First Lexington Scouting Group

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PLEASE NOTE that Scouts Canada's policies (many of which are listed here) may occasionally change, so to be absolutely certain, please check with http://www.scouts.ca .

From Scouts Canada's web site: "The mission of Scouting is to contribute to the education of young people, through a value system based on the Scout Promise and Law, to help build a better world where people are self-fulfilled as individuals and play a constructive role in society."

There are three broad philosophies:

Duty to God: Scouts Canada defines this as "adherence to spiritual principles, loyalty to the religion that expresses (those principles) and acceptance of the duties resulting there from". Do you need to attend a church or other religious institution? No, but you should  incorporate spiritual values into your daily life whether you do it through organised religion or not.

Duty to Others: Scouts Canada defines this as " loyalty to one's country in harmony with the promotion of local, national and international peace, understanding and cooperation (and) participation in the development of society, with recognition and respect for the dignity of one's fellow-being and for the integrity of the natural world".

Duty to Self: Defined as " responsibility for the development of oneself", this is incorporated into the education of young people, and assistance to help development of their potential.

The Scout Law is:

" A Scout is helpful and trustworthy, kind and cheerful, considerate and clean, wise in the use of all resources"

In Canada the Scout Promise is:

"On my honour
I promise that I will do my best
To do my duty to God and the Queen
To help other people at all times,
And to carry out the spirit of the Scout Law."

It is similar but slightly different in some other countries.

The well known Scout motto is:

"Be prepared".

Generally First Lexington meets at Sandowne School in Waterloo, as follows:

Beavers (Ages 5 to 7) Wednesdays from 6:00 pm  to 7:oo pm and another "colony" (group) of Beavers meets on Thursdays at the same time.

Cubs (ages 8 to 10) meet on Wednesday evenings, 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm

Scouts meet on Wednesday evenings from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm.

NOTE: UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, WHILE SANDOWNE IS EXPERIENCING CONSTRUCTION, DIFFERENT GROUPS ARE MEETING IN DIFFERENCE LOCATIONS. CHECK THE CALENDAR OF THE  SECTION (Beavers/Cubs/Scouts/Venturers) THAT YOUR CHILD IS IN FOR UPDATED INFORMATION

The hours and location sometimes vary and you should use the Contact a Leader page to inquire of a leader from your child's section, the exact times and/or check the section (Beavers,Cubs, Scouts) page or calendar on this site.

Typically programs run from September to late May or late June. Scouts go on a week long camp in the summer as well. There may be a few weeks in the Spring that we do not get access to the school so we have more community outings and hikes.

If you are interested in joining First Lexington, which usually meets at Sandowne School in Waterloo, Ontario, please go to the Contact a Leader page and contact Scouter Scott.

If you are interested in joining any section of Scouting somewhere else in Canada you can call Scouts Canada toll-free at 1-888-SCOUTS-NOW ( 1-888-726-8876) and they will refer you to the office nearest you.

Or... use the "Find a Group" locator on the Scouts Canada web site.

Or... send an email to with your name and email address and a phone number you can be reached at, your child's name, and age, your street address, town and province. Your message will be forwarded to the nearest office and someone will contact you.

If you are looking for a group closer to you but still in the Kitchener-Waterloo or surrounding area, click this link and scroll down. The Kitchener groups are at the top and the Waterloo groups follow.

If you are looking for a group that is in other areas of the country, there are a couple of options:

If you are interested in joining any section of Scouting somewhere else in Canada you can call Scouts Canada toll-free at 1-888-SCOUTS-NOW ( 1-888-726-8876) and they will refer you to the office nearest you.

Or... use the "Find a Group" locator on the Scouts Canada web site.

Or... send an email to with your name and email address and a phone number you can be reached at, your child's name, and age, your street address, town and province. Your message will be forwarded to the nearest office and someone will contact you.

Oh there is always paperwork isn't there? Here's a  link to the various Registration forms for both youth and adults.

You bet there are!

THIS LINK will take you to Scouts Canada where they have dozens of links to various useful forms and programming help.

They also have a link to:

The New Scouter Welcome Kit

E-Learning

Scout Wiki (Not an official Scouts Canada site)

Volunteer Support Toolkit

Sections are the various levels that different ages can join.

Beavers: Age 5 - 7

Cubs: Age 8 - 10

Scouts: Age 11 - 14 (Up to age 16 may be requested)

Venturers : Age 14 - 17

Rovers: Age 18 - 26

Currently First Lexington has the first 3 sections. To locate a Venturer or Rovers group, try the Locate a Group feature.

Boys and Girls from age 5 all the way up to young adults as old as 26 can find something in Scouting. Scouts Canada does not discriminate  because of race, gender, sexual orientation or religious beliefs. (See Scouting Fundamentals, Duty to God explanation, above.).

"Bring on the Adventure" is a slogan that is applied at all ages.

