The Invisible Scout

[Cambridgeskip]

LC, I think I'm being misunderstood here and apologies for calling you naive. It was un scout like. I do though stand by my point on how you promote scouting.

 

I am not talking about hiding anything, I'm not talking about uniforms just for formal occasions. Of course not.

 

What I'm talking about is if you are looking to promote scouting you have to treat it like anything, else you have to look at what "sells" and what gets people through the door.

 

Let's forget scouts for the moment and think about other things.

 

Imagine you're selling cars (I mean main stream car selling here, not specialist sites for motor heads!). There are important things like engines and gear boxes and all other kinds of things that are fundamental and of course people want to know about. But that isn't what you put at the top of the front page of your website. No, you put pictures of shiny cars that look good. Example here

 

My parents are getting on in their years and now spend several months a year on cruise ships. They love it! What is important onboard a cruise ship? A good safety record and high levels of customer service are vital. BUT that is not what gets them onboard. Pictures of lifeboats or cleaners and waiters is not the first thing you put on the front page of your website. or your brochure. What you put is pictures of smiling people in sunny places and luxurious looking ships. Example here

 

Same with scouts. The first thing you show and what gets the kids through the door and what you make it easy for them to find pictures of is kids with smiles on their faces having a good time.

[LeCastor]

LC, I think I'm being misunderstood here and apologies for calling you naive. It was un scout like. I do though stand by my point on how you promote scouting.

 

I am not talking about hiding anything, I'm not talking about uniforms just for formal occasions. Of course not.

 

What I'm talking about is if you are looking to promote scouting you have to treat it like anything, else you have to look at what "sells" and what gets people through the door.

 

Thanks, Cambridge.

 

If you look back a few posts I did say "You are correct". I then said that my Scoutmaster friend had a Troop where uniforms and ideals weren't popular. That is not in reference to you or your Scouting group or how I promote Scouting. Your point about showing youth having fun and adventures is valid, no doubt. However, when we are talking to parents we don't want to say, "well, we're not going to use the Scout Oath and Law around here. We're just a high adventure club". Likewise, we're not going to say that we don't wear uniforms around here either because, well, in the case of my Troop doing either of these things would be disingenuous. I'm not into bait and switch.

 

Now, on my social media page for the Troop I do post pictures of my Scouts out in the field doing the fun stuff. But I also post pictures of them doing service in the community. Service might not be "sexy" to some teens but it's pretty darn important and I'm not going to hide that from my recruiting strategy.

[qwazse]

Uniforming in a promotional message is used to reach:

• the ladies -- moms to be exact. Especially with the little cubs. Precious little else tugs at their heartstrings more.
  
• the veterans. Servicemen are sincerely moved when they see boys working at looking sharp while raising colors.
  
• businessman. Sharp boys = courteous customers.
  

Form a boy's perspective, he has the choice of dozens of uniforms (sports leagues, school blazers, Sunday bests). He already has learned that the threads don't define the program. He may have learned this the hard way. (One season on a team of diva's will do it. They all line up for opening ceremony looking sharp, but after the coin toss, what's under the uniforms better perform with flawless execution.) So, looking from the outside, unless those uniformed fellas are skipping through a meadow or shooting skeet, they communicate nothing to the average teen.

[Sentinel947]

What we are really talking about is..."knowing your audience." I think we do need to tailor our recruiting pitches depending on who we are talking to. I doubt anybody disagrees...haha.

[Cambridgeskip]

What we are really talking about is..."knowing your audience." I think we do need to tailor our recruiting pitches depending on who we are talking to. I doubt anybody disagrees...haha.

Precisely! And on that note, one of my scouts is half German and when she visits family in Berlin goes to a German scout troop. Talking to her about that is fascinating. As I'm sure you can imagine German history makes them very very mistrusting of uniformed youth organisations. While scouts there do have uniform it is almost unheard of to be seen in it in public and indeed many scouts don't even own it.

