BOGUK On-Line

Most people for this will probably only do 8 clauses. I'm a bit too computer literate so I'm going to attempt to do as many of them as I can. There are a couple I will tweak, but I will address every single clause below.

1. Get Online:
   1. Explore different ways to connect to the internet (e.g. home broadband provider, mobile data).
      A home broadband provider will give you internet access by connecting your home to their network, which is in turn connected to the rest of the internet. Most workplaces and educational establishments do the same. Mobile data has the data passed via your mobile phone signal. This can be fairly expensive. Whilst a home broadband connection is limited to geography - you have to be close to home, mobile data is more constrained by signal availability and strength.
   2. Find out where you can access public wi-fi hotspots in your area. Discuss the risks of using a public hotspot.
      It might almost be easier to list where I can't. Most coffee shops provide access, especially the big chain ones. Many of the supermarkets seem to. The local Arts Centre gives me access. My nearest library has a hotspot too. The biggest danger of using a public hotspot is that the connection is often open, meaning others can view what you're sharing over the internet there. The other thing to be wary of is that you are actually connecting to the hotspot you think you are, as all you have is a name, and possibly a password, it is very easy to connect to someone who is collecting data rather than the connection you mean to make.
2. Stay Safe Online:
   1. Connect to the Girlguiding website at https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/, and read the pages on "Staying safe online" and "Risks and issues online".
      So those pages are out of date. There are now official group available that are looked after by headquarters. They also don't reflect the hopefully temporary physical distancing requirements that are currently in place for the UK, which has to lead to some different instructions and advice...
   2. Develop family and/or personal guidelines for use of online services and exploration of the Internet. Discuss issues such as costs, amount of use that is reasonable, parental guidance, shopping by computer, and safety on the Internet.
      Even before we got a worldwide pandemic that kept me home a lot more I would live mainly online, so my access is via a decent speed and unlimited. I don't share my connection with anyone, so my rules are only for myself. Typically these match to my ethics, if I think a site looks dodgy I don't go there. I try to be careful about what information I put where on line. When I'm out and about I had started using a VPN - see a later clause for more info.
   3. Visit the website https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/ & read up on some of the current issues that relate to young people and online safety. Know some of the apps that young people are using today (make this relevant to an age group you are familiar with eg your own children, Guides if you are a Guide leader …)
      An interesting site, with a lot of good information. My only criticism would be that for youngsters it probably wouldn't be found. However, most of the advice is sound whatever your age.
   4. Find out about software designed to protect children from accessing unsuitable information on the Internet, such as Net Nanny. Does your broadband provider offer options to limit the sites that can be accessed using software, or other methods? Look at costs, ease of use and limitations. If possible, try them out. How effective are they? Do they hinder the "normal" use of the internet?
      I've never used anything that stops websites (adds, spamware etc. yes), but I have only myself to blame if I go to a website that I don't want to visit. As using a limiter would give me something else to maintain I won't use one. I'm also aware that given my employer, and that I'm a software engineer there can be times I need to go (or appear to go) off the beaten path in the wilds of the world wide web. My current provider supplies a solution that allows this, as did my previous one. Typically they replace the page you want to visit with a "here be dragons" type message...
   5. Explain what is meant by “catfishing” and the measures you take to protect yourself from this when online.
      Catfishing is the act of someone pretending to be someone else. Sometimes this can be for fun, sometimes it is for darker purposes. The best way to protect against this is to look for information that supports who they are and if the contact is from someone unexpected or unknown be careful of the interaction. The other thing to look out for here is someone spoofing the connection of an existing friend. If you get something like a Facebook friend request from someone you are already friends with the chances are that someone is trying to pretend to be them.
3. Connect Online:
   1. If you are not already a member, join the BOGUK - Best of Guiding_UK Facebook group and take part in discussion in the group for at least three months, posting as often as possible (at least once a week).
      hmmm... I've been a member for a very long time, but I'm not sure I quite make the once a week for three months... I'd hope the fact that I've survived the move from yahoo groups to Facebook, and am still posting when I have something to say is enough commitment to the group
   2. Undertake a review of your Facebook privacy settings & ensure you understand how your information is used.
      I checked my profile as if I were public, and there was next to nothing visible that might not be findable by other means. I also discovered that you can now assign a friend to look after your account for memorialisation, I think I need to have a conversation with someone about that. I've already set up things like 2FA, and skimmed again the privacy policies
   3. Take part in a real time chat session with at least two other people, this could be text based or video based.
      Do I really have to find proof for this, I've chatted with a few people from this group in a few different ways, and spend most of my working life during lockdown in one VC or another...
4. Find Information Online:
   1. Improve your use of key words when searching for information in a search engine. Find out if there are shortcuts to narrow the field of inquiry.
      I already use a number of tricks such as quotation marks for must includes, "-" for not including, using multiple words/phrases to get to my desired information.
   2. Use the internet to look for a specific piece of information that you previously have not looked for (e.g. the surface temperature of Saturn, Albert Einstein's birth date etc). How many solutions were presented? Compare the accuracy, and reliability of each one. Why are some sources considered more reliable than others? (e.g. some universities won't accept wikipedia as a source of information due to the way data there is maintained)