Costs vary among different groups; they have varying costs of running programs in the local community including costs of renting space sometimes and other "overhead".  Your local leaders can tell you what the costs are.

September 10, 2010: Registration cost for 1st Lexington Scouts is $163.00. Cheques can be written to 1st Lexington Scouts Canada.

Fundamentally there will be Registration costs and uniform costs. There will likely be various costs during the year, and these may be things like outings to places like Laser Quest, or sometimes craft supplies. Youth at camping events are typically charged money to cover rental and food costs.

Of the registration fee, $60.00 goes to the national Scouts office to help cover expenses like training and materials, publications, service and support to local councils across Canada.Other expenses help train volunteers, and cover the World Scouting fee and insurance premiums.

Your local council will have to charge to service and support groups within their jurisdiction, making up the rest of the registration fee. Scouts are a non-profit organization so costs are kept as low as possible. Scouting typically runs at least eight months of the year and provides great value for our youth.

Here is a link to the on-line "Scout Shop" at Scouts Canada's web site. You can get an idea of the costs there. You can also shop at the Scout Shops around Canada. If you are in the Kitchener-Waterloo area you can contact the Kitchener Scout Shop

844 Frederick Street Kitchener, ONTARIO N2B 2B8  Phone: 519-742-8325

Be sure to note their hours.

You can check this link for more information about uniforms if your child is entering First Lexington. It will also give you an idea of what is required and what is optional.

From Scouts Canada's website: "Prospective leaders must undergo a stringent screening process. This includes a Police Records Check, a Screening Interview plus three personal references. Until the screening procedure is fully complete and signed off, individuals may not participate with children.

Our thorough Risk Management policies include “two-deep leadership”, which means there must always be two registered leaders present with any number of children. Leaders are well versed in risk management and our Duty of Care during their training process."

If you are interested in becoming a First Lexington leader you can contact Scouter Scott on the Contact a Leader Page. Or contact Scouts Canada at 1-888-SCOUTS-NOW or . Whether for 1st Lexington or another group, here is what you can expect:

You must provide 3 personal references.

You must get a clean Police Records Check. Your local council (Scouting group in your area) can advise you how to go about that, and will be able tell you how to get the forms.

You will have a selection interview.

If you are selected, you will be given training to become a good leader and may take more training to become a great one!

Finally, once you are in the swing of things, you will have a lot of fun. You can ask the other leaders in your group for advice and hints. Being a leader is very satisfying, (occasionally stressful), and very often you have as much fun as the kids, or more!

You have other resources available to you too and you may get a New Leader Welcome Kit from that link or from your local council. As well, you can take some "E-Learning".

Scouts Canada and First Lexington are happy to offer a little backup help if it means a child would otherwise be deprived of the Scouting experience. Scouts Canada helped 2200 youth through its "No One Left Behind" program in 2009 - 2010. That's the good news. However the funds are limited. If you are able to contribute to the fund please contact .

You can also use that link or call 1-888-SCOUTS-NOW to ask about help with costs.

As well, if you are joining First Lexington, we are fortunate to have the Optimist Club as a sponsor. If you would like a little help with costs, please contact Scouter Scott for a confidential inquiry. His contact information is on the Contact a Leader page.

First, thank you for your generosity. As you likely know, Scouting is a volunteer organisation but of course there are costs to running our programmes. If you would like to donate to First Lexington and/or designate how it is to be used, please use the Contact a Leader page to contact Scouter Scott.

If you would like to donate on-line to Scouts Canada, you can use the "Canada Helps" site. There are several programmes you can choose to direct your donation to if you wish. From the Canada Helps site:

"For donors, CanadaHelps.org simplifies the donating process, making it easy, quick and secure. On any pages where you share personal information or perform financial transactions, CanadaHelps.org encrypts your data using Secure Socket Layers (SSL), allowing you to send and receive information without the worry of having it intercepted. Put simply, donors go online, select as many charities as they wish, make their donation and receive a tax receipt for each donation immediately."

If you prefer to donate directly to Scouts Canada, phone them or  send them an email at  1-888-SCOUTS-NOW or

Parents are always welcome to help out and your help is always appreciated! The leaders can always use another pair of helping hands or watchful eyes!

A parent's primary duty at a Scouting event lies with her or his own child. Parents or guardians may be asked to contribute to the program as a resource person, sharing a skill or hobby with the group. Or you may be asked to help prepare meals - and those kids do eat! Parents must always have at least two leaders ("Scouters") present.

Non-screened resource people are treated just like non-screened parents and are under supervision at the event.

This site follows Scouts Canada's policy of never using names for any publication for youth. There is a waiver as part of the Registration form that allows photographs to be taken of youth. It is rare but if you wish, you may decline to have photos of your youth published in public or on the Internet.  If you do decide that, it would be helpful to supply the webmaster of this site and any other leaders who may be involved in publicity with a picture of your youth so s/he can be more easily recognised in photos before they are printed or put on the web site.

