Association of Christian Boy Scouts

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Association of Christian Boy Scouts
(VCP)
logo
legal form registered association
founding 1973
Seat Kassel ( ⊙ coordinates: 51 ° 18 ′ 35 ″  N , 9 ° 28 ′ 38.6 ″  E )
main emphasis Evangelical Scout Association
Chair Oliver Mahn, Neals Nowitzki, Natascha Sonnenberg
Managing directors Johannes Bleck (General Secretary), Carsten Schramm (Managing Director)
Members 47,000
Website www.vcp.de

The Association of Christian Scouts and Scouts (VCP) is the largest Protestant scout association in Germany. He is part of the Protestant youth and the international scout movement.

Within the international scout movement of the VCP is on the Ring German Scout associations member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) and the German Ring Guide associations member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS). As part of the Protestant Youth, the VCP is a member of the Working Group of Protestant Youth in Germany (aej).

Self-image

The VCP describes its goals in task and goal , the first section of the VCP's statutes. Afterwards, the activities of the groups serve to “develop the ability to love and independence, imagination, responsibility and judgment” in the members. Membership in co-educational groups should enable members to “recognize and change roles shaped by society”. International contacts should contribute to " peace education ". The "Gospel of Jesus Christ " is intended to serve as an "orientation aid for the individual (s) and the work in the association" and enable "turning to one's neighbor and overcoming unjustified dependencies, feelings of guilt, peer pressure and fear". The association emphasizes that "its work has necessarily [...] political [...] significance"; As a political goal, he formulates the "change in the living conditions of everyone with the aim of social justice ".

history

The VCP was created in 1973 through a merger of the three Protestant boy scout associations

Three years later, a conservative part split off from the association and re-founded under the old name of Christian Scouting Germany .

Federal chairwoman of the VCP

  • 1973–1976 Eva-Maria Seifert, Werner Gabriel
  • 1976–1978 Christa Eisenhut, Jürgen Flohr, Gebhart Groth, Hans Ulrich Nübel
  • 1978–1981 Eleonore Eichenberg, Hans-Jürgen Geischer
  • 1981–1982 provisional federal management with five members
  • 1982–1985 Brigitte Kühntopf, Ulrich Bauer
  • 1985–1988 Eva-Maria Pietzcker, Ulrich Bauer
  • 1988–1991 Eva-Maria Pietzcker, Hans-Peter von Kirchbach
  • 1991–1992 executive federal management with twelve members
  • 1992–1994 Manfred Witt
  • 1994-2000 Manfred Witt, Hilde Rust
  • 2000–2012 Hans-Jürgen Poppek
  • 2012–2014 Jule Lumma, Oliver Pfundheller, Thomas Kramer
  • 2014–2015 Jule Lumma, Thomas Kramer
  • 2015–2018 Jule Lumma, Thomas Kramer, Gero Beisel
  • 2018 Gero Beisel
  • since 2018 Natascha Sonnenberg, Oliver Mahn, Neals Nowitzki

see also scout history in German-speaking countries

Organization and structure

Membership development

According to its own information, the VCP had around 47,000 members in over 600 tribes across Germany in 2014 , including around 5,000 youth and adult volunteers. Historical figures on membership development are only available occasionally. In 1979 the VCP gave a membership of 54,000 in 920 groups; externally, the number of paying members was estimated at 22,000 at that time.

Association structure

According to its statutes, the association is divided into four levels:

  • Federation
  • countries
  • Regions (districts / districts ) (not in all VCP countries)
  • Local groups / tribes

The VCP states are usually based on the borders of the German federal states , with regional deviations, which are mostly due to the regional church affiliation. Local groups / tribes are divided into small groups according to age groups.

The VCP sees it as its concern to convey democratic working methods to its members. The highest decision-making body at each level is the corresponding assembly of members or delegates. Democracy in the VCP is indirect : the delegates for assemblies at the higher level are elected by the assembly at the lower level.

