Simply return Scouting to camping:?

[perdidochas 658]

Renax127

 

My observation is that most troops want to be active outdoors and camp. They don't always achieve as much outdoors as they wish, but I have never met a serious scouter that doesn't see scouting to be outing. I've met a few parents that are scouters to help their kids achieve with less work that didn't value the outdoors, but they are fairly rare. If you want a troop that goes outdoors. Be in their committee, and push the idea. Doesn't usually take much pushing.

[BadenP 93]

OGE

You are looking at the problem all wrong, the reason the BSA does not have enough outdoor types is that National has moved the entire program away from the outdoors to CATER to the sedentary boys, for no other reason than another pathetic attempt to raise membership numbers. So now you have also attracted sedentary adult leaders and that just compounds the problem tenfold. Look a scoutmaster doesn't have to be another Daniel Boone to give his boys a solid outdoor experience, just getting them outdoors is the first step to reversing this growing trend by National of "classroom scouting", and their continuing trend of removing outdoor requirements from the rank advancements.

 

Stosh

Sorry to hear about your "blackballing" from scouting. Sometimes certain scouters really don't want to hear the truth and just want to continue to live in their own little bubbleworld of what they think scouting should be.

[Stosh 3452]

Every troop needs a "Daniel Boone" SM or ASM on it's roster. If the SM spends all day at a desk, he needs to find someone else who will take the reins and get outside! Maybe the SM goes along to learn or maybe he/she stays home. No never mind as long as the boys get out into the woods. Heck the SM might find it a lot of fun if he has a strong ASM guide that the boys enjoy the woods with.

 

This, of course, only works if the SM has an ego that allows such things to happen.

 

Stosh

[OldGreyEagle 5]

No, I don't I have it wrong. Kudu says that 70% of sixth graders want to be boy scouts if scouting is presented as a dangerous outdoor activity. I think that Kudu, you and myself are pretty sure that BSA outdoor training is not sufficient to train adults to present a program that the youth will view in any way close to a dangerous outdoor activity. I want to know if there are enough volunteers who can handle the 70% of sixth graders who want scouting if its a dangerous outdoor activity.

 

Just becase you were a scout does not mean you have outdoor skills. We here decry the erosion of outdoor skills since 1972, how good are older scouts with ourdoor skills anyway?

 

Oh, and it was said

 

"So now you have also attracted sedentary adult leaders and that just compounds the problem tenfold."

 

I have been accused of an awful lot here, but this, this is pretty much the feather in my cap. I am responsible for the sendentart leaders in the BSA, I am not sure to be ashamed or proud of my influence

[Kudu 186]

OGE writes:

 

I want to know if there are enough volunteers who can handle the 70% of sixth graders who want scouting if its a dangerous outdoor activity.

 

I wrote that 70% of sixth graders want to be a Boy Scout if Scouting is presented as a dangerous activity.

 

"Presented" being the operative word.

 

I fulfill my Promise of Scouting by separating the Patrols by 300 feet.

 

I'm sure you have read my presentation a dozen times so you know that I use the peer-pressure of an auditorium of sixth-grade boys to dare them into joining. Easy peasy.

 

http://inquiry.net/adult/recruiting.htm

 

It is one thing to sit in a school (with a zero-tolerance weapons policy) and hear me tell you that you will have to carry a knife (and matches, and know how to deal with rattle-snakes and bears, and know enough first aid to save the life of someone you love), but...

 

...but I haven't done my job if when it gets dark one of your friends doesn't start to cry on the car-ride to your first campout, or cry when he starts to set up his tent and realizes that the nearest adult is a football field away, or cry when he hears his first raccoon.

 

As for the really cool dangerous stuff like rifle, shotgun, white water canoeing, SCUBA, and my newest discovery: BSA climbing towers (I had NO idea how cheap a rented BSA tower with instructors can be, or that ANY Scout can earn Climbing Merit Badge) I find experts.

 

http://troop452.com/climbing/index.htm

 

How to train indoor adults to think like outdoorsmen? Enough outdoorsmen to handle an influx of millions of new Boy Scouts?

 

THAT is why Baden-Powell invented the Real (pre-1972) Wood Badge:

 

http://inquiry.net/traditional/wood_badge/index.htm

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

 

 

 

[OldGreyEagle 5]

I thought I was agreeing with Kudu, and I just wanted assurance that there were enough interested adults with outdoor skills to meet the demand

 

Did not realize my sentence structure would be a target when I was agreeing...

[BadenP 93]

OGE

 

First I am not accussing you personally for sedentary leaders, "now you have" refers to the end result of National's shift in the program away from the outdoors.

I think Kudu using the term dangerous is implying that all outdoor activities have a inherent level of potential danger, and is using the word to catch the boys attention.

 

The bottom line is that the current boy scout program is very different from 20 years ago, all of the changes that National has made since the fiasco of urban scouting in the 70's have been dismal failures in building membership. As National continues to delete scout basics and replace them with sedentary classroom activities the numbers will continue to drop. Boy Scouts have lost almost all of what made it a unique and respected youth organization. Instead we have a CSE who states over and over again that camping and the outdoors are just not important to the youth of today, well he is dead wrong.

[Kudu 186]

OldGreyEagle writes:

 

Did not realize my sentence structure would be a target when I was agreeing...

 

Target? I did not realize that we were not agreeing.