To get an idea of what typical photos are, please click here.

There is however, a separate photo release form to be used when photos are taken when a 3rd party is involved. Typically that might be when Scouts are in public and have their photo taken by the local newspaper, or are otherwise having their photo published in the context of a non-Scout meeting or camp. An example might be when a Scouting youth is pictured in the local newspaper on the fund-raising Apple Day.

This may help!

That would be here! Scroll down to

BP&P, Administration and Forms

While no-one can eliminate all risk from all activities, Scout Leaders take great care to avoid injuries, assessing risks and whenever possible, having a contingency plan. In many cases, our own kids are with us too!

Scouts Canada also understands concerns about adult supervision of children and has implemented strict screening and practices.

Only the greatest founder of Scouting ever!

This was an extraordinary man who lived in extraordinary times and created a world-wide movement that has evolved and moved with the times.

Here is a site with a lot of links about "LBP".

• LOG IN: Some content is only available by logging in at the bottom of the MAIN MENU shown on most pages.

• • You must register first. To avoid spammers this can  be done manually  by the webmaster and is only open to only Scout Leaders and to First Lexington parents. Send an e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with your full name, Group (ie: First Lexington Scouts, Waterloo, Ontario), phone number (Canada & USA).

  OR go to http://firstlexington.org/login-default.html and follow the steps on that page. When you have been approved by the Webmaster, you will be notified.

• • All posts in the forums are monitored. You will receive an email from the webmaster with a user name and a password. You should log in and change the password to your own.
  • Inappropriate content will be deleted and your IP address permanently banned.
    

• Registered users can contribute to the Forums
  
• Registered First Lexington Leaders get easy access to many administrative and procedural forms and leader oriented web links.

It means that you have probably already logged in. Check your other browser windows. If none have firstlexington in them, close your browser and start again.

Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome work well.

Opera may not display some of the images used in "Captcha", the webpage test that makes people assemble a picture or interpret some scrambled text to keep automated  spammers off the site.

Chrome has not been tested with the Captcha, Firefox or I.E. are recommended for registering or sending a message to a leader..

Scouts Canada Web Standards

Introduction

[This site adheres to most of the policies noted below. The few, minor exceptions, are noted in grey, below.]

Scouts Canada's councils and national office, as well as many areas and groups develop and maintain web sites as a communications tool with their respective members. Common sense and adherence to Scouting's Mission and Principles should guide volunteers and staff in determining appropriate content for web sites.

Because a great deal of program information, forms, leader resources, and youth-specific content is published on the national web site (www.scouts.ca), groups areas, and councils should link to the appropriate pages rather than recreating it in a new format. In terms of the type of new content that groups, areas, and councils should consider offering on their web sites, the following would apply: events calendar, local fundraising details, local news, local contact information, and weekly group/section meeting time and place.

Why a Website?

Groups or councils should establish a focus and purpose for their website. The World Wide Web is a big place, and it is impossible to create and maintain a website that serves all audiences. It is best to focus the site to serve the audiences that will benefit most from it. These questions will assist in establishing the focus:

1. Who do we think will visit our website, and how often?
2. Is the material we plan to put on the site of interest to a local, provincial, national or international audience?
3. Who is the target audience for the website: youth, young adults or adults?
4. Will our website be a passive or active place?
5. Will the material on the site "broadcast" to the world, or "target" our members.

Basic Principles

1. Domain names - should be consistent with www.scouts.ca. Subdomains of the Scouts Canada domain (scouts.ca) are available to councils. [This site does not adhere to this policy as it was set up before learning of the policy! The site is solely funded by Scouter Derek Madge who is responsible for the content and links, excepting information given to him such as schedules/Month-at-a-glance information.]
2. 
   
3. Privacy: The Scouts Canada Privacy Policy applies to all web site content. With respect to youth members, there should be no names on photos of children; no addresses or phone numbers; photo release forms must be kept on file for each child pictured in published photos (the new Participant Registration Form now includes a photo release).
4. Content must be consistent with Mission, Laws, Promise, Policies and Principles of Scouts Canada; should reflect national web site's content.
5. Consistent Scouts Canada branding; only official section, group, area, council and national logos should be used.
6. Observe copyright, trademark and other intellectual property ownership laws. Do not use items (stories, articles, photos, graphics, songs or music) from other web sites or any other sources without express permission from authors.
7. Advertising is not permitted on websites.
8. Commercial endorsements are only permitted with approval of the Director of Communications.
9. Sites may link to other sites with content that is consistent with Mission, Laws, Promise, Policies and Principles of Scouts Canada (i.e. other chartered Scouting groups, areas, councils, or national, partners, sponsors).
10. Electronic commerce activities on websites are only permitted with approval of the Director of Communications. All electronic commerce activities must comply with the Canadian Code of Practice for Consumer Protection in Electronic Commerce.

