youth and especially about boys but here is something that is very commendable and certainly worthy of an award.

Practice makes perfect

In what looks very much like a vintage picture, the cubs appear to be practising balancing by walking on a supported piece of wood one foot in front of the other getting from one end to the other without falling off.

This I know would be very difficult for me personally as I disabilities that affect my co-ordination and balance apart from my difficulties in walking.