Positive Discrimination

Posted on 5 July, 2010 by Kiff

: Image via Wikipedia

Hello Dear Reader

The term Positive Discrimination or Affirmative Action as it is sometime called refers to policies that take “race, colour, religion, sex or national origin” into consideration.

The focus of such policies ranges from employment and education to public contracting and health programs. “Positive Discrimination” is action taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and business from which they have been historically excluded.

We have probably all come across this in one form or another however I never though I would come across it in Scouting until now.

Now there is a little voice in the back of my head saying tread carefully here Kiff you are walking on very thin ice.

Let me get the easy things out the way first, Girl in Scouting is a good thing it provides balance diversity competition and some really good laughs.

I am also very aware that even now some 17 years[i] after girls was able to join all sections of Scouting, that there are still people who talk about the boys do this and the boys did that. I am also aware that some scout leaders will offer every option available to a girl wishing to join before saying they can join the waiting list for their group.

However there seem now to also be a rise of the people who are adamant that we must have girls in every scout group and we should be going out and actively recruiting girls into scouting almost to the point of leaflet bombing the local guide company or giving girls preferential treatment on waiting lists.

Before we get to this state of Positive Discrimination, lets look at the options. If you happen to be in a scout group that shares a building with a strong guide company, or live in an area where parents want the boys to build fires and play with axes and the girls to makes sandwiches and braid hair (I am not sure what they do in Guides but that sounds about right[ii]) then instead of stressing about how you get guides to switch codes why not run a monthly joint activity, or a joint camp every other year.

I feel strongly that the opportunity for girls should be there to join which ever scout group she would like to however we should be actively recruiting YOUNG PEOPLE and we should be looking to provide the best scouting opportunities for those young people.

: Image via Wikipedia

My daughter is now about 15months old and with my wife being a guide leader and my involvement in Scouting, there is a long road ahead for me to teach my daughter about the Dark Side and to help her see the light. However I see it as her choice Rainbows starts at a younger age than beavers so she will probably do both and will remain doing both where possible until she gets to Guide/Scout age then it will be for her to make the decision about where she wants to go be it Scouts or Guides

[i] It should be noted that they were allowed to join Ventures in 1976

[ii] This is a JOKE for all those guidey people out there

Would Love to hear your thoughts on this, or if you have come across it.

TTFN

TTFN

Kiff

©ChrisMeadows2012

Hello Reader – Are you new to Jabbering All Day Long can I suggest that you check out our Starter for Ten Page which will hopefully give you a guide as you take your first couple of footsteps around this site.

I LOST THE GAME – Thanks John Green

Posted on 21 June, 2010 by Kiff

Hello Dear Reader

I LOST THE GAME

I have to make an announcement this morning, I have to let you all know that thanks to John Green of the Vlog Brothers

I LOST THE GAME

I am also sorry to say that if you know what I am talking about you have just lost the game to.

If you have no idea what I am talking about, The Game is a mind game where the objective is to avoid thinking about The Game itself. If you think about the The Game you lose

There are three rules to the game

Rule 1) You are Playing the Game.

This rule bugs people because, whether you like it or not you are playing the game there is no escape, what will bug you more is the fact that the only way to win the game, temporally, is to no know you playing the game, so I am afraid if you new to this you going to lose.

Rule 2) Every time you think of the Game you Lose

Which mean that by telling some one about the Game you lose because you have to think about the game so even reading the rule means you lose. It is also because of that rule if you try to think about a way to win the game you Lose.

Rule 3 ) Loss of the Game must be Announced.

Which is why I am writing this post to tell you all that I have lost. The annoying thing is that it has probably been about 8 month since I first found out I was playing the game and it would seem that I was doing really well but thank to Mr John Green I lost.

If you want to know more information about the game John explains it much better in the vlog I linked to at the top of the page or you can go to Lose The Game

TTFN

Kiff

©ChrisMeadows2012

Hello Reader – Are you new to Jabbering All Day Long can I suggest that you check out our Starter for Ten Page which will hopefully give you a guide as you take your first couple of footsteps around this site.