[Rick_in_CA]

Precisely! And on that note' date=' one of my scouts is half German and when she visits family in Berlin goes to a German scout troop. Talking to her about that is fascinating. As I'm sure you can imagine German history makes them very very mistrusting of uniformed youth organisations. While scouts there do have uniform it is almost unheard of to be seen in it in public and indeed many scouts don't even own it.[/quote']

 

I have heard that for many German scouts, the only uniform item they wear is the neckerchief.

[blw2]

it's my opinion after very much thought and reflection in my years as a Cub Scouter and Troop CC, that the T-Shirt, what some of us for some reason like to call "class B" is the root of a lot of problems, including the lack of identity.

 

We look like some odd undefined generic "youth group" Instead of looking like a group of "scouts" when we are together... hiking, doing service work, even when camping..... could be a church group, a school class, or any number of clubs.

and beyond that, I could list several other faults in the program that root on these blasted T-Shirts that we have let worm their way into the program.

 

Even the solo necker, as mentioned in the previous post, is something that says "Scout", and nothing else.

[Stosh]

blw2 has it correct. For many years the scout uniform has taken a hit by not only society, but by scouts themselves. Scouters wear half uniforms and "class-b uniforms" and only while in activities. Otherwise they come to the meeting with it wadded up, put it on and immediately after closing flags, it's off and wadded up again.

 

So, here's the solution to the whole thing. Do away with the uniform that no one wears correctly anyway and then quit yer bitchin' about scouts being invisible. They prefer it that way as to the majority of scouters I see out there.

 

When you see a law enforcement officer, you know it. When you see a firefighter, you know it. When you see a doctor, you know it, same for nurses. But when you see a scout. Well, he's not concerned enough about his image to let you know.

 

Stosh

[qwazse]

... the uniform that no one wears correctly anyway ...

 

It's an odd youth who wants to wear something that requires a 100 page manual. If someone unfamiliar to scouting does a cursory search for a boy in uniform on the internet, they are likely to find a post criticizing a picture of someone (maybe a scout, maybe the CSE) for some deviation from it -- with the phrase "correctly or not at all". Those of us who did get our picture in the paper as scouts (back when everyone read the things, and the editor/photographer would mail the original positive to your house with thanks): imagine how we'd feel if the next day there were letters to the editor complaining about our patch placement and the kind of slacker adult that would let you be photographed that way. Yep, I could see the boys in school coming up to me saying "Wow, where can I sign up to be picked on by the town's crochety uniform police?"

 

The current complexity of the uniform almost guarantees that a noble scout will not apply his many well-deserved insignia 100% correctly. And the current ease with which some scouter with nothing better do can berate him or his leaders for it makes the fall-back to only posting pictures of activity shirts a constant temptation.

[blw2]

You are right qwazse.... I agree, except to excuse the practice, which is what I'm sensing is your point......

BUT the thing is, it 'aint that hard to get it right, at least pretty close. Sure, there may be a "100 page manual".. but it doesn't really take study to get the concept. There are plenty of cheat sheet type quick look quides, and a 2 minute google search will answer almost any question about any obscure patch or medal. My uniform, and my son's, might not be 100% to the millimeter, but it's pretty close and it doesn't take much effort....

I find it shameful that so many folks can't be bothered with such a minor amount of effort.

 

So, jblake called the solution. Some of us don't like it.... but there it is in our face.

[Stosh]

100 page manual? Just do the highlights.... tuck in the shirt. Most boys can't even do that much.

 

Stosh

[qwazse]

You are right qwazse.... I agree' date=' except to excuse the practice, which is what I'm sensing is your point......[/quote']

 

My point is that non-scouters no longer just see the picture of a boy in uniform doing whatever. They see that picture with some comments from self-appointed uniform police picking apart a boy's patch. The grander the task the boy is doing, the hotter the claptrap about "How dare National post an image of an improperly uniformed scout?" and "Who taught that boy to hang his sash from his belt?" Suddenly, what would be promotional material is just embarrassing.

 

The complexity of the insignia system has made some scouters act like prophets of the insignia guide.

