Anti-grav hiking boots?

[SSScout]

Okay, so if "past is prologue", as the philosopher said, put your leetle gray cells to work.

We all know where scouting has been.... where is it going?

 

What might we see in the future of Scouting? Here? Abroad, around the world? Out of the world?

 

New activities? New gear? More of the same, only different?

 

[Eamonn]

Some years back I was talking with HWMBO Grandfather.

He was almost 90 at the time.

He had worked as a butcher in the Company Store and later went on to be a funeral director.

I asked what change he had seen did he think had the biggest impact.

I thought he might say TV or some high tech whatever. I was a little taken back when he said "Frozen Food"!

Thinking about it. I remember when I was a little fellow that my Irish Grandmother tried mailing a turkey that she had raised from her home in Ireland to our home in England. Needless to say the Royal Mail was none to happy.

 

I don't have a crystal ball.

Some of the changes that we have seen over the past few years, seem to have just come about with no one really taking much notice.

It wasn't that long ago that people were complaining about how slow the BSA was to move with the times and embrace the computer age.

Now it seems that everyone is moaning about on line Jamboree applications, but on line training seems to have been accepted fairly well.

Scouts can get the Scout Handbook on their cell phones and at the next Jamboree cell phone recharging stations are going to be available

The Apple i-phone seems to have set the standard for a new generation of "Smart-Phones". I'm wondering what the new i-pad will bring about? I feel sure that there are new ideas for this sort of thing that I haven't even dreamed of as yet, but maybe in five or ten years will be something that I will feel that I just couldn't live without!

Scouting is becoming more and more high-tech.

The materials that our Scouts wear, the tents they sleep in, the pots and pans they cook their meals in are a lot different than even the ones I used as a Scout. This means that I'm either getting very old? Or things have changed!

This years Census will show that the racial make-up of the USA is changing. I believe that coming censuses will show even bigger changes.

Scouting and the BSA will have to make some changes to accommodate these changes.

I'm very worried about how we will go about paying off the great deficit that we now all face. I really do think that new and bigger taxes are something that is inevitable.

These taxes will hurt the middle class more than anyone. As so many of the people who volunteer in Scouting seem to be middle class, this will have an impact.

My hope is that Venturing undergoes a big overhaul and becomes more of an organization that takes on caring for others as it base. This will open the door for more and more young people to do good turns both here in the USA and abroad, in places like South America and Africa.

We will remain a value based organization, with much the same methods as we have now.

Sadly, I do think we have seen the peak as far as membership goes.

Parents with young children are not going to have as much time to volunteer as people of about my age had. When they do volunteer, it will be to do a specific job which has a set time to it and then they will either move on to the next job in some other organization or take on another task with a clear start and end date. Old fogies who hang around forever (Like me!!) Will be a thing of the past.

Where I work we are using more and more video communications for things like hearings, trainings and even inmate visits. The Commissioners have web-casts that can be downloaded to an i-pod. Maybe one day this will be how Round-table meetings are presented?

Who knows? Maybe even Wood Badge at home in your PJ's?

I think the Council and the Council Service Center will change a lot. The smaller Councils just will not make it and will fade away, as will the smaller Council Camps. Maybe we will only have Regional High Adventure bases?

I really don't need anti-gravity boots, but socks? That's a different matter!

Ea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Scoutfish]

I don'tneed any anti gravity boots, but how about those self drying clothes in " Back to the Future II " ?

 

One thing that scares me is that my grandson's son may earn his forester badge by studying and reading about forests because they no longer exist to be visited.

 

The fishing merit/ activity badge may be a thing of the past as there are no fish anymore.

 

The first aid training may just be a reminder to keep the batteries in your lighter sized "Cure-All" device charged as there won't be a need for actual medicine anymore, just medical nanobots.