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The following is an article which first appeared in the May '98 edition of Scouting Magazine. Additional references and articles can be found at the bottom of the page.

A long time ago ... in a far away galaxy...

Oops, that's another story - but sometimes it feels that way. ScoutBase UK is now well established as the Scout Association's official Web Site, and this is perhaps as good a time as any to look back at how this communications initiative came into being and why. This is not the place to write a history of the Internet or the World Wide Web (WWW), fascinating though it is.

No, let's just accept that there is this enormous network of computers which now covers the whole World and which can be of use to us.

Smoke signals.

Scouts have always been fascinated by communications, after all the subject was part of our regular training programme for years - hands up all those who still remember a bit of morse or semaphore.

It's hardly surprising then that from the earliest days of home computers you could find Scouts attaching early modems to their Sinclair Spectrums, and starting to communicate with one another by means of electronic bulletin boards. It needed a couple of good solid Scouting character traits to stay with that early technology - patience with the slow and unreliable connections and extreme bravery when it came to facing one's phone bill! But the pace of technology snowballed and those connections became faster and more reliable, and the phone bills need no longer be life-threatening. Or to put it another way, the time had arrived to put the Scout Association on the Web.

If you were strong enough to have survived the early IT Strategy papers, you will remember that a presence on the Web was always part of the Association's forward thinking; but provision of the necessary finance and staffing was another matter. And this is where the story really starts....

The Vision.

Back in the dark days of the early 1990s (pre - ScoutBase you might say) several Leaders and Venture Scouts were already putting information up on the fledgling Web with a view to assisting others in their day-to-day Scouting, and creating electronic links to exchange ideas and information with other Scouts around the World. It soon became obvious that there was a duplication of effort and considerable scope for confusion. Looking back it now seems incredible that these various efforts could so easily and quickly be brought under one roof; perhaps this says a lot for the ability of Scouts to work together in a common cause.

The newly formed grouping - which gave its embryo site the name 'ScoutBase UK' - then took the step of offering its vision, its services, and the site, to the Scout Association. It wasn't a walkover - you try living through a four-o-clock in the morning rehearsal for a presentation to the IT Steering Committee! But, finally, in October 1996 the Committee of the Council took the step of accepting ScoutBase UK as the Association's official Web Site. And this is where the story really starts ....

The original grouping was of just four individuals, but there was no way they could cope with the vision that was to be ScoutBase UK. Editors were quickly recruited for each of the eight main sections of the Site; they in turn recruited their own staff members. These staff were found from all over the country and contact was (and still is) almost entirely electronic; in a very short space of time ScoutBase had become what was probably one of the earliest 'virtual' organisations in the UK, if not the World. It saves the Scout Association a fortune on office space!

The Reality

So, just how many folk do use the Site? Well statistics are notorious for demonstrating whatever you want, but they do give us a feel for usage. For the first seventeen months there has been an average in excess of twelve thousand visits per day, and the figure at the end of this period has risen to some twenty seven thousand per day. If we look at the specific areas visited we can see that, in descending order, the most popular are: Software and Clipart, Directories, Library, Activities and Camping. This gives the Association a very definite steer for the sort of information and help that Members are seeking.

We're rather proud to see that although access from the UK takes up over fifty percent of the usage, there is a very strong presence from the rest of the World; the statistics indicate over one hundred countries, ScoutBase UK may be helping a wider Scouting audience than we anticipated. It certainly looks as if electronics are furthering B-P's vision of Scouting friends in every continent - ScoutBase is helping to make the Scouting world smaller!

ScoutBase helping you.

The ScoutBase UK infrastructure is already demonstrating its usefulness; some four thousand of you who are connected to the Internet can now receive TALKING POINTS within hours of it being released. An interesting snippet of news or advice from the Public Relations Department comes winging its way to you in time for it to be useful (and not several weeks after the event as was perhaps the case in the past). Already the various parts of Headquarters and other areas are examining ways in which these speedy communications can be utilised to advantage.

Change doesn't happen over night, as some would like, because it is necessary to remember that the majority of the Membership is not connected to the Internet, and procedures have to be devised to cater for all. It can be said however that before very long commercial pressures to open up the Internet to a much wider audience will bring costs down and make the technology an everyday facet of modern life (like programming a Video Recorder - ouch!). And on the back of this we shall benefit from that increasing Internet availability.

Since the above article was written, ScoutBase UK has proved its worth in ways that even the originators had not foreseen. But above all it is the demonstrable improvement in communication with Members that has been such a feature of its continued development into something more than 'just another website'!

Chile

The run-up to the Chile Jamboree was beset with uncertainties due to political problems; ScoutBase UK enabled the immediate provision of the latest information from Headquarters to the various Jamboree contingents around the UK. ScoutBase UK was also the first Scouting web site to carry extensive images from that Jamboree - with the unexpected result that the supplier carrying the site almost crashed from the sheer volume of accesses from all around the world!

SID

The Scouting Internet Directory (or SID) was created on ScoutBase UK because the Team felt that Members might benefit from being in touch one with another through the Internet. A subsequent Internet survey of Members showed SiD to be considered so useful that it now has its own national infrastructure in the shape of specially appointed Local Administrators throughout the UK. The sheer volume of replies to the survey indicated that we now had an effective, swift and cheap means of seeking the views of the Membership.

Census

The 2001 Census was the first to utilise ScoutBase UK infrastructure in an attempt to speed up the process of gathering and processing the required information. Feedback from Members led to the much improved and speedy collection of Census information in 2002; and now over 95% of all census figures are submitted online.

Ecommerce

ScoutBase UK liased with The Information Centre to introduce ecommerce to the Site; suddenly the Scouting world discovered that it could purchase all manner of Scouting items easily and directly from the UK. A whole new market was opened up with rather pleasing financial implications!

Others

The improvement of communications from Headquarters to the grass roots has demonstrated the added value brought to The Movement by ScoutBase UK. Some highly visible areas to benefit included:

• co-ordination of the collection of aid for the Kosovan crisis;
• the arrangements for Millenium events;
• the introduction of the new training Programmes;

We shall see many more in the future.

In 2002, The Scout Association introduced www.scouts.org.uk as the Corporate website; ScoutBase UK continued as the official website for Members of The Scout Association.

A number of articles were written about the birth on the History of ScoutBase UK