embassed to be in uniform

[yarrow]

Why is it that boys are not embarassed to be seen in their football uniform if you need to take them elsewhere after a game, but wouldn't be caught dead in the grocery after a scout meeting in uniform? Where is the pride? Why does this country place sports above everything else? Have you checked out scholarships recently? 1000 to 1, sports to scouts.

[evmori]

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

 

Sports pays. Scouts is just an extra activity.

 

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

 

Ed Mori

Scoutmaster

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Eamonn]

Yes it is sad.

But for a great number of Scouts, it just isn't cool, to let the world know that you are a Scout.

Not so long back, I sat in on an Eagle Board of Review. That night there were two boys, from different troops, but both from the same school and our town of less then 5000, neither knew that the other was a Scout.

A lot of the problem is that what is cool today, might not be cool next week.

I only have to look at the ever changing posters on the bedroom wall of my son, and ask what happened to the picture of so and so to hear the "Oh Dad, that was a long time ago."

I like to think that "Our Boys" remain in the program because they really enjoy it, even at the cost of some leg pulling and teasing at school, from the non-scouts.

We adults at every level need to do a better job of marketing our program.

We need to send more stuff to the media, even if it is only the local newspaper, photos of "Our Boys" in action.

[hops_scout]

I wear a scout shirt almost every other day. I am proud to wear my troop shirt to school. And let me tell you the question I got from one boy on our PLC, " You wear that to school?"

It's like, " Yeah."

 

 

 

About scholarships, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts will get you scholarships if you try. My oldest sister got her Gold Award in Girl Scouts 7 years ago and had many offers. I have looked at West Pointe and they have seperate categories for Scouting. Even being an SPL will help. You become EAGLE, and they will come find you.

[OldGreyEagle]

Ed, I know you didnt mean it this way, so I apologize first

 

Scouts is so much more than an Extra Activity, it is a program where those who want can participate as long as they wish well into adulthood and even into our second childhoods (actually a second childhood helps) Cant do that with sports.

 

Scouts is open to those who want to make time for it as opposed to Sports which at the high school level tends to begin the ability attrition.

 

Why are there so many more dollars for sports scholarships than scouts? I am reminded of Woody Hayes I beleive, (could be wrong) who was asked about the disparity between College Football Coaches salaries and College Professors salaries. He was asked if he thouht a football coach really deserved many times more money than a professor, he responded it depended whether or not the professor could fill a 100,000 seat lecture hall 6 times a year. We could also consider how fewer academic scholarship dollars there are compared to athletic dollars.

 

When people pay money to see a group of students put up a 20 foot monkey bridge 10 feet off the ground in record time, our scouts will be heavily recruited.

 

Until that time we will have to satisfy ourselves that we have influenced the charactor, the citizenship, and personal fitness development of our scouts. We will have to be content with giving them a set of values and ethics that they can rely on during their life.

 

As far as being embarassed in uniform I think thats due to a mis-conception of what boy scouts do. Even in the greatest movie ever made (IMHO)Follow Me Boys (see other thread)Whitey (Kurt Russell) first doesnt want to join the scouts, saying "I dont want to go along with those daisy pickers"

 

What does your troop (adults now) do to spread the word thats its cool to be a scout? To hike in nature, survive in primative conditions, canoe, raft whitewater, climb, etc?

 

Scouts wont be embarrassed when people understand what we do, and its up to us to tell them

 

[SR540Beaver]

When was the last time you say a print or media advertisement for Scouts? How many times have you watched TV and seen the same commercial over and over and over within an hour long program. Advertising is an effective means for promoting a product. Constant advertising promotes name recognition and increased sales. Think of the military recruiting ads you see on TV. They make it look cool, exciting and something to be proud of. It is, but any guy who has served will tell you about the amount of time cleaning the latrine as opposed to shooting laser guided missles. BSA has a great program, we just need to package it better. It has to look cool as opposed to dorky to attract kids. Pictures of kids rock climbing is more inticing than pictures of kids lacing a leather wallet. That is the image many kids have of scouting.....arts and crafts. Selling scouting with powerful ads of kids in action and an explanation that THEY run themselves will draw more kids to scouts than seeing a kid at school in a tan shirt with patches and olive pants does any day of the week. I think there is a great factor of the unknown with scouting. Many kids just don't know what it is about. It needs to be packaged and sold. Good grief, people used to buy Pet Rocks because of advertising. If you can sell a rock, you can sell scouting and see many more boys benefit from the program than before.

[hops_scout]

Sounds like a good idea.... just how to do it?

[KoreaScouter]

There is near-instant feedback and scorekeeping in sports...you know at the end of today's game whether you won or lost. And, you know Americans like quick results. On the contrary, we don't know if we won or lost at Scouts until the lad is an adult and we can see how he turned out.

 

That's a tradeoff, though, at the personal level. Sports tells you right away who won or lost, but in ten years, nobody will remember, or care, for that matter. In Scouting, or any youth program with similar goals, the results are delayed, but more lasting and important.