Content Guidelines

• Scouts Canada Logo, Bring On The Adventure Logo
• Name of your group or area
• Council name
• Table or list of contents
• Statement of copyright (i.e. "This web site in its entirety copyright of 1st Ottawa Scout Group. not to be reproduced without express permission.")
• Contact information - under "contact us" - should be easy to find. Be wary of listing personal contact information. Obtain permission from other leaders to list their personal contact information (they may or may not want this made public). E-mail addresses are preferable to home telephone numbers. You could consider creating a special email address specifically for your group.
• Links page (to useful sites that support group, area, and council related activities)
• Research other sites to get some ideas that have worked for other people (be considerate of copyright)
• Calendar of events (very useful for parents)
• Link to useful and frequently used content and forms on the National Web Site (i.e. BP&P)
• Go for a clean, uncluttered look.
• Writing should be brief and to the point.
• Keep to a consitent font (National site uses Arial 10).
• Review your site regularly and update when necessary.
• Have a webmaster e-mail provided for feedback.
• Don't forget to be creative - make your site a reflection of your group and who you are!

Site Ownership

Wherever possible Scouting websites should be owned and controlled by a group, area, or council. Many groups use webspace donated by a member or parent, but as members move on, these sites may not continue to be available, causing confusion to members.

If a group, area, or council establishes a relationship with an Internet service provider or domain registrar, all arrangements should be summarized in a written service contract. The contract should clearly indicate that a group, area, or council owns the content of the web site.

If a domain name is registered, the group or council should be listed as the registrant or administrative contact with the domain authority. [This site does not adhere to this policy as it was set up before learning of the policy! The site is solely funded by Scouter Derek Madge who is responsible for the content and links, excepting information given to him such as schedules/Month-at-a-glance information.]

Links to Other Sites

Scouting websites may provide hyperlinks to useful sites that support group, area, and council related activities. Links reflect on the quality of a website, but are out of the control of website creators, so care must be taken to only include those links that are relevant and meet the same standards that govern the site they appear on. The Web is in constant motion, so it is expected that links will not remain the same forever. It is important that links be regularly checked to ensure they still bring viewers to the correct location, and that the linked site meets our standards. Care must be taken to ensure that linking to a commercial website is not mistaken as an endorsement of a product or service.

Remember the "World" in World Wide Web

Although a group, area, or council website is typically targeted to a local audience, the World Wide Web is a global resource. Websites should clearly indicate the area the website applies to, both in Scouting and geographic terms. Any content should be reviewed to make sure it does not affect other groups or councils negatively (such as recruiting support from outside the area chartered for a group or council). In any interaction with people on the website should enquire where the person is from. If a person is outside the bounds of a group or council, it is common courtesy to refer someone to a more appropriate group or council.

Discussion Forms and On-line Chat Areas

The Web permits virtual discussions, but those discussions occur without any of the traditional means of ensuring the bona fides of the people participating in the discussion. For this reason websites should not use discussion forms or chat areas unless there are security measures established to provide information and control over who can participate in virtual discussions. Typically this means that virtual discussions only take place in password-protected areas accessible to specific member categories, and that all sites be monitored to ensure the discussions are in keeping with the mission, principles, and laws of Scouting.

[This site does have a "forum" area in which only registered Scouting leaders and parents of First Lexington Scouting group can participate. They must be registered and all posts are moderated.]

Advertising and Commercial Endorsements

Scouting is the single focus of a group, area, or council website, and advertising and commercial endorsements can distract viewers from important Scouting information. Although it is tempting to add banner advertising or exchange advertising with other websites, it is difficult to control the content of these ads, and ensure the quality of the material they draw your viewers to.

That does not mean that groups or councils cannot acknowledge contributions made by donors by placing their names and logos on a website. Care must be taken to ensure that it is clearly explained why a name or logo appears on a webpage, and care must be taken to ensure that the size and placement of the name or logo does not compromise the impact of website content. As an example, if a local firm provides complimentary or reduced price web space it is acceptable to place their name and logo on the website, as long as the size and location of the name and logo do not interfere with Scouting content. Groups, areas, and council should seek approval of the Director of Communications whenever a logo or company name appears on a website.

It is also acceptable to place graphics, logos, or links directing web site visitors to software required to increase their enjoyment of a website. Any software used on a website should be widely available to Canadians at no cost through web download, and available for the wide varieties of web browsers and operating systems currently in use.

[Please note that there are links to other websites on this First Lexington website. those other websites are solely responsible for their content. At the time the links were created on this site, the links were live and went to useful Scouting or camping related sites. If you find a link is" dead" or that it goes to an inappropriate website, please contact the webmaster using the Contacts page on this site. Thank you.]