Posted on 04/13/2012 12:47:55 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
The largest Boy Scout council in the country responded to the call for volunteers issued by the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee, but the welcome mat was rolled up and the door slammed in its face. Olympic spokesmen for the 2002 winter games say the exclusion has nothing to do with recent protests by gay activists.
While the organizing committee for the Olympic event is prominently displaying a call for local volunteers, they have explicitly let it be known that the Boy Scouts need not apply.
"For us not to be involved is discouraging, considering the Atlanta games. The Scouting council there was extremely involved," said Kay Godfrey, professional Scout executive for the Great Salt Lake Council of Boy Scouts.
A number of executives and volunteers from the council have worked for many months with Salt Lake Olympic officials under the assumption that the Boy Scouts would participate in Olympic ceremonies – until recently.
Boy Scouts were seen in many of the venues at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, and they participated in a number of ceremonies there.
Salt Lake Scouts expected the same opportunity in 2002, particularly because Utah is so supportive of the BSA program. About 45 percent of the population of Utah belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the largest sponsor of Scout units in the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at archive.newsmax.com ...
| And the Un-Masking of Mitt Romney, the left-wing, Progressive Liberal, continues . . . | |
| "If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures." - Alexander Hamilton |  |
Now that Obama has his way in all that he does even though he no longer controls the house, I wonder when some of this 'opposing' might begin.
FYI, I READ:
During a 1994 debate with Sen. Kennedy, Romney said, “I feel that all people should be allowed to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of the sexual orientation.”
Some say Mitt cut the scouts out of the Games because of his liberal views on Gays and to teach the Scouts a lesson because the Scouts Charter bans Gays?
Once again stuck with the lesser of two evils. Romney would have to be an absolute progressive marxist for me to not vote R at the ballot box.
Not particularly happy that he most likely takes the nomination, but there’s no other choice this time around.
Read Slowly:
The Volunteers had to be 18 or older!
Boy Scouts are 14 - 16
I - am - reading - s-l-o-w-l-y ...
But, I don't understand what age of Boy Scouts has to do with opposing Obama.
This has all the usual Romney convolutions. People under 18 were not allowed to participate unless they were “actors”, meaning that 17 year olds could participate as some designated function. This was the main way they banned scouts, they made the rule themselves (they could have said, over 18 unless part of an approved organized group, eh?).
Scouts were allowed to participate “as individuals”, but not in a group or in uniform.
There were tasks scouts could do, like raking or planting trees, away from the Olympic site.
When a scout camp offered their campgrounds as housing, the Olympic committee said absoluetly NOT.
So the combination of all these rules meant that the people going to or watching the olympics would never see a scout uniform.
Naturally none of this was ordered or condoned by Romney, though to this day he won’t discuss it.
“The Volunteers had to be 18 or older!”
Who made up that rule?
Thanks for posting the facts.
It is an International Olympics Committee rule.
get over it...
Romney is not my cup of tea but I'm voting for him to defeat the abamanation....
this little nic picking is ridiculous....
grow up and get real folks...
While I was reading this, I kept thinking that it smelled like the IOC. I guess I don't quite understand the point of Romney-bashing at this point of the campaign; but I suspect we'll be seeing a lot of it over the next six months.
If only to convince people they're doing the right thing by refusing to vote for him so Obama can get re-elected.
Volunteer groups: boy scouts and the army
In the early Games, apart from the presence of the army in performing functions given over to volunteers nowadays, the boy scout movement, officially founded in England by Baden-Powell in 1907 (8) , also played an important role.
The boy scouts' contribution began at Stockholm 1912 and basically consisted of delivering messages, maintaining order and safety, helping the public and carrying our various physical functions, such as carrying flags and replacing obstacles: “there was a number of boy scouts and Varingian guards under the command of Messrs, B.E. Lithorin and E. Wernström, for the purpose of giving necessary aid to the public.” (9) This is the first written record of the great work to be carried out by the scouts in many Olympic Games and also of the Scandinavian voluntary spirit.
Pierre de Coubertin (10) himself referred to the work done by these boy scouts with this rather curious observation: “A record: a Swedish woman, Mrs. Versall, had six children who participated in the Games, the youngest as boy scouts enrolled to maintain order and deliver messages. This seems rather trivial. However, the IOC gave her a special Olympic medal.
The links of the boy scouts with the Games went further than purely organisational tasks. For example, an international meeting or jamboree of boy scouts began and was held every four years, following the Olympic pattern. Until the 1920s, sports competitions and parades of all those participating were also held at these jamborees. (11)
According to Nikolay Gueorguiev, the contribution of the scouts continued to grow in various Olympic Games before the Second World War, such as those of Antwerp 1920, Paris 1924, and, especially, Amsterdam 1928.
