Post No. 55: Once A Scout, Always A Scout...
Before I say anything else…
Here's wishing all Scouts & Girl Guides from around the world a Happy World Scouts' Day (or Thinking Day to the Guides)! [note to those who don’t know this yet: February 22nd is the birthday of both Lord Robert Baden-Powell (more endearingly known to all Scouts as B.P.), the founder of Scouting & Guiding, and his wife, Lady Olave Soames Baden-Powell, whom is also the 1st World Chief Guide.]
Yes, as you all can most probably guess for yourselves by now, I was, during my 4 years in secondary school, a Scout. No, I was not a particularly active or outstanding Scout. Throughout my 4 years in Scouting, I did not hold any notable appointments and neither did I have any significant achievements (I didn’t even receive the Scout Standard, missing by one criterion test before I could get it). Yes, several of my friends in secondary schools were my fellow Scouts & I was comfortably friendly enough with the others and enjoyed their company. No, I was not really very close to them and have lost contact with almost all of them (except for one who is also my primary school classmate). Yes, I was a committed Scout, in that I tried my best to live by the values of Scouting, the Scout Promise and the Scout Law. No, I was not committed enough to want to further my experience of Scouting through joining the Venture Scouts or the Rover Scouts. Like anything else in Life, my Scouting experience had its ups & downs, its enjoyable parts and also parts which were not that enjoyable.
However, all in all, I would say that my Scouting experience was a life-changing one. Sidetracking a bit, I found, when looking back, it somewhat ironic that when I submitted my list of choices for what CCAs (or ECAs, as they were known back then) I was interested to join in Secondary 1, my first choice was not Scouts. Instead, my first choice was the Computer Club (partly due to me being one of the pioneer batch of members for my primary school’s Computer Club) but, following the CCA policy of my secondary school back then, the Computer Club was not a core CCA and so I could not join it as a primary CCA. Thus, I was instead allocated to my 2nd choice on the list: Scouts. Hmm… I cannot help but wonder how differently things would have turned out for me if I had joined the Computer Club and not Scouts (could I have become an IT-savvy guru or a computer geek?). Well, no matter we like it or not, Life is defined by the choices we make. Returning back to track, the reason why I said that my Scouting experience was a life-changing one is not so much because of the important values & skills I learnt from it (I could perhaps have also learnt them from somewhere else, I guess) but because that it opened up a whole new world for me.
To be completely honest with you all, I was, before I joined Scouts, a 100% “白面书生” (“White faced scholar” in Mandarin or, in other words, a “bookworm”) who spent almost all of my time in the world of books and not participate in any sort of outdoors activities or games (except perhaps for a bit of cycling and swimming). Believe me when I tell you all that my skin was so fair that girls in my class had more tanned skin colour than me. Thus, joining Scouts in secondary school sort of dragged me out of my world of books, interesting and exciting as it was, to realise that there was also a most interesting & exciting world outside of it. Through Scouting, I participated in outdoors activities such as hiking, camping, rock-wall climbing and kayaking (and had fun doing so). In fact, I suppose that I enjoyed these activities to the extent that though I did not join the Venture Scouts, I chose to join ODAC when I entered JC. Don’t be mistaken, though I enjoyed outdoors activities, I did not completely change from a “bookworm” to become an “outdoors activities fanatic”. The “bookworm” aspect of my character remains the dominant aspect but while I still spend most of my time reading books, the time I spent doing so is much less than what I spent in primary school. So, I will say that instead of a 100% “白面书生”, I am now more of a 80% “白面书生” (and yes, I have more tanned skin now)… Haa…
I suppose I said enough already… For those who are interested to know more about Scouting, I would recommend that they read the book “Scouting For Boys” by B.P. (a most interesting book which I have personally read a few times but some of the ideas inside may be a bit quaint, considering that they were written down at the start of last century). Also, they can visit this website to learn more about the life of B.P. and to read his last message to Scouts: http://www.scout.org/wsrc/fs/bp_e.shtml.
