Adventurer Dwayne Fields becomes new UK Chief Scout

[RememberSchiff]

9/5/2024:

"Dwayne Fields been appointed as our 11th Chief Scout to lead our half a million young people and adult volunteers for his values, commitment to help young people, and outstanding leadership qualities. During his time as Chief Scout, Dwayne aims to inspire even more young people and adult volunteers to join from all backgrounds. "

More details and photos at source:

https://www.scouts.org.uk/news/2024/september/dwayne-fields-becomes-new-uk-chief-scout/

 

[Eagle1993]

Looks like a great choice.  Entertaining high adventure dude, active in social media.

UK continues to surge, recognizes the importance of new media and outreach to where you consume today.  Their Chief is 41 years old, has Insta and Twitter accounts in addition to being very active on YouTube.  First black Briton to reach North Pole.

 Our Chief is 68, no Insta or Twitter.  He is on YouTube but tell me which guy kids will follow...

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 6 by Eagle1993
Corrrected that he is the first Black Briton to reach north pole. First black man was (possibly) Matthew Alexander Henson.

[RememberSchiff]

So is Bear Grylls available?

[Tron]

On 9/6/2024 at 8:48 AM, Eagle1993 said:

Looks like a great choice.  Entertaining high adventure dude, active in social media.

UK continues to surge, recognizes the importance of new media and outreach to where you consume today.  Their Chief is 41 years old, has Insta and Twitter accounts in addition to being very active on YouTube.  First black Briton to reach North Pole.

 Our Chief is 68, no Insta or Twitter.  He is on YouTube but tell me which guy kids will follow...

 

 

 

 

 

Great points. I'm starting to  think the underlying answer is that SA is far too interested in creating "leaders" instead of good people with outdoors skills. 

On 9/7/2024 at 6:37 PM, RememberSchiff said:

So is Bear Grylls available?

I hope not. IMHO anyone of us could throw a rock and find a more qualified person than Bear Grylls.

[qwazse]

Krone: This (NOAC) is the largest gathering of scouts outside of National Jamboree.

World Scout Jamboree: hold my beer.

[RememberSchiff]

On 9/14/2024 at 9:53 PM, Tron said:

Great points. I'm starting to  think the underlying answer is that SA is far too interested in creating "leaders" instead of good people with outdoors skills. 

I hope not. IMHO anyone of us could throw a rock and find a more qualified person than Bear Grylls.

IMHO, you will likely end up with a sore arm and just find someone too slow to duck who may only change the name.

"Following a decade of membership decline in the 1990s, Scouts saw exceptional growth when Bear became Chief Scout. It was a brilliant pick (and as a volunteer, he's never been paid a penny for the time he's given). Young people and volunteers, hungry for adventure, decided to join the movement in their droves. Bear transformed Scouts' image, attracted new volunteers* and motivated us all with his ‘never give up’ attitude."

IMHO, we could use some Bear Gryll's attitude here and less closed room discussions with questionable growth projection graphs. 

Source:

https://www.scouts.org.uk/news/2024/july/saying-thank-you-and-goodbye-to-bear-grylls/

*Dwayne is working to recruit more volunteers.

My $0.02

Edited September 19 by RememberSchiff

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

On 9/14/2024 at 8:53 PM, Tron said:

I'm starting to  think the underlying answer is that SA is far too interested in creating "leaders" instead of good people with outdoors skills. 

It seems that way to me as well.

When I was a scout myself, I didn't even register a lot of the leadership training as such, because it was just something to deal with in order to go on epic adventures. Like I think a good number of folks have said repeatedly before here, the kids aren't signing up for leadership and character, it's what they get in the process of the sausagemaking. The kids want ADVENTURE. A Chief Scout that radiates cool suitably dangerous adventure is a great messenger for that reputation.

I haven't surveyed all NSOs and MOs of course, but I don't think it's a coincidence that both Scouts UK and Scouterna are growing, are culturally "around", and are selling primarily outdoor adventure. When Scouts are mentioned in Swedish entertainment and news media, we're portrayed as fit, competent, and organized at survival skills. One match fire, all that jazz. We are always portrayed outside. I saw my now cub scout perk up when they saw that in children's shows. They're almost certainly not alone.

