What the Scouting decision shows about us

[Guest]

18 hours ago, Vort said:

The reason that Scouting never worked in the American/Canadian Church the way it was envisioned to work is because people like me didn't consecrate ourselves to the work as we ought to have done. You don't have to agree, but that's my view.

We've had discussions about what the true statistic is about activity rate 30%, 50%, 65%.  Whichever it is, none is close to 100%.  We can go on all day long about why we are not a perfected people.  And how we treat scouting is a good thing to include in such a discussion.  And certainly the future program should also be part of that discussion.

If that is all you're really getting at, I'd agree.

But I do believe we can separate out scouting to a larger degree because it was specifically one program that did not originate in the offices of the Church.  We were contributors who had to make concessions because it was a multi-faith (and increasingly secular) endeavor.  It is these factors that cause people like me to do a happy dance over the decision.

Do we need to work harder on supporting all the programs of the Church?  Absolutely.  Was scouting the program it once was?  Absolutely not.

Edited May 12, 2017 by Guest

[Rob Osborn]

2 hours ago, NightSG said:

iSpirit?  Has Apple even ruined Divinity with a proprietary version now?

The BSA didnt update the app and so now the program doesnt run right and has errors 

[mordorbund]

Take a look at the activity list for the YM program: https://www.lds.org/youth/ymactivities?lang=eng

Running this will require planning, youth leadership training, buy-in from parents, and organization on par with (ward-level, and stake-level) BSA. Without it, the older young men will just be playing basketball in the gym.

[anatess2]

@Vort, although there's a lot to be said about parental support of Scouting, I (and my husband who is the Scoutmaster) believe that the cultural change of a "softening" of teen boys is the biggest reason.  It's like we've managed to take the "boy gene" out of the psyche of this generation of teen boys.  

For example, my husband would set up scout activities where the kids will swim for a mile, shoot rifles and shotguns, learn how to handle getting flipped out of a kayak, etc.  Lots of parents won't let their boys join because... "it's too dangerous" or "they don't need to learn those things" or "he's not interested in those things, he'd rather do X".

[JohnsonJones]

On ‎5‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 9:47 PM, Just_A_Guy said:

Were they?  Or were they stopgap measures adopted as a desperate attempt to hold the attention of older boys for whom the appeal of traditional Scouting had faded?

We already have boy-led, semi-autonomous groups for older teenagers:  the priesthood quorums themselves.

Venturing has always been the BSA's red-headed step-child and the program is in a constant state of flux; having evolved from or swallowed up other programs like Exploring and Sea Scouts.  Just in the last year or two BSA discontinued use of the venturing oath; so in terms of values and leadership development Venturers today aren't really getting anything they didn't already get as Boy Scouts.  They're just doing riskier activities (rappelling, whitewater rafting, shooting, etc)--and from an LDS standpoint, regardless of BSA affiliation; either your bishop approves that stuff, or he doesn't.  Either you have a budget for it, or you don't.

Varsity Scouting was an interesting concept; but I think it was undermined by (what I perceive to have been) the decline of church-wide competitive sports in the '80s and '90s.  (And its appeal to anti-athletic types (like me) was always going to be limited anyways.)  

So no; I'm not convinced by the narrative that it is our own faithlessness that is denying us of the blessings of the Varsity and Venturing programs.  I think that out of respect for old friendships the Church was waiting to see what further inspiration might come to the BSA in terms of new programming for this problematic age group; and I take this partial withdrawal as a sign that the Church no longer believes that the spirit of inspiration is operating in the BSA.

And with losing 75% of our Young Adults as they go from Young Men to YSA, and retaining a 25-30% activity rate among YSA...the failure rate that we experience running our Priest quorums is actually pretty spectacular. 

The biggest problems with Venture scouts is the SAME we are having with our Priest quorums.  It starts with the primary age kids.

