Cycling UK Forum

pwa wrote:The two blokes who have been the backbone of the Scouts locally for the last fifteen or twenty years have not been in any way "militaristic" or bullying.

Nor did I say they were. What's militaristic is the organisation of troops, patrols, rank insignia, salutes and so on, and the bullying was mostly child-on-child but the organisation seemed to have no safeguards and do naff all about it.

Either you weren't in the Scouts or it was different in your area, at that time, but it isn't as you describe where we live today.

I was in the Scouts (although I'm not sure if I returned after I recovered from my injuries) and I've not checked if it's different elsewhere or now, but if so then I'm glad to hear it, but I'm surprised they've dropped the faux-military overtones.

arnsider wrote:Well my friend, I am turned seventy and I would not have missed my scouting for owt. Rough and tumble is what growing up is all about or was back in better times.

There is a difference between "rough and tumble" and a risk-taking bullying culture of serious injuries. I'm a few decades younger than you but I doubt it all went wrong in the time between us, so it's more likely that you got lucky and I didn't.

As for queers!

I said nothing about "queers". I suspect you would call who I meant "nonces".

You talk about Moral Culture and Shaming our nation! Really!

Yes, really. Britain is not (any longer?) a military state where the proles are ordered around by an officer class in the Scouts model and it is all the better for it. It really does seem shameful that anyone here would suggest the Scouts is the best place for anything other than uncontrolled micro repeats of the Stanford Prison Experiment. If that's really the best place to learn how to camp, then it would explain why it's a dying art.

mjr wrote:I was in the Scouts (although I'm not sure if I returned after I recovered from my injuries) and I've not checked if it's different elsewhere or now, but if so then I'm glad to hear it, but I'm surprised they've dropped the faux-military overtones...............


..............There is a difference between "rough and tumble" and a risk-taking bullying culture of serious injuries. I'm a few decades younger than you but I doubt it all went wrong in the time between us, so it's more likely that you got lucky and I didn't.

I can only tell you about what I know, which is our local outfit. The "militaristic" aspect (which is my least favourite thing about it) is really confined to the uniform, which really isn't all that militaristic these days. It's gone tee shirt and sweatshirt. But locally they behave informally, except for the minority of participants who choose to join in the parade down a high street on Remembrance Sunday.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with the Scouts where you live(d), and I fully accept your account. Something wasn't right there. My own kids were luckier, because the leaders are gentle, caring people who seemed to me to look after the kids and I never heard of any bullying at all. Our kids have always told us stuff, so I'm sure we would have heard if there were any issues.

If I were giving the Scouts a makeover I would get rid of the uniform and anything that looks militaristic (very little evident locally anyway) but I would keep it as a club for kids that focuses on adventures in the great outdoors.

Arnsider appears to be making the classic error of assuming that people who abuse must be homosexual. And that homosexual people routinely abuse.

Being prejudiced in your seventies is not mandatory.

i've been camping for 57 years which is a coincidence as thats how old i am! i've camped in small frame tents, one man (just) pop ups, big frame tents, lightweight 'bike packing' tents, bigger 'lightweights', caravan awnings, marquees and yes, a variety of scout tents (both my parents were leaders, my older cousins scouts and leaders for over 50 years) so my experience is wide and varied. I did learn a fair bit of 'bushcraft' with the scouts, yep, @ 6 years boy and boy, from digging latrines to cooking a three course dinner on an open fire, as well as a lot of other skills i've used in later life. I don't claim to be a world expert but i can find my way around camping experiences reasonably well, without my time in the Scouts and regular family camping trips i probably wouldn't be so enthusiastic about camping and wouldn't have been as well equipped to start.

Of course i've also stayed in hostels, b&b's, hotels of every star rating, estate cars, ferries, church halls, waiting rooms, bivvies, self catering lodges / houses / flats, mobile homes and caravans, each adding their own knowledge to the pool.

Wherever you stand on the Scouting movements organisation and hierarchy, for large numbers of young people it has been a mechanism that has taught them skills and values not taught in schools. And therein lies the nub, the vast majority of these 'newbie' campers just don't have the basic skills, i've watched with amusement myself as fresh from the store tents are erected, or not, what often appears to time served campers as disrespect is often as much a case of them not having the knowledge. And where prey do they get that knowledge, Bear Grylls books? t'internet? BBC?

We might know which way to pitch our tent, to leave space between tents, to clear up behind us, to respect any facilities but for the most part, we on these fora are of generations where those things were taught. Its not 'hip', 'boss', 'sick' or whatever this weeks words is, to join the Scouts/Boys Brigade/Guides etc in 2020, those skills are no longer being learnt (okay the DofE purportedly does this for some kids but ime a lot of the participants are poorly prepared, suggested equipment is innapropriate and its a wonder any of them survive!) If you've grown up in a disposable world those same things are not part of your world, it is no surprise that they treat camping in the same disposable way. (maybe there is an app or i've just missed 'Go Camping' for the latest Xbox release )

Instead of castigating youth organisations and the many upstanding folk who devote not insignificant time and resources to running them perhaps you might come up with an alternative way to teach future generations real world skills.

Of course, on the plus side, most of the Hooray Hooligans will have gone to the Lakes, got rained on and will never contemplate camping in any form ever again

foxyrider wrote:Of course, on the plus side, most of the Hooray Hooligans will have gone to the Lakes, got rained on and will never contemplate camping in any form ever again

I really hope that's the case.

PaulaT wrote:

foxyrider wrote:Of course, on the plus side, most of the Hooray Hooligans will have gone to the Lakes, got rained on and will never contemplate camping in any form ever again

I really hope that's the case.

They will be queueing up at Heathrow and Gatwick as usual next year.

mjr wrote:And I make no apologies for saying that, in my experience, Scouts is also a place to suffer serious injury from uncontrolled bullying and hazing.

"Implementation dependent".

Much like PE at schools, it's very much down to who's running the particular show. Your experience wouldn't fit in with, for example, the 3rd Bexley Troop of the late 70s/early 80s that I attended and was a wholly positive experience for me and many of my friends.

Other troops will fall in to a middle ground where it's a nice enough place, but nothing ever happens.

Pete.