Posted on 02/22/2021 3:49:55 PM PST by lowbridge
Great job, you sound like my uncle, he skipped his high school graduation to go off to summer school for his first semester in college. A very successful man in many ways.
Very well written! Thank you.
My son achieved Eagle at 14. He was Senior Patrol Leader of a Troop with over 100 Scouts at the time he got his Eagle.
He had 94 Merit Badges at the time.
It can be done with hard work and time management. (Summer camps, Merit Badge Challenge Weekends, doing Merit Badges on the bus to and from campouts that were designed to earn a badge or two.) Two of those years he never missed a campout.
Unfortunately, you are correct that few posters here really understand how Scouting works these days. I’ve never seen a gay Scout Leader. Our Troop just wouldn’t allow it. There are no girls in these Troops. They have their own Troops. Council Reps are almost never seen except for the Eagle Board of Review guy. Never met a National guy.
For us, the Scouts is still a very conservative, solid organization at the Troop level. It has helped my son be the man he is today. Organized, dependable, honest. He has decided he wants to be a Judge - and after college, he will be going to law school.
THAT is what Scouting does.
I’ve been an Assistant Scoutmaster in my old troop, with a few years of Professional Scouting as a District Executive and Senior District Executive in between. I stepped aside when I got married and with my son a couple of years away from joining Cub Scouts, you better believe I’ll be the Cubmaster. Other than one coed troop, all the other Scouting units in my metropolitan area of almost 1 million are boy-only. What’s left of our council’s professional staff, now that all the District Executives have been laid off due to covid, are high enough in standing to be under the National Council’s control and dissent from them, even constructive criticism, can get one blackballed. They have to sell and push whatever National dictates, and sell it hard. But, there’s a way for volunteers to fight back. It requires organization and patience.
And isn't it that way in virtually ANY organization, through the history of mankind? People believe that if a cluster of like-minded folks defect and form a different group, they will NEVER get infected.
Certainly, flight is the only option when a long train of abuses and usurpations evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism. For the Scouting "conservative" Greek chorus, our position is akin to Corigedor in the early 1940s. For those of us actually in the game, we recognize we are more akin to London during the Blitz, and see the massive loss that would emanate from running and hiding.
There may be a time when we happy few band of brothers abandon ship. However, we are a LONG way from there based on actual observation and an understanding of how Scouting works nowadays.
Exactly. Any organization, such as a church, BSA, or even the GOP, has a mechanism or a grievance process to fight back. The BSA has a great one in place and it takes coordination and persistence... but it has been done before! Circa 1970, the BSA introduced BOYPOWER ‘76, which was an initiative to appeal Scouting to urban areas by watering down advancement requirements by adding skill awards to merit badges. The initiative made it possible for a Boy Scout to reach Eagle without ever camping. This created a backlash among volunteers and the BOYPOWER ‘76 reforms were phased out by the mid-late ‘80s. This organization to fight back was done before social media or the internet, it was people power!
It is likely that National has been purged of traditionalists, but as the DELAY shows, they still understand that "the little people" control their destiny. It also gives them an "out" so they can blame their retreat on us knuckle-dragging trads. They may not admit it, but I bet they LIKE us.
First, you do realize there were girls in scouting when your boys were in the program. Right?
Second, I wasn’t talking about the girls beating up the boys because they are bigger. What kind of person thinks that way?
Third, the program didn’t change to accommodate girls. The girls joined the program because it was still difficult to achieve eagle.
5% of kids who join the program will make Eagle. The girls will have worked just as hard as the boys. If that fact bothers you, get over it. Stop trying to protect the ones who can’t make it from the girls who can.
Girls were not in scouting when my boys were. My BIL was not a scout leader when girls started being allowed either. He also wants no part of the current organization.
I didn’t say you said the girls were beating up boys.
When my boys were in, girls were not allowed in. They are now. That necessitated a change in rules. In my opinion that change has, and will continue to produce detrimental changes in the organization and programs over time.
I don’t care if the girls worked just as hard. They can work hard in girl scouts. I am not trying to protect the boys from the girls. I am trying to protect freedom of association. Boys only organizations should be allowed to exist.
They changed the rules to allow gays scoutmasters and girl members. You are happy with that and want to pretend the current organization is as good as it always was. Feel free to do so.
When I worked for the Boy Scouts, the National guys were good for the most part on a personal level, but the last couple of Chief Scout Executives (CEOs) were very big towards including women, gays, etc. There’s no collaboration and whatever the Chief directs is never questioned.
My theory is that a lot of these recent membership changes is likely due to the LDS church pulling out of Scouting. I’m not LDS, but I’ve had to work with their structure on many projects and I believe internal church issues appear to likely be why they pulled out. The growth of new Scouts and fundraising in the Western Region (west of the Rockies) was so strong, that it offset almost all the losses in the rest of the country, mainly because of LDS involvement.
When LDS involvement ceased, it created a void in membership, fundraising, and manpower that could not be replaced easily. Solution: loosen membership requirements to get good PR and win back lost financial sources like the United Way.
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