 

KS

[Eagledad]

>>Many kids just don't know what it is about. It needs to be packaged and sold. Good grief, people used to buy Pet Rocks because of advertising. If you can sell a rock, you can sell scouting

[hops_scout]

Sounds great... only problem is that we are a small town, about 8-9 thousand and there are two troops though the other one I have heard very little about. This sounds like a thing to do with Cub Scouts though. They are "sold" more due to things they do. I have tried promoting scouting as much as possible in ways such as the internet, wearing scout shirts, etc.

[scoutldr]

Have your Pinewood Derby District or Council Championship at the local mall.

 

A neighboring Council has an annual Merit Badge Midway at the mall...booths set up where the scouts can spend the day and come away with 5-6 completed merit badges. All in full view of the public.

 

Until the mid-late 80s, we used to do an annual Scout-O-Rama/Scout Show and sell tickets to the public for $1. Not sure why they were discontinued.

[hops_scout]

We did a Scout show last year at a local mall. I dont know much about it, but our troop did an oriteering course in the mall and at a local council camp.

[Zahnada]

I know many of you won't agree with me, but if we want to increase Boy Scout membership and "coolness" we need to separate it from Cub Scouts.

 

When boys reach middle school and "coolness" becomes the ultimate goal in life, scouting is equated to their elementary school experience of Cub Scouts. Cub Scouts aren't high adventure. They are the ones who perform the arts and crafts that middle school boys wouldn't dare touch. They are the ones who go to their parent's house after school instead of going on weekend hikes.

 

BSA has focused its advertising on attracting boys for the Cub Scout level and I feel that is an error. As long as Boy Scouts is seen as an extension of Cub Scouts, then middle school boys will always regard it as "uncool."

[evmori]

OGE,

No need to apologize. You were correct I didn't mean it that way. Scouting for me is a way of life.

 

Ed Mori

Scoutmaster

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Marty_Doyle]

One of the responses to this will be that the overwhelming majority of Boys Scouts currently come up from Cub Scouts (I think I heard 90% at University of Scouting), and that a less than stellar percentage of Cub Scouts (less than 50%) move on to Boy Scouts. (Not to even address the first year retention issue). So, the feeling at the district/council/national level is "We already have these boys in the start of the program (Cub Scouts), let's work on them to stay in Scouting."

There is logic in this.

 

But, there is the "coolness" aspect that is not being emphasized enough, and which is blurred somewhat by the changes in the Webelos program.

 

The real answer is "Program". If the Boy Scout troop has it, and the Cub Scouts can see it, they will move up and stay.

 

But, most second year Webelos have been in Scouting five years already, and you have to sell them on Scouting with some "beef" to get them to think about another five to six years.

 

Our den of seven first year Webelos Scouts wear their complete uniform (includung most with socks and pants!) to every den meeting, every pack meeting and every outing, with pride. Partially because the current Cubmaster inspects uniforms at the start of every pack meeting, and announces the "winners" of best uniformed den after inspection (we are five for five). Partially because both lden leaders are correctly uniformed. And mainly, because to a certain degree, the boys who do not want to be Scouts have self-selected out by this time. Most of the boys still in our den are "over-achiveres", like competeing internally for activity badges and patches, want to go camping and hiking, and say they want to go on to Boy Scouting. (And also all compete in the city's baseball, basketball, and soccer leagues. And most are altar boys/acolytes at their house of worship. And some take music lessons. Et cetera)

No advertising is necessary for these guys.

 

But, in the four years my son has been in Cub Scouting, there have been 13 or so boys who have dropped out of Cub Scouts for various reasons. Those boys will probably never think about Boy Scouts. Not to mention the twenty or so boys in my son's grade who have never been in Cub Scouts at all.

 

As Cubmaster, I need to try and capture more of these boys and keep them connected until it's time to connect with Boy Scouts. But my son isn't going into Boy Scouts because of any advertising. He's going because he has bought into the idea and ideals of Scouting (even though he doesn't really know it), along with a bunch of his closest buddies. And, if for some reason, in the next year, one or two of the alpha males in my den decides that Boy Scouts are nerdy, ubcool, ad whatever politically correct perjorative teenaged term you want, then it is possible that all of them will not move up.

 

The only thing that can really combat this is one on one interactions with Boy Scout troops. That's what hooks the ten and eleven year olds. Boy led troops, patrols with cool names, real camping (without parents), cooking over a fire, long hikes in the real woods, mountain climbing, rapelling, white water rafting, Eagle Scouts, sleepover camp without mom and day, Klondike Derbies, campfires, axes, knives, rope bridges. All that Rockwell/Baden-Powell stuff. That's the "beef".

 

And if your local Troops can't show it, any advertising won't help.

 

And, if the boy ios hooked by this, he will not be embarassed to be seen in uniform, because he knows it is cool. Especially when his three or four cl;osest frinds are there, mentally and ohysically, with him. Evertyone else is wrong. (A typical eleven or twelve year old boy's mindset).