Scouting was always supposed to be a family activity, or at least a father/son activity.  Father's (and parents in general if one reads the Scout handbooks on such) are supposed to actually compose the committee members (how many times have we seen where a father with only girls is appointed to Young Men's while the Father of 4 or 5 young men is never called?), which is actually not in accordance with how the Scouts (and in my opinion, Young Men and Woman's programs) are supposed to be run.  Instead, we see parents drop off their kids for Cub Scouts, continue this trend of using the Scoutmaster as a babysitter for Boy Scouts, and by the time the boys hit Varsity the families wonder why the boys have little interest in Church, Young Men's activities, or Scouts in general.

The interest parents show and invest in their children is the interest that will be reflected back.  It doesn't matter whether it is scouts, or the Priesthood Quorums themselves.  The difference I see is that parents can actually interject themselves into the scouting program, even if leaders objected.  It is THEIR sons.

On the otherhand, we don't have this same ability with the Priesthood quorums. 

NOW, if we ran these programs like we should, it would be a moot point.  Fathers would be in the Young Men's presidency, advisors, etc.  But as it is run in the church, in many wards we actively discourage parental participation.  As I said, when you do not have parental buy in, this will eventually be reflected by their children (Young men and Young Woman) in many instances (so, we have many outstanding youth that have excellent homes and stay active and participatory regardless of how the program is run).

As I said, the interest parents show and invest in their children is the interest that will be reflected back.

A parent that has no interest in the Young Men's program (or Young womans) will, in a majority of cases, eventually reflect a Young Man or Young Woman who is also not as interested or involved.

[paracaidista508]

12 hours ago, anatess2 said:

@Vort, although there's a lot to be said about parental support of Scouting, I (and my husband who is the Scoutmaster) believe that the cultural change of a "softening" of teen boys is the biggest reason.  It's like we've managed to take the "boy gene" out of the psyche of this generation of teen boys. 

To be a bit more precise, it is the parents, the schools, the church etc who have softened the boys. As for the scouting activities with which are a bit more rustic, there are very few leaders left who even experienced anything tough as a kid. Most are the byproduct of a mushy scout program where  they grew up. The current leadership is a byproduct of the garbage scouting which has been going on in the church for  long time. Speaking only for my council area here which is overwhelmingly lds....the lds troops always get destroyed at the Camporees  and other similar activities by the traditional troops.

By and large the traditional troops are motivated, well funded, they are not restricted to one stupid spaghetti dinner a year, the kids all want to be there and their parents are on board. Lds troops? I have never sent one like that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 13, 2017 by paracaidista508

[paracaidista508]

I'm overjoyed we are bailing on it. The minute the bsa caved and began the process of becoming a facilitator for the grooming of kids into the gay agenda, I checked out of it. The church should have walked a long time ago. Not to mention the lds population in general can't stand scouts and don't want anything to do with it, but participation and service in it was compulsory up to this point. Watch what happens now that we have effectively walked away from it. Our eagle rate is going to plummet. That alone is another topic, but the lds church has far more middle age female eagle scouts than any other chartering organization out there. So many fake eagles it makes ones head spin. Of course there are legit ones, but they are hard to come by.

I was a huge cheerleader for bsa up till about 5 yrs ago. I got into many leadership positions where I saw how fraudulent the program was at our stake and even district level with the lds troops. I ended up with a fairly big scout position and the resistance to fixing our program was so intense even at the stake level I asked to be released. I got nothing done as not one person was willing to put in the effort or make the  changes necessary to fix the problems. I have not been in any scouting positions ever again. I got called one more time but refused it. It was all but acknowledged they really do not care about scouting here.

No more fos donations since then and I was one of the people who used to make up for a few of the other ward members lack of contributions to the fundraising quota.

