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Scout Association
Author: TriSec    Date: 07/27/2013 13:10:03

On my honour, I promise that I will do my best
To do my duty to God and to the Queen,
To help other people
And to keep the Scout Law



A Scout is to be trusted.
A Scout is loyal.
A Scout is friendly and considerate.
A Scout belongs to the worldwide family of Scouts.
A Scout has courage in all difficulties.
A Scout makes good use of time and is careful of possessions and property.
A Scout has self-respect and respect for others.



Even to outsiders, these things are vaguely familiar. But they are slightly different than what you might remember from your own youth, or perhaps from a male sibling reciting these things.

The reference to the Queen should be a dead giveaway; these are actually the Oath and Law from the Scout Association (UK)

Three years before the Boy Scouts of America got started in 1910, Lord Baden-Powell took a small encampment of boys to Brownsea Island off the south coast of England. These fortunate few youth and adults figured out how to make scouting work, and a year later the program debuted in England.

In 1909, an American businessman was hopelessly lost on the streets of London during one of their legendary fogs; a uniformed youth rendered assistance and then refused a tip, stating he was a Scout and he couldn't accept payment for doing a good turn. If you don't know the story of the unknown scout, it's worth checking out. His one "Good Turn Daily" led to the scouting movement coming to America in 1910.

Of course, I have a purpose behind the history lesson. Last week, we had the priviledge of much fellowship with the touring 1st Fritwell troop, Oxfordshire UK at our Scout Camp. I spent quite some time with their leaders, and we compared and contrasted many facets of our programs. According to one of them, Scouts is "huge" in England right now, and shows no sign of membership problems on infighting amongst the policy makers.

Their other adult, an ex-patriot "Air Force Brat" who has spent 37 years in Jolly Olde England was curious about why our program was in such a disarray. All it took was for me to tell him that up until the early 80s, National Headquarters was in New Jersey....and after that it moved to Texas and the Mormons and Southern Baptists began their takeover. The light of recognition that perhaps only an American can understand, shone in his eyes.

Scouting in America is the last bastion of sexism in the worldwide scouting movement. Most other countries in the Scout Association run a co-ed program, and are remarkably tolerant of other religions, practices, beliefs, and yes..."opposite marriage". I only have one relevant experience with an integration....our neighbor to the north once had both Boy and Girl scouts (Canada), but integrated in the middle 1990s. My dear Canadian Scoutmaster friend (now deceased) was entirely opposed to the idea, but he didn't make any concerted effort to fight it. Of course, after Scouts Canada became co-ed, the program declined and eventually collapsed because of rampant sexism and misogyny. No, of course not. NOTHING HAPPENED, and Scouts Canada today is stronger than ever.

Lord Baden-Powell's own wife founded the "Girl Guides" in 1910, because Robert thought girls should not be in the scouting program. Both programs existed in parallel for most of the 20th century, and indeed formed the basis for our segregated scouting units in the United States. But a curious thing happened; the rest of the world moved on. While Girl Guides still exist in many countries, many more have gone the route of Scouts UK and Scouts Canada; girls and women are welcome at all levels of the program and in all leadership roles.

But the United States still lags behind. We do have a program called Venture Scouting, designed for older scouts, that is High-Adventure and Co-ed. Many of the camp staff this year, including a significant number of ladies, are members of this program. I know very little about this program (so far), but after spending the week at camp I am slowly starting to realize that this may be the future of Scouting in the United States.

At the very least, "Venturing" seems disassociated from the current membership controversy, and may yet emerge unscathed from whatever political fallout remains from our policy changes.
 

1 comments (Latest Comment: 07/28/2013 01:37:26 by Will in Chicago)
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