New Age Scouting

[Eamonn]

I had a pal come around to do some work on my old computer. He managed to screw it up that I will have to take it to the store.

Everything is in or on the old computer. Most of the really important stuff is safe on little Jump disks. I however never worked out a way of backing up my address book. All of my addresses are safe and sound in that old computer.

Rebuilding the address book has been and is an ongoing chore.

I spent a little while adding the Jamboree Troop to the address book and for some of the participants I have the address of both the parent and the boy. As a rule I have just added everyone Parents, Scouts, and anyone else who has anything to do with an event to a group. My thinking being that if someone doesn't want it they will just hit the delete.

For a couple of Scouts I only have their E-mail addresses. Do you think I should also get their parents E-mail address?

My son has more E-mail addresses than you can count. Hot mail, Yahoo, even an OA E-mail address. I don't know half of them (I'm not sure that he knows all of them)

Most of what I send out is details of what, where and when. I also send a Monthly News Sheet, which is more for the parents than for the Scouts, hard copies are available at every Troop meeting.

I do like E-mail because it's cheap,quick and easy. I don't like that even with return receipts,it seems very much a one way communication.

When you send E-mails do you send them to the Scout the parent or both?

(How do you make a copy of your address book?)

Eamonn.

PS: I miss my Windows 98 this XP take a little getting used to.

 

[EagleInKY]

While all of the parents in my troop have e-mail, only about 1/3 of the boys have their own dedicated e-mail address. I guess that parents are still pretty cautious (our guys are all pretty young). So, I usually send e-mails to the parents address. If it's specifically for the boys, I'll often send it to both parent's and boy's e-mail addresses.

 

I'm amazed at how many people (including SWMBO) only check e-mail about once every week or so. It's effectiveness is diluted that way. It's become as important (or more important) communication vehicle for so many of us. Who would go days (or weeks) without checking their postal mailbox???

[WAKWIB]

Eamonn, I have Juno which has it's own "backup-wizard" that enables me to save e-mail and the address book to a floppy disk. I imagine Outlook has something like that but I'm not sure where it's located.

The troop I serve has become very dependent on e-mail. When our current Scoutmaster took over he made it pretty clear that it would be his preferred method of communication. A number of folks were like the ones described by EagleInKY...never checked their e-mail. After missing some important announcements they were soon broke of that habit. I guess the point is if you give out your e-mail address, make sure you check it daily.

 

[hops_scout]

I, too, have a million email accounts E. I've got 2 gmail accounts (can give away some if anybody's looking for one), Yahoo, Hotmail (trying to get away from it), and a couple more that are unknown to most. I'd say that other than Yahoo, I check my email accounts 3/4 times a day if possible.

[FScouter]

In Outlook 2000, create a new contacts folder, then copy address entries to the new folder. Select the entries you want, then hold the CTL key and drag them to the new folder.

 

If you want a backup of the entire contacts folder in a file you can save to a floppy or whatever:

In Outlook, Select File, Import & Export, Export to a file, Personal Folder File (.PST), Select folder to export, Save as(filename). To open the backed up contact file, double click on it in whatever directory you saved it. A new Personal Folders file will appear in your Outlook folder list.

 

[Eamonn]

Thanks for the help.

A pal of mine on the other side of the pond, where believe it or not cell phones are "Bigger" there than they are here. (Sit on the underground, people used to read the paper or do the cross word - Now everyone stares at their cell phone!!) He now sends a text message to all of his Scouts to remind them about events and the like. The cost is for the message, not how many people you send it too.

As far as I know none of the leaders in our district are doing this yet. I think it is really neat. He also has all the Scouts home numbers in the memory of his phone. What a wonderful safety tool. The summer of 2002 we spend some time with his troop at their summer camp. The day we arrived the Patrol Leaders had organized a hike (Six miler is a requirement for their equivalent of Second Class) As ever one Patrol was a little late returning. The SPL, phoned the PL, the delay had something to do with a pig, a hen and a dog?? I never did hear the full story. They have accepted the fact that all the Scouts have cell phones and are using them as part of the program.

I loved the text message idea. OJ, and his pals use it a lot. I can text message him from my computer. Sad thing is that most adults I know don't know how to use it. We could make it work for us to remind our kids and never have to hear "I forgot" ever again!! Well that might be wishful thinking.

We are moving more and more toward acceptance of all this new "stuff". Troops and packs are using software and computers to track advancement. Our Merit Badge list can be E-mailed to a Scout in a couple of clicks. We have on-line training's. Power-point presentations. Web sites and web pages. I have to admit that when I came across two families that don't have an E-mail address I was a little surprised.

I would be interested to hear how you are using this "New Age" stuff to improve your programs.

Eamonn.

[romboman]

E-mail is a great modern tool, however I also like to call my SPL on the phone and have him call the patrol leaders, you get the idea....If a parent or scout complains they didn't get the info, I refer them back to their PL or SPL. "boy lead troop" means placing resposiblity in the boys hands. Guess I'm getting a little off the subject, also a little old fashioned. don't get me wrong, I am into technology and new age conveniences. I just like to make sure I am doing my job by not doing the boys work for them.

[eagle90]

We are trying to use more and more electronic communications, but still make use of phone and written and distributed newsletters. Too many times I have heard, "My computer is down". " I didn't check my Email", "I changed my address", etc. Hopefully we can do more and more electronically.