      As I don't work within astronomy or similar I'm going to look for the surface temperature of Saturn, I used the phrase "surface temperature" saturn for the search, and was returned 274,000 results in 0.53 seconds. The snippet at the top was from sciencing.com, which I have never heard of. Without looking into the source in detail I'll accept the results for this, interestingly Wikipedia was the third hit, but it was telling me instead about Titan (one Saturn's moons). The snippet at the top also echoed nicely into the scholastic hit, so I'm happy enough now about that information (and I'm still on the first page). It was actually page 3 before I got to a 'respected' science site (I'll take the information from Cern without too much consideration). The reason I'll respect that site is basically peer review. Wikipedia is easily edited and is open source, which means the information can be incorrect without anyone noticing. Whilst any other source can still be wrong, where it can't be edited by almost anyone it is a little more reliable than someone has made the effort to fact check. and the better known the organisation the higher the chance that they will get it right - it might take longer to get a request approved of misinformation corrected. However, depending on what you want the information for you can use a dubious source, or get a correlation between a number of sources to come up with a good answer to a question.
5. • EITHER:
   • Investigate a variety of home broadband providers to find the one with the most suitable package for you. Are you happy to change your phone number? Do you need reliability? Do you need speed? Do you need lots of data? Are you looking purely for the cheapest? Compare costs and services offered. (Don't forget to include telephone costs as well!)
     I undertook this kind of search earlier this year, and I'm not willing to look again now. However, I can specify what I was looking for - I value speed and amount of data more than cost. Because I'm looking at heavy usage for bandwidth and want speed I can almost ignore the telephone aspect as most of the big brands throw those in for free. The costs are also fairly standard at that end of the market too, so it ends up being the added value that I looked for. As such I ended up selecting the same provides as my mobile contract, as the cost was similar enough to everyone else, but I got a little discount on both my mobile and broadband contract.
   • OR
   • Investigate a variety of mobile data providers to find the one with the most suitable package for you. Do you need reliability? Do you need speed? Do you need lots of data? Are you looking purely for the cheapest? What's the difference between 2G/3G/4G/5G? Which do you need? Which can you use where you live/work? Compare costs and services offered. Learn how to tether another device to your mobile to use that data instead of a wi-fi signal.
     Again, I did that fairly recently, so am not going to compare, but I will explain my priorities. I don't use my mobile broadband as much as my home broadband, but even during the 2020 lockdown I found myself using it, as sometimes the 4G connection through that was better for a VC than my wifi and landline connection. I was looking for price, unlimited data, and decent speeds in a lot of the UK, and ideally Europe at least (I travel for work and don't have a mobile provided by work). Because I wanted to allow for travel that immediately meant I'm looking at the international brands, but, as is often the case my phone was also part of my deal, so I hunted for the phone I wanted and a decent price, with lots of data and lots of call time. Typically that means I get lots of texts too. But again, my driving force is data, and it is really nice not to have to think about it sometimes.
6. Carry out research on Guiding in another country using the Internet as your main research tool. Find activities, information and pictures. Use the information gained to create an International evening for a unit, or plan an International trip.
   As I had no idea which country to look for I asked Alexa to select a random country, and the system came back with Kuwait, so I will look into Kuwait. Starting at the WAGGGS page, I went to the regions, then the Arab region and then Kuwait, then to Find out more: https://www.wagggs.org/en/our-world/arab-region/member-organisations/kuwait/. This page gives me some Guiding facts, and as I'm a Guide leader I'd be inclined to do something like a guide laws quiz, is it ours, is it theirs, did I make it up? So The Girl Guide smiles in the face of trouble and faces it with patience and steadfastness (smiling). is a law in Kuwait, whilst The Girl Guide washes between her toes would be one I'd made up. My unit tend to like to move, so I'd probably play this as a game with one side of the room being 'ours', the other being 'thiers', and the middle being 'mine'. From there I'd start with a search more generally for things like maps and similar, and probably try and put together some puzzles to locate places by getting to grid references or similar. https://www.britannica.com/place/Kuwait is a good starting point, a decent enough map (and the information is similar to the kind of thing I remember from looking in the actual books, oh wait, that's one of the old clauses for this badge....). A quick look at the culture section gives me some foods that are eaten there, and so we could go with having some hummus or falafel, or even try making Ful (and I know that isn't correct, it needs a macron over the u, a macron is just a bar over the letter and I hadn't known those were called that until looking at this). If I had a long evening slot, or this was part of a weekend, I'd look into weaving, which is listed for the arts section, especially the Bedouin styles. https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Kuwait also provides some interesting information to support and expand on some of the general aspects of daily life should I want to. Again, if there is time I would explore the cultural differences, especially those related to customs-based around faith, which are likely to be different to those of the Western girls in my unit. I'd also search for girl guides kuwait, and should get to the page http://www.q8gga.org/en. Unfortunately for me, most of the site is in Arabic, which I can't read, so I would have to only go with some of the headlines which are in English. You're probably thinking, but that isn't a planned evening - and you'd be right. It's a few ideas, and at the moment I'd be writing it for the sake of it, which is just too depressing, so here I've instead shown a little bit about how and where I'd go to get information, and what I might try and turn it into for activities with a unit, for a random country from the list of UN-recognised countries.
7. • EITHER
   • Become an Internet tourist by "visiting" a major city in this country or abroad. Access maps and information about weather, visit museums and other places of interest. Share your tour with others
     I am again looking at this and going "I don't know where to go", so I shall try to find one in a random fashion, Alexa will only look for cities in a country, so I shall have to start there, and then find a country with a city that can be chosen at random. I ended up at Toba in Japan. Japan is relatively low on my list of places I expect to get to, mainly because it is hard for me to eat safely there (no fish wouldn't be easy, although it should be possible), so this should be a good experience. The pictures I've used are all screen snippets from Google maps or Google Streetview.
     
