Sea Cadets and Sea Scouts

[CNYScouter]

There has been a great deal of interest in the Sea Scout Ship.

 

The Naval Reserve Center here has a Sea Cadet unit. They contacted the council office about the Sea Scouts.

They would like to sign up any eligible members they have to the ship as the one thing they lack is any type of outdoor program.

 

If this were to happen the ship could easily start with 30+ youth.

 

As I do not know anything about this program (and I am just learning the Sea Scout program)

 

How compatible are these programs?

What do you think about linking these two programs up?

What issues and advantages do you see in doing this?

 

[Kahuna]

The programs are quite different, but there are places where they have done that successfully. We have talked about it with the Navy League people here and may yet work out something.

 

Sea Cadets are a lot more military than Sea Scouts. They are into drill and spit and polish a lot more. They do look sharp in their uniforms and they know how to behave correctly. I don't know what they learn about seamanship. Here, they do projects aboard the Mighty Mo, as do Sea Scouts.

 

My only advice is to have a really clear understanding with their leadership about when they are going to be Sea Scouts and when they are going to be Sea Cadets. Just make sure everybody is on the same page.

[Eamonn]

While a lot of what is on the outside may seem the same:

Uniforms, Boats, Seamanship.

I think the big difference is what their mission is and what ours is.

Our guys ran into some Sea Cadets at a Safety at Sea weekend at Curtis Yard Maryland.

As Kahuna posts they looked good, their drill was first rate. On the way home our Scouts said that they didn't want a Ship like that.

I think you need to talk to the Scouts that you have and see what they want.

Sea Cadets seem to do a lot of homework preparing for exams, the outcome of these exams determine if they can attend the summer activities that they offer.

I really don't think that both programs can work in unison. One will overshadow the other.

I think with all the drills and things need to be real Sea Cadets, the Scouting program will get lost.

Sea Cadets is not a youth ran program like Sea Scouting. I really like that Sea Scouting is.

Eamonn.

 

[trailfinder52@yahoo.com]

I must agree with Eamonn .A few years ago. I was a senior member in the Civil Air Patrol and we had a small Venturing Crew in the squadron, and the CAP Cadet Program overshadowed what we were trying to do with the Crew. However to be fair we did do a whitewater rafting trip on the Lehigh River, the CAP Cadets felt that Venturing was not quite tough enough for them, or even military enough.