Re: BSA Age Sections
William H. Sills (whs@idcnet.com)
Fri Feb 06 15:45:41 1998
We have an affiliated troop and an affiliated team. Both are fully integrated with our ships. I am Scoutmaster, Coach and Skipper of SSS
Hathor. One of our ASM, Assistant Coaches and Mates is skipper of SSS Gail & Gloria Gartz. (We have a ship just for girls. The ships can meet
separately on those occasions where a romance goes sour.That usually only last a week or so.)
All kids in the troop and team dually register in the ship at the proper age. Many boys earn Eagle. We encourage and new boys to work on
the Quartermaster track.
We all go on LONG CRUISES together. We are similar to a big family of big and little brothers and sisters. The kids have activities for their
age groups and some for all.
The program is run by the members. They work out their own activity schedule.
Our program works because it is flexible, youth run and the leaders spend their time gleaning resources and information for the ships
companies, troop and team.
Our approach may only be appropriate for a small resort area such as ours where everyone knows everyone else. I'm not sure how it would
work in an urban or suburban setting.
ROVERS: All fine organizations make mistakes. BSA's 1965 "Massacre" where Air Scouts, Explorer Scouts and Rover Scouts were
abolished along with their ACE, SILVER and RANGER rank tracks was one of theirs. I believe that our de-emphasis on Sea Scouts and our loss of
Rovers were some of the worst ideas BSA has ever had. We really should reinstitute Rovers. They are a place for young adults still interested
in socializing, frenetic activities and the outdoors and not too excited about settling down and becoming responsible leaders. BSA is cutting
them out and I believe that's wrong.
YISS;
Bill Sills
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