Why all the Fuss

Posted on 10 February, 2010 by Kiff

Hello Dear Reader

It baffles and amuses me that when something like Twitter or Facebook changes the population of those forums goes nut we see Facebook forums set up called:-

I like my old Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg why the change

How could you ruin my life by changing my Facebook

Oh… wow….. everthing has moved….

and the most annoying

If they don’t change Facebook back I am going to leave

First point is these pages are set up ON FACEBOOK and you are there by using the tool which you are saying is not for you it just weakens your argument. It is like writing on a banner “I will never use Pens again…. Well ok after this last time”

Secondly Mark Zuckerberg has us all by the short and curlies because we like the social interaction that facebook give us.

Are you ready here are the numbers:-

Company Figures

• More than 400 million active users

• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day

• More than 35 million users update their status each day

• More than 60 million status updates posted each day

• More than 3 billion photos uploaded to the site each month

• More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week

• More than 3.5 million events created each month

• More than 3 million active Pages on Facebook

• More than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook

• More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day

• Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans

Average User Figures

• Average user has 130 friends on the site

• Average user sends 8 friend requests per month

• Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook

• Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month

• Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month

• Average user becomes a fan of 4 Pages each month

• Average user is invited to 3 events per month

• Average user is a member of 13 groups

Information taken from the Facebook statistics page

It would not matter if they made Facebook florescent orange with a strobe effect we would still log in everyday so we could:-

a. join a group about stopping the hunting of Vegetarians with pointed sticks because it is offence to the one legged goat herder in Iamnotsurewhereitisastan

b. vent to the world that we are / are not (delete as appropriate) happy that mum cooked chicken casserole using chicken

c. Spend hours running on a virtual treadmill in order to level up our fitness.

So what is your point Kiff – well why complain about something, you know that after two evenings of using you will just accept and continue to use. I mean can anyone remember what the original Facebook looked like. I have done a search and can’t find an image of it anywhere – so unless Mark Zuckerberg reads my blog (which I doubt very much) and posts a screen grab he has we will never know.

Well that is my peace said I am now off to ensure that I get the next badge on bejewled2 before any of my other friends.

p.s. if you want to find me on facebook then click the face book button on the right —>

TTFN

Scouting is 102

Posted on 4 August, 2009 by Kiff

Robert Baden-Powell

On August the 1^st Scouting became 102 years old and I was flooded with a tirade of tweets and Facebook messages telling me so. The question I want to ask is why?

Now get me wrong I am a very proud scout and I will promote scouting in every way possible but do we really need to tell everyone another year has passed. I would have though instead of saying “hurray Scouting is 102” the tweets would have been better places saying “Hurray Sea Scouts are 100” or “this year see Guiding reach its 100^th year”, “Congratulations to Scouting Australia who are 100”

I mean really if you’re going to promote every event why was there no message saying “Happy 93^th Birthday Cubs”, “Congratulations Explorers your 8 today”, “Hurray Beavers you have made it to the grand old age of 27”

It will always be someone 100^th anniversary be it a small scout troop or a National organisation within scouting, I am sure that if we looked, and not that hard, it would be possible to send out a congratulatory message on their anniversary to a group, district, county each day for a whole year. The point is who would what to know?

When Andrew Strauss scored 161 in the Lords test, the crowed showed their appreciation at 50, then again at 100 and finally at 150. Just think how long the day would have been if he had batted to 100 and then every run after that the crowed gave the same standing ovation and he waved he bat at the dressing room.

Maybe I have got the wrong end of the stick here, was this burst of messages, the fact that now with the invention of twitter we feel we must say something to no one in particular, even if it is a rather pointless piece of information. Look back on the years prior to the date you signed up to Twitter or Facebook and think what did you do with that information.

Think back to when scouting was 92, that would be the 1^st August 1999, did you pick up the phone book and call every one and tell them the fact?

I am guessing probably not.

TTFN