The way I see it, since we don't want to do it right it is better not to do it at all........good riddance

Edited May 13, 2017 by paracaidista508

[anatess2]

15 hours ago, paracaidista508 said:

To be a bit more precise, it is the parents, the schools, the church etc who have softened the boys. As for the scouting activities with which are a bit more rustic, there are very few leaders left who even experienced anything tough as a kid. Most are the byproduct of a mushy scout program where  they grew up. The current leadership is a byproduct of the garbage scouting which has been going on in the church for  long time. Speaking only for my council area here which is overwhelmingly lds....the lds troops always get destroyed at the Camporees  and other similar activities by the traditional troops.

By and large the traditional troops are motivated, well funded, they are not restricted to one stupid spaghetti dinner a year, the kids all want to be there and their parents are on board. Lds troops? I have never sent one like that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When my husband was a deacon, their troop went on an all day hike up and down a mountain.  On the way down, they encountered the fast spread of the beginnings of a wild forest fire and applied their scouting skills to dig a trench around the fire and chopped branches and such that could cause the fire to jump.  They ended up in the newspaper.

This same troop also took a 3-day canoe trip with nothing more than can fit in a backpack not to exceed 1/3 of their body-weight.  That includes food, water, and shelter.  My husband didn't pack a tent preferring to use the weight for more food so he dug a hole on the ground to sleep in but he didn't ration his food so he had to figure out how to collect potable water and how to hunt and pick fruits as his provisions ran out sometime on day 2.

Guess who his scoutmaster was?  His dad...

He is now the scoutmaster and he wishes he can run the troop like in the old days where you don't make a trip to the grocery store in the middle of a campout.

Edited May 14, 2017 by anatess2

[Rob Osborn]

9 hours ago, anatess2 said:

When my husband was a deacon, their troop went on an all day hike up and down a mountain.  On the way down, they encountered the fast spread of the beginnings of a wild forest fire and applied their scouting skills to dig a trench around the fire and chopped branches and such that could cause the fire to jump.  They ended up in the newspaper.

This same troop also took a 3-day canoe trip with nothing more than can fit in a backpack not to exceed 1/3 of their body-weight.  That includes food, water, and shelter.  My husband didn't pack a tent preferring to use the weight for more food so he dug a hole on the ground to sleep in but he didn't ration his food so he had to figure out how to collect potable water and how to hunt and pick fruits as his provisions ran out sometime on day 2.

Guess who his scoutmaster was?  His dad...

He is now the scoutmaster and he wishes he can run the troop like in the old days where you don't make a trip to the grocery store in the middle of a campout.

Overall, the boys just are not very well prepared like they were years ago. Many of the boys do not have the capabilities needed to do old school camping. Many are out of shape completely and have no drive to improve that. The truth is that our culture has softened the boys. Boys who still live in the country can still rough it for the most part but most are part of larger city areas now and that culture mentality and physically is weak.

 

 

[anatess2]

On 5/14/2017 at 10:59 AM, Rob Osborn said:

Overall, the boys just are not very well prepared like they were years ago. Many of the boys do not have the capabilities needed to do old school camping. Many are out of shape completely and have no drive to improve that. The truth is that our culture has softened the boys. Boys who still live in the country can still rough it for the most part but most are part of larger city areas now and that culture mentality and physically is weak.

 

 

Well, we're in trouble.  Between the feminist movement telling the boys they are sexists and bullies and rapists and their parents and leaders stamping out masculinity and satire, we're fast becoming... Sweden (that's not a compliment in case you're wondering)...

 

 

[Anddenex]

On 5/12/2017 at 10:22 AM, mordorbund said:

Take a look at the activity list for the YM program: https://www.lds.org/youth/ymactivities?lang=eng

Running this will require planning, youth leadership training, buy-in from parents, and organization on par with (ward-level, and stake-level) BSA. Without it, the older young men will just be playing basketball in the gym.

You have something against basketball, a Heavenly sport?

[Vort]

2 minutes ago, Anddenex said:

You have something against basketball, a Heavenly sport?

