Scouting Ireland’s defunct ‘Vision 2020’ document carefully highlighted the ‘uniformed’ nature of the association. Indeed, it was the second descriptor of the movement and interestingly came before the words ‘movement’, ‘young people’, ‘open to all’ and long before the movements founder Robert Baden Powell got a mention in the opening preamble to what was a widely dispersed document in the lead up to National Council 2014.
One gets the impression that elements in the Scouting Ireland establishment are living in constant fear that ‘uniform’ as a concept will be eliminated just as soon as the wretched liberal (youth orientated) thinkers outnumber all the ‘real’ (traditional) scouts. It will be the end of civilization as we know it!
The Scouting Ireland Chat Forum, not known for its freedom of debate or indeed meaningful conversations these days, nonetheless recently hosted a spirited exchange. This followed the furore at the associations National Council, surrounding the Meeting Chairman’s alleged assertion to the meeting, that a female youth member was being inaccurate in some comments she alleged the Chief Scout had made relating to the controversial ‘Vision 2020’ proposal a number of weeks beforehand.
Adult awards as a concept may seem counter-intuitive in an association where volunteers seek only to serve the interests of their scout group, the community it is in and the members of it. Yet, an awards system is also arguably a valid and welcome method in which to recognize in a small way, the efforts that adult scouters go to in their spare time, to bring Scouting to the nation’s youth.
It’s an open secret however in Scouting Ireland for some time that the adult awards system is in need of review. It is secretive, unaccountable and the way it is currently calibrated, by and large favours only politically connected (and/or politically savvy) Scout Groups.
The decision, by the National Council of the Youth Organisation Scouting Ireland to reject in full, the ‘Vision 2020’ proposal, as put forward by the associations National Management Committee at this weekends annual National Council meeting in Cork, suggests a number of things about the current culture of leadership within the Scouting movement in Ireland.
The detailed proposals behind Scouting Ireland’s much vaunted ‘Vision 2020’ initiative have been circulated to the association’s membership. They make interesting reading.
Some members of Scouting Ireland may have been surprised to notice that the association is now a ‘faith based movement’, if the strategic plan (presented under the name ‘Vision 2020’) unveiled by a couple of key figures in the senior leadership, is to be believed.
Scouting Ireland’s ‘Vision 2020’ document was launched this week, with the usual muted fanfare that this type of thing generates.
The concept is a transformational plan for the Scout movement in Ireland that will outlive (in political terms) many of the current national leadership of the association, thus in theory eliminating the effect that personal agenda’s, grandstanding and interest groups might have on slowing down or disrupting the project.
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