The 3 Pillars of Service

The Rover motto is “Service” – a reminder of the 3 pillars of service we try to adhere to.

Service to Self

The first ‘service’ a Rover must render is to him or herself. This does not mean selfishness, but rather self-improvement. As a young adult this can mean learning the tools needed to start a career, obtain a driver’s license, study or find spiritual fulfillment. As a Rover gets older, this can be the development of leadership skills or even learning the responsibilities needed when starting a family. Rovering provides a platform for this type of development to take place in an organic way, where we can all take a friend or mentor role in helping each other develop. Aside from pure guidance, we also offer training in skills and allow our Rovers to take ownership of projects where they can test their own abilities at their own pace, and hopefully grow as a person from their experiences.

Service to the Community

Service to our Community is the second pillar a Rover is encouraged to follow. This is encouraged through the planning of our own community service projects, as well as our involvement in projects organised by other organizations. Individual Rovers are encouraged to take initiative and get down and dirty in a proactive way. As the ‘Table Bay’ Rover Crew, our service tends to focus on Cape Town’s Northern Suburbs lying west of Tygerberg Hill and north of Voortrekker Road. These areas include Blouberg, Bothasig, Century City, Goodwood, Maitland, Melkbosstrand, Milnerton, Table View, Parklands and Welgelegen. However, while these areas are our focus, we do serve other parts of the Cape when the need and opportunity presents itself. We vary the types of community service we do to accommodate issues that our members feel strongly about, and past projects have included endangered wildlife surveys, distributing food to underprivileged communities and running events for children’s shelters.

Service to the Scout Movement

The final part of a Rover ‘service’ is the Scout Movement.  As a member of Scouts South Africa, the Table Bay Rovers believe in using the tool known as the ‘scouting method’ that allows children to gain vital leadership skills, independence and good moral fiber. The elements of the scouting method are fairly simple –

While most of this program is carried out by Scout Troops and Cub Packs, we as Rovers try to bring new elements of fun and excitement to the children. This is done by running events, competitions and training activities that can be as small as a team-building activity for 20 children, or as large as a provincial-scale competition for up to 1000 children. Feeding back into the other pillars of service, these events are also used as opportunities for our Rovers to develop themselves.