     
     
     
     Toba is in the Mie prefecture on the island of Honshu, is coastal, and is near to a national park. https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Toba#Q819629 gives me some information for travel to get there, and a couple of things to do. As I'm being virtual I'm not going to worry too much, but at least knowing that I would arrive at Toba Station, it gives me a starting point for a bit of a wander via Google Maps Streetview. I definitely wouldn't want to visit here without a little more language knowledge of Japanese than I currently have, even looking around this way I feel quite lost.
     
     I'm intrigued by that road sign, I wonder what information it is actually providing, a quick look online doesn't tell me and I'd rather more of a look around really. At least I found a hotel and the sea.
     
     
     
     
     I wonder if these roadside planters are full of flowers? They would be beautiful when flowering I'm sure.
     
     Toba is certainly fairly hilly in places, if I was walking around instead of clicking-through my legs would be aching!
     
     This looks like a museum I've seen listed elsewhere, I'll go and have a proper visit once I've finished my wandering. I certainly found an interesting looking suspension bridge.
     
     The website at https://www.japan.travel/national-parks/parks/ise-shima/ gives some lovely aerial views of the national park, and I found out on that website that some of the oldest Shinto shrines are in this area. I enjoyed visiting the park through this website, and feel that there would be something to entice me most of the year. Looking at https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-Temperature-Sunshine,toba-mie-jp,Japan , however, means I'd probably stick to October to May for a visit, the summer would be too hot for my liking! Within Toba, there seems to be a nice little observatory, and the information is available at https://www.toba-tenboudai.co.jp/english, which looks to have some nice views. http://kyoka.mie-jinjacho.or.jp/shrine/%E7%A5%9E%E6%98%8E%E7%A5%9E%E7%A4%BE/ gives some information on the shinto shrines, and reading (in translation) about how to behave is interesting. I also had a look around the Toba Sea-Folk Museum, http://www.umihaku.com/english/index.html, I watched the video and read the different guides. is all about a hot spring, which could well be nice after a long day of walking and being a tourist. I also had a look at the aquarium https://www.aquarium.co.jp/en/, they certainly seem to show off the cute side of the animals in their care. The museum with a bridge from earlier is Mikimoto Pearl Island http://www.mikimoto-pearl-museum.co.jp/eng/index.html, and the quick look in Engish was just enough to say that I would be able to spend time there too, should I ever actually find myself in Toba.
   • OR
   • Use the Internet to plan a family or Guiding trip, including travel options, costs, opening times, places of interest and accommodation.
     Given that we are currently in lockdown, and I don't know when I'll next be able to travel this is another one that is kind of bad timing for me. There's also the slight downside that at the moment a lot of places are not necessarily advertising their opening hours, bu I will see what I can come up with. I shall consider a day trip to Oxford for a group of 12 Guides all under 14 and 3 adults. Where we are there are both buses and trains to get to Oxford, and we are in the network railcard zone, and as I have one I will assume that we can at least use that card. Looking at the bus company website we would end up with a total bill for returns of 37.40 with a little mathematical fun (that has the adults and two children on return tickets, and the other children using individual parts of a 10 trip ticket). The train can work out slightly cheaper, if there are three railcards available as 1 adult and 4 children cost £10 for that route, anything else is more expensive and gets messy. There are a few things that can be done for free, or with a small purchase could do the tourist thing by reading a book ourselves and following our own walking tour, there are some itineraries and walking plans available on oxfordcityguide.com. If we wanted to visit a museum the Ashmolean and Pitt Rivers are both free, as are certain parts of the Bodleian. It could also be worth taking the time to explore places like Blackwell's bookshop. Most of these places are open from a reasonable time, and we could probably time our arrival into Oxford for about 10:00. If we aim to arrive at that time, then it would depend on whether we were walking or heading for the museums. If walking, then it would be a case of considering where to eat a packed lunch whilst out and about. If heading for the museums it may be wise to get in touch in advance to see if we can eat somewhere there. The Ashmolean is open from 10:00 normally, the Bodleian slightly earlier. So we could probably look around one of those before stopping for lunch. After lunch, there would be the Pitt Rivers and the item not done before lunch. I'm again possibly going to leave this only half done, after all, anything planned this abstractly is not going to be easy to design, and I'm not likely to be organising a real trip anytime soon.
8. Go to the website of your favourite TV show, magazine or similar. Does the content repeat what the show said, does it support it, or is it totally unrelated?
