What is Scouting?
Scouting is a world wide youth movement, invented by this guy
named Baden-Powell. Originally based on a handbook on Scouting
for the army, Scouting evolved to what it is today.
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What is Scouting today?
It's rather hard to explain and I will just focus
on what Scouting is in the Netherlands, as this might differ
from country to country (as it even does from group to
group). Scouting is trying to have a goal, you learn to
cooperate, be independent, to organize and how work with people.
Right, but who cares, the important thing is having fun, and where
the goal stuff is going to come from beats me.
Anyway, Scouting is basically meant for children of 5 to 17 years
of age. The children are divided in age-groups called "Bever" (5-7),
"Esta's", "Welpen" or "Kabouters" (7-11), "Scouts" (10-15), "Explorers" or
"R/S" (14-17). If you are 17 years or older (as I am) you can either
become a leader of one of the other age-groups (called "speltakken")
or (hmmm, or and) become part of a "Stam", which is really the age-group
of anyone who is older than 17 and can't give up Scouting :o) In some
groups you have to be a leader to become part of a "Stam".
Hmmm, all these "speltakken" together are called a group. A group is
part of a "regio" or a "district" and those are part of "Scouting
Nederland", which is part of all kinds of world Scouting movements.
Hmmm, there are also SeaScout-groups, but I don't really know much about
them.
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Right, but what do you do?
Well, really lots of things... Hmm, that doesn't help, does it? Okay,
right, all age-groups (not counting the "stam" which can think up it's
own rules) come together once a week (mostly on saturday), where they
do games, walk small hikes, build stuff out of poles and
ropes or basically anything else you can think of. (This of course
also depends on the age-group, for you can't really have 6 years-olds
carrying around 4 meter poles, can you). Other stuff that happens
are hikes (walking large distances for fun (hmmm, did I mention that
Scouts (not just a name for the 10-15 age-group, but also for every
member of Scouting (confusing, I know)) are generally nuts?)), going
on camps, build large fires (can you say pyromaniac?), oh and
vandalize anything in our path....
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So, when are you going to take over the world
and suppress all none Scouts?
Hmmm, well, looking at the current state of organization within Scouting,
this may take a while... say a couple of centuries (give or take a
millenium). It's might look like we are strictly organized, but nothing
is farther from the truth, we are generally just a bunch of weirdo's. There
are exceptions of course, but most of those groups don't want anything
to do with the other groups... I wonder why...
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So, how long have you been a Scout?
I started Scouting when the local scoutinggroup started off, which is about 14
years ago. I suppose I was about 9 at the time. So I started off as a Esta (Hmmm
the difference between Esta's, Kabouters and Welpen is basically that Welpen are
for boys, Kabouters for girls and Esta's for boys and girls). I wasn't
an Esta for that long. I went on a summercamp though, but I don't really remember
that much of it, except that the theme was Indians. Anyway soon after that I
became a Scout, of which I have more memories. Like the European Jamboree and
the NHW's, the PKD's, the Frisian Jamboree (yes, that does sound sad) and the
summercamp in Ommen. Well after that I became an Explorer which was a troublesome
time, because we couldn't really get along with most of the leaders we had and the
policy of the bosses of the group at the time. But we still had lot's of good time,
with the Doldersum's, more PKD's, camps in Beilen, more NHW's and stuff.
And now I am part of a Stam. Our group, which BTW is called de Biezenhutters, has
one Stam consisting of two groups. One is called Lignum Inane, of which I am a part,
and the other is called Zware Metalen. Current Stam-members are Maaike, Gerlof, Johan,
Tiena, Femke, Arne, Inze, Rene, Harm-Rinke, Erik, Tim, Hendrik, Hans, Bastiaan, Richard,
Marchje and me.
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Ho! Ho! What are al these weird terms you use,
like Doldersum and NHW?
Right, let's make a list:
Jamboree - A Jamboree is basically just a huge scoutcamp, often with people from
all over the world.
NHW - Stands for Noordelijke Hike Wedstrijden, which in English is Northern Hike Contests.
They are held for Scouts and Explorers from the three most northern regions of The Netherlands.
Doldersum - Every year our Scoutinggroup has a huge (well, not really huge, but
huge in a small kind of way) camp for all members and their family. This
family-camp is always held on a Scoutingterrain in a small village called
Doldersum, so most people called the camp Doldersum.
PKD - Stands for Pinkster Kamp Dwingeloo, or in English ..uh.. Whitsun
Camp Dwingeloo. An camp held during the Whitsun holidays in a
nice village called Dwingeloo.
NPK - Basically the same as PKD, only held in de Marnewaard, instead of
Dwingeloo. It is bigger and much more competitive as PKD. NPK stands for
Noordelijk Pinkster Kamp (Northern Whitsun Camp).
Overvliegen - This is when the children who are to old for their age-group
go to an older age-group. They usually have to cross something like a
ropebridge.
BP-tocht - Hikes of 5, 10 and 15 km held on the Saturday near Baden-Powell-day
(when the guy had his birthday (24 February)) for groups in the region of Friesland.
Friesland Trail - Yearly gruesome hike in held in December for scoutingmembers over the age
of 18.
SBB - This stands for Staats Bos Beheer, which is the State Forestry Comity.
