At first, it may seem that Scouting is generally confined to the continental U.S. After all, NOAC is always at a university in the contiguous 48 states and nearly everything else happens there as well. However, the US form of Scouting does have a place in Alaska, Hawaii, the U.S. territories, and even other countries. Just a few months ago, the Gateway Region Training Team went to Japan to facilitate a session of the National Leadership Seminar for the Far East Council.
During his time in Scouting, Thomas Ravel, a Scout from Paris, France, and the Transatlantic Council (TAC), has served as the senior patrol leader of the only troop in France and has also staffed several sessions of National Youth Leadership Training (NYLT) in Germany. He was also recently called out for the Order of the Arrow but has yet to complete his ordeal due to some of the barriers to Scouting in Europe. Recently, I had the chance to talk with him about his experiences in TAC and, more specifically, his time with NYLT, a program that is structured similarly to the OA in TAC.
When asked how he first got involved with Scouts, he said,
“I've been involved in Scouting since I was a Tiger Scout, so I've been through the entire system. As for my reasons why I joined, well, my first reason was my older brother was already in Scouting, so it was sort of a sort of sibling follows sibling situation. More specifically to the activity, I was quite young, so it's like five or six, but I do remember that I was quite keen on joining because I wanted to be in an American environment. So living in Paris has its advantages, but being French-American, I also wanted to sort of be in an Anglophone environment that was different from, you know, my more Francophone environment at school. So that was one of the big draws for me and I think for many of the people in the troop, that's also a draw for them, is to have that sort of American experience. Then the other one that was probably most important to me when I was that young was, well, the fun. I remember seeing my brother doing the pinewood derby, for example, and remember, I thought that was cool.”
As you may expect, there are some very distinct differences between Scouting in the US and abroad. While Thomas has never lived in the U.S., he has attended Philmont as well as a summer camp in New York. While comparing and contrasting the differences, he said,
“From what I've heard, I mean, talking to you guys, especially at NAYLE, is that I would say [Scouting in the U.S. and abroad are] virtually the same. We have the same requirements and the same troop structures, council works the same way as well. So, I would say in terms of format and content, it's the same, but I would say that the thing with TAC is that we're all very spread out because it ranges from the U.K. to the Middle East, actually, and even Africa now. So, it's quite different for different people. So, for instance, in Germany, it's almost the same as in the U.S. since they're on military bases. They even have an American high school, which is crazy. So there, it's very, very similar, but I'd say, from what I've heard, that in Paris, at least we're pretty spread out. Each troop is quite isolated, so you're single-troop-focused. So I’d say that's one big difference, but otherwise, it's the same… It's a transplant of the program in Europe and France, more specifically for me.”
Because of the geographical differences in TAC, there are some differences in the ways that their council and lodge-level events operate. Thomas gave some insight into the NYLT and summer camp programs in TAC.
“We have two main summer camps in TAC, so that is Camp Alpine in Switzerland [which is] more mountain focused. And then we have Camp Aventura in Croatia, which is more aquatics-based. So sailing as it's on the Dalmatian Coast. So, it works similarly [to the U.S.]. You can sign up your troop, you go there as a troop. The difference is that since we're all very spread out, it tends to be harder to get to. [The geographic representation tends to be a] bit more clustered. I would say Germany and Belgium are quite represented since it's quite close. We don't see the Middle Eastern troops often for example. What is different though, is in the U.S. you have specific Scout camps… [which are] owned by the council, whereas in Europe, It's not at all the case. So we went to an international Scout camp. But that also means… we're more like visitors to the area. We don't own it… So, NYLT. We follow the same syllabus as in the U.S. That's all the same. Something unique to TAC is that the majority of our troops are from military bases, Paris isn't, but that means that people often PCS. [What that means is,], when you're in the military, every three years you relocate your base. So that means that for NYLT, the problem we often have is that it’s difficult to develop a staff culture. So, for instance, people may attend one year, and then staff maybe one or two years, and then they'll be off. So it's quite cyclical compared to the U.S. where sometimes I've heard of people who've staffed it three or four times."
With Scouting movements across the globe, one might think that there would be overlap between organizations such as the French Scouts and Scouts from the U.S. organization. However, Thomas mentioned that the relationship is,
“…quite surprising to be honest… we never interact with French Scouts. So we're completely separate. We never interact with any other Scout organizations… [w]hich I find too bad… [The Normandy Camporee is] once every two years. And there, French Scouts do go, so that's where we do interact with them. And it's not the troop, it's more like the council invited them. So, [other than that,] I would say there's very little interaction [with] French Scouts or British Scouts or Ukrainian Scouts."
While there are numerous differences between Scouting in the U.S. and abroad, they all share the same mission. So, to conclude my conversation with Thomas, I asked about how Scouting has impacted his life personally.
“It has in many ways, to be honest. I'd say scouting has been my top activity over the past 10 years now. A more general answer would be leadership in general. It has been the best opportunity for me to get leadership experience… For NYLT, I’m the assistant youth course lead for admin. And there it is a great… experience for that type of work. So, I would say scouting has shaped me in terms of leadership organization. Then also, I would say just broadly it's led me to meet people outside of my school sphere. [In France,] it's more difficult to widen your horizons, so scouting has allowed me to [meet] you guys from NAYLE and people from all over Europe.”