   Now, this is a difficult one. I don't really have a favourite magazine, and most of the TV shows I watch fall into the realms of fandom, with one exception at the moment. I'm actually up to date on the Great British Sewing Bee. I enjoy watching that show, and whilst I'm not in their league, and my attempts at making clothes aren't amazing, I am capable. If I get the chance during Lockdown I will be getting to the sewing machine being usable again, I hope. However, instead of clearing out that space I'm writing this (I must look at that procrastinates syllabus, I have been nominated after all ;)) Given that I know this is a BBC show, it makes the searching easier, so I'll just go with BBC sewing bee, and the top hit in my preferred search engine is https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03myqj2. So there are bits of background info, but not really much in my opinion. I can find out about the people, and there are easy links to the episodes and some clips, including clips from previous series. What I would love to see which aren't there (at least whilst looking on the 30th of May) are the high-quality explanations at a really high level over how things like the pattern challenges should be put together. I also love the little bits of history that are covered in bits of the show. Following the twitter, link gave me more of that kind of thing, but from a year ago, that had a search term in twitter of from:BBCtwo #sewingbee. I went from there to just looking for the hashtag and got to https://twitter.com/sewingbee, which was up to date, and gave me a link to https://t.co/v9YHdYVhVt?amp=1, this was a much better site. Here I could find a pattern from one of the challenges to download, and that clip which gave the high-level graphics for the associated pattern. The information on the contestants was slightly different, as was the information for the presenters, there was less of it, but for me, that's not a problem. I discovered there is a book, so I can consider adding that to my list of things to get one day. There was a link to the Big Community Sew, they are trying to encourage the people just like me who have machines gathering dust to do something really useful. It also had a link to the Instagram feed, which has a few different videos and similar going on, so I decided to follow them, as Instagram is the social networking platform I'm using elsewhere in this badge. On a slightly different note, I'd looked at patterns and instructions for making face masks and so far hadn't found any that I felt I could achieve, the ones on the big community sew page are well described and in each place, it mentions alternatives and options - from saying a sewing machine, or a hand-sewing needs, to instructions for elastics attached in various ways and the use of ribbons, and the nose wire is an extra with reasonable instructions - maybe before I worry about my sewing machine, I'll just make sure I get the ironing board and iron out.
9. Investigate the various options for paying for goods when shopping on the Internet (e.g. PayPal, ApplePay, secure credit card transaction etc) and evaluate the range of places that accept them, the security aspects, who they are open to etc.
   I use a lot of different techniques for purchasing on the internet. My preference is usually PayPal - but I will use apple pay as well. Whilst those sites have a copy of my payment details, it means I'm not sending the full information around all the time. Things like Apple Pay and PayPal also store your address details, and depending on the retailer you can just use a button to send payment and personal information in one easy step. The downside is, those organisations have all your details. Ther are upsides and downsides to that - you move, you just update PayPal and keep buying things without having to update your address everywhere you buy things. If you want to send something to an alternative address you still have to go through the whole system though. You don't have to remember all your card details, or even have your card to hand to use these, but then you have to be sure that you have secured your system appropriately that others can't use it without your permission. Nearly every online retailer accepts at least one of these, or has other ways of allowing you to pay, the one thing I endeavour to be aware of more than anything in that scenario is that my browser is secure and that I trust the site. Some of these methods also allow you to pay a friend an amount of money as well, but I tend to avoid doing that with PayPal, mainly due to the fact that at least once upon a time (I haven't looked recently, and probably should for this clause) that required linking to a bank account, and I still dislike using anything other than a credit card within systems like PayPal. Online banking is fine, I just dislike linking my debit account with anything else. A quick look showed me that you only need to add the bank account if you want to transfer the money out (or so it seems), but if you leave the money in PayPal you can still use it to pay for things via PayPal.
10. Develop a scavenger hunt for new leaders that helps them to use the Internet to learn more about Guiding. Include questions that take them to different sites. Ask them to find out specific information about Girlguiding, crafts, songs, Baden-Powell, the World Centres and other relevant topics as well as items of a personal interest.
    This is a cause I'm likely to struggle with - any scavenger hunt can be undertaken with judicious searching these days. So instead, I'll just list some of the questions I would ask, and I'll make sure the information can be found.
    • What is the purpose of Girlguiding in the UK? (Should get you to the 5 essentials and our mission.)
    • How did the name Guides get chosen?
    • There are three people with the name Baden-Powell involved in the early days of Guiding - who were they and how are they related to each other? (The best information I saw for this was on WAGGGS, although it was interesting that on that page Lady Olave seems to appear from nowhere)
