loneranger

Sad, what a bunch of nancy's. When I went to Philmont in '68, my patrol and all the patrols in our dual council contingent had ONE adult. ONE. As my patrol trek progressed, our adult became more absent. He allowed us to do an overnight backpack up Mt. Baldy without him. Side hikes, bush-wacking no problem. We had the outdoor skills, it was time to let us strike out on our own. Adventure. We encountered a bear nosing in our tent, walked next to a rattlesnake, survived a bad lightning storm. Some adventure. My son is leaving Boy Scouts. He hunts and backpacks but he can't do that in scouts without all the "risk manager" adults. Scouting has lost the principle that in teaching boys to be men, you have to allow them to become men. If you boys get lost in the woods and a young man comes to your rescue that might be my young man. I'd listen to him.

1. Focus on Fun. 2. Scouts in charge. 3. Allow scouts unstructured, free time. My son will not attend summer camp with his own troop where adults schedule every minute of a scout's day and often those activities are the same old stuff focused on T-SC-FC requirements. Boring.

Took my older son to a Civilian Markmanship Program class so he could learn safe shooting of high power firearms. His troop adult leadership gave thumbs down to this activity as it goes against something I think it is called the GAGA (Guide Against Great Adventures ) where Boy Scouts can only shoot single shot 22's. Besides the troop is adult-run, my son had no business offering an activity idea. Anyway imagine our surprise to see the class mostly composed of scouts and a few adult leaders from another troop. All well behaved, learning firearm safety and marksmanship. In the afternoon, each scout shot 60 rounds with either an M1-Carbine, '03, M1-Garand, or AR-15 in a single stage (100yd) match with 4 strings of fire. My son said shooting 60 rounds in a day is more shooting than a week at his summer camp! Were those scouts there to earn a merit badge? Nope most already had either Rifle Shooting or Shotgun Shooting. There we there to safely learn more, have fun, and have a little adventure. Too bad that troop is too far away to transfer to. They have no trouble with attrition rate.

Greater adventure is more easily had elsewhere - 4H, AMC, Conservation camps, even ole dad. My 8 yr old shoots his own recurve bow(JOAD program) and his own 22 rifle. How long before he could use those skills at a scout activity? Doesn't matter really, when he found out Cub Scouts cannot camp out like he does, he lost interest. "Dad they wouldn't let me start a campfire like I do with you." Sad. Drop the B.S., get the Adventure back.