 

Or maybe the intimacy of online blogging has made them feel at liberty to make unedited comments. I'm going on record to say that public unsolicited "advise" on any particular boy's insignia is discourteous. It does not make scouting for better for anybody who reads such spew. The proper protocol is to contact the scout's SPL and discretely ask him to relay to the scout that he might want to remedy an wrongly placed patch/sash-over-the-belt/jeans/whatever. Don't know the SPL? Bite the lip!

 

If anyone can help me with a better phrase to reply to impertinent scouters, I'd appreciate it.

 

BUT the thing is' date=' it 'aint that hard to get it right, at least pretty close. Sure, there may be a "100 page manual".. but it doesn't really take study to get the concept. There are plenty of cheat sheet type quick look quides, and a 2 minute google search will answer almost any question about any obscure patch or medal.[/quote']

 

Read what you wrote. More importantly what you didn't write. You didn't say "Everything a boy needs to know about uniforming is in the handbook." Again, the kid's perspective ...

• Fun = a 2 minute online search for the latest game FAQ.
  
• Study = a 2 minute online search for where to sew your latest patch.
  

 

My uniform, and my son's, might not be 100% to the millimeter, but it's pretty close and it doesn't take much effort....

I find it shameful that so many folks can't be bothered with such a minor amount of effort.

 

That's all fine and good. But not every kid has a parent who obsesses about detail. Kid sews his tot'n chip on his pocket flap. or leaves it in a heap on the floor. Which one is a parent more likely to remedy?

 

Sometimes the invisible scout is a consequence of an all-too-visible scouter.

[Cambridgeskip]

Something to throw out there, how many of you have ever encountered French scouts?

 

If you've not then do a google search for "Scouts France", what you see there is what you get.

 

French scouts don't really do smart, or well turned out or formal. But they do do uniform.

 

The shirts won't be tucked in, half won't be buttoned up, neckers are normally in friendship knots rather than in woggles. They frankly look a scruffy bunch of oiks, but they are unmistakenly scouts and they nearly always have smiles on their faces. The kids have taken ownership of the uniform. One might even call in youth lead.

 

Just a thought.

[blw2]

 

 

 

Read what you wrote. More importantly what you didn't write. You didn't say "Everything a boy needs to know about uniforming is in the handbook." Again, the kid's perspective ...

• Fun = a 2 minute online search for the latest game FAQ.
  
• Study = a 2 minute online search for where to sew your latest patch.
  

 

 

 

That's all fine and good. But not every kid has a parent who obsesses about detail. Kid sews his tot'n chip on his pocket flap. or leaves it in a heap on the floor. Which one is a parent more likely to remedy?

 

Sometimes the invisible scout is a consequence of an all-too-visible scouter.

 

 

OK, fair enough.... you've got a point qwazse....but for perspective, I'm writing as a Cubmaster, not a Scoutmaster

 

& for what it's worth, I may very well be part of the problem for not correcting our boys, but I think in keeping with what you are getting at, I too don't want to make a focus onto the stuff that nobody really seems to care about or that seems negative..... so I don't make a habit of pointing out uniform errors.... not that I know all the rules either, but I just don't feel right about correcting a boy, when their den leader is standing there with no uniform, or with jeans for pants, or some other variation on lack of uniform... or even worse, mom or dad is standing there, and obviously hasn't taken the effort to even try to follow the one page uniform guide the scout shop gave them when they bought it.

 

I'm not one to recite chapter and verse, but I at least wear the socks to go along with the pants and the tucked-in shirt! I try to set an example, and whenever I can fit it into the conversation or my Cubmaster's Minute, I point out the uniform or features.... or call attention to the proper wear and usage of the "Activity Uniform" worn under the "Field Uniform".... and I don't use the military alphabet names with the scouts....

 

 

[blw2]

you know, I've been thinking.

for the first couple years, I even spoon fed the info to the parents of the boys receiving the religious medal. I wrote up a little half page or so thing, with pictures, and included it with the knot patches... and emailed it out as well..... most of the boys still didn't have it even close.....

 

I was going to post two pictures, and ask, which one looks better on a trail

one with scouts in mismatched garb.... and one in uniform..... but I couldn't find one with scouts in BSA uniform that wasn't staged! I know I've seen them, liken scouts on a mountaintop in uniform.... just couldn't find one.