Do you look after your customers

Posted on 18 May, 2012 by Kiff

I was reading Seth Godins Blog and he said

The reason the customer is always right….

If you insist that they are wrong, they stop being your customer.

People spend their time and attention and money in places that make them feel valued.

Should we as adults in Scouting consider this.

The young people involved in scouting are our customers and if we as adult tell the young people they are wrong they will spend their time in places they feel valued.

Maybe we as adults should stop telling the young people what we want them to do and engage with them as to what they want to do.

Just a Thought….

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Some Additional Reading

TTFN

Kiff

©ChrisMeadows2012

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Do we Focus too Much on Empowerment of Women/Girls

Posted on 16 May, 2012 by Kiff

To start a simple questions

Do we focus too much on the Empowerment of Women/Girls?

Yeah Yeah, I know, start slagging me off now as some sort of male chauvinist who knows nothing, however before you do let me just have my say.

The guide association has recently completed another excellent piece of work as part of their Girls Attitudes Explored programme and this time they have looked at role models for females in society.

I don’t want to belittle the work done by the study because the research on peer pressure and stresses in life for young women is very important, and I would highly recommend that any adult in scouting with girls within their pack/troop/unit take a little bit of time and read the report.

It is a detailed study covering a number of topics but one key item that comes from it is that the Media does not give good role models to young women, focusing on mindless (so called) celebrities and the amount of weight they have lost or money they spend on a new nose. They never seem to be focusing on women who have actually achieved something be it in sport, business or politics.

I am sure that if you opened any red top paper or glossy magazine you could have determined that point for yourself without the need for a study.

However going back to my questions, is it not about time we look at the empowerment of young people. It seems there is such a huge focus on the empowerment and support of girls that boys get left behind.

Let us stick with the role models for a moment. If there is a push to understand role models, I ask what role models are there for boys? Yes we live in a Male centric world but the role models offered by the tabloid press are still the same. You still have the same band of TOWIE,XFACTOR,BIGBROTHER nobodies you then have to add on the footballers spitting, swearing, screaming at cameras, cheating on their partners, drinking and crashing their cars etc. You end up with a lot of bad role models.

People say well boys have Richard Branson or Alan Sugar as business models. I personally think Alan Sugar is not a great role model for young people wanting to go into business. Young people will know him not because he founded Amstrad or because he started a business with £100 selling car aerials but because he is on the Apprentice. I have only seen it a couple of times but it seems to be about jumped up sales executives trying to get one over on the rest of their team to impress Sir Alan, now there is a good role model – “I will promote you if you backstab and weasel and undermine your fellow work colleagues”.

While I feel the work the guide association do is great maybe it is time the scout association and guide association came together and did a piece on role models for young people?

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Feel free to tell me I am wrong in the comments below.

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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.

Know Your Role

Posted on 1 April, 2011 by atomicapple247

I came into the living room the other day and my boys were watching the wrestling on the television. The NFL couldn’t come on quick enough. Anyway there was a wrestler, I’m informed by my youngest called The Rock, who told one of the commentary team to basically ‘Shut up, and know your role.’ Anyway I went back into the kitchen as the one liner sound bites we’re making me laugh.

Stood making a coffee, I started to think that maybe ‘The Rock’ had a point. How many people do know their role? How many people actually do their role? And how many try to do other people’s role’s for them? Naturally I got round to Scouting and thought about the number of people in Scouting who seemingly don’t know their role and those that clearly do. It strikes me that in 15 years of Scouting, the amount of districts or groups I have been involved with. The ones that have worked well, worked in a cohesive manner or where I’ve most enjoyed, are where everyone knows their role. Nobody is trying to dominate, nobody is interfering, nobody is using Scouting for their own means.

Yet I can clearly see the places where I have done Scouting and really not enjoyed or had fun. Have been districts or groups where there is confusion or where few know their role. Thinking of those in the latter group, they are full of people who want to run everything to ‘claim’ the glory or those that edge in on other people’s roles purposely or those that never have their roles explained to them and so do such an ineffectual job. The only result in these areas is that the young people lose out or get a poor standard of Scouting.

Now I will admit this is one of my bug bears, as I mentioned in a previous post. People need to be made accountable for what they do. Do you know your role? Do the leaders in your group, know there roles? Do those in position in your district know and fulfil their roles. It strikes me that this needs to be done from the top down. It’s fine training people, but are people actually fulfilling their roles the way they should be? Now I know some people will respond with suggestions like ATM’s, GSL’s and TA’s should be helping with regular monitoring or advice. But this doesn’t happen, nobody can guarantee me that this does happen in at least half of the country.

Every year, like I should as a responsible leader, I do a self review of my section and myself. Now I make sure that every year my section is improving, and I can say my section has always improved or it is at it’s highest possible standard. This is because I set myself high standards and I keep to them. Yet previously I know practically no other leader in group or higher did this. I once bought it up at a training meeting I was helping with, I was met with blank faces and these were experienced leaders. If you don’t know your role, then stop and find out, or stop all together. I know my role, do you know your role?