The scouts were organised into camps and helped out in providing service to the public and in ensuring safety. Once again we can refer to Coubertin's "Memories" in which he praised the spirit shown by the young at the Antwerp Games. (12) Similarly, we also find a reference to the boy scouts' salute during an official ceremony at the Paris Games of 1924. (13) By the Chamonix Games, the boy scouts were participating in the opening and closing parades as flag bearers.
At the Berlin Games the boy scouts were replaced by members of the Nazi youth movement, ideological groupings diametrically opposed to the pacifist, naturalist and fraternal ideals of Baden-Powell. In fact, in the years previous to 1939, in both Italy and in Germany efforts were made to disband the scout movement, (14) which was later to play a role in a number of countries (France, for example) during the war in the resistance movement against totalitarianism and Nazi occupation.
After World War II, the boy scouts continued to participate in the Olympic Games. In Helsinki 1952, the scouts and other youth organisations played an important role, their main task being the delivery of messages, though they also did other work: “While the Games were in progress, 2,191 members of the department (1,617 boys and 574 girls) were engaged in unpaid work. Of this number, 59 squad leaders and 434 ordinary members sold programmes, 130 worked as ushers and 1,568 were employed as messengers”. (15)
These statistics from Helsinki 1952 were the first explicit mention of female volunteers, even though the first girl guides had been formed in France in 1912, also along the lines of the boy scout movement. Without any doubt, female protagonism among the volunteers was to increase significantly in later Olympics in parallel to their increased presence in civil society and politics.
All in all, the Games in which the scouts played the biggest role were those of Melbourne 1956. The Youth Organisations were composed of three blocks: the boy scouts, the girl guides and the members of the Air Training Corps. All of them worked on a voluntary basis and performed a variety of different roles. In the case of the scouts, more than 3,500 members participated from November 1955, in return for which they only received meals. (18) The scouts were present at 90% of the venues and, in all cases, the Arena Managers expressed their complete satisfaction with their efforts. As mentioned already, at Melbourne the scouts carried out numerous tasks, such as for example, helping the public and children, helping the police, reception and attention to distinguished guests and acting as guides for the delegates from the different sports federations who had congregated in the University of Melbourne.
At the Tokyo Olympic Games of 1964, the spontaneous and indirect help provided by the boy scouts and other organisations was notable, where they were entrusted with raising the flags for brief periods of time, both day and night.(17) Once again in Japan, this time in Nagano 1998, the boy scouts played a clearly visible role in a given task the raising of flags at the Olympic Villages.
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Scouts were volunteers at most Olympic games, summer and winter, in the USA and overseas. That's what made the Utah decision stand out- the rules were new.
It’s a Salt Lake City Olympic Organizing Committee rule.
Here are the IOC rules:
http://www.olympic.org/Documents/olympic_charter_en.pdf
That's what I had been wondering. The IOC is a pretty PC and corrupt organization.
I agree with you there. Nothing has changed with the IOC after all the scandals.
Who made up that rule?
Sorry if I misunderstood you.
Boy Scouts are 14 - 16
No, that's not the ages of Boy Scouts.
Boy Scouting is for boys from eleven (11) up until the age of eighteen (18), except that boys who are ten (10) and have completed the fifth grade, or who are ten (10) and have earned the Arrow of Light, may become Boy Scouts. Source: The Boy Scouts of America.
LDS units may be slightly different under the terms of the 1913 agreement between the Boy Scouts of America and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that permits the LDS Church some flexibility with the Scouting program. You can download the Scouting Handbook for Church Units in the United States, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the "LDS Scouting Handbook") from ldsbsa.org
If organized pursuant to the LDS Scouting Handbook, there's a unit for boys 8-11, a unit (Boy Scouts) for boys 12-15 (the Aaronic Priesthood Quorum), and boys 16-17 "when the ward sponsors a Venturing Crew or when rank advancements are being pursued." (LDS Scouting Handbook, page 2). However, LDS Units frequently use Varsity Scouting beginning at age 15.
In traditional Scouting, you have Cub Scouting (Tiger Cubs/Cub Scouts/Webelos) in first through fifth grade, or if not in those grades, ages 7-10, then Boy Scouting 11-17, with Venturing a co-ed option ages 14-21. There are such things as Venture Patrols within Boy Scout Troops, but that's different than a Venturing Crew.
I don't know about the required age for volunteers - but you have the ages of Boy Scouts wrong.
“The Volunteers had to be 18 or older!” Who made up that rule?
Lawyers...Trial Lawyers.
You do also understand that the Boy Scouts had been assisting with the Olympics games for years. Romney’s taxpayer subsidized Olympics was the first to outright deny them that opportunity. Making up the rule that they had to be 18 and could not wear their uniforms in service was to appease the gays Romney was trying to impress.
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