Going to the next Jamboree?
A place to chat about Scouting's biggest gathering
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LATEST POSTS
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For us, the comparison between sports and scouting comes up with scouting being far more expensive, but my kids don't do 'club' sports. They all participated in high school sports, with all three swimming (for at least two years), and my daughter doing track and fencing after she dropped swimming. Youngest son is in marching band. Swimming is least expensive. For my youngest son (high school), it's a $200 athletic fee to the school, goggles, and gas money, since our high school doesn't have their own pool. For my older son (collegiate swimmer), it's $80 goggles and a $350 tech suit, plus non-mandatory things like a team towel with his name on it ($60) and a sweatshirt ($45). Fencing required a lot up front for equipment, then my daughter injured her hip before the first meet and her fencing days were over before they began. Sad. Marching band shares the $200 athletic fee with swimming. We buy shirt, wool knee socks and shoes - around $75. (Our band wears a traditional winter wool kilt on the bottom. Tops change depending on the music/theme for the year. The school provides Scottish military parade jackets and plaids for parades. There isn't much else you have to buy, but it's a huge time commitment for parents. We are required to solicit donations for our Pageant of the Bands and spring basket raffle, and everyone has to work part (or all) of the Pageant, as well as take at least one shift as a chaperone or doing pit crew. Scouts... oh boy. Uniform - hideously expensive for what it is. $135 to Council and National. $150 to the Troop. $35-250 for each monthly camping trip, depending on what we're doing. ($35 for regular camping trip to the local scout camp or other low-cost areas. $250 is for a trip we're taking this coming January to Vermont for X-Country skiing, fat bikes, and dogsledding.) I just spent some Christmas money to get a new insulated sleeping pad, since I have to sleep outside most times (female SM for a boy's troop), and we've purchased backpacks, tents, sleeping bags, mess kits and so on. And then there's always stuff that I do as Scoutmaster that I either forget to submit for reimbursement or figure it's not worth submitting. Scouting is easily our most expensive activity. The troop does have some gear we can lend, and we have a policy of any scout who needs financial help not needing to pay, but most families aren't in that situation, we're just okay enough for it to hurt a bit. -
Or they get tired of your calling them out (correctly) to many times they tell you that your services are not needed. But still send you FOS requests. -
By InquisitiveScouter · Posted
Hey man, we only get to work when things become a Crisis. So, until it becomes a crisis, we ain't doin' nothin'. If you follow our philosophy, then all you have to do is Crisis Management. And when it becomes a Crisis, if you don't want to deal with it, then dump it on someone else and find a new position elsewhere. We just pray there are plenty of fat paychecks in the bank before the Crisis rears its ugly head, and we have to leave. (not having done the Crisis Management we have said we would do 😜 ) Now, pay us your fees and go have fun!! -
I think this is the issue. Due to so many factors we have this atmosphere of permissiveness. Sometimes it's not even permissiveness; it's just burnout. How many of us have reported something because we had valid concern or outright knew someone was willfully violating SYT/YPT or the GTSS and were ignored by people at the district or council level. -
I think your first sentence hits the nail on the head. I would add that before there was any relationship with the US military we at the ground level were already doing the duty. To your second sentence: I know that my council is in life support mode and is mission inaffective; however, based on what I read online and the interactions I have with other scouters throughout the country I wonder how many (as a percentage of the total units) are not even trying to run the program as designed? I would even go so far as to say originalists that are trying to run things out of the original scoutmasters handbook fall into the program as designed bucket; and, in that situation, are the number of units trying to run the program as designed less than 50%? I horribly fear that to be the case.
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