There’s a neat feature accessible on your Scoutbook profile that says, “Scouts address you as”: and allows you to input what you want your Scouts to call you.
How is this information used? How can Scouts (or other adults) see this information?
Following because, for the life of me, I could get every other venturer in my region – except the youth in my crew – to address me by my first name!
Scoutbook
Is there an option for Scouts? e.g. How should others address Scouts?. (There are ethnic and religious preferences.)
There’s a “nickname” field in the Scout profile:
With that said, I doubt it’s of any use to any of the Scouts… They’re going to go with whatever name a person uses to introduce themselves.
I think it’s more for reporting convenience – if you have Scouts that go by their middle name, like in the above example, filling out the nickname field changes how Scoutbook refers to them throughout. In the rosters and reports, for example, this Scout is referred to as “Tommy” not “William”.
Manners of Address
I think using a polite form of address is part of using good manners. I would not want to have Scouts addressing Scouters by their first name. However Scouters have different opiniions:
- ‘That’s Mr. West to you, mister’: Are your Scouts on a first-name basis with leaders? (survey results), July 11, 2013, by Bryan Wendell
I am not finding free modern etiquette information online which does not have ads…
Scout Master, 1908
Scouting for Boys, by Robert Baden-Powell, 1908,p. 35, Part 1, Chapter 1 - Scoutcraft, Camp Yarn No. 3, “Boy Scouts’ Organisation”:
A Scout Master is an officer who has charge of a troop. A troop consists of not less than three patrols. Scouts address the scout master as “Sir.”.
Scout Law
2019;
A Scout is COURTEOUS Be polite to everyone and always use good manners.
1908 - Scouting for Boys, p. 5; 1910, Boy Scouts of America Handbook For Boys
A SCOUT IS COURTEOUS: That is, he is polite to all—but especially to women and children and old people and invalids, cripples, etc. And he must not take any reward for being helpful or courteous.
History - Etiquette and society changes overtime
For comparison:
- ETIQUETTE IN SOCIETY, IN BUSINESS, IN POLITICS AND AT HOME, by Emily Post, 1922
Resources
- “A Scout Is Courteous - 12 Days of Scout Christmas - Lesson From An Unusual Source: Fraser”, By Michelle Carpenter, Dec 17, 2017.
- “Parenting Solutions: Manners Do Matter”, Illustrations by Joel Snyder, From the March-April 2007 issue of Scouting magazine.
Created 2019-10-31, Updated 2019-11-01.
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It’s a big country. So it definitely varies by region as well as era.
I’m not sure that a field in SB is going to push against those tides. I might prefer to be addressed by my first name as an Advisor, but my local culture says that’s not going to happen.
The 1908 definition of courteous hits home. We just laid to rest a elderly friend with learning disabilities, impaired motor movement, and profoundly impaired speech. We all called him by his first name.
It made his day when we put our son in his arms the first day we brought the baby to church and every week thereafter. My wife was questioned, “Are you sure you want to do that?” Our reply was simply “Why would we not?”
My son rescheduled a job interview so he could attend the memorial service and give the eulogy.
There’s addressing someone respectfully, and there’s giving someone the respect they deserve.
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I think that A Scout is Courteous means addressing people in the manner that makes them feel comfortable. I’m a 52-year-old Cubmaster, and I feel comfortable with all my Cub Scouts except one calling me Peter. The only one who doesn’t calls me Dad.
Getting back to the original question, as far as I can tell there is no way for anyone other than yourself to see what goes into the “Scouts address you as” field - not scouts, parents, or other leaders. Even as an admin with edit profile access to other adults, I can’t see or change that field.
The nickname field does work as intended, letting you see the nickname without affecting the official council roster name.
I think you’re missing the point. The question is, how is this field used in Scoutbook? Do the Scouts see it when they look at their adult leaders’ profiles? Or what? I think the field itself is a great idea—I was “Mr. Jim” when I was a Den Leader, but now I’m “Mr. Syler.” But I can’t seem to see anyone’s preference but mine.
So is this something they put in for later use? Or did they forget about it?
I don’t expect the Scouts to see or use this (though if emails from Scoutbook to Scouts came addressed with this field, that would be great!) but I would find it useful in referring to other leaders when talking to Scouts.
Scouts cannot see other people’s profiles (adults or Scouts). I don’t know what the purpose of the field is, but I believe it has been there since the beginning.
It would be really useful if the email module was smart enough to do a merge using that info… you can use square brackets for formatting, it would be nice if you could use square brackets for FIRSTNAME, LASTNAME, NICKNAME, etc. to make the email blasts a little more personal.
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I believe you used to be able to see it in the legacy forums when you clicked someone’s name or avatar to see their profile info.
ETA: no that’s not it either. I thought it was something like that, but I may be wrong.
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