Boy Scout Attendance Policies

In answer to a remark that Troops should maintain attendance standards Andy at Ask Andy replies: Scouting isn’t school, or sports, or church, or a team, or anything else but Scouting.

Other organizations, groups, teams, programs, etc. might have their own rules for attendance and participation, and that in no way has an influence on what a troop, pack, crew, post, or ship does. The best part of Scouting is that it’s Scouting. Here are Scouting’s three attendance “rules”: 1) The youth in the troop are the true volunteers and the only reason they have for showing up is that they enjoy the program; 2) “Program Produces Participants”; 3) Scouts vote with their feet. Our sons and daughters attend school because they’re told they must or they won’t graduate; they show up for team practice because they’re told that if they don’t they’re either off the team or they’ll be benched; they go to church and Sunday School because…well, you get the idea here, right?

Scouts is virtually the only place that doesn’t lay down edicts like this.

Thank goodness for that!

Advancement (or not) is each Scout’s personal decision; the troop as a whole has only the obligation of providing opportunities for those who are interested. The troop has no business choreographing any Scout’s advancement.

Encouragement, yes; management, no.