In the new "InTouch" system - a reasonably sensible system for providing home contact for all scouting activities, I found that any Home Contact (sitting at the end of a phone) needs a CRB (Criminal Records Bureau check)!

And the FAQ's explain why :

So in other words this should make it a lot harder to get anyone to help out - this is IMHO incredibly short sighted.

And surely this breaks the CRb rules which state (all references from this document) :
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As readers of this blog will know we bought a Outwell Indian Lake tent before the summer holidays.

We have now been to 3 Explorer camps with this tent - one of those for 7 days in Switzerland, and in very different conditions, from very hot sunshine to very, very heavy rain, and the tent (and we) have survived, so it is about time to write about the tent end our experiences.

First of all this is a unusual tent - and you will get to know people if you have one, as there are lots of curious stares and comments :

(Btw. Click on any image to see a larger version)
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I was under the misapprehension that the so-called "Rainwater Charge" in the UK was a April 1st joke - but it turns out it is actually correct.

I find this hilarious - private companies are allowed to collect our water (which largely tends to come down to earth as rain) without paying me for it, but when it drains off my land I have to pay for what goes into their drains..

As I am engaged with the local Explorer scouts group I find it very disturbing that they also want to charge voluntary groups for this - in effect helping to close down such groups.

The following is the reply letter received from OfWat (guess what it stands for).

Btw. if this is what they consider a clarification that the british education system needs to be improved :
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As I blogged earlier today in this posting - we just bought a Outwell Indian Lake tent, and as it is a rather unconventional tent we put it up for the first time yesterday, and then took it down and packed everything away today - to make sure we could do this.

And then we put it up one more time, as we decided that the way we had packed it away (without unzipping the built-in groundsheet, did not work. We managed to get everything into the big packing back, but it was just too heavy to be carried for any distance by one person. This is undoubtably why they have the zip and the option to pack it away into 2 separate bags.
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Our old tent is falling apart after years of use and abuse at numerous scout camps and trips, and it was about time to look for something new.

One of my wifes criteria was that we should be able to stand up to dress in the morning (or in the middle of the night when you have to care for a distraught scout) - and that we should ideally be able to have enough space to sit around while a typical british summer rainstorm passes by.

Ideally we should also have space for a group of explorers to pop in for a game of cards/storing supplies etc.
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