Lastly, to all those who are currently a Scout, remember that Scouts is more than just a CCA, it’s a brotherhood and also a movement. The Scout Motto, Scout Promise and the Scout Law are not there just for show, there’s meaning behind them if you all bother to look deeper into them. Well, enjoy your days Scouting and “Be Prepared!”…
Here's wishing all Scouts & Girl Guides from around the world a Happy World Scouts' Day (or Thinking Day to the Guides)! [note to those who don’t know this yet: February 22nd is the birthday of both Lord Robert Baden-Powell (more endearingly known to all Scouts as B.P.), the founder of Scouting & Guiding, and his wife, Lady Olave Soames Baden-Powell, whom is also the 1st World Chief Guide.]
Yes, as you all can most probably guess for yourselves by now, I was, during my 4 years in secondary school, a Scout. No, I was not a particularly active or outstanding Scout. Throughout my 4 years in Scouting, I did not hold any notable appointments and neither did I have any significant achievements (I didn’t even receive the Scout Standard, missing by one criterion test before I could get it). Yes, several of my friends in secondary schools were my fellow Scouts & I was comfortably friendly enough with the others and enjoyed their company. No, I was not really very close to them and have lost contact with almost all of them (except for one who is also my primary school classmate). Yes, I was a committed Scout, in that I tried my best to live by the values of Scouting, the Scout Promise and the Scout Law. No, I was not committed enough to want to further my experience of Scouting through joining the Venture Scouts or the Rover Scouts. Like anything else in Life, my Scouting experience had its ups & downs, its enjoyable parts and also parts which were not that enjoyable.
However, all in all, I would say that my Scouting experience was a life-changing one. Sidetracking a bit, I found, when looking back, it somewhat ironic that when I submitted my list of choices for what CCAs (or ECAs, as they were known back then) I was interested to join in Secondary 1, my first choice was not Scouts. Instead, my first choice was the Computer Club (partly due to me being one of the pioneer batch of members for my primary school’s Computer Club) but, following the CCA policy of my secondary school back then, the Computer Club was not a core CCA and so I could not join it as a primary CCA. Thus, I was instead allocated to my 2nd choice on the list: Scouts. Hmm… I cannot help but wonder how differently things would have turned out for me if I had joined the Computer Club and not Scouts (could I have become an IT-savvy guru or a computer geek?). Well, no matter we like it or not, Life is defined by the choices we make. Returning back to track, the reason why I said that my Scouting experience was a life-changing one is not so much because of the important values & skills I learnt from it (I could perhaps have also learnt them from somewhere else, I guess) but because that it opened up a whole new world for me.
To be completely honest with you all, I was, before I joined Scouts, a 100% “白面书生” (“White faced scholar” in Mandarin or, in other words, a “bookworm”) who spent almost all of my time in the world of books and not participate in any sort of outdoors activities or games (except perhaps for a bit of cycling and swimming). Believe me when I tell you all that my skin was so fair that girls in my class had more tanned skin colour than me. Thus, joining Scouts in secondary school sort of dragged me out of my world of books, interesting and exciting as it was, to realise that there was also a most interesting & exciting world outside of it. Through Scouting, I participated in outdoors activities such as hiking, camping, rock-wall climbing and kayaking (and had fun doing so). In fact, I suppose that I enjoyed these activities to the extent that though I did not join the Venture Scouts, I chose to join ODAC when I entered JC. Don’t be mistaken, though I enjoyed outdoors activities, I did not completely change from a “bookworm” to become an “outdoors activities fanatic”. The “bookworm” aspect of my character remains the dominant aspect but while I still spend most of my time reading books, the time I spent doing so is much less than what I spent in primary school. So, I will say that instead of a 100% “白面书生”, I am now more of a 80% “白面书生” (and yes, I have more tanned skin now)… Haa…
I suppose I said enough already… For those who are interested to know more about Scouting, I would recommend that they read the book “Scouting For Boys” by B.P. (a most interesting book which I have personally read a few times but some of the ideas inside may be a bit quaint, considering that they were written down at the start of last century). Also, they can visit this website to learn more about the life of B.P. and to read his last message to Scouts: http://www.scout.org/wsrc/fs/bp_e.shtml.
Lastly, to all those who are currently a Scout, remember that Scouts is more than just a CCA, it’s a brotherhood and also a movement. The Scout Motto, Scout Promise and the Scout Law are not there just for show, there’s meaning behind them if you all bother to look deeper into them. Well, enjoy your days Scouting and “Be Prepared!”…
“Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best.” – B.P., from his last message to Scouts
“You can take a Scout out of Scouting but you cannot take Scouting out of a Scout.” -- LCC
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