Monthly Archives: June 2010

Rover Scouting in Singapore

This piece is intended as a short chronicle of  the past 5 years of  Rover Scouting in Singapore, from the perspective of a person (myself) who used to be in the thick of the action, but now no longer.  It may be a bit sketchy.

It was a fateful Sunday, sometime in 2003 when I attended an Adults in Scouting workshop organised at TSSA HQ, given by the then-World Bureau staff Effendy (now-ED), where I bumped into Dr Chua Kian Wee and Sox Tok.  They told me that they were looking at a review of Rovering in Singapore and were interested in involving Dunman High as it was “one of the numerically stronger Rover Scout Units”.  At this point I remember being genuinely surprised at the fact that there were only about 300 registered Rovers in Singapore, and at the time, DHS registered about 30 Rovers (10%~).

It was only around then that I learnt that of the 9000 or so Scouts in Singapore then, about 5-6K were Cubs (then-Cadets), 2-3K Scouts, and less than 1K Ventures and Rovers put together.  (It didn’t strike me as necessarily wrong or bad then, but I now feel that in order of Scouting to fulfill its mission to allow individuals to contribute constructively to society, it is necessary to have a strong programme that bridges teenagers to young  adulthood and into the working world.)

Not long after, Kian Wee, Sox, myself and a few others formed a group called RoverThinkers sometime in 2003, which we envisaged as a stop-gap thinktank group that would gather like-minded individuals trying to figure out how to renew Rovering in Singapore.  We met occasionally, with time amongst the busy schedules being a precious commodity (isn’t it always the case?).  After some discussion, there were some short-medium term plans, and some medium-long term plans.

In the long run, we envisaged Rovering in Singapore to be a close and tightly knit community that transcended Unit/District/Area affiliations, and we hoped that the Rovering programme would be more distinct, and clearer.  These translated into shorter term plans to organise annual community service projects/events that would serve these purposes, and to review the Rover Scout Progress Scheme.  In the medium term, the formation of a National Rover Council also occupied our minds, though we were conscious that the time was not yet ripe then.

Project RIGEL was born in 2004 (or was it 2005), as the Rover Scouts, in collaboration with some of the APSN schools organised a kayaking programme for a small group of extension scouts, culminating in an expedition to St John’s island for an overnight camp and back.  David Wong (from St Andrew’s) was heavily involved and led most of the kayaking related events as an avid kayaker himself.

Sometime during this period, Kian Wee succeeded Wind as the National Rover Scout Commissioner, and convinced David and myself to take on Assistance Rover Scout Commissioner roles, with David’s focus on projects and events and my focus on the review of the progress scheme.

Between 2003 and 2005, we also spent time looking at the Rover Progress Scheme, since the one that was still in use at the time could be considered an ancient relic from the 1970s-80s.  I even understand that it was a carry-over from the British system thats how antiquated it was.  The result of the review was a revised Progress Scheme, which was released in 2005, and finally fully phased in at the end of 2007, with the articulated objective to educate Rovers into young leaders, exemplary in the Scouting community and well acquainted with the community beyond.

To my recent surprise the booklet that I wrote back then has appeared on scribd here, and I heard anecdotally that there is some interest in it over in Taiwan.

Project RIGEL was repeated with a different theme but same name the following year, and as the community grew in strength, involvement of actual Rovers (Bear in mind that at that point most of the RoverThinkers had already surpassed the upper age limit for Rovering, and so technically could not rightfully be considered Rovers, rather we were adult leaders.)

In 2006 (or was it 2007) the first National Rover Council (NRC) was sworn in, and two accompanying sister bodies, the National Rover Roundtable (NRR) and the National Rover Advisory Committee (NRAC) were formed.  We had envisaged the NRC to become the primary executive decision making body for Rovering in Singapore, which it did to some extent, the NRR to be a council on which all Rover Crews would be represented, to be a supporting and input providing body to the NRC, and finally the NRAC to be a group of leaders and BPA holders who would provide support, guidance and advice to both the NRC and NRR (not impose our views on them) where required.

Not long after, my involvement in the National Rover scene wound down due to work commitments.  From what I understand, we are now into the 3rd NRC.