    • What is the WAGGGS world conference, and when was it last held in the UK?
    • What is a world centre, and where are they?
    • Who wrote the music to the "World Song", which starts "Our way is clear"?
    • Singing around a campfire is a tradition for a lot of youth organisations, one song that we have appropriated from the scouts is a vesper which starts "Softly falls the light of day", can you find the tune for it and the parody version?
    • Whilst the girls are at the core of Guiding, getting together as leaders allows us to refresh and be inspired, as well as trainings there are a few more social things such as the singing circles. Most of the TACs host some form of musical group, can you find one to join?
    • Another common activity is crafting, and one which incorporates knotting is the making of a turk's head woggle. What is a Turk's Head, and how could I obtain one?
    • As well as local unit camps there are usually opportunities to attend international camps, both in the UK and overseas. What international camps are scheduled over the next couple of years that you could attend? If you don't want the responsibility of girls consider things like staff/IST.
11. Participate in a webinar (such as the programme training run by Girlguiding) – you must be an active participant, not an observer. Evaluate the training methods used – how effective did you find it?
    I've not done one of the Guiding ones, but am taking part in one or two a week at work, we've also been doing training and similar via VC systems, slightly differently to the webinars as we wanted greater interaction. I know I've done more than enough for this from a take part point of view, running one is not on my list of things to do as generally they will cost a lot of time for me to be able to train to do Guiding ones, and as yet no purpose to run one.
12. Complete an online training or education programme – such as Girlguiding Safe Space. Evaluate the training methods used – how effective did you find it?
    Again, I've been doing such things for years, my workplace has various online training courses that I have to do, I've also been using sites like Coursera, edX, Udemy etc. for years (see some of my other blog posts). Doing another one at the moment would be doing it for the sake of it. The one thing I do know is all the platforms have different strengths and weaknesses, and not one of them is perfect. None of them are ones I'd recommend over another - I'd say find the subject at the price you're willing to pay (which can often be 0 if you are happy to not have a certificate) and try it.
13. What is a VPN? Why can it be useful to use one, and where would you do so? Investigate the options for VPN providers, considering costs and access. Decide whether you want to use one yourself and when you would.
    A VPN is a Virtual Private Network, what that basically means is you route all your network traffic through an encrypted network that runs over the internet. I use these more so when I'm travelling or on public hotspots, it provides a little bit of extra security between you and any potential phishers. They also provide a different kind of privacy when searching the net and similar. You can also pretend to be in a different country so that your device acts as if it is in the UK, even when you and it are not.
14. Get to know a social media platform that is new to you (e.g. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Tik-Tok). Find out how to sign up to it, and if there are any limitations, such as a minimum age. Create an account and post content regularly (at least once a week) for 2 months.
    I really want to complete this badge, and so this clause with the minimum time limit feels really hard to me at this point. Whilst it isn't new, I went back to an Instagram account I had created. I haven't checked things like minimum age but was pleased to see some good advice and tips on managing your content from a safety, privacy, and bullying/trolling point of view. I have so many different logins to so many different sites that adding yet another one felt foolish, instead, I shall endeavour to do the hard bit, posting once a week for 2 months. You can find me on Instagram as musicaincognita, I started uploading on the 27th of May 2020 and will try to do so for the next two months.
15. Evaluate an activity that you can do “online” and “offline” (eg paying in a cheque to a bank account, giving a friend the money that you owe them, buying a bunch of flowers). Evaluate the pros & cons of both methods, considering time, security, costs etc
    My biggest problem with this clause is deciding what activity to consider. I shall consider giving money to a friend, as that is something I do periodically. There are various ways to do that these days. Handing someone cash is sometimes easier, but, you have to physically see the person with enough cash available to you, either already in your pocket of withdrawn from a bank. The larger the amount the more dangerous it can be to carry the cash around in the first place. The more fiddly the amount the harder it is to manage change and give accurate amounts. On line (whether via an app or web browser), you can often undertake the transfer in a few 'clicks'. The downside is that you have now had to provide bank account details to someone. This is a lot less risky than it used to be, but it is still not necessarily ideal. There are also various other options that allow this to not be the case, you can pay friends and family via Paypal, or via various transfer to contact options.

