Greetings from Poland

[Silvan]

Hi there everyone,

 

My name is Julian and I'm a Scout Leader in Poland. To the scout organisation I came in 1997. Apart of being a student I work with my 149 troop from my parental city - Poznan. I'm also a member of a Regional group responsible for tourism and it's promotion and a member of Scouters and Guider's Club wich assosiates Academic Scout Leaders (students).

 

I'm very interested if there is sth like S&C Clubs in your countries. In Poland these are troops which help Scout Leader to develop themselves via different courses, trainings, etc. it's also a group that combines people from all over Poland that came to study to Poznan, want to work as Scout Leaders, but are too far from their parental units.

 

I would be very greatful for every information, especially that I was asked to prepare a short presentation on how rovers and Scouts Leaders can develope and work in other countries.

 

Should you need any infos about Poland I would be happy to answer. The same if some of you want to come here, I may be useful as a contact and a guide :-)

 

Yours in Scouting,

Julian

 

[Eamonn]

Hi Julian,

Welcome.

Scouting in the USA can be a little hard to understand.

We have Cub Scouting for the younger boys. They join at about 7 years old and remain in Cub Scouting until they are about ten and half years old. The Boys belong to dens (Tiger, Wolf, Bear, Webelos Scout) The Dens meet weekly and come together once a month for a pack meeting.

As a rule the adults are all volunteers.

At about ten and a half years old the boys move into the Boy Scout Troop.

Boy Scout Troops are all male and the upper age limit is 18 years old. Troops tend to meet weekly. Many try and have one outdoor activity a month with a week or more at camp during the summer.

Nearly all the adults are volunteers.

Venturing is a coed program for youth aged from 14 -21. Venturing units are called Crews.

Sea Scouting is part of Venturing, it is also open to male and females. Sea Scout units are called Ships.

Again just about all the adults in the programs are volunteers.

The USA is broken down by geographical areas into Regions, the regions are broken down into Areas and the Areas are broken down into Councils, the Councils are then broken down into Districts.

Most things outside of the unit happen at the District or Council level.

Depending on size each Council has a Scout Executive who is a professional he has a staff of other professionals who serve the Districts (District Executives)

Nearly all the training's offered are run by volunteers.

A good place to find out more about the BSA is at the BSA web site:

http://www.scouting.org/

I'm a little unsure if this is the information you wanted?

Please feel free to ask, I'm sure we can help make your presentation really great.

Eamonn.

(I happen to live in an area with a fair sized Polish population -Even one of our local churches has a Sunday Mass each week in Polish.)

[epalmer84]

IF I understand this, your Scouters and Guider's Club is an association of college age students?

 

In the US, we have two recognized Scouting organizations: the Boy Scouts of America and the Girl Scouts of the USA. There are a number of other Scouting or Scout-like groups in the US. The BSA and the GSUSA do not generally interact very much.

 

The BSA used to have a College Scouter Reserve, but that program disappeared long ago. There is the Alpha Phi Omega college fraternity which originated as a Scouting association.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Phi_Omega

 

The BSA really does not have any programs for college level youth above age 21.

 

BTW: There are some groups of the ZHP here in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwi%C4%85zek_Harcerstwa_Polskiego

 

(now listening to: Klaus Schulze: Poznan 2003)

[Silvan]

Thanks guys, that info will be of a great use for me. I have few more question.

 

Are there completely no troops in US that assemble scout leaders?

 

My presentation is to be based on different countries from all oer the world. I would be honestly very greatfull if you could give me some contacts to people, especially from South America and Asia.

 

It would be great if those people could speak english while my spanish and german are not very good.

 

Thanks ones more for all info.

[epalmer84]

No, the BSA does not have any "fraternal" groups for adults. I'm pretty sure the GSUSA has nothing like this as well.

 

Ed

[Aquila calva]

The BSA may not have any troops that are made up of adult leaders. But there are two groups that take on some characteristics of such troops. They are Wood Badge (adults) and Order of the Arrow (youth and adults).

 

Then there are those temporary troops that form during summer leader training at the Philmont Training Center at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico.

 

Do an internet search on the following and you will learn a lot.

 

Wood Badge, Boy Scouts of America

 

Order of the Arrow, Boy Scouts of America

 

Philmont Training Center, Boy Scouts of America

 

 

[Silvan]

Thanks a lot Aquila.

 

These are very important details for me ,as for now we don't have Wood Badegs in Poland. We only have so called Scout Leaders' ranks - very similar, but there are considerable differences.