CHAPTER VIII

LOCAL FIELD WORK

General Nature of Organization

Constructively reaching boys is the business of Scouting. The executive has been recognized as chiefly and primarily a "man's man"-who should mobilize the community forces. The scoutmaster is primarily a "boy's man" who shall give the boys character building companionship, although in the newer concept of Scouting he is a "man's man" as well in getting needed adult helpers for his troop.

Field work is then the organized means through which the Executive comes in direct touch with the real business of his organization.

Indeed the entire organization exists to enable field work and the boy service it enhances, to be done and better done.

Field work being concerned directly with the Service to the Community's boys must therefore be adequately organized and staffed; it must function and be effective.

In general there are four outstanding organizational policies.

A) Shall the organization follow geographic lines in the districting of the division of labor with one man for an area?

B) Or shall it follow functional lines with a man doing one type of work in the various areas? C) Shall this field service be rendered largely by a paid staff of full time or part-time men, or D) Shall it be rendered largely by a volunteer staff?

Naturally all shades and grades of combinations of the above policies will be found either because of the social theory held by the council or because of temporary conditions of transition.

There seems to be excellent theoretic and practice justification for setting forth a mean between (A) and (B):

A field man resident in each district and responsible for the general program but in addition thereto for him to have been selected as a specialist in some one field so that through training courses, literature, addresses, etc. the entire city may benefit from his possession of a specialized form of ability.

In the smaller communities (or larger for that matter) the first assistants selected as paid men will doubtless be those which either directly supplement the abilities of the Executive or relieve him of onerous duties.

The trend therefore is toward function rather than toward area alone in selecting paid helpers.

As regards volunteer and paid staffing, the history, policies, and aims of Scouting warrant the following:

The executive should never, on behalf of the Council, employ some one to perform worthwhile tasks for which he can secure equally able and dependable volunteer help. Clerical and routine tasks of that general class should as far as possible be lifted from the volunteer and done for him.

It is only fair to recognize that both large and small communities will vary widely in the available supply of volunteer leadership.

Careful study of the social theory of community life and of the actual folk therein quite inevitably forces one to the view that communities have within them the needed elements of man-power which under training, can effect leadership in meeting the community social needs.

The principle back of this is so important that the Executive should not too hastily run counter to it

namely The Task of Real Social Work is to help folk to help themselves.

Some of our men in the early days of the movement made the mistake of copying the methods of boy workers where the paid worker actually did all of the work with the boys.

The boys belong to the community as well as to the nation. The community should therefore be helped to maximally serve its own boys.

The community is permanent-the Executive like all individuals, is transient.

What is to be Done

There are two groups of field tasks-A) one, inherent in the nature of the Scout Program-B) one, dependent on the objectives the council is seeking to reach for that particular year.

A) Field Work Scouting demands.

Service

This, in general, may be put under two divisions which can never safely be divorced in practice.

I) Service and II) Extension or as, G. W. Ehler, former executive of Allegheny Council, has ably phrased it,

"Better Scouts” and “More Scouts.”

The service aspect of Field Work contemplates improving the quality of what the boy gets, as well as helping the man get it done. The key to such service lies through contact, through

(1) Visitation. Every troop should be periodically visited (or inspected) by the executive or the Commissioner or their deputies or assistants. The findings of such visitations should be formally reported to the Local Headquarters so that remedial measures, if needed, may be taken.

Through the friendly and helpful contacts which visitation should create and foster, many collateral results arise:

a) Morale-With a volunteer leadership, even more than with others, the spirit generated by kindly, considerate, appreciative, helpful human contacts is absolutely essential to getting results.

b) Standards-Elaborate statements may have been typed and printed and mailed to each man, but the personal meeting and discussion makes meanings clear and can provide suggestion and help toward better scouts. c) Training While training courses and "Scoutmaster troops," and training material by correspondence reach a large percentage of the

leaders yet some men can be only, and some best reached by personal contact. Training can be unconsciously effected through the experience of others and the man can be encouraged to learn directly from others by visiting other troops. Variety in the program and things to do from the crucial first candidate and Tenderfoot entrance such help can be effectively rendered through personal contact.

d) Supervision should of course be given but it should be received as well, it must be of the unconscious, "painless" type helping through the training suggestions above, allowing these in many cases to adroitly emerge in conversation. The question and answer method when a man is there are often the most effective ways of uncovering and meeting troop problems.

e) Records and Reports of conditions, losses, advancement, etc. can be secured at first hand with a minimum of "reporting bookkeeping" and "statistical letter-writing" on the part of the scoutmaster. Thus too a significant statistical check upon the pulse of the troop may be taken without waiting for the end of the year, which for some problems is too late. f) Progress of the scouts into the scout program may be effectively encouraged and stimulated through the contacts indicated above. Rallies and contests and competitions contribute heavily to progress also.

(2) Creation of Board of Instructors and Examiners is a service which makes available to the boys as needed and desired, technical instruction, with subsequent testing toward the awarding approval of the Court of Honor. (3) Community Service is vitally a reciprocal relationship. To enlist a troop to cooperate in a piece of real service to the community is real service to the troop.