Kinda sad!

[Eamonn]

At the ESCOH I attended on Saturday, I was talking with the SM. A nice fellow.

We were talking about Summer Camp.

Like nearly all the Troops in our area, they are a Troop that goes to the Council run Summer Camp each and every year. Same site, same week. They have been doing this for a very long time (They were there back in 1977, under a different SM!)

The SM said that they are off to camp in two weeks, with 21 Scouts, they had paid for 24 but a few Lads had dropped out at the last minute. I'm not sure what the refund policy is about this sort of thing.

As we were talking an older Scout came up to us. I've seen him around but don't really know him. I'm thinking that he is about 16. From the conversation that followed it seemed to me that this Lad was a little like OJ was when he was his age.

One of the older Scouts who didn't attend that many Troop meetings and had become what I'd call a "Troop Visitor".

The SM tried selling this Lad on Summer Camp. I think in the hope of filling one of the empty spots.

The Lad said that he wasn't interested as he didn't want any of the Merit Badges that the camp was offering.

The SM tried selling him the idea that the older Scouts were doing the COPE program, but the Lad just wasn't interested.

 

The Camp is very much about Merit Badges, but is very slowly coming around to the idea of offering more programs and things that the Scouts can do which are not all about Merit Badges.

I hate the idea that summer camp is just a MB Factory.

But I do understand that the camp needs Scouts to come to camp or else it will fail.

It has to sell what the Scouts want or like this Lad, the Scouts just aren't going to attend.

This strikes me as being a little sad.

When did we allow advancement to become the be all of what we are about?

Has it always been this way?

Or is this a new thing?

I've only actively been around the BSA for about 26 years.

UK Scouting was never like this.

I really don't like what we have become -At least when it comes to Summer Camp and churning out MB's.

Sad thing is that from my point of view, I don't see it changing.

If the mighty Merit Badge rules? What choice do we have?

Ea.

[gwd-scouter]

I don't know if it's always been that way, but it seems to me there are two kinds of troops that go to camp: those that use camp as a quick and easy way to earn merit badges and those that encourage the boys to do something different, try something new, take a challenge, have fun and adventure.

 

I can't tell you how dismayed I get when I hear a Scoutmaster tell a parent that summer camp is the best way for their son to earn merit badges. Yuck!

 

I am so glad that after years of using camp as a Eagle-merit badge mill our guys are finally seeing the light and doing FUN stuff at camp. Even have three older guys (16 and 17) doing the High Adventure Program - the first time ever for our troop.

 

It may also be parents pushing the whole idea of earning as many merit badges as possible at camp. For some parents, nothing less will do than occupying their child's time with "meaningful" activities. Can't just have fun anymore.

[RememberSchiff]

No, Advancement was not always #1. It used to be Outdoors was #1 with Patrol Method and Leadership close behind.

 

It wonder which group earns more merit badges and has more Eagles:

FIVE+ million Boy Scout membership in 1960

OR

less than ONE million Boy Scout membership in 2010

 

 

Why did this happen?

 

CUB SCOUTS sets the wrong expectation with awards: Everyone should advance in rank each year. Penny candy awards for anything and everything that scouts are suppose to do as a given. Do a good turn. Get a patch. Pick up the litter you just dropped get a bead...Webelos (Cub Scouts Part 2) is the worse offender. Instead of weaning boys and parents off this and getting them ready for Boy Scouts, there are a new list of 20 Activity badges (let's get them all, then we get another patch...) ARRRRGGGGHHH. And when you get to Boy Scouts, you can still be in charge and be a MB counselor for as many mb's as you like! Boy Scouts in some units more resembles a Cub Scouts Part 3 program.

 

Working on T-2C-FC requirements out of sequence, lack of tenure in rank, and misnamed or ill-considered programs like FCFY make Advancement into a foot race and thus raise Advancement to a higher priority. Gawd, as a scout, I could not work on merit badges until I was FC and I better show up in uniform with my FC badge sewn on!

 

Merit badge camps, Merit badge universities, Merit badge camporees,...

 

"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

 

My $0.02,

 

 

[Stosh]

This summer will be my fourth different camp in 4 years. The camp was researched, signed up, registered, fees collected, menus planned by my boys. I just line up rides....

 

There's more to the journey than just the destintation.

 

Stosh

[scoutldr]

My opinion...it's today's culture and the way kids are being raised...no, that's not the right term...they are being LED into adulthood...and beyond. Kids are no longer allowed to experience the world and, God forbid, make mistakes. Parents give them an agenda...get your ticket punched and move on. Just spending a week, or even just a weekend in the woods with your buddies doing "guy stuff" is no longer considered a constructive use of one's limited time, unless it results in a ticket punch. Once they make Eagle, check it off the list and move on...the sooner the better. Remaining active and going to summer camp in order to mentor and teach the younger guys won't make that resume or college app look any better.

 

Yes, it is sad. We are producing a narcissistic generation that can't think for themselves and can't function without someone telling them what to do and when to do it. Whatever happened to "to help other people at all times"? Now it's "what are you doing to help me make Eagle?"

