Program Question, And Let's Forget The "3 Gs"

The Desert Pacific Council of the BSA (mainly San Diego County, California)
has run a soaring program for campers at the Mataguay Scout Reservation for
some years. The Scouts make a day trip out of camp and get a program that
includes a flight in a sailplane.

The Ventura County Council of the BSA is considering opening a similar
program this summer which might include a tour of Edwards Air Force Base
and a chance to meet and fly in sailplanes with some Air Force test pilots.

Does anybody out there in SCOUTS-L plan have experience with such a summer
camp program? If so, can you share with me what worked and didn't work, as
well as your ideas on how to make the program really outstanding?

Now, the obligatory nod to those who are obsessed with "The 3 G's":

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At 09:27 PM 4/20/98 EST, Jay Thal wrote:
>Within the current BSA movement girls, gays, and the godless have no
standing.
>Yet, we are consumed by them. We cannot deny that they represent the testing
>ground as we enter the 21st Century, just as slavery became central in the
>19th.
....

Not true in re girls. To be technically accurate, you should have stated
that girls under the age of 14 currently have no standing in the BSA. Girls
14 and over have been full members in good standing within the Exploring
Division of the BSA for over a quarter of a century and have been members of
the "Learning For Life" subsidiary of the BSA since its inception.

The issue of excluding self-professed "gays" and "Godless" from membership in
the BSA is a core value issue for the majority of both the BSA's Scouters and
the BSA's sponsoring institutions. The issue of extending full membership in
the Cub Scout Division and the Boy Scout Division to girls younger than 14
years of age is, by comparison, merely a programmatic issue.

While I favor the BSA's serving the needs of girls under the age of 14 by
allowing those sponsoring institutions who wish include girls in their BSA
sanctioned programs to do so, I am currently in the minority. However, I
strongly suspect that this will change the next time we get into a severe
economic recession. Even a cursory examination of the BSA's history shows
clearly that the BSA seeks to extend its demographic boundaries during
periods of economic depression or severe recession so as to keep from going
broke.

Check out the BSA's actions during the Great Depression of the 1930's (great
push to start troops of African-Americans and other minorities and get them to
attend BSA summer camps) and the severe recession of the late 1960's and early
1970's (co-ed Exploring and the admission of women into full partnership in
the Exploring Division). Consider also the ill-fated attempt in the early
to mid 1970's to extend Scouting from serving 25% of the USA's boys of
Scouting age to "a representative one third" (including one third of all
ethnic minorities) during the "Boypower '76" campaign, which among other
things, involved watering down the outdoor program in the Boy Scout Division.

Bottom line:

If it ever gets to be a choice between shutting down BSA summer camps and
laying off BSA professionals en masse on the one hand or admitting girls into
the Cub Scout Division and the Boy Scout Division of the BSA on the other
hand, the BSA's top volunteers and professionals will opt to admit girls to
full membership in all phases of the BSA's programs.


Yours in Scouting,

Rodger

Rodger Morris <rodger@fishnet.net>
Asst. Scoutmaster, Troop 808 Wood Badge 416-18
Ventura County Council at Philmont, 1973
Camarillo, California, USA "I used to be a Beaver..."

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