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Our Admiralty The Calandtroep is one of the 27 seascouttroops in Admiralty number 6 "van de Maze" (the Admiralty of the river Meuse) Most of the names of the Admiralties are from the times of the VOC. The times that Holland was very powerful at sea and had a lot of colonies all over the world. The mightiest trade company was the VOC who sailed the world and dictated their will to all other countries. The VOC was organised in local Admiralties and one of them was the Admiralty of Rotterdam called "The Admiralty of the Meuse" With the 27 seascouttroops the Rotterdam Admiralty is the largest of the 22 local Admiralties there are. The smallest have only 8 seascouttroops. The task of an Admiralty is to provide the troops with all training, services and help they need to make seascouting safe and possible (see Seascouting in Holland). Our Admiralty has roughly 850 boys and girls and about 250 leaders. Between them they use about 175 ships (mostly Lelievlet, but also speedboats, tugs and 8 "motherships") The Calandtroep is very active in the Admiralty. Not only do we provide the "Admiral" and the Treasurer, but we are involved in the organisation of most of the activities for the boys and the girls (the "Admirade") and for the leaders. Besides that we provide most of the equipment necessary for those events. We mentioned the "Admirade" this is an event that takes place every two years (next one in 2007) and can be seen as a kind of seascout patrol competition. Maximum 30 patrols of 7 to 13 persons can take part in it and we always have to disappoint people because we are overbooked. It is an course with 10 posts (every post in 3 fold) with activities from firefighting to First Aid, from making and welding an anchor to driving a radio controlled car, from salvaging a drum with "toxic waste" to pioneering and sailing a raft and whatever the organisers can think of. A team of more then a hundred councillors make sure that everything is going smoothly and that the boys and girls have a good time. The Admiralty has a lot of work. There is a commission of technicians who check the barges, the other motorvessels and lelievlets as well gives advise on every technical problem there is. We have a nautical commission who gives courses and takes examinations for every sailing certificate there is in Scouting as well in the CWO (a kind of RAY). We have people who are the organisers of all kind of games while others are using there skill on the computer to produce homepages and are in charge of the automatisation of the records we keep. We are involved in the support of the groups that have an argument with the city counsel, we arrange training for the leaders on all kind of specialises. You see the Admiralty is a very useful and hard working organisation, that will act on every wish of the groups that are member of this organisation. We think that an organisation like the Admiralty is unique in the world. If not, please let me know. |