Can a scout have an email address officially?

[Basementdweller]

The Face book, My space thing is separation, much as Beavah has mentioned.

 

I have hunting, Car club and motorcycle friends, as well as family on facebook. Some of them Adult Scouters.

 

Youth scouts do not need access to that part of my life.

 

 

Exibar, you may be over stepping your bounds by setting up email accounts for all the scouts. I would speak with the CC, and COR and see what they have to say. Plus, I would wager most of the boys already have email accounts and probably don't need another. The approach I would take would be to bring a laptop with a aircard to a troop meeting and setup gmail or yahoomail or one of the other million free email services.

 

I agree with the cc the parents.

[Lisabob]

I think you will find you have more difficulty getting scouts to check an email address - especially one that is specifically for scouting - than anything else. Most of them probably do have email already, but I am discovering in my interaction with teens and early 20-somethings that these days, they use other media more frequently. Checking email and actually answering is about as common as returning phone calls or writing thank you notes, it seems.

[Basementdweller]

Lisa has a point, they are forever txting. That would probably be the best way to contact them.

[AlFansome]

 

You can also combine e-mail and texting as well. In order to send an e-mail out that gets received as a text on someone's cell phone, you can use the following e-mail address formats, depending on the cell phone company. (phonenumber will be the full 10-digit number including area code, so a Verizon customer's e-mail address would be 2125551212@vtext.com)

 

If indeed a youth member prefers texts over e-mails, then ask for his/her cell number and carrier and use that in your e-mail list.

 

 

US Cellular: phonenumber@email.uscc.net

AT&T: phonenumber@txt.att.net

T-Mobile: phonenumber@tmomail.net

Virgin Mobile: phonenumber@vmobl.com

Cingular: phonenumber@cingularme.com

Sprint: phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com

Verizon: phonenumber@vtext.com

Nextel: phonenumber@messaging.nextel.com

SunCom: phonenumber@tms.suncom.com

Powertel: phonenumber@ptel.net

Alltel: phonenumber@message.alltel.com

Metro PCS: phonenumber@MyMetroPcs.com

 

 

[OneHour]

What goes into one ear, goes right back out the other side! So we communicate the "follow-up" with emails! I have a junior leaders distribution list that I use to communicate with them before PLC, Campouts, or other activities. We setup Google mail groups that allow families and scouts to register to in order to receive troop messages. I found several years ago ... parents do not always forward the email to their sons and on top of that, they don't check their emails as often as the troop needs them to. The boys, however, do and do it often! My sons (and their friends) live and breathe emails, Facebook, IM, Meebo, twitter, iPod, iPhone, iPad, blackberry, blueberry, .... Gone are the days of the call-trees! Standing 10 feet apart ... they text to each other! Go figure!

[Exibar]

setting up the new email accounts (with parent's permissions) would be an optional item. If the scout already has an email address, they're welcome to use that. or if they prefer a text, that is fine as well as that's still just an email address I can sent to.

 

I guess my issue is that I need a way to send messages out to the scouts themselves, parents are kinda unreliable :-) and phone isn't always a good idea as I usually send messages out well past midnight after the family is asleep.

 

With the kids being so plugged in these days, email is certainly understood and easier for them to use.

 

Mike B

[evmori]

If you need to send something to a Scout in your unit send it! Text it and e-mail it and Facebook it! No special permission is needed from anyone!

[frank10]

No problem using Email to communicate withe the scouts but don't get carried away. You are the SM not the SPL. It is a rare email that you need to send to Tommy Tenderfoot and Sammy Secondclass. Don't bypass the PLC just because it is easy to do.

[Exibar]

Wingnut: agreed, I want to have my SPL and the PL's to be able to communicate to the other scouts as well.

PL's and SPL's change, so I want to make sure that all my scouts have every tool that I can help them with at their disposal for use.

 

 

[BrentAllen]

Our Troop web page (SOAR) has a great email function. We can set up email groups for patrols, leaders, parents, committee, etc. It is very easy to use, and anyone in the group can use it. The Scouts and parents supply the email address they wish to use. Some of the boys have their own address, and their parents have theirs. Everyone we put into Troopmaster is a separate member of the group, so most families will have a separate user id for the Scout, mom and dad. Each one can have a different email address. This system works very well for us.

 

The program even sends out a weekly E-Blast autmatically, showing upcoming events and any changes to the web page since the last E-Blast. Ours goes out every Sunday morning.

[Exibar]

Brent: that sounds really nice. I'll have to look into the SOAR sites. I just googled quick and came up with www.mytroop.us.

 

I'm putting together a Wordpress based website for my troop, same that I had for my cubscout pack. I really like th elook of the SOAR stuff though! maybe I can incorporate some of those features into the wordpress stuff.

 

Mike B