Voyage Bronze Award

One of the reasons I talked myself into joining the Trefoil Guild was to complete things like the Voyage Award, so about the same time as joining I signed up to do my Bronze award. Bar a few signatures (and we have been told not to send books off for signatures during the lockdown, it can wait until after), I'm done, I hope. I can then pay for my Silver award and make a start on it.

For this award, you have to cover a few areas and get involved in a few things, and what I did is detailed below. I'll keep the photos to a minimum, and just put in a couple at the end.

Service - we are expected to do some volunteering. It considers charities, places of worship or similar. I've opted to count a long weekend helping out on the tech team at a science fiction convention. Possibly on the more unusual side, but it is a volunteer role, it is the kind of thing that is necessary, and makes a big difference to an event. Each convention is run in its own right, and, with the exception of the guests of honour, everyone pays a membership, from the chair to the first-timer, so whilst it might be a very specific community, it is a community. It is also one of the best kind of places to find acceptance, so to anyone who says that isn't service, believe me, if you are always the outsider this is one of the very few places where you can usually feel welcomed, and they need staff to be able to run the events.

Myself - I found myself training for and walking a half marathon last year. Whilst I walk a lot, 13 miles in a day is still significant enough to be worth mentioning. This was also urban walking, the half marathon was in London. With that in mind, I actually minimised my walks in the countryside and found myself walking around a local path rather a lot. I was really pleased that come the walk day, I managed it in a reasonable time, and reasonably steadily. I was also OK the following day, not too stiff, and feeling good within myself. I might not have trained as much as I should have, but I trained enough to bounce back. The real proof of that was when I walked another 20 miles over 2 days within a week of that specific challenge.

