AwakeEnergyScouter

Well, I guess that's something at least. Thanks for replying so I don't have to wonder.

https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=356264 I completely understand how this happened. When there was a crazy 30°C heat wave during Stockholm Marathon some years ago, lots of runners had to drop out because of overheating. You really need to learn heat survival like you do cold survival, even on the everyday stand at a ceremony level, and at least some of the scouts at jamboree won't have faced this challenge at 34°C ever. Our overnight lows in South Texas are the daily highs for my Swedish relatives.

Is the scout doing ok? The adults sound like a train wreck, but how is the poor scout doing?

Of course that was all true, but there wasn't much to respond to in terms of how to right the wrong exactly. Of course it has to be righted, for the reasons you articulated, but the question is how to deal with the situation skillfully so that the right thing really happens. (Bully stops bullying, victim feels welcomed and supported by the whole group.) What response were you expecting?

As it should be. Bullying is not friendly or kind, so it's 100% incompatible with our values and immediately makes it impossible for a pack, den, troop, or patrol to function well. Scouts is the last place anyone should be bullied. Thinking about 5thGenTexan's story about being bullied out of scouts makes me sad every time I think about it. One of the key functions that adults can perform in scouting is this - deal forcefully with bullying so that the victims don't have to. Or don't have to quit.

W H A T??? I'm definitely no authoritarian, and I think this is crazy. It's one thing to ignore conventional dress, hair styling, wearing the uniform or other superficial things, even if they're symbolic. Throwing rocks at other scouts and throwing burning objects into other people's yards is a hard $&-#&$ NO. (I mention this for moral support from someone these leaders might fancy themselves being like.) Asking for scouts not to commit assault and arson is not equivalent to wanting scouts to be ROTC. Not in the slightest. Good for you for being willing to do the right thing for a potential bullying victim! Authority absolutely has to deal with this, and if adults in charge have already failed to do so then it's all the more important that you do. How fortunate that you are there! The reason I think it does matter if the scout is gay is that choosing that word to use as an insult will likely roll right off a straight scout, but could hurt a gay scout in a way it probably wouldn't a straight scout in the long run. Basically, the harm is likely to be worse if the scout is gay. I'm thinking here of my lesbian friend who has had so many homophobic encounters with random people that she gets very stressed any time a stranger deliberately gets close to her. Having stones thrown at you for your sexual orientation compounds with what others do and say in a way that having stones thrown at you for a made-up reason doesn't. In either case, good for you also for making sure that you have all the information you can get, particularly since the adults may or may not be on top of this.

Info: is the scout actually gay? How to address this depends in part on whether it was meant as a general insult or if it was intended to undermine the scout's self-confidence more personally.

@qwazse thanks for the link! That was interesting reading. (Ok, well, frustrating, but that's true of virtually anything to do with gender roles from a long time ago.) It's very interesting that the "boots on the ground" didn't care way back then, either. Seaton doesn't look good to modern eyes, but the anonymous SM who was good with working with all scouts looks perfectly normal. But while BSA didn't actually sue GSUSA then, the official well-regarded leader of the organization clearly didn't want any sisters in scouting. I understand what you're saying, but I think it's more accurate to say that the organization BSA was hostile to female scouts, but not all male scouts and scout leaders were. After all, they had no other scouting organization to be active in, so it was a take it or leave it situation. I would have done the same in their shoes. But the leadership of an organization still speaks for it, so it's also hard to say with a straight face that despite the leader's vehement and consistent opposition to female scouts, BSA didn't take a clear position on female scouts because different people inside the organization had different opinions on it. Similarly, GSUSA has in fact been very exclusionary towards men by policy, even though I'm sure you can find SMs and girl scouts who don't think the policies make sense there as well. It doesn't really make sense to say that GSUSA didn't really sue BSA because not everyone in GSUSA agreed it was proper. Leaders call shots on behalf of the whole organization, for better or for worse.

So BSA was the one who started suing other aligned scouting organizations?