Visit the link below, find your role from the menu on the left, and know your role.

http://scouts.org.uk/supportresources/search/?cat=268,271

YiS

Twitter: Cilben

Round up of Items

Posted on 24 January, 2011 by Kiff

Hello Dear Reader

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

I want to cover a number of items which I have seen recently and I am going to do it in one post. So let’s do it this way

The Good

I came across this thanks to the blog by Scotland (Diary of a Scout Leader).

There are two Scouts from Australia who are currently cycling to the World Scout Jamboree they set off from their scout HQ in Adelaide 85 days ago and plan to go through 22 countries and complete approximately 22,000km. Now that is some challenge.

If you would like to find out more about their adventure check out this site

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=RrzKj&doc_id=6628&v=YS

The Bad

Have you see the story in the news about the New App to help spot paedophiles, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-12249172.

The team behind Child Defence says the app can analyse language to generate an age profile, identifying potential paedophiles. Isis Forensics developed the tool after parental concerns over children accessing sites on their mobiles.

How can this be Bad Kiff this is surely a good thing. Well yes I agree it is a good thing (sort of) anything that assist in removing grooming from the internet and making it a safe place for young people it a great thing.

However I have reservations, I might be wrong but this app must have a database of language so where is this stored? Can it be cracked?

What happens when those wishing to groom get hold of this database, will it make it even easier for them groom. In my opinion the best defence against this type of activity it not to rely on technology but education we all have an inbuilt sixth sense (call it what you like) that says mm I am not sure about this. My daughter is almost two and she has it if a new person comes into the house she heads for mum or dad and only after checking with them it is ok she will carry on playing or what ever she was doing.

So why do we dull this “sixth sense” and say to kids ok so if this app says it is ok to talk to a person you go for it

The Ugly

I would like to canvas people opinion of this story http://www.scouts.org.uk/news/355/scouts-put-the-brakes-on-speeding-drivers.

Is this a story of a good deed done by scouts or is it an abuse of young people to guilt trip drivers into slowing down. Let me know in the comments?

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.

Accountability In Scouting

Posted on 27 October, 2010 by atomicapple247

chickenblame This month’s blog entry is about Accountability in Scouting. By this I am thinking about the way we run Scouting on a day to day basis within groups, districts and counties, rather than doing actual events or activities. In my opinion, it’s something we all know about but it doesn’t seem to be seen as a priority.

Most of us have seen in our Scouting experience, a group or even a district that was once full of young members, lots of leaders and lots of activities going on. Then for various reasons whether it be people moving away, people not having the time any more or new people coming into the group, the group then starts failing, numbers drop, leaders leave or nothing gets done. Whatever the reasons and there can be many, someone needs to be making enquiries as to why this is happening and where suitable someone needs to be held accountable for this.

Now there are many reasons why a group can be failing, and they can often be reasons outside the hands of those running Scouting. New clubs could start up, there just might be a lack of children in the area, scouting might just not be popular in that area and so on. What I am talking about is examples like this one I came across 10 years ago. A group where someone started as GSL, who then ran the group as if it was his, who then had family members put into the main leadership positions. The group which was thriving previously, eventually went from having double sections to a Beaver Colony, Cub Pack and barely a Scout Troop. The reason being that all the leaders did was football competitions and games, so they lost lots of young people and leaders. But I’m sure we can all think of similar examples in our districts or counties. But people should be made accountable for this. Incidently when the example leaders above moved away and left the group 8 years later, the group started to grow in membership again. The last I heard they were thriving again.

Why is nobody from district or county then going round to groups and asking ‘Why are your numbers down by half?’ or ‘Why does this group no longer attend district events?’ or ‘Why are your leaders leaving?’. Now I am sure in some places this is happening, whether it be GSL’s, ADC’s, DC’s etc. But it doesn’t happen everywhere or in many places. Why can’t we have one person in each district or county, responsible for checking on groups once a year making sure recruitment is good, leaders are happy, balanced programmes are in place or nobody is finding it hard to cope. Any problems can then be rectified whether that be through advice and guidance or more training in certain areas. One of the leading reasons why leaders leave is because they don’t feel they get support or guidance.

Why can’t a strong group buddy up with a neighbouring group that is struggling, why can’t districts or counties use experienced section leaders to help out new or struggling leaders in other groups where possible. One benefit to Scouting would be to have a record of everyone’s leadership experience. In every section or place that I have been a leader in the past 15 years, the number of young people in that section has been over subscribed, I have recruited more leaders, the programme has always been full and varied. But nowhere is there a record of this. Now if experience like this was recorded, someone could look at my record and get me to help someone whose record shows they might be struggling.

In any paid job, there is standards and targets set to be achieved, in most cases if these standards are not met, you can often be sacked. Now Scouting is based on volunteering and we don’t want Scouting to be like going to work, unless you really enjoy your work. But there has to be some accountability in getting to a certain standard. As a young person’s organisation, we all have a responsibility to all the young people to give them the best possible programme of activities. If young people enjoy their Scouting experience, many will stay in touch with Scouting, whether it be staying in to become leaders, or making sure their own children join in with Scouting.

People might now be thinking, leave it to those that are already supposed to be doing this. But this isn’t happening, at least not from the many contacts I have around the country. I know it means introducing another role at a certain level. But we have to take this seriously and stop ducking, if we can ensure a certain standard surely this will benefit young people, leaders and groups alike.

Kind regards

@cilben