 

Sad, indeed. Perhaps we...and the BSA...are anachronisms that have outlived our perceived usefulness.

[Eagledad]

I don't think it is Cub Scouts because the Cubs have been around for a long time.

 

I think it is in the last generation of leaders who were never Scouts as a youth. Its not that they are self-centered or tunnel visioned, they just don't know what scouting is outside of hand books and leader training courses. I once had a call from a new Scoutmaster who asked me how to fill the rest of the weekend on his campouts because his scouts had done all the advancement and were tired of repeating it. When I asked what they scouts did on their free time, he said he had never heard of free time on campouts.

 

We are forgetting how to let scouts stand around the patrol fire talking about anything. Some of us are more concerned about lights out than looking at stars or two scouts sitting by the fire talking about the day. We hike to advance, but how many of us get up early to go fish. How many troops adults cook on Sunday just so they can get out of camp early? Whats the hurry and how about a little capture the flag before we leave camp.

 

Advancement is the Scoutmasters responsibility but I have found the committee takes on more of that responsibility by signing up the scouts for summer camp and the MB Fair. Old cogers like me seem out of step when we stand up and protest.

 

Not sure we can change the trend as long as more than 50% of the scouters today don't know what it is like to be a Boy Scout.

 

Barry

[Lisabob]

Barry, I submit it has less to do with not having been a boy scout, than with not having had unscheduled outdoor time as youth (of either gender).

 

I was not a boy scout for obvious reasons. But I spent my summers & weekends outside, often in the woods. I attended various camps as a "mascot" from my earliest childhood (my parents were camp directors), to a camper myself, to a staffer and director later on. I like to think that even though I did not have some of the same boy scouting experiences & specific scout skills that many of you had, I still developed a deep and abiding love of being out there, away from the suburbs and my living room couch and tv. I did spend early mornings and late nights just marveling at being in the woods. I did sit around camp fires and talk, sing, act silly with friends, and just stare into the flames. I hated reading Thoreau in school but I remember feeling I understood what he was saying in "Walden" ( and some of its critics too) because of my own experiences.

 

But I was never a boy scout so Barry, perhaps by your metric, those experiences didn't count for me.

 

 

To respond to Eamonn's original post - I really think it has a lot more to do with the attitudes of Scoutmasters and their abilities to communicate their attitudes to parents, than anything else. I have watched SMs who want to take an advancement-driven approach "infect" a lot of parents ( but not so much the boys!) with that attitude. I have watched those who really believe scout camp should be something other than just badges, guide parents (and boys) too. And I've watched some SMs who are communication-challenged, not do a very good job of educating parents, thus leaving parents to their own (often misguided) interpretations and causing conflict.

 

Bottom line is that we can set a different standard and an atmosphere if we put a little thought into how we "sell" a week of camp to the parents of scouts in each of our troops.

 

 

[eagle77]

I too agree summer camp for many troops is just an advancement week. We have never had problems with getting close to 100% participation on any of our troop's summer camp expierences. Of course we don't go back to the same old camp year after year and we don't go primarily to work on merit badges.Plus the boys are involved in the selection. As a scout, summer camp was a troop/camp time. Program was mainly chosen by the troop and PLC. You had troop times at lake/pool, boating, shooting, troop campfire as well as the camp wide fire. The last two years that I was a scout I did not work on one single merit badge, I had already earned what I wanted or needed to advance. But I did feel obligated to attend since I also was a SPL one year and JASM the last. To me it was just part of being a scout in the troop. Today the concern is with "what's in it for me" or "what will I earn there" attitude that exists today. This past spring I offered to take our troop to Colorado for a week in 2010.One of the requirements to attend was 70% participation on trips and meetings for the upcoming year. I will not tell you how many e-mails and phone calls I recieved from parents saying I was being unfair to their sons by putting in that requirement. Needless to say after all the dust settled I withdrew the offer. None of the parents could give me an answer to my one statement. "If your son wants to do it bad enough he will have to work and strive for it". All I heard was how important these other activities were and that they had to do them as well.

[Eagledad]

>>But I was never a boy scout so Barry, perhaps by your metric, those experiences didn't count for me.

[skeptic]

Kind of odd; I had just composed the following for a possible letter to the editor locally after having a parent hint that his committed older scout may not go to camp because he may not have enough to do and some friends dropped out that have been going since we planned it. Every year it has gotten harder to get any real commitment on many things. And it is not just in the troop.

Perhaps a spin off, or just related?

 

"What has become of commitment, the giving of our word that we will do something, or participate in an activity? Working within a youth organization, or any other type of group that plans things based on participation and schedules accordingly, has become a best guesstimate endeavor.

 

How are we to adequately plan anything if the numbers change constantly, or when the people committed to bringing material or helping with transportation suddenly have something come up that is more important, or seems more interesting or enjoyable? What are we teaching our children, when we adults seem to feel little or no responsibility to follow through with our commitments?

