Here's your chance

[Cheerful Eagle 10]

This message was posted today at the leader/guider cyber council, an active forum for the girl side of scouting.

 

They had a bad experience, but there are few on that forum to represent us Cubs. I've written back, will anyone else?

 

http://forums.delphiforums.com/gsleaders/messages/?msg=10314.1

QUOTED IN FULL -- POSTED BY: Girls2rule

 

Ok, so I might rant here a little. Last weekend, our troop of 13 Juniors and 3 adults went overnight tent camping at a local state park. We finished several crafts, hiked 1-2+ miles/day, saw some egrets and owls, pitched pup tents, cooked w/campstoves, dutch ovens, and did some dry cooking too. We had a great time in spite of the rude and obnoxious BS troop camped directly behind us. I'm sorry to say that the girls were very dissapointed in how the BS taunted and disrespected them. This was supposedly a den of webloes and a bear with 4? parents. Here's what happened:

 

Sat eve: The den arrived around 4-5pm and pitched their tents on the south side of our campsite. The boys were playing by our cars and dunk bag line (north side of our campsite) and when we tried to ask the boys to stay out of our camping area for safety reasons, they fled. So I walked up to the leaders who were sitting at a picnic table. I informed them nicely that the boys were in our campsite and I was afraid that as it was getting dark, they might run into the dunk bag lines. The leaders were very nice and said they would talk to the boys.

 

Within a half an hour it was dark and the boys were riding their bikes as close as they could to the tents on both east and west sides of our campsite. They also kept asking the girls for brownies and made remarks about being "cookie girls". I had to ask a boy to leave our campsite as he was between the dunk bags, woods and our tent - he had no business being there and actually sassed back to me before he left. It was dark. The girls went to their tents. End of day 1.

 

Sun morn: Quiet time was also still in effect until 7am, but that didn't stop those boys from making all kinds of noise before 6am- with the leaders yelling from their tents to stop it. Of course, by 6:30am, the boys and a leader were walking through our campsite to collect deadwood (not allowed by the park) and I had to dash out of the tent to stare them off our campsite. I made coffee and a BS leader approached and offered us their leftover wood as they were leaving. In the same breath he asked if that was coffee and could we spare a few cups. I and the other leaders were flabbergasted. We nodded and nearly died when he came back with two small plastic dixie sized cups that he wanted to hold while I poured the coffee. I insisted that if he wanted coffee in those cups, he'd have to set them down before I poured. He did say thanks and when they left I poured some coffee for us.

 

The topper was when they left the campground though - a boy was standing at the back of their campsite (in full view of our girls), in the middle of a park trail leading to the campsite and PEEING! The girls all knew what he was doing (eewwww!) Thank goodness they were basically gone by 9:30am!

 

We really tried to take the high road because these were fellow scouts and were soooo proud of our girls when they stuck together and ignored these boys - but they were confused. They thought that BS and GS respected each other. We didn't want to report fellow scouts to the park - but should I track down the pack leader? Not just me, but 14 girls are disgusted that these boys would be representing BS...and besides just being plain rude, there were no opening/closing ceremonies, no flag, no uniforms/pack shirts and I thought bears couldn't camp with dens? Am I being petty?

 

[Eagledad 2779]

On the third day of one of our campouts, one of the new fathers and I were taking a walk and I asked him what he thought of our troop. He said that one of the first things that really stood out to him was just how much the scout side of the camp behaved like the adults side of the camp. Our two camps were seperated by about 100 ft, so he was surprised.

 

In general, you will find that boys, and probably girls of the scout age behave much the same as the adults they watch and follow. I wouldn't look at your experience as a reflection of all Boy Scout or Girl Scout units.

 

Have a great week.

 

Barry

 

 

[Eagledad 2779]

I should have followed with Im sorry for your experience. In general camping should be some of the best of scouting. Im sure it will be on the next campout. Even now the adults of the cub scout group may be asking each other how to get their guys to behave more properly around other scout groups.

 

Barry

 

[SaintCad 10]

Although not close to the above scenerio, when my son won the pack's Pineblock Derby, the two Webelos that took second and third turned their back and ignored the little Tiger Cub that beat them when he went up to congratulate them. Meanwhile the parents were more than congratulatory and definately showing goodwill so it is not always a matter of emulating adults.

[Lisabob 13]

A couple of years ago when we took our webelos on their first den campout, we had the unfortunate experience of being near a troop that must've been the older brothers of the pack mentioned in the original post. It was quite something and our boys were disgusted with the behaviors of that troop. Long story short, we did blow them in, both to the park rangers and the council and their charter org. (They were dumb enough to be doing some very bad stuff, right next to their troop trailer, with their troop number, town, and charter org. name painted on the side!)

 

Generally I'm in favor of minding one's own business, but when things get out of hand at a certain point, well enough's enough. If I were in this GS group, I might've decided that it had reached that point and given the BSA council a call to let them know how this pack was representing the BSA image. Based on tour permits (assuming the pack filed one!) the council could, if they chose, figure out which pack it was and do some remediation with the adult leaders.

 

 

Lisa'bob

 

[scoutldr 732]

Perhaps this is the reason that more and more commercial campgrounds and state parks are making it hard or impossible for scout groups to camp there.

[Cubmaster Mike 10]

Wow. Sorry to hear about your experience. If I was camping next to a Scout group like that I would be taking down their unit number and council and making a few phone calls when I got home. We don't need groups like that representing the BSA.

 

CMM