h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Boys' Brigade - A16498236
Author: <insert_witty_nickname> - U857746

I've spent some time on this and think it's fairly comprehensive. Any ideas welcome...

Thanks, Marc.

Hi Marc

Very good start!

It's a great subject for a guide entry. There's a few aspects which I don't think you've covered, and if you could round it off in a couple of areas it would improve it a lot, in my opinion.

Things off the top of my head are:

Can you state and explain the motto?
Can you mention leaders and how that all works?
Can you mention the Girls Brigade, for completeness?
It would be very interesting to compare it to the Scouting Movement. Wasn't Baden-Powell involved with the BB in the early days?
Could you mention famous members, like Jimmy Hill and Sir Cliff Richard (there may be others)?

Icy

Lt. DD here good start needs a little more details.

I'll gather some info on the history. The Life Boys which became the Junior Section. Robins/Anchor Boys

Typical activities. Camping, parades, badgework, displays etc.

The badge structure both old and the new. Also the Presidents and Queens badges.

I'll post more when I get a chance with some of hte details

This is a good start, and a good topic for a guide entry. I suppose the big question that I'm left with is why they never merged with the scout movement, as they appear to be doing much the same thing.

I used to work on a kids' activity centre in Scotland and we'd sometimes have BB groups come to stay. Because so many of them seemed to wear Rangers shirts I assumed that they were a Protestant/Presbetarian youth group, but then I saw another group with two lads wearing Celtic shirts!

What might add to this is some personal reminiscences or examples if we have researchers who used to be members, particularly around activities and awards. I was thinking that anecdotes that are typical rather than exceptional might add real flavour to this. If you do want to do this, the quotes can be put in italics and should be uncredited in the main text - "one researcher recalls that...."

A good entry. The only thing I can think to add is that the uniform is a right sod to clean, or was when I went, with that little button that had to be taken off and scrubbed with Brasso.

Having mentioned Sir William Smith, it would be better to just call him 'Smith' or 'Sir William' from then on (but be consistent).

At the risk of being boring, have a look at the 'English Usage in the Edited Guide' A266131 and 'Using Approved GuideML in the Edited Guide'. The major points are that you should always use single quotation marks (except for quotations within quotations, which you don't have), blockquotes don't need quotation marks and should be italicised (except for the name of the quotee, see my rewriting of your opening quotation below), but quotations in the run of the text shouldn't be.

The Promotion of habits of Obedience, Reverence, Discipline, Self-Respect and all that tends towards a true Christian manlinessThis quote was used to form the Boys' Brigade's Oject - detailed below..
- Sir William Smith

Other than that I've picked out a couple of typos under 'Early Years ...'
fledling -> fledgeling
thir -> third

Thanks for the tips, I'll make changes!
I got most of the information from the Boys' Brigades own website, which didn't really got into enough detail for the guide entries. I'll look around for more info and ask at my local BB Company for a BB Handbook or something.

>>I suppose the big question that I'm left with is why they never merged with the scout movement, as they appear to be doing much the same thing.<< (Otto)

I''m not sure, the basics seem to be completely different, with the BB being submitted to a church, something I don't tink the scouts are?

Many Scout troops are associated with churches. My own was known as 'The Pioneers' because they were the first in town that weren't. The details of such arrangements may be different.

In the end the question could be turned round - why should they merge? After all, the Guides are still going, though girls can now join Scouts. Some churches have Scouts, BB, Guides and a youth club, and if they get decent turn outs at them all, why not?

I think the Scout movement was Church-based but is now multi-faith, with the promise changing from referring to 'God' to 'my God' or equivalent. But atheists are not permitted to join according to their website.

Hi Marc/watchaharry

How are you getting on with this?

Erm, sort of stuck for more info, i'll get around to doing corrections soon

OK - I've used your suggestions above to add a bit to the entry and also to correct or change things where necessary - thanks again for the help

Hi there!

I don't have a great deal of time to go into detail at the moment, so here's just a few things that I thought of after reading your article:

- There's hardly any mention of music. Certainly the main thing that held the company I was in together was the quality of the (marching) band (bugles, drums, xylophone, etc.). Maybe this could be mentioned when you talk about drill and figure marching, as the two kind of go together in my experience. This kind of leads on to my other point:

- You talk a bit about battalion competitions... there are also regional and national competitions. I certainly remember taking part in a national band competition and also a regional cross-country competition (which I think we qualified for after our company won the battalion cross-country).

- Are your age boundaries correct? I was in the junior section when I was 7, although that may have been because the anchor boys section didn't really get going until I was about 10.

- Possibly you could also talk about NCOs? (i.e. senior section members who get "stripes" to wear on their armbands along with the badges and suchlike) I can't remember all the different classes but I'm sure you could look them up

I'll give this another read in a few days and see if I can think of anything else. Good job so far!

Good point, I learned the bugle in BB. I once managed to get four different notes out of the thing.

I only ever managed three of the five notes. I sort of hummed the other two down the bugle and got away with it!

National competitions definitely still existed ten years ago, as my company took part in national quiz and football tournaments.

Drill is definitely one of the things that sets BB apart from Scouts.

A recent development is Amicus - for the oldest bits of Boys' and Girls' Brigades. It's a non-uniformed variation on the theme, where there's less emphasis on badgework (though you can still work towards Queen's Badge or Duke of Edinburgh's Award if you so choose) with boys and girls in the same group. Girls' Brigade is not the same as Boys' Brigade, although they are sister organisations. They have different badgework structures, for a start.

David - proud holder of the Queen's Badge and a member of one of the first Amicus groups (I recently went bak gome to attend a 10th anniversary do)

Just noting that the author watchaharry last posted on H2G2 on 14 Dec 2006.

Propose move to Flea Market?


Galaxy Babe
Scout

Seconded.

Added to the lists

Daym

oh well

It hasn't yet been moved, so if you want to keep it in Peer Review, just speak up.