When I see Scouting America portrayed in US media, it's mostly around civic/patriotic themes. That isn't bad, but it isn't alluring to the children the way outdoor adventure is. The parents probably like to see that, but becoming known in our local communities as the premier arranger of outdoor adventures for youth is probably strategically important if we want to magnetize kids.

Now, a cool Chief Scout isn't the only way to create that reputation, of course. We scouters can talk up the adventure we're arranging to people in our communities. Our pack had a strategy discussion last year about leaning into outdoor adventure and (age-appropriate) responsibility for making it happen last year, and we're all heartened to see that the program bar for outdoor adventure has gone up to about where we wanted to put it. We're geared up to offer all the fishing adventures on both campouts and separate fishing trips this year so that we're offering camping, fishing, and hiking on a monthly basis. We need to beat REI and all the various get outdoors groups in terms of reputation as a great on-ramp to outdoor skills. We should be people's #1 choice for that.

Edited September 20 by AwakeEnergyScouter
Accidentally quoted too much and it was confusing

[fred8033]

On 9/14/2024 at 8:53 PM, Tron said:

Great points. I'm starting to  think the underlying answer is that SA is far too interested in creating "leaders" instead of good people with outdoors skills. 

100% dead on correct.  Outdoor adventures sells itself.  Leadership is boring and can be gotten many, many, many other ways.  

Scouting flounders when explicitly teaching leadership.  Very few people can teach "leadership"; virtually zero scout leaders.  Perhaps, if BSA sells itself on teaching leadership, the chief scout should be Tony Robbins or the next Stephen Covey.  

On the flip side, scout leaders are really good at teaching the outdoor skills and enabling campouts and adventures.  And, by being outdoors, you learn leadership and fellowship and and responsibility and helping each other.   But, don't market based on that.  Market adventure and outdoors.

Edited October 7 by fred8033

[Eagledad]

48 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

100% dead on correct.  Outdoor adventures sells itself.  Leadership is boring and can be gotten many, many, many other ways.  

Scouting flounders when explicitly teaching leadership.  Very few people can teach "leadership"; virtually zero scout leaders.  Perhaps, if BSA sells itself on teaching leadership, the chief scout should be Tony Robbins or the next Stephen Covey.  

On the flip side, scout leaders are really good at teaching the outdoor skills and enabling campouts and adventures.  And, by being outdoors, you learn leadership and fellowship and and responsibility and helping each other.   But, don't market based on that.  Market adventure and outdoors.

Well said. We found that while many scouts get leadership experience, leadership skills are learned more by watching other leaders. And leadership training doesn't add much to the development. Which is why we stopped offering repetitive annual leadership development courses and started offering leadership tuning courses on demand. Why attend a skill you already know when instead get instruction for an area of leadership that you are struggling with? 

Outdoors truly is the foundation for scouting because it puts the scouts in a challenging environment where they must make survival decisions. If you watch closely, you see that the patrol members must make many decisions just to cook a meal. The farther the patrol gets from working as a team, the more they struggle to enjoy a tasty meal. The outdoors forces evaluations of bad decisions and rewards for good decisions. The outdoors forces wisdom and integrity simply through the efforts of surviving the campout. The biggest hindrance to that growth is the adults not allowing the scouts to have that experience.  Adults can only get out of the way by separating their camp 200 feet away from the scout's camp.

I love this scouting stuff. 

Barry

[RememberSchiff]

10/9/2024:

Like Scouting UK Dwayne Fields,  our new Recruiting Ambassador David Montgomery's Scouting experience helped him through a difficult childhood.

From wiki David Montgomery , Eagle Scout and Detroit Lions running back:

Montgomery had a difficult childhood. He does not know his father, and his mother moved the family numerous times around Cincinnati due to economic hardship. He remembers using the oven for heat, and boiling water collected from gas stations in the bath tub when either was disconnected. He has a brother who was incarcerated for drug trafficking and murder. After scoring a touchdown, Montgomery frequently holds up a "V"-sign in memory of a high school teammate and role model who was murdered during a home invasion.^[69]

While he was with Iowa State, Montgomery was chosen as a semi-finalist for the Jason Witten Collegiate Man of the Year Award for his efforts in befriending Hunter Erb, a 6-year-old who was born with multiple congenital heart defects, and orchestrating a team visit to Marshalltown, Iowa to help clean up after a tornado.

Scout Salute,

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Montgomery_(American_football)#2018_season