Ewan Scott wrote:

That may well change from the bottom up. In DoE and in Guides and Scouts,
and I suspect in Cadets and Woodcraft folks (do the BB still do anything?)

they do around here...

we will find that there are indeed restrictions imposed on where we can and
cannot go. -it does vary between organisations - but the trend, supported by
the MLTB, is towards qualifications. certainly for leaders and instructors,

I think award schemes for coaching and basic achievement are very
different things. While you should (assuming some Clues in possession)
have a fair idea of what you can do, there isn't an easy way to tell
what a teacher can teach in many situations. There are certainly
exceptions to that and it would be absurd to say someone without
coaching *s necessarily won't be up to it, but you can tell that someone
with coaching *s knows a certain level of stuff (at least if the
coaching scheme is properly sorted).

With so much business now being generated by people getting instruction
from someone on a professional basis who they wouldn't have known from
Adam before reaching for the Yellow Pages I think it's fair to want some
sort of standard to back that up. But providing a service to someone
and deciding for yourself if you can do something potentially risky are
very different things, or at least they seem so to me.

it is only a matter of time before they start telling us that we can't walk
up Criffell incase we fall of.

Maybe things aren't that bad. See
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/4485133.stm for a
heartening reverse for this sort of nonsense, and from the High Court at
that!

That extreme would bother me too. Except that the learning curve for me has
been dictated by the BCU Star system from the get go.

Shame it isn't a bit more flexible. Not that I know how you'd go about
making it so, of course, but that aspect of being cast in stone is one
of the bad things about it IMHO. Having a badge to say you've swum 50m
is one thing, but something with as many complex and varied aspects as
paddling doesn't work quite so well.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/