🙄 What happened to brothers and sisters in scouting? Not that I want a lawsuit either, but this suing of the other official Scouting organization in your country is very unseemly IMO. I wish GSUSA hadn't done that.

I've never been to a US jamboree. We stayed with our troops at ours. As long as scouts aren't staring at screens instead of nature and each other, it sounds like you're making it work!

Not nearly as grand as the above, but... Seeing cub scout hike leaders really step into their servant leadership roles for the first time. Checking on how tired and hungry the other scouts are. Encouraging them to keep going.

I'm her generation and I disagree. It's not even what I see in my scout's friends that are around that age, so it must vary. Most elementary-age students I know do not have their own phone. Most I know do have their own tablet, which is locked down and they have screen time limits. (Not all, because there's one kid in particular who FaceTimes my child at so many hours that we're pretty sure they have no screen time limits.) They mostly use them for watching shows and playing Minecraft on private servers, at home of course. The tablets are like a cross between a gaming console and a small TV for them, so both activities fall within old parental nagging categories. From talking to their parents at birthday parties, we're all also concerned about the dark corners of the internet that we want to keep our children out of until they're old enough to realize they shouldn't be in them if/when they find them. Hence, private servers. (No FPS game lobbies, either!) I appreciate the Cyber Chip, actually. Like Protect Yourself, it helps with figuring out what's age-appropriate. Anyway, that was all to say I think you understand perfectly. I'm on this soap box because the existence of hand-held devices creates new parenting struggles and I don't think the scattering of mind harm - which is quite general - has gotten enough attention, even though it controls general quality of life. Its lack of immediate harm means it really needs pointing out. Luckily, we've only had a scout show up with a personal device once, and it ruffled other scouts' feathers. Perhaps I should prepare something more succinct to say if it happens again, which it sounds like it well might.

This is amazing!!! I'm going to find the right time to tell my Bears about this good example of being the person to restore what other humans have, in their ignorance, destroyed. Restoring balance to the Earth is so needed! ♥️🧘🏼‍♀️🏞️🌄

as per the what???? *clutches pearls* Call me old school, but scouting should be all about being present in the moment with the sunrise and birdsong and mud inside your boots and your still-wet pants or whatever is going on. No wifi, no LTE, no 5/4/3/2G, no electronic devices whatsoever to distract yourself with. Scouting is one of the few civic groups in which being present in the moment is actively cultivated, and this gift of experiencing the present moment is invaluable. Phones are an invitation to not have this precious experience during your formative years. Initially, you won't recognize the importance, and you won't see the harm in scattering the mind further with your phone. IMO part of Duty to Dharma/God is to leave the devices at home or at least in adult leaders' pockets for emergencies... If there even happens to be any coverage, which ideally there shouldn't be.

I accidentally handed out a pack hiking club marker to a sibling, but then I realized that was actually join-us propaganda.

Second hiking club hike went fabulously! The first hike was a bit special in that we had a nature guide for the nature conservation center (for Fur, Feathers and Ferns) and they de facto led the hike. This time, our pathfinder (scout with topo map and compass) and flagbearer (what it sounds like, scout with flags indicating the "front" of the pack) really got to lead the hike after a refresher on orienteering. They were very excited to lead! (Both Bears.) We went the wrong way three times, scouts wanted to quit (hike leaders jumped in to encourage), it was hot (leaders suggested drinking water), and the flag was heavy (leaders pawned it off to an adult from time to time but took it back after a rest), but during learning by doing they got us back to the parking lot after hiking exactly the target number of miles, so I'm quite pleased! We definitely didn't hike the plan but I don't care. The long-term plan is getting good at this, and we practiced! The pathfinder and the flag bearer traded off sometimes, and they both learned some important leadership lessons. Can't wait to see how this group grows next month! ♥️

That's another good point. I appreciated scouts as a place where I was not at all sexualized. My ability to carry a pack, raise a tent quickly, and dig a latrine were more prized than my looks or body... Doing was more valuable than being, and not just among all-girl groups. That was nice. Really nice. Men also being around made it more valuable, because life doesn't play out in an all-female space.

