"Groups" in Canada and elsewhere
Jim Carter (hci@CS.USASK.CA)
Wed, 7 Jan 1998 11:37:04 -0600
At 08:55 AM 1/7/98 -0800, Phil Hammons wrote me:
>In your reply to the Query on Girls in Scouts, Canada, You implied that
>units contained sections made of Beavers at the beginning up to Rovers
>at the top or for BSA the equivalent of Cubs thru Explorers in on Unit.
>This would be a major organizational difference for BSA where each age
>group is in a seperate unit. Please clarifiy. Thank you
In Canada, UK, and elsewhere where the organizational part of Scouting
followed that first established by BP a sponsor (typically a church,
community association, service club, or other group of interested adults)
contracts with the national Scouting body (e.g. Scouts Canada) to establish
a Scouting Group.
The Scouting Group is administered by a Group Committee (officially
appointed on behalf of the sponsor) that typically includes a chair,
secretary, treasurer, the leaders of the individual sections, and other
interested parents who may have a variety of responsibilities such as
recruiting, fundraising, quartermaster, etc. The Group Committee can
organize and run as many sections as they like. Small groups often have only
one or two sections (typically one or two of: Beavers 5-7yrs / Cubs 8-10yrs
/ Scouts 10-14yrs). The Group structure allows for a clear path for older
members of a younger section to move into the next section although
individuals can change groups or sections within a group if they please.
The size of an individual section is supposed to be limited to a reasonable
amount (beavers 20, Cubs 24-30, Scouts 30-36) and experience has shown that
large section sizes than these in one year often lead to high drop offs in
enrolment in the next year.. Rather than run mega sections, we create new
sections. The Group I am in currently has 3 Beaver Colonies, 3 Cub Packs, 2
Scout Troops, 1 Venturer Company, and 1 Rover Crew.
In addition to providing a better sense of belonging to the youth, multiple
smaller sections provide for differences in leadership styles/interests and
often can provide different meeting nights to fit into today's busy
schedules. Smaller section sizes also include all the leaders of a section
in leading it (as opposed to the collection of wall flowers that offten
occurs within a large section has a lot of parents who volunteer to be
leaders but just come and hang around).
The biggest drawback of smaller sections is that occasionally all the
leaders are parents of kids in their final year of that section's program
and they all either move up with their kids or disappear with their kids at
the end of the year. Then either you move an experienced Scouter in
temporarily to restart a section or you loose it - but that can happen with
a large mega section too if only a few of the registered leaders are actualy
leading and they leave together.
Probably the bigest challenge with our system is getting a good Group
Committee that can work to support all the sections it has.
Hope this helps,
YiS Jim Carter
Terry Howerton Sakima Group, Inc. SCOUTER Magazine Kansas City | 
