The Language of Scouting

Why did this not exist when I was newbie?

When you’re new to Scouting, one of the most confusing parts is all of the terminology – especially the acronyms. I didn’t know my ASPL from my NYLT. And what on earth is a NOAC and NLATS sounds like a made up disease. (“Yeah I’ve got this rash on my arm…I think it’s a flare-up of my NLATS.”) Don’t get me started on “Silver Beaver.” (Sometimes I like to look back in my life and try to figure out when the phrase “Silver Beaver Dinner” became a part of my regular vocabulary, but I digress.)

Now I had to learn like everyone else – fake it ‘til you make it. (I still remember trying, “So how did you like the 1998 NOAC? That would be the National Order of the Arrow Conference,” as a pseudo pickup line on my now husband. There’s something wrong with me.) Well, I’ve just read in the September-October 2012 Scouting Magazine that there is a section of scouting.org devoted to the “Language of Scouting” including a list Abbreviations and Acronyms Commonly Used in Scouting. This is unacceptable! You new people should have to spend some time thinking that COPE refers to scouts coping with the fact that they’ll be climbing a 40 foot rock wall. 

Anyhoo, check it out! I wish this had been around when I started out. TTYL!

First Post !

Let me just say I’ve been trying to write this blog for years.

Seriously, I have drafts of my first entry in notebooks. I have a running list of topic ideas for posts in my cell phone. It’s never gotten to this spot, however. I’ve gone as far to create a pretty little design for my blog, and that’s where I stopped. Life takes over and I never have the time. I even had a blog (and by “had a blog” I mean it existed somewhere in cyberspace. I think.) before this one so long ago, that I was Scouter’s girlfriend at the time. I’ve earned my Master’s degree, gotten engaged, married, and started a new job all in the time that I’ve tried to blog. I guess a lot of the blogs I regularly read have updates, you know, regularly and I’ve never been sure I could keep up with that kind of schedule.

Until I realized no one knows about this blog yet so I guess I really don’t have a schedule. So here I am.

A little bit about me: I’m a late twentysomething wife of a very active Scouter. My husband and I have been together for nearly a decade, during which time he has held local and sectional positions as a youth and adult. I’m not any kind of expert on Scouting but it’s a program that I love – 98% of the time – meaning I love it when I see how it turns shy young boys into upstanding outspoken honorable young men, but I love it less when it makes my husband occasionally be away for 3 weekends in a row. And Thursday nights. And sometimes Tuesdays. And several weeks in the months of June and July. And every few years in August. I volunteer as a member of the Troop Committee of our unit and get to spend time with some of the most incredible young men around and the most fun adults I know. Though I’ve only been around Boy Scouting for about 9 years now, I am a lifetime Girl Scout and earned the Gold Award, which is the highest award in Girl Scouting. I work in education and am a proud Roman Catholic. I expect this blog to be about my adventures in Scouting as Scouter’s Wife, and probably whatever else is on my mind at the moment. Again, if you want expert scouting advice, I could point you toward the right people. Here you’re more likely to find recaps of troop fundraisers and plans I’ve made while the hubs is hiking in the woods. (Spa weekend, anyone?) Hope you enjoy reading it!