January 9th 2024
January marks the official start to our Scouting year, or at least the Scouts Canada official start to Scouting for registration purposes. :). And two weeks ago (a bit late on the blog, my apologies) we had our first meeting of 3rdWaterdown Cubs for 2024.
Depending on the Group* you join the official start of the Scouting year may vary a little bit. For 3rdWaterdown we tend to do our advancement ceremonies towards the end of the school year (April/May/June depending on what’s going on) and kick off our brand new year of Scouting in September when school resumes in the fall. Advancement Ceremonies are where youth moving up or advancing to the next Section** in Scouting are welcomed to their new Section within our Group. (Beavers to Cubs, Cubs to Scouts, Scouts to Venturers, Venturers to Rovers)
Registration and pre-registration tend to cause some confusion so since this week at Cubs we did a social Show and Tell session with some boardgames played at the end, I figured I’d take the time here to take a stab at explaining the Scouting year a little bit more and tackle some of our terminology.
In the summer, Scouts Canada offers all registered and active Scouts (Beavers through Rovers) the opportunity to secure their spots within their existing Groups with Pre-registration. Current Cubs, in our case, are encouraged to register early for the next calendar year to ensure their spot in our Pack is secured. Pre-registration also serves as an opportunity for each Group in Scouting to get a handle on how many youth are likely returning and start the onboarding of new Volunteers to support the demand.
After pre-registration Scouts Canada opens up registration Nationwide, if your Section has capacity and space, new youth to the program can register and join. For 3rdWaterdown, we allow those new youth who have fully registered and paid for the following Calendar year, to start Scouting right away in September. (Free 4 months as your registration with Scouts Canada runs from January to December). Scouting in September is kicked off with a meet and greet BBQ and a Parent Information Session.
If your section is full or at capacity, that means there aren’t enough leaders, or physical space to accept more youth and your name goes on our Waitlist. Our Section and Group is notified and we work diligently to secure more space or onboard more Parent Volunteers to allow your youth and others to join. This is a process and can take time so please be patient. It serves as a great incentive to get new Leaders signed up, as joining our Team virtually guarantees your youth a space. The waitlist is cleared on a First come first served basis and is fully controlled by Scouts Canada. When space is opened up, Scout’s Canada emails out in order and you have 48 hours to firm up and complete registration. You must make sure when you are offered the chance to join, you take it and complete registration within the time frame otherwise the system automatically moves to the next youth and there is nothing we at 3rdWaterdown can do to help you out. (Make sure to check your spam and junk mail)
Once signed up via MyScouts you are welcomed to your section and given access to ScoutsTracker where all the meetings, events, and emails are managed for us. Scoutstracker is also the place where you can take a look at your youths’ progression on things like Outdoor Scouting Skills and Personal Achievement Badges. For our Section, all emails that go out to the section are started in Scoutstracker and tracked via Scoutstracker. (yes we can see who has opened and read emails and who hasn’t and we know who has signed up for meetings and events and who hasn’t) Scoutstracker manages all the admin and back end for us for our Scouting year but is only as good as its users. If the Scouting Team neglects updating meetings/attendance, or using it for emails or parents fail to sign up for meetings/events its ability to aid in managing attendance/badge tracking, or helping us identify when we need more Scouting Volunteers to manage attendance ratios suffers.
For Cubs, I am a huge fan of Scoutstracker. The monthly/weekly schedule is kept up to date so that Scouters and parents can see what’s planned. All the group emails start from Scoutstracker and meeting attendance is managed through Scoutstracker. We all access Scouting primarily via our phones, whether it is the emails that go out or the Scouting team accessing the schedule on the fly as things come up. Without Scoutstracker I know I’d be lost.
Our Website, on the other hand, has been designed to enhance our communication tools available and give parents and Scouters a quick resource to review what we have been up to and give us another way to share our goals and challenges. The quick hit blog’s goal is to clarify what we were trying to do during our latest meeting and provide youth with hints on how to continue the Scouting into the week and encourage working independently on badges should they desire to. Our program strives to be youth-led and 100% relies on the concept of you get back what you are willing to put into the program. There is never any obligation to continue Scouting past our meetings or work on badges, but we hope that our weekly meetings inspire our youth to be kind, do a good deed for someone every day, and always do their best. 🙂 If your Cub has an interest in working on personal achievement badges, our blogs and Scouts Canada website along with our meetings are a great starting point and can help point them in the right direction.
Our Cub Team at 3rdWaterdown is excited to continue working with our amazing youth and looks forward to what the balance of our Scouting year has to come. If you have any interest in helping out, could be as simple as you have an amazing idea for a meeting, (indoor meetings Jan – Mar are challenging for us) or you would like to help out with food prep for camp, or maybe you have the time and energy to become a Parent Volunteer and join our Scouting Team, reach out to us at the next meeting. We can use all the help we can get. 🙂
Terms:
*Group: refers to the organization within Scouts Canada and your Territory/Council that operates sections on behalf of Scouts Canada. Our Group is 3rdWaterdown and has been around for a long time. There were other Waterdown Groups before us, but 3rdWaterdown is the only surviving Group.
**Section: refers to the level of Scouting your youth belongs to, or you volunteer with. Beavers starts Sr. K to grade 2. Cubs runs Grade 3 to 5, Scouts runs Grade 6, 7 & 8. Venturers runs Grade 9 thru Grade 12, Rovers are adult Scouters 18 to 26 years old.
Scouting: the activity of doing anything related to Scouts Canada either as a volunteer or youth in the program. We are all Scouts, Scouting with Scouts Canada, however, if you are in Grades 6 to 8 you are also a Scout, Scouting with Scouts Canada, rather than a Beaver/Cub/Venturer or Rover Scouting with Scouts Canada. Why we chose to call a Section Scouts I’ll never understand. 🙂
