50 + years of scouting.

[Wrong Number]

8-1-09

I just ran across the forum so I thought I would post here.

 

I have been around for 73 years, and in those years I have been in Scouting for 50 + years as:

 

Cub Scout - Mendota, Ill

Scout - Mendota, Ill

Senior Scout - Mendota, Ill

Scoutmaster - "Charter Member Scoutmaster" troop 45 Sandwich, Ill.

Asst. Scoutmaster - My old troop 106 Mendota, Ill

Neighborhood Comm. - Methodist Church Mendota Ill.

Institutional Rep. - Methodist Church Pontiac, Ill

Dist. Chairman - Corn belt Council Bloomington, Ill / Pontiac, Ill.

 

 

 

[desertrat77]

Welcome! Your perspective will come in handy!

[Eagle732]

Congratulations on your service. 50 years gets you a gold membership card. Would you care to remark on what has changed for the better and for the worse over those five decades?

[Wrong Number]

Congratulations on your service. 50 years gets you a gold membership card. Would you care to remark on what has changed for the better and for the worse over those five decades?[/Quote]

 

I will answer back to you on this, as it has been a while, so I will have to sit down and recollect the times.

 

One thing that I did see that was changing was, when I was a scout (in the late '40's and early '50's) we were there because we were there to learn and enjoy friends and meet new ones. Later when I went back to my old troop as the ASM, I noticed the troop was a free baby sitting program, and the scouts raised all kinds of cane, and were only around a month or two and quit. I know, parents work more today, and I have been out of scouting quite a few years, so I hope things have changed.(This message has been edited by Wrong Number)

[Eagle732]

I have seen the "baby sitting service" in units, usually it's in Cubs. It depends on the leadership of the troop. My youth Scouting was done in the 60's and early 70's. In those days there were few after school programs. Scouting was the only thing I did outside of school. I was in it for the camping, hiking and other outdoor activities. Also most of my best friends were in the troop.

Things are different now. TV, video games, baseball, basketball, soccer, everyone gets a car at 16. No wonder we have a hard time keeping youth focused on Scouting! But the ones that stay and make the most of it have something to remember, something that will benefit them the rest of their lives.

[desertrat77]

Wrongnumber, thanks for sharing that recollection with us...I hope you post more. As beneficial as this forum is, we need more stories from scouts and scouters, about anything...summer camp, first camporee, you name it. The debates are fun, but scouting stories strike a cord in all of us, regardless of where we might stand on a particular issue.

 

Eagle732, you are right, there are a hundred things these days that compete for a scout's interest. I was a scout in the '70s, and even participating in school sports and at church, I don't recall times being as demanding as they are now.