 

There are always going to be legitimate reasons for something to change that will make us unable follow through on our participation in an event. But, most of the time, it seems to simply be that we are no longer interested due to that something better that has come along.

 

It appears to me that this is just one more example of the me first attitude in todays society. There was a time when our word meant something. Too often now, that no longer appears to be the case."

 

[Kahuna]

To answer your question, Eamonn, I don't think it's always been like that, but it's been that way for a very long time. I was camp staffing in the early 1960's and the camp program revolved around merit badges.

 

As a scoutmaster in the 1980's through mid 1990's, we went to camps with two goals in mind: Merit badges and adventure in the outdoors. Our troop camped monthly and so didn't really need the camping experience. We chose camps that we could do fun and adventurous things at and on the way to and back. Seldom used the local council camp and sought out ones where the kids could do white water rafting, rock climbing and that kind of stuff.

 

So, yeah, the merit badges are important, IMHO, at camp but fun and outdoor stuff is essential. If interesting stuff is not to be found at camp, why go? I want the kids to be able to earn merit badges, but I never really cared as much as whether they had a good time doing stuff they wouldn't be able to do if they stayed home.

[Lisabob]

There are times when having youth experience in the program probably matters a lot. I just don't think that understanding that camp should not be a classroom is one of those times.

[GernBlansten]

Put yourself in the 15/16 year old boots.

You have been to summer camp for 3 or 4, possibly 5 years in a row. Been there, done that. You ain't interested in earning any more merit badges. Your parents might, but you just spent a winter and spring in school and you have no interest in doing classroom work anymore. You also have no interest in spending any time with a bunch of rowdy 11/12 year olds, especially if the adults expect you to deal with them so they don't have too. They just irritate you just as you did the older kids when you were that age. The camp offers a program for older scouts, but you still will spend lots of time with the rowdy kids. What are your options? Go to camp and deal with everything you don't want to do, or hang with your friends around the house, playing video games and hanging at the mall trying to look cool?

 

I'm not offering a solution, but a careful observation having been a 16 year old 30 years ago and having the equivalent of a doctorate observing a newly minted 16 year old.

[SemperParatus]

Yes, it is sad.

I think a lot of camps have made excellent attempts over the past decade to expand their programs with more high adventure activities, many times offsite (BRMSR comes to mind). I can certainly understand a 16 year old not interested in sitting in merit badge classes or doing a cope course (for maybe the third or fourth time). Sounds like he (and the troop)needs an introduction to some of the other more exciting (nonadvancement oriented)opportunities available at other camps.

[Crew21_Adv]

Fellow Scouters,

 

Greetings!

 

Great comments about the past and future of the various Council Summer camps. Here are my 2 cents

 

I gotta agree with GernBlansten on certain comments. I do trust that most all council summer camps deliver a great program. The majority of camp programs aimed at the 11-14 y/o. There are council camps out there that offer a program for each age group, but Id consider those few flagship camps to be in the more attractive councils, and just fewer of them.

 

Baden Powell called Scouting a Game with a Purpose, I tell my friends that Scouting is educational fun. If its not educational, the parents are not going to send their Scouts. If its not fun, the youth are not going to attend.

 

Somewhere around the age of 15, probably in most Council camps. The summer camp programs may become weaker, while other council camping committees have seen the light. Some council committees or council camping committees have not considered programs that are adventurous and may draw the 15-18 y/o Scout or Venturer. So of course, their population is going to be 11-14, and the young lad that Eammon encountered.

 

Twice, Ive seen a 50 miler trek offered during Summer Camp, with high adventure events every day. They were highly successful.

 

Ive also seen a high adventure trek (at 40 miles). The older teenaged boys loved it, but Id expect a few parents are asking why they paid 350-450 dollars for their son to hike and shoot without even earning a patch or completing an accomplishment.

 

Scouting is a youth led program. While the desire to wander in the outdoors may be slowly fading at age 15, increasingly more older teens (even our older teen Scouts) desire to hang out in the mall. Even when I promote the attending Order of the Arrow meetings and Summer Camp Staff applications, I state, Its where all the cool Scouts hang out at, doing a little bit of work, and playing video games during the Summer

 

Can the outdoors be re-engaging again, If programs for 15-21 y/o are offered at council summer camps? If its educational fun, will they staff and lead the events themselves? If they are really having fun, will they lead (or promote) other teen Scouts towards a high adventure summer camp program? Can they be led out of the malls and away from the video games for a short while? I think so, if they are having fun while learning something. Otherwise, no.

 

Ive constantly inquired to council camp staff, why didnt they offer a Kodiak Course (for both Venturers and older Boy Scouts) during Summer camp weeks? Why didnt they offer a Venturing Road to Ranger? and even for the 40 mile high adventure treks, why didnt they just add on another 10 miles to make it a complete 50 miler? Ive constantly been told it is all too difficult.

 

If councils can find something educational (an accomplishment) while being fun for the 15-21 Scout/Venturer. Heck Im sold.. and Id bet those Scouts/Venturers would be too.

 

If we build it? Will they come?

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv

(This message has been edited by Crew21_Adv)