Talk:Surrey Scout County (The Scout Association)

Merge of D-unit

It is proposed that this article be merged to the County article. This Explorer Unit appears to be lacking in notability except possibly because it is one of the few RAF recognized Air Scout Units. However, it needs sources, even to say it exists. It mentions the "9th Walton Air Scouts (Viscount)" which is mentioned on the Surrey County web site but the ESU is not mentioned there or on Scoutbase. The RAF recognition also needs sources. The 9th Walton is listed at ScoutBase as being recognized, but ESUs are not part of a Group anymore, so separate recognition is needed. Please give your views below. --Bduke (talk) 02:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

• Support merge as above. --Bduke (talk) 02:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
• Support merge Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 03:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
• Support merge --Mas 18 dl (talk) 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
• Support merge-Phips (talk) 12:19, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The article has now been proposed for deletion at AfD. The only bit worth considering keeping in a merge is:

Dambuster ESU are a unit of Explorer Scouts from the Walton on Thames area run by Greg Winter. It is part of the Walton and Weybridge Scout District in the Scout County of Surrey, and is linked to 9th Walton Scouts. D-Unit are made up of 14 to 18 year olds, but D-Unit also includes a Scout Network group that help run activities."

and

"Dambuster ESU are one of only a few Air Scout groups in the UK to have achieved Royal Air Force (RAF) Recognition, this is achieved by passing a formal inspection by an RAF Reserve Officer. These Inspections happen every 18 months. Having RAF Recognition allows Dambuster ESU to have special oppertunities to go on different flying activities that other Explorer Scouts may not have the chance to go on."

The rest is just about Explorers in general.

I have moved this information here as we can not even merge it until evidence that it actually exists is found. A FaceBook account is not good enough and I can not find mention of it on the sources here in "Scouting in Surrey". --Bduke (talk) 03:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

The AfD has ben closed explicitly supporting the merge proposal here. However, I still do not think we have a source for the existence of this unit. --Bduke (talk) 22:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Notability

I have consulted with another editor - outside of Scouting. Assuming good faith, I'm afraid that I cannot see that these new sites fit in with Wikipedia as they appear effectively nothing more than a list of branches of The Scout Association. For further information on this please see the section Wikipedia is not a soapbox on Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, notably the section on advertising. Even when open to Groups of all Associations these pages were of suspect standard, and closing them to independent Groups has not helped in any way.

I suggest returning them to their original format, a new format that allows all Scouting in a County to be reported, or, alternatively, deleted as inappropriate. -- DiverScout (talk) 19:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)