good lord.. look at the time...

and poor old me has not been on this blog for far too long.. unfortunately personal circumstances and a bit of anti technological jiggery pokery all ganged up on me, but suffice to say, i'm sort of back.. with morre of the jolly japery you've all come to know and ignore.... so, first and foremost a fond farewell to our esteemed DC, Richard "Nev" Nevin, promoted through no fault of his own to the heights of the county, and we all wish him good fortune.... definitely one of the best DCs we have seen, and we will all miss him... I know who we would like to succeed him, here at Thringstone, but time will tell.. in the meantime, good luck to young Mrs Chris Beeby who will be filling in until a new DC arrives.... and welcome to our new Chief Scout, whom I believe is actually the first in living memory who was known to our young uns before he got the job.... so, Bear, lets have some adventure..... and welcome as well to the oftimes neglected and ignored Mr Bullpit, our Chief Commissioner....hopefully this new team will be able to solve the tricky problem of how to get adults involved..... now, getting the older ones involved is certainly a problem, and has been for a while.... and remembering that these are not the views of scouting as a whole, but merely my controversial two pennorth, look at the state of the Network.... originally, as i was led to believe, the basis of this section was that all members over the age of 18 and under 25 were to automatically be members... but is this the case.... young Joe Smith is making considerable headway in our district, but I refuse to believe that we have only 30 or so members in that age group.... and this could be a great way of increasing our adults..... one thing that was posited, that doesn't seem to happen, was that every 18 year old was to recieve a birthday card or some such extolling the virtue of membership.... which is good.. but i think a better solution would be to send every 17 yera old a Network Membership card.... complete with a list of events in the coming year.... tell every member of a student scout and guide thingy that they are automatically in the local network.... and make sure they are invited personally to events.... and to really get the ball rolling, why not act like most junk mail firms, get access to the electoral roll etc, and send cards to everyone who is going to be 18.... but communication is always a weak point.... and it is something we as an organisation really need to work on.... to be honest, the idea of targeting parents is not working.. most of them have no interest in Scouting other than that it gives them a few jhours off..... and fair play to them.. its not everyones cup of tea.... obviously, some of them are interested, and its usually fairly obvious which ones.... but to be perfectly honest, we don't Shout for Scouting as much as we should.... as an example, in the last big review, it was pointed out that most employers, while having heard of the Dof E awards, had no idea about the existence of the QSA, never mind what it entailed.. the main solution posited was, scrap the QSA, and lets concentrate on the D of E.. the answer should have been, lets bombard employers with stuff about the QSA.. invite the bosses to local and national events to showcase what scouting can do..... and when it comes to attracting adult help, lets appeal to selfishness, at least to some extent... tell people that through Scouting they can achieve nationally recognised qualifications, all sorts of contacts, great training, and all at a very low cost.... i mean, how many people out there know that Scout training can, in some cases, qualify you for membership of (iirc) the Institute of Managers and Leaders.... which in turn opens all sorts of doors.... lets really ram these things down peoples throats, and who knows what could happen... but lets all plug the Network, plug the benefits of Scouting for Adults, and lets see if we can't get what we want... which is good Scouting for every young person who wants it.... but its late, I'm forgetting to use apostrophes, and I can't even remember who I'm supposed to be... but for my alter ego's take on Bear Grylls, go to www.wisebeard.blogspot.com.... I'm now off to beddy byes.... but until we all Gryll Bears, keep on Scouting.....