From: jim.speirs@canrem.com (Jim Speirs)
To: macman@bernina.ethz.ch
Subject: More Ideas for Patrols

Article #R49.
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More Ideas for Patrols
Robb Baker
The Leader, April 1989


To follow up from last month's column, here are a few more
activities for patrol meetings. Photocopy the page and give it to
your patrol leaders. We thank the Scout Association in New
Zealand for many of these ideas.

Scout Investiture Badge: With any materials you can find, lay out
the Investiture badge on the floor. The finished badge must be at
least 1.8 metres square.

Wall Chart: Make a Scout Law or Promise wall chart as a patrol
project. You can carve it, make it from shells and driftwood,
illustrate it with sketches or photographs, etc. Use it to
decorate you Scout hall or patrol corner.

Charades: Pair off patrol members. In turn, each pair mimes one
of the Scout Laws and the others try to guess which it is.

Scout Law Theme Meeting: Select one of the Scout Laws to use as a
theme for a patrol meeting (e. g. a conservation project, service
to physically disabled members of Scouting, a visit to a sick
member or another needy person in the community, etc.). You'll
find numerous ideas based on Scouting knowledge and the worldwide
brotherhood of Scouts. Look beyond your own patrol, troop,
district, group. There are millions of Scouts in the world ready
to shake hands with a brother.

Baden-Powell: Organize the patrol into two groups and hold a
competition to see how many words of more than three letters each
can make from the letters in the name "Baden-Powell". You can use
each letter only once per word, and each word you create must
appear in the Canadian Scout Handbook.

B.-P.'s Birthday: Do something special to celebrate Feb.22: hold
an inter-patrol activity with a patrol from another troop; attend
a place of worship as a patrol; put on a patrol feast.

Inter-American Scouting: Canada is a member of the Inter-American
Region of the World Scouting Organization. Draw a map of the
region and mark all the Scouting countries. Learn as much as you
can about one of them. Try to get badges from these countries or
pictures of their Scouts in uniform. Mount on a wall chart for
the Scout hall. The activity requires quite a bit of research and
effort on the part of each Scout in the patrol.

Interpreter: A highly intelligent Inuit Scout who cannot clearly
understand English is coming to visit you. Give each member of
your patrol a blank 3 x 5 card on which to provide the visitor
instructions that will enable him to find his way from his point
of arrival in your town to your patrol meeting place.

Speed Check: This project involves several patrol meetings. Learn
which local roads carry the heaviest and/or fastest traffic. At a
patrol meeting, discuss how to arrive at some simple method to
gauge road speeds. For example, time vehicles travelling between
two known points and work out a scale that converts their times
into speed in kilometres per hour (km/h).

At another meeting, select the two points, measure the distance
between them, and work out a scale and accurate method of timing.
The following meeting, station half the patrol at one point and
the rest at the other to gather speed data on passing vehicles.

Timetable Journey: Pick up timetables from the local bus company,
railway station, and airline. Get a set of road maps or a large
scale map of your area. Pair off patrol members and have them
work out how far they could travel between the hours of 8 a.m.
and 8 p.m. on a Saturday, starting and ending at home. They may
use whatever public transport they choose.

Memorials: Visit the various memorials in your town. Select one
and learn all you can about the person or persons it remembers.

Town Sounds: Tape record the sound of a scene in seven to 10
different places around town without giving away any names.
Challenge another patrol in your troop to figure out where the
places are. (Suggestions: railway station, bus stop, hair
dresser, major intersection, department store, etc.).

Knowledge Quiz: Before the patrol meeting, ask each patrol member
to prepare two questions based on local knowledge, giving them
some idea of the type of question you mean (e.g. When does the
first bus leave the terminal? Where is the nearest telephone
booth?). At the meeting, combine all the questions into a quiz
that each Scout tackles as an individual. How do they score?

Observation

The more the eyes are trained to see and the more the memory is
exercised, the more exciting life becomes. An "Observation" theme
provides an almost endless source for activities.

Advertisements: Over a period of a week cut out about 30 well
known advertisements from your local paper. Remove all
information that reveals brand names and give each ad an
identifying number. At the next patrol meeting, organize the
patrol into two groups. Give one 15 ads, the other the rest.
Allow them eight minutes to put the correct brand names or titles
to the ads by writing their answers on a sheet of paper alongside
the number identifying the ad. After eight minutes, switch the
two sets. Make sure each group works out of sight or ear shot of
the other.

Badge Kim: Try to gather 24 or more distinct district badges for
this observation game. Make a grid of 25 squares on a piece of
paper at least 25 cm square. Sit the patrol in a circle and place
the district badges, in an order known to you, in various squares
(you don't have to use them all). Have the patrol examine the
layout for two minutes, then remove the badges. The first Scout
takes a badge and places it where he thinks it belongs. Those who
follow can either do the same or put what they believe is an
incorrectly placed badge where they think it belongs. See how
many moves it takes to get the pattern correct. Try it again
another time using different objects or badges.

Parent Kim: If a patrol meets at a member's house, see if someone
in the household will briefly appear dressed a little oddly or
colourfully. On his or her departure, ask each member to write a
description of the visitor. Alternately, organize two groups and
have each group prepare a description. Ask the visitor to return
and judge who provided the most accurate description.