Teamwork - So I'm actually counting just a small part of some massive teamwork that I was taking part in last year. Before the Escape PODS were run at Charnwood, we had to do some training, and I along with someone else organised that training. So I'm counting that first weekend of training for my teamwork, from being part of the group arranging timings for arrivals, food (it was a weekend and away from home for most of us!), various things of how to run the weekend, and then the weekend itself, agreeing aspects for the team in the longer run, helping to set up and run practice games, and all sorts of other aspects to it. This is a team training, and the Escape PODS went well at Charnwood, keep an eye out, they may appear again in my blog.

Skills - I decided to actually focus on and improve my singing when it came to my skills work. I'm a member of a local community choir and was able to attend a workshop run with a barbershop theme, which was new to me. I've certainly noticed an improvement and focused on my breathing techniques, and that has improved. What's really great (?) about the choir I'm in, the musical director arranges the songs and will pass the melody around the parts - despite being an alto I don't spend too much time singing one note. In fact, there are times I think the sopranos get more of than the altos do. The downside to that is we are often expected to have a range, in one arrangement the altos go from the E below middle C to the D above the C above! What is actually great is that I'm reaching those notes without too much strain at either end, so my range is getting closer and closer to two octaves, so that is a skill that has improved.

Explore My World - What I counted for this was one of my bucket list items, at least in part. The item I ticked off my bucket list was to see a show on Broadway, the bit of the world I explored was New York, New York. I had about 48 hours to myself in NYC before I had to be attending things for a work conference, and one evening off during the conference. I spent quite a bit of time looking at what there was to do, and what was on my must-see list, and what I would regret not doing. Then in two days, I saw more than some people see in a week, and I want to go back and look again at things I looked at quickly in more detail, and see at least some of the things I didn't get to see the first time around. It was in NYC that I walked those 20 miles within a week of the half-marathon distance in London. On my first day, I bought a ticket to a show, then walked around Manhatten, I saw lots of places from the outside in the rain. I visited the Public Library briefly, had lunch at Grand Central Station, got down to Wall Street and Ground Zero, managed to visit two GSUSA shops/sites, watched The Lightning Thief (the Percy Jackson Musical) and had a look around Times Square after dark. My second day, I bought a ticket to another show (the box office had managed me a deal the day before, and the second one was a rush ticket), I then walked up to and around Central Park in some lovely sunshine, getting to see a number of places I'd only ever seen in movies or TV shows, I took the subway back towards Brooklyn, had a quick walk through Chelsea Market, saw a little bit of the High Line, Took the Staten Island Ferry out past the Statue of Liberty, then changed hotels, before going to see Beetlejuice the musical. On my one evening off from the conference, I walked from the conference venue in Brooklyn to my hotel in China Town, via the Brooklyn Bridge, as the sun was setting. I started in daylight and ended in the dark, so watched Manhatten light up as I crossed the water. The biggest regret I have is not making it to the Metropolitan Museum of art, or into just about any other museum. Hopefully, I can get back there one day to manage that.

Getting Adventerous

This badge took years to complete, not because it is hard, but because I'm not that adventerous!

The first clause involves taking part in 3 short sessions, for that I counted some Archery (from back in 2009) as one of my first contributions to the badge, and a 1/2 Marathon Walk I did last September in London (so it took me over 10 years to complete it!). The thrid thing I tried was fencing, thanks to a club at work, and that was new to me.

I then chose to continue with the fencing, over the required 3 further sessions.

I also opted to use a fencing qualification (Bronze Fencing Award) as my third item. Whilst I was a part of the club anyway, it still required me to make a commitment to attend the course and perform well enough to gain the award, which was a real challenge for me.

Resurrecting this blog

So I found myself wanting to blog again, at least intermittently about a few things, and not being sure where to start I decided to resurrect this one. I've taken a whole load of posts down, and am likely to use this as a storage point for my things that I want to share with the whole world. Probably most regularly this will be my BOGUK Badge write ups - just so that I have somewhere to put them. When I can find my reminders of my details, I'll post my photographer which I completed a long time ago, but for now, I'll just go with updating the ones I can find my notes on.