Ages

The youth groups of the VCP work in three age-appropriate levels, for which development goals have been formulated across the board. The mark of the respective level is a colored stripe on the edge of the blue scarf:

  • Child level (7 to 10 years, orange-red stripes)
  • Girl scout level
    • Young scouts (10 to 13 years, lime green stripes)
    • Girl scouts (13 to 16 years old, dark green stripe)
  • Ranger and Rover level (16 to 20 years old, claret stripe)

In the VCP, adults often take on tasks in committee work or provide support in the background. Her bandana has a purple stripe.

Scout costume of the VCP

The boy scout costume consists of the gray shirt or blouse with the association badge on the left breast pocket and the Germany ribbon in the middle of the flap of the left breast pocket, as well as the badges of the two world associations WAGGGS and WOSM on the left sleeve; In addition, badges for regional affiliation can be worn on the right arm and campaign badges on the right breast pocket. In addition, the blue scout scarf is worn. A colored stripe on the scarf indicates the age group within the association.

Facilities

Federal centers and suppliers

The VCP Federal Center for Scout Castle Rieneck near Würzburg

The federal centers of the VCP are the VCP Bundeszeltplatz Großzerlang near Rheinsberg in Brandenburg on the Mecklenburg Lake District and the VCP Federal Center for Scout Castle Rieneck on the border between Bavaria and Hesse.

The office of the VCP, called Bundeszentrale (BuZe), is based in Kassel. Your task is the administrative management of the association, in addition, the voluntary association work is supported from there by full-time employees. Around 40 people are employed in the federal headquarters and similar offices at the state and in some cases at the district level.

The company Freizeit- und Fahrtbedarf GmbH (F&F) , the association's own supplier of the VCP, moved its headquarters from Illertissen to Kaufungen at the beginning of November 2012 and is now located in the immediate vicinity of the federal headquarters.

Publications

The magazine of the VCP for all members of the association bears the title anp (formerly Auf neuempfad ; ISSN  1615-2441 ). It was published for the first time by the Christian Scouting Association in Germany in 1921 and has been published since then (with an interruption from 1937 to 1950). From 2004 to 2012 the magazine appeared five times a year, in 2013 the publication was reduced to four issues. There are also magazines from the VCP countries.

VCP Federal Archives

In the full-time supervised federal archive of the VCP , materials, documents and documents on the VCP and its predecessor groups BCP, CPD and EMP are collected and saved in order to enable a comprehensive presentation of Christian scouting in Germany.

Evangelical Scout Foundation

In 2003, the VCP founded the Evangelical Scout Foundation to support its work financially . At first it specifically promoted the establishment of VCP groups in the eastern federal states; Later funding measures included, among other things, the procurement of material for newly founded local groups and the publication of the national magazines of individual VCP countries.

Association reality

As the second largest German scout association, the VCP is a heterogeneous scout association. Due to the multilevel internal democracy, there is often no direct relationship between the federal level and individual local groups.

There are very different traditions locally in the VCP. The spectrum ranges from local groups with scoutistischen or youth movement and bündisch traditions with fixed groups to those with open youth work . In this spectrum there is a special feature of the VCP and a clear allocation within the bandwidth of the German scout movement is therefore not possible.

Attempts by the federal management to bring the different forms of work more closely into line with one another have repeatedly led to tensions since the association was founded until around 2000, but these have since been replaced by mutual tolerance. Since then, the different currents have oriented themselves more towards the commonalities of scout work.

An example of this is the level conception, which was previously handled very differently by the groups. In 2008, a uniform level concept for the entire association was drawn up by a joint committee. The coeducational work in the clans takes place according to the new level concept in the three age levels; In addition, the VCP has an adult work, which also includes the cross scouts .

In 2014, the VCP federal management started a process for organizational development under the title “Association development” . The aim is to align the work of the association in the long term according to strategic goals and thus to ensure continuity of the work beyond the term of office of a federal executive committee.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Statutes of the VCP
  2. ↑ The Association
  3. ^ Paul-Thomas Hinkel: The scout associations in the Federal Republic of Germany. Spurbuchverlag, Baunach 1990 (3rd edition). ISBN 3-88778-154-6 . P. 152 fe. and 161.
  4. ↑ VCP Federal Statutes (Part 1): [1]
  5. ↑ vcp.de: [2] , accessed on July 19, 2012

Web links