We from time to time help them out with stuff and do often have a stand when it has an information
day.
Cyberhike - An annual virtual hike, in which you get from location to location by solving questions
of which you can find the answers on the internet (Google hey Google hah!). In compensation for answers
you can't find, you can send in photo-assignments, that is you have to do strange stuff and prove you did
it by taking and sending in digital photographs.
ZM - Stand for Zware Metalen, which is a Dutch for Heavy Metal. This is the name of one of our
Stamgroups.
LI - Stand for Lignum Inane, which should in some misspelled way mean
useless wood. This is the name of my Stamgroup (don't ask why).
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Why are you called Lignum Inane?
Hey, I asked you not to ask that! Hmmm, alright then...
When we were thinking up a name, when we started a new Stam,
we wanted something original. While philosophizing about it, Femke
and I thought it would be funny to translate "stupid and original"
into Latin and use that as our name. So Femke went to ask the
really cool Latin-teacher we had at school at that time, if
he could translate it for us. The result didn't really work out,
but the Latin-teacher also gave Femke a list with a couple of words
we could use instead. So we puzzled together Lignum Inane. Lignum,
which means wood, fitted with Stam, because one meaning of the
word "stam" is tree trunk. And because we didn't want to loose everything
from the initial "stupid and original"-idea, we added inane, to create
Lignum Inane, which means Useless Wood.
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So tell me more about about LI.
Well, we were ..uh.. founded in 1998, when Femke, Tiena, Johan and I
became too old for the Explorers. We didn't really think that we would fit
in in the then other existing stam called the Gremlins (they don't exist anymore now),
so we decided to have our own, together with Gerlof and Inze, who were two years
older then us and who, when they left the Explorers, never joined the Gremlins.
The big bosses of our group didn't mind, so Lignum Inane was born.
Over the years our stam grew.
At the end of 2003 some members decided that they were annoyed by some
of the other members, and then wanted to start their own stam. After some deliberation
we decided to instead spit the Lignum Inane into two groups, one called Lignum Inane
and one called Zware Metalen, but both still in one Stam, which now is simply called
Stam.
So now we sometimes do stuff as a whole stam, but now also do activities just for
our own groups. From time to time we do stuff, like organizing the first gathering
in the new year, or the "overvliegen" for the entire group. We even once, a long time ago, organized
the BP-tocht for the entire region of Friesland! Further we just generally help out at camps and
hikes. But we also do stuff not for our scoutinggroup, but for ourselves, like the regional volleyball-contest,
the Friesland Trail, go to the zoo or go to a musicfestival.
The current people running the Stam are Femke (Chairman (..uh.. woman)), Inze (Treasurer),
Harm-Rinke (Contact Zware Metalen) and me (Contact Lignum Inane).
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So, do you do more stuff for Scouting, besides your Stam?
Well, I help organize a national annual Scoutingcamp called PKD. PKD is a camp for
Scouts and Explorers held every year in Dwingeloo. I used to go there myself every year as a
participant, but when I got to old to go, Anita, a girl who I knew from the PKDs, asked me if I wanted
to join the group of people who organize it every year, and somehow I said yes. That was a few years
ago and I have done it now three or four times. All the people are way cool, several of who I still knew
from when I went as participant. And now Arne, Gerlof and Inze, from my group, have also joined.
We (= a group of about twelve people) do the scouts part of the camp, which means thinking up the program and the games for the scouts.
And during the camp we lead the subcamps and the kids, and explain the leaders of the participating
groups what we are going to do, what is expected of them, etc.
It's all a lot of fun and I like doing it.
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How should I picture a typical Scout camp or hike?
Well, have a look at this:
(here are some photo-sets from the online photo-albums of
Hans
and Inze (Dirk).
Just click your way around them. If you get stuck navigating, just ask me for help.)
Overvliegen Biezenhutters (2003)
The Stam at NHW'03
LI and the Biezenhutters Explorers at the BP-tocht'04
Cyberhike'04
St. George day (2004)
Camp with the Scouts and the Explorers (2004)
Stam LANparty (2004)
Pinksterkamp Dwingeloo (2004)
Family-camp Doldersum'04 - series 1
Family-camp Doldersum'04 - series 2
Extra: an explanation of the Friesland Trail.
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Wow! If I want to know more about Scouting
where should I go and have a look?
Well, first of course you could have a look at the LI-site and
at the Biezenhutters-site. (These are in Dutch though)
Lignum Inane (dutch)
Scouting de Biezenhutters (dutch)
Biezenhutters Forum (dutch)
Then there is the site of Regio Fryslan, my region. (Dutch only)
Regio Fryslan (dutch)
Further more there are of course the national Scouting Nederland site and the national site
of my Speltak.
Scouting Nederland (dutch/english)
PivoNet (dutch)
Then there are two International sites, one of the World Scouting Movement and one
of the WAGGGS (World Association for Girl Guides and Girl Scouts) (Both in English)
World Scouting (english)
WAGGGS (english)
And for last two other sites, one of the PKD-camp I help organize each year, and the other of a scoutinggroup
we get along with very well.
Pinksterkamp Dwingeloo (dutch)
Scouting Emmeloord (dutch)
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