Well, at least the scout isn't also lightly draped in a curtain then 🤦🏼‍♀️ if the subject can't be naked for you to get it, that style doesn't work for that particular statue. I think this is a great example of why symbols are needed in certain kinds of art. I don't associate helmets with masculinity and I would never have guessed that the flame in the woman's hand was some kind of Christian symbol. Like the wings in the original statue under discussion, you need an explanation to get it, so you can't see the art and immediately be moved. This immediately lessens the impact of the art. Since our shirts with badges and neckerchiefs are our symbols as far as something you can put on a person, a number of art styles are then immediately ruled out for statues of scouts IMNSHO.

I used outdoor survival skills to help myself and my family survive the last round of freezing temperatures that hit south Texas that the state is clearly under prepared for despite it happening about every 10 years. (I notice native plants survived it, but plants from even further south didn't come back, so it's definitely a regular occurrence.) We were among those who had power out the longest, but we had gear (my scout was the only kid in the whole neighborhood who was out playing in the snow having a great time) and knowledge. Our house leaks heat like a sieve despite our best efforts at improving energy efficiency, and the temperature inside the house was dropping about 1°C/hour. When the endpoint is -13, that's a problem. So, I set about making sure we were eating hot food (cooked outside not inside) and drinking hot drinks. Had to get water for both drinking and flushing also since our pipes froze. We all made it comfortably with full bellies, although it was scary for us adults. Turns out, after talking to native Texan neighbors (not scouts), that most people here had no idea how relatively quickly you die from hypothermia, nor what the stages are. And a fair few of the ones who died took grills inside. When you're a scout from just below the Arctic Circle you absolutely know cold survival!

Someone couldn't quite commit to a style, it seems. Or perhaps really wanted to make a statue in Greek style, but needed clothes on the scout to show scoutness and then got complaints about nipples and genitals from someone. I don't really get this statue either. No doubt the artist didn't mean to reference the scandal, probably because it hadn't broken yet, but you're right, @Eagle1993 - less brilliant overtones as things stand 😳 I'm guessing the man and the woman here are also supposed to be some kind of symbols that the scout is leading, and after seeing a second one I think I'm concluding that I prefer down-to-earth statues of scouts. The magic of scouting is ordinary. 🔮 Honoring scouts by depicting them with a map and compass is right on point. Maybe making a fire without a match. Greek antiquity or Asatrú don't quite connect. We specialize in the rubber meeting the road, in joining heaven and earth.

Came to type what @yknot said after thinking about what @Eagle94-A1 and @SiouxRanger said. Female scouts and scouters aren't mythical beings. We're real, and not new. Specific names surfaced very quickly, to boot.

Lester undoubtedly meant well, but I'm not sure that imagining us as those selecting who among the dead on the battlefield goes to Valhall and who goes to Folkvang makes a lot of sense. (Why is there a battlefield with dead to sort in this homage?) Or, as those who serve the warriors who died "with their boots on" in battle once they get to Valhall. If the idea was to pick someone traditional, honorable and powerful who's also female, then picking from among the female Aesir or Vanir seems like a better idea. Freja, Siv, Frigg, or Idun all seem like better choices. Frigg's spinning wheel might be hard to add but Freja's amulet, Siv's hair, or Idun's apples would have worked.

@BetterWithCheddar Check out this scout, who led an online democracy jamboree campfire in 2020. Like your star Eagle scout employee, they don't confirm to traditional ideas about proper appearance, but the shirt (despite the scout also not putting the badges where convention would put them) and neckerchief make them instantly recognizable as a scout regardless. Our shirts and neckers are absolutely core to our public image, much more so than adhering to bourgeoisie convention. We have room for rebels, too, exactly because the symbolism of shirt, badges and neckers is so very strong. The screenshot is from this video in case it isn't quite clear enough. The campfire actually starts at about 20:30.

I think yes, for the same reason. COVID pool closures struck out an important learn-to-swim season for my scout also, and I imagine lots of other kids. They'll catch up, but with a delay.