Warning: This post is a bit of a Rant, aimed at the programme.
Mat said:
As a Scout Leader, I know exactly what Scouting has to offer young people. I'm not sure the programme did anything to put that across to non-members.
Could not agree more. We need a new law to protect Scouts from this sort of basised, sterotipically atitude.
The thing that really did my head in was if this was an American programme, they would have had A list stars.
The thing that turned me off straight away was the history of Scouting at the start. This is a programme that the Scout Assocation helped make and they cannot get their own history right.
BP did not start the scout movement. He did not come home from Africa with any idea to do this. He wrote a little know book called Aids to Scouting, and was then approached by the Boys Brigade to write something for them. This book, called Scouting for Boys, was published in 1908 in The Stand magazine. Children reading these articles then started their own scout groups(mentioned in the programme, even girls). BP was
forced into the role of chief scout and organising them into an Assocation.
The camp at Brownsea was not the start of the scout movement but BP testing the ideas he had put in Scouting for Boys before it was published. Which explains why I keep having arguments about the fact that next year is a hundred years of scouting, and not this year. They cannot even get that right.
What stuck me as bizarre, was the fact that they seemed to let the programme makers turn the scouts into a cadet group. If you place scouting in the military, they would be special forces. The whole point of scouting was to teach scouts to think for themselves, and to lead. As prevously mentioned, we shake with the right hand because that is normally the weapon hand, this says I cannot attack you because I am shaking you hand. Scouts shake with their left hand (I think it is a Zulu thing) the shield hand so the person still has their weapon, this says I trust you.
They kept talking about the military uniform and about shorts. Kids wore shorts, up until I think at least the Fifties, that was what they wore in England(This is also why the US Scout movement has a climate based uniform i.e. scouts wear shorts in the hot bits because that is what they wear.) Twenty years ago I wore them as school uniform until I went to seniors. Hikers today still wear shorts. A lot of the scouting kit was military, because it was cheap, kids back then did not have wardrobes full of clothes. Before BP the concept of Camping(as a leisure activity, people did it because they had to) did not exist so where are you going to get tents etc but from surplus places. Why were the adults in shorts, first rule of leadership, 'Do not expect someone to do something you would not do yourself'.
It is just bizarre that they would portray BP as someone with the status quo, we are talking about a Victorian who did not belive children should be seen and not heard. He wanted children to think, and act for themselves. He used children as scouts in a war. Here was a Victorian who thought native cultures could teach them something. Here is a Victorian who used to bunk of school to bushcraft. Here is a Victorian Enviromentalist, camping should be zero impact according to BP.
Just something to think about but the Scout Movement decided to modernise the Scouts in 1970(I think it was actually 1967). This is a movement that is 99 years old now and has the concept of children leading and governing themselves. A good scout leader in a well run troop, does nothing but turn up to give guidance and run ceromenies.
Lots of clips of the funny side of scouting, no clips of what happens when a little know bloke called Hilter gets hold of Scouting for Boys. BP asked him not to use the term scouts, you have to wonder if he saw the writing on the wall.
Regards,
Ps
schwuk said:
Not yet, but I may be there for my woodbeads later this year.
Best piece of advice, play the 'I am new at this card', and take a notepad just for ideas. Just as an example diffrent ways to play the same game so it does not get boring.
schwuk said:
Probably not, seeing as I haven't made it year yet though! Chances are you'll know my GSM or vice versa.
Maybe, more chance I would know your AC(or whatever they call them now).
