BSA Scouts

[Anonymous]

If you are looking for ways to get your child outdoors, consider BSA Scouting, - outdoor activities (camping and hiking), life skills we all wish we knew (knot tying, how to start a campfire, first aid), leadership and service. The cost of membership in many troops is for an entire year and is the equivalent of about a week or two of summer camp in this area. This is also a good way for kids to stay in touch if they are moving on to different middle or high schools from their friends. Or for a child who wants to branch out to meet others in the neighborhood outside of school.

You can find more information at https://beascout.scouting.org

[Anonymous]

^^ advertisement for a discriminatory, predatory organization that moved pedophiles around to hurt other children, and then realized they were going broke from lawsuits and started allowing girls in to make up the difference in funding. No thank you.

[Anonymous]

Like everything else, it depends on the troop and leaders. My children are in a very large, diverse troop with lots of activities to pick and choose from each month. Some troops aren’t as active. Just like you shop around for soccer leagues, dance studios, piano teachers, you should shop around for different troops to find the best fit for your individual child. The OP seems general and although probably unintentional, the post does read like an ad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ advertisement for a discriminatory, predatory organization that moved pedophiles around to hurt other children, and then realized they were going broke from lawsuits and started allowing girls in to make up the difference in funding. No thank you.

Yes the organization needed to change and it did. It now has the strongest child protection policies around. While the past is shameful, I would not keep my kids away from all the opportunities scouts offers based on decades ago issues.

[Anonymous]

I find the original post to be a simplistic advertising play I would not normally comment on, but the reaction suggests a comment.

“Discriminatory” … The BSA is non-discriminatory but does continues its religious principles statement. You have to believe in “something”. The past discriminatory membership policies are all blown-away.

“Predatory organization that moved pedophiles around to hurt other children” … False. The BSA’s pre-internet system for identifying, removing and banning child predators was imperfect and was unable to block all evil predators – some of who changed their identities and moved around. There is not a single instance of the BSA knowingly “moving around” a predator.

“Realized they were going broke from lawsuits and started allowing girls in to make up the difference in funding” … For decades BSA leaders had wanted to allow females into all of its programs, but were internally constrained from doing so because its largest membership block (the LDS Church) was opposed. As soon as the LDS Church declared they were leaving Scouting, the females were allowed into all programs. There was clear female demand for BSA-style programming as demonstrated by having 80 all-female Scout BSA troops in the DC area and over 300,000 girls belonging nationally.

[Anonymous]

I acknowledge the past errors and disastrous way BSA was run in the past. Our troop has a number of cultures, religions, and kid types (Star Wars enthusiasts, skater, athlete, leader, follower, tall, short, skinny, well-fed, etc...). Discrimination is not tolerated by the boys or the leaders. BSA has improved. When a business is failing, do leaders typically let it fail? No, they re-invent themselves, improve themselves, and move towards progress like BSA is doing.