Scouting is an educational movement/system focused on developing young people’s personalities. Scout is a member of the scout organization, which participates in scout activities and programs. Scouts are mostly young people, but some scout organizations can also have programs for adults. The idea of scouting is supporting personal development of young people through outdoor activities, education, volunteering, and character building.
Scouting was started in 1907 by Robert Baden-Powell, but the Scout Association was formed three years later. Baden-Powell is the first chief of scouting worldwide and the biggest scout. The first scout camp was in 1907 led by Baden-Powell on Brownsea Island with 20 kids. Five years later, he married Olave Soames. Their marriage gift was a car, Standard Landaulette that was paid by a hundred thousand scouts (each donated one penny). Later, his wife started leading girl scouting.
The most popular things about scouts are their outdoor activities, like scout’s camps ,and expeditions, … This in not what scouts are doing. Scouts are in small groups (6 – 10 kids) of same age and with two or three councilors /mentors. Every week, they meet at their scout meeting somewhere in/outdoors. They do programs made by their mentors. The program is made for the development of their social, intellectual, emotional, character, physical ,and spiritual.
Scouting has a really good system of levels. At the lowest level are groups of scouts. In the next level are scout troops, containing 2 – 4 smaller groups. Scout troops (2 – 4) are making scout corps together. These two bigger levels have their leader. Then we have scout regions with their regional council. We also have a scout assembly with representatives from every scout corp in one country.
They meet every three years where they make important decisions and vote for chiefdom. A head of the chiefdom is a chief of the whole country. Scout headquarters helps chiefdom with their tasks. People in these headquarters have a registration, magazines, websites , and all other things in charge, so the organisation can work.
Scouting is all about volunteering. Everyone in scouting is a volunteer (with small exceptions). For example, in Slovak scouting we have more than 7000 scouts and only around 15 are paid for their work. We are not only leading some people, but we also volunteer in some projects. In Slovakia, we have projects like “Wedging castles”, where we are trying to rebuild old, ruined castles. We are also carriers of Bethlehem light for our churches and families.
In scouting, we divide scouts into different age groups. This is different in every country, but here in Slovakia, we have 6 different age groups. The first are preschoolers (0 – 6 years), wolves or young scouts (7 – 10 years), scouts (11 – 14 years), rangers (15 – 18 years), rovers (19 – 24 years), adults in scouting (25+ years). I have been in scouting for four years. One year I was a wolf, two years a scout and one year a ranger. Now I am a mentor for my group of scouts. I got much experience from scouting, but mostly from mentoring. From our scout program for the whole country, I did two challenges when I was a scout. I really like our scout program because it opens me new to experiences and new hobbies. I want to continue in my “scout life” and one time, I can be the leader of my scout troop.
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