By Leader Essam Francis — 1979
“Message” is a word bound up with effort and giving for the sake of a particular goal. Every person has a message they carry out — as a student, a father, a mother, an employee. Every position a person holds is one through which they carry out a certain message, and people differ in how much they believe in that message and how much effort they put into fulfilling it.
The leader’s message in the scouting movement is a long one — as long as that leader’s own life. It is a message that calls on the leader’s mind, heart, effort, love, learning, knowledge and character.
In scouting we do not merely raise and teach. We plant love and brotherhood in hearts, we train minds to think always of serving others, and we bring people back from the practical, concrete city to a simpler, more heartfelt way of being.
It may be easy to convince minds of scouting activity, but it is hard to bring that activity into hearts — and this is the critical stage in a leader’s message.
Scouting is a life more than it is an activity, because most activities have near-term aims, whereas scouting’s essential aims are formation, change and building — and by building here we mean building character and strengthening it.
The success of scouting as a movement is tied to the success of its leaders in carrying out their message. For scout leaders to succeed in that, they must understand the depths of the human being, so they are able to build, to change, and to form.
We rarely find leaders able to understand the members of their troop to that depth. The conditions of society today stand in the way of the time, the effort and the state of mind any leader needs to fulfil their message completely. Likewise, economic, family, emotional and social problems of all kinds leave young people and children in a state that is not always settled, which reduces how much they gain from scouting — and this is one of the reasons the movement is not more widespread.
We need to understand scouting life more deeply
- Our scouting is a call to return to nature, in its simplicity and openness.
- A call to return to the spirit of sharing within a single tribe or crew.
- A call to the word of honour, the word of truth, and the knight’s promise.
- A call to respect other people’s property and not to cross personal boundaries.
- A call to a hopeful smile at the end of a tiring day; a call to a future full of hope at the start of a new one.
- A call to turn spiritual values into conduct we live and a reality we make real.
We need to learn one another’s capabilities better, so that our unity around all of these calls is achieved.
In this spirit I invite you all to take part, and to set out on a true scouting journey.
Leader Essam Francis