My ankles have been permanently messed up for my entire adult life because of basketball. After coming back from our missions, one of my companions laughed about an enduring memory of me: Walking through the streets of Pozzuoli chatting with Anziano Vort, only to turn and see me twenty feet back, rolling on the pavement in agony after yet again turning my ankle. Similarly, my shoulders are so messed up that I cannot do a pull-up and have difficulty doing more than a few push-ups, and sometimes I have difficulty raising my arms over my head. As a teenager, I broke a bone in my foot and, in a separate incident, broke my wrist and entered the MTC in a cast up to my elbow.

All from basketball.

If basketball is a "heavenly" sport, I can only assume that means you need heaven's help to keep playing after all the injuries it piles on you.

[mordorbund]

14 minutes ago, Anddenex said:

You have something against basketball, a Heavenly sport?

I have never heard basketball referred to as a heavenly sport. I figured if this is a true doctrine, it should be spelled out in the scriptures. I did a search for the word "sport". If that is basketball, I will double down on finding some other activities for the youth.

[Anddenex]

14 minutes ago, mordorbund said:

I have never heard basketball referred to as a heavenly sport. I figured if this is a true doctrine, it should be spelled out in the scriptures. I did a search for the word "sport". If that is basketball, I will double down on finding some other activities for the youth.

It's in our chapels, of course it is Heavenly!

 

[Anddenex]

25 minutes ago, Vort said:

My ankles have been permanently messed up for my entire adult life because of basketball. After coming back from our missions, one of my companions laughed about an enduring memory of me: Walking through the streets of Pozzuoli chatting with Anziano Vort, only to turn and see me twenty feet back, rolling on the pavement in agony after yet again turning my ankle. Similarly, my shoulders are so messed up that I cannot do a pull-up and have difficulty doing more than a few push-ups, and sometimes I have difficulty raising my arms over my head. As a teenager, I broke a bone in my foot and, in a separate incident, broke my wrist and entered the MTC in a cast up to my elbow.

All from basketball.

If basketball is a "heavenly" sport, I can only assume that means you need heaven's help to keep playing after all the injuries it piles on you.

Ouch! I know the ankle feeling, as I have injured both, fortunately mine have healed and weren't too seriously injured. It's heavenly because it is in our chapels.

[mordorbund]

7 minutes ago, Anddenex said:

It's in our chapels, of course it is Heavenly!

 

WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THE CHAPEL???!!!!!

[Anddenex]

1 minute ago, mordorbund said:

WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THE CHAPEL???!!!!!

Hehe, the first time I read this I thought you were asking "why I was in the chapel if its heavenly?"

Playing dodge ball, basketball, scatterball, and volleyball. What are you doing in our chapels?

[NightSG]

1 hour ago, Vort said:

in a separate incident, broke my wrist and entered the MTC in a cast up to my elbow.

Oh sure.  Cool story, bro.

 

Whatever it takes to overcome chastity issues.  

[NightSG]

On 5/13/2017 at 9:41 AM, paracaidista508 said:

To be a bit more precise, it is the parents, the schools, the church etc who have softened the boys. As for the scouting activities with which are a bit more rustic, there are very few leaders left who even experienced anything tough as a kid.

Yup.  I can remember at least two nights intentionally spent in debris huts.  (And another after a windstorm took out several tents and the Scoutmaster gave everybody the option of staying out in "survival mode" with him or going to the ranch's bunkhouse with one of the assistants.)  Firestarting by various methods.  Bleeding often, and occasionally profusely.  Smelling like river water and campfire smoke in an outdoor interdenominational Sunday morning service.

Virtually every memory of Scouting I've shared with my Eagle Scout HT companion was answered with, "well, we never did things like that."  And he's only 2-3 years younger than I am, so we were in Scouts at the same time.

[Jojo Bags]

The Boy Scouts of today and the Boy Scouts of 45 years ago are two different organizations with a common background.   The idea of homosexual scout masters and transgender  scouts would have been laughed at when I was a kid.  Todays scouting organization is becoming more about political correctness and appeasing the communist left.  Correct Christian morals and standing on principles has taken a back seat to political correctness.