Local strategies to gain fundraiser approval from Town Council/City Hall

[RememberSchiff]

With the recent difficulties with fundraising at Montpelier,VT. I was reminded of another incident and the power of public opinion and tradition.

 

As I recall for nearly 60 years, scouts had sold Christmas trees on the "town commons" owned by the Kendrick family in Amherst, MA. Around 2006?, the "town commons" became Kendrick Park now owned by the town and a new town manager arrived. As Christmas approached, the town manager decided a "usage policy" was needed for the Kendrick Park and the scout troop(s) would now have to pay $1/tree sold. The scout troop(s) sought another venue (a tax refuge?). As word spread, the public became outraged that town government had tampered with a town holiday tradition. The tax on Christmas trees was dropped. Almost a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment.

 

So withdrawing from the venue while working on a Plan B, building publicity over a questionable change in a desired tradition/need, and then gaining public support worked in that situation.

 

Later the town manager stated his tax on the joy of Christmas has not been his “…most glorious moment in public administration.†"

[Stosh]

And here again, the scouts chose the correct course of action. They did not rally the troops, they simply sought out another option. The town reacted and corrected the situation. Whether it be finding a different location for one's Christmas tree sales or going with a different fundraiser than selling water at a parade, it's always a more honorable choice to go around a barrier than try to barge one's way through.

 

Stosh

[AZMike]

Sounds like the Scouts are "going Galt."

[NJCubScouter]

If National would stop requiring local units to discriminate, the units would not need a "strategy."

[skeptic]

If people would use common sense and understand that there is a difference between a National policy and the actual scouts within the community, maybe there would not be a problem. As long as individuals feel the right or need to use the boys as pawns, the problem will not go away. The entire approach is nothing but pettiness by the political combatants, mostly on one side, as BSA does not have political propagandists.

[King Ding Dong]

Sure they do. They are all over this board.

[Stosh]

If National would stop requiring local units to discriminate' date=' the units would not need a "strategy."[/quote']

 

Everyone discriminates... BSA may discriminate, but it is just as obvious and more vindictive when the gays discriminate against the BSA. One doesn't have to challenge and spend enormous amount of political strategy to raise the consciousness of people when back in my formative years, MYOB seemed to be the norm. Life was a less confrontational than it is today. Just because they have geared up their propaganda sources does not make their cause right, just loud. This is not a BSA issue, it's not a Christian issue, it's not Muslim issue, it's not a Judaism issue. They all have norms against homosexuality. But homosexual groups go after the least likely to resist groups to make their demands known. They know better than to take on the Muslim world. Eventually they will be able to cow tow the BSA into changing it's policy, but it won't make much if any difference against the opinions of it's membership.

 

When I was a kid we had an exchange program with some kids in urban Chicago. They came to visit and they were negro. Well they went to swim in the local pool. When my buddies and I arrived the chain link fence around the pool was packed with people. It would seem the Chicago kids were in the pool. Hey, they couldn't swim so they were in the shallow end, and my buddies and I got the deep end all to ourselves for the whole afternoon. This was back in the early 1960's.

 

Being a small town, word got out and of course we were all identified by everyone in town. (We all happened to be scouts, but that didn't come up in the conversation.) I remember vividly my mother on the phone when they called. She'd wait a minute or so for them to vent their tirade, then say, "Excuse me". They would then stop and she would say, "It's time you minded your own business." and would hang up. It took some real courage to stand up against the sentimentality of a small town. And that wasn't the first time she took on the city council, school board, church board or some social group she didn't agree with. She'd have made a great Citizenship in the .... MB counselor. She was directly responsible for the Town Library and Kindergarten in the town she grew up in.

 

MYOB seems to be the road less traveled in today's society. In the four years of college, I had an Asian roommate, a negro roommate, a homosexual roommate and a white roommate. MYOB worked just fine for all of us.

 

Stosh

[TAHAWK]

If National would stop requiring local units to discriminate' date=' the units would not need a "strategy."[/quote']

 

Girls? 25-year-olds? 4-year-olds? NABLA members? Sadists?

 

It's not discrimination. It's that you feel discrimination the on the basis of sexual preference is not acceptable to you.

 

The world of sexual preference is wide and does not stop with loving those of your sex. Which minority sexual practices, if any, are acceptable bases for discrimination?

[qwazse]

Have a product the public can trust, delivered courteously and cheerfully, with a spirit of helpfulness and loyalty to one's community. I tell my boys if they can provide that, they'll get approval. I've never had to factor in activist politicians who wanted to protect the public from making their own decisions of conscience. But, would encourage boys to convey that they are are brave enough to receive comment from the voting public in a friendly manner, that all they are asking from their elected leaders is to grant the public fair access to them to do so.

[packsaddle]

We've never had a problem. Guess our strategy (whatever it is) must be working.

[JasonG172]

we haven't had any issues either, for the most part the boys weed out the less than desirables.

[CalicoPenn]

we haven't had any issues either' date=' for the most part the boys weed out the less than desirables. [/quote']

 

 

Well this actually sounds scarier than everything else the Boy Scouts face - A Boy Scout Troop as Lord of the Flies - other than criminality, what, exactly, make a boy "less than desirable"? Whether people want to admit it or not, this is the kind of language in use in the US to justify bigotry - this is the kind of language used to justify "weeding out" the blacks, the Jews, the hispanics, the disabled, the poor, the Muslims, the Catholics, the Mormons, the athiests - basically anyone that is not like you.

 

If I knew any Scouts in my Troop were "weeding out less than desirables", their advancement would stop, right then and there, as they would never be able to get signed off on Scout Spirit as they were showing just how little they were following the Scout Law.