Privileged Scouting

Posted on 14 July, 2011 by Kiff

<Adult scratching his head>

Adult 1:- Need a young person to shake to hobnob with a group of VIP’s

Adult 2:- DC son

Adult 1:- Great Idea

<Picks up phone>

—– 0000 —–

I have a couple of questions for you Do we as a movement allow certain people in scouting to always do the same thing? Are any of your scouts getting privilege treatment?

I am sure you will answer “No I treat all our scout equally” and to that I say “Bollocks”, Privilege treatment occurs at every level of scouting.

At Colony/Pack/Troop/Unit Level certain YP get chosen time and time again to under take privileged roles.Be it as simple as carrying the flag at Church Parade or representing the group at the District Young Peoples Forum (YPF) we have our go to scouts the ones who we know will behave engage and not cast dispersion on the Group.

At a District level there a certain groups who always seem to represent the District at County YPF or if young people are required to escort VIP they all seem to come from the same group/Unit district.

At County level particularly in the run up to a Jamboree the is a continual use of the Jamboree unit for items, event, occasions that could be seen as privileged.

Untill recently I thought that is where is stops however I have recently been aware that it also happens at National Level, I guess this is in part due to the rise in use of social media, but I have noticed that it seems that the same people are being used for presenting the birthday badges or attending film screenings, or in promotional photo shoots.

While I don’t begrudge any of these people the opportunity they are getting, I feel that as adults we must look inward and ask why do we do this.

Is is as simple as it is the path of least resistance?

Should we sometimes try to give that opportunity to someone different, maybe it will be the incentive to become more involved or to be less troublesome.

What do you all think?

TTFN

TTFN

Kiff

©ChrisMeadows2012

Hello Reader – Are you new to Jabbering All Day Long can I suggest that you check out our Starter for Ten Page which will hopefully give you a guide as you take your first couple of footsteps around this site.

A Scout is to be Trusted

Posted on 9 August, 2010 by Kiff

Hello Dear Reader

I was reading the latest copy of Scouting Magazine and I came across a very interesting letter.

The letter was commenting that in Scouting Magazine April/May issue it said “There is a growing tendency to promote the use of Social Networking sites among our Members” and that both Facebook and Twitter restrict the use of their service to people over the age of 13. The letter went on the comment that should we [Scouting] be promoting scouts to partake in something which “the providers themselves consider unsuitable for a large part of our membership” and that the letter also indicated that by posting information in this way we are encouraging young people to break the rules.

While I agree with the response that Scouting Magazine gave to the letter it did get me thinking, I am involved predominantly in the Explorer Scout section and therefore all the young people I work with, when asked by Facebook or twitter are you 13 or over can click Yes with guilt free.

However I know a quite a few Scout group Facebook pages where groups provide mainly photos sharing from activities which the group took part in. Obviously little Jonny and Little Jane are not tagged or named in any way however should they want to be part of this group they either need to get their parents to sign up to Facebook or “Break the Rules”.

I would guess that most scout groups would say that the Facebook page was there to provide information for the Parents not for the young people to be part of, however isn’t inclusion what Scouting is all about.

So the questions still remains “A Scout is to be trusted” and should we ask a scout to break that trust to be included in something the Scout Group is doing?

I would be very intrested to know your thoughts

TTFN

TTFN

Kiff

©ChrisMeadows2012

Hello Reader – Are you new to Jabbering All Day Long can I suggest that you check out our Starter for Ten Page which will hopefully give you a guide as you take your first couple of footsteps around this site.

Why all the Fuss

Posted on 10 February, 2010 by Kiff

Hello Dear Reader

It baffles and amuses me that when something like Twitter or Facebook changes the population of those forums goes nut we see Facebook forums set up called:-

I like my old Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg why the change

How could you ruin my life by changing my Facebook

Oh… wow….. everthing has moved….

and the most annoying

If they don’t change Facebook back I am going to leave

First point is these pages are set up ON FACEBOOK and you are there by using the tool which you are saying is not for you it just weakens your argument. It is like writing on a banner “I will never use Pens again…. Well ok after this last time”

Secondly Mark Zuckerberg has us all by the short and curlies because we like the social interaction that facebook give us.

Are you ready here are the numbers:-

Company Figures

• More than 400 million active users

• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day

• More than 35 million users update their status each day

• More than 60 million status updates posted each day

• More than 3 billion photos uploaded to the site each month

• More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week

• More than 3.5 million events created each month

• More than 3 million active Pages on Facebook

• More than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook

• More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day

• Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans

Average User Figures

• Average user has 130 friends on the site

• Average user sends 8 friend requests per month

• Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook

• Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month

• Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month

• Average user becomes a fan of 4 Pages each month

• Average user is invited to 3 events per month

• Average user is a member of 13 groups

Information taken from the Facebook statistics page

It would not matter if they made Facebook florescent orange with a strobe effect we would still log in everyday so we could:-

a. join a group about stopping the hunting of Vegetarians with pointed sticks because it is offence to the one legged goat herder in Iamnotsurewhereitisastan

b. vent to the world that we are / are not (delete as appropriate) happy that mum cooked chicken casserole using chicken

c. Spend hours running on a virtual treadmill in order to level up our fitness.

So what is your point Kiff – well why complain about something, you know that after two evenings of using you will just accept and continue to use. I mean can anyone remember what the original Facebook looked like. I have done a search and can’t find an image of it anywhere – so unless Mark Zuckerberg reads my blog (which I doubt very much) and posts a screen grab he has we will never know.

Well that is my peace said I am now off to ensure that I get the next badge on bejewled2 before any of my other friends.

p.s. if you want to find me on facebook then click the face book button on the right —>

TTFN