Context: I was a Boy Scout for a number of years, making Eagle in 2020 right as COVID was really kicking off.
It was right afterwards, however, that the CSA scandal started popping up everywhere (which thankfully I was never exposed to or involved in during my time), and lately it seems like the organization & movement as a whole has fallen by the sociocultural wayside.
I would say that my time as a Scout did me objective good; I learned a decent amount about first-aid & survival-craft, participated in a number of volunteer & civic projects, and it generally made me a more well-rounded person. However, there’s no denying the impact that something “bigger than the Catholic Church scandal”, as I’ve heard it described, has on an institution such as this.
I’d like to get the community’s opinion, however; were any of you Scouts? How was your experience? What is your opinion of the institution today?
Scouts Canada is different I’d guess for history/reputation, not that I’ve looked into it. Wasn’t any religious stuff at least in my experience.
I was a Cub and a Scout, didn’t continue further. It was rather useful here since we learned winter survival and often did winter camping trips in Alberta. We’d hike out into a forest and set up camp, build tables/kitchen out of snow and stuff like that.
Then there were summer and winter Jamborees where troops from across the prairies competed in various activities. My favourite was capture the flag in chest deep snow in a field after dark, that was so much fun. They’d also bring out staff from Space & Science centers with telescopes or radio guys with portable radio stations. Besides the fun there was more in depth survival training at jamborees too like how to stay warm or warm up somebody else who is freezing, competions on starting fires without matches/lighters. On and on.
Of course there’s the badge earning and indoor regular meetups too but my memory is foggy there, too long ago. Sometimes involved carpentry. I still have a wooden chest I made in a school gym with a wolf head crudely drawn into the top with a soldering iron containing a bunch of old model rocketry stuff from when I was that age.
Also did the wooden model car races. At first it was cars and then later we built semi-trucks including the trailers. I’ve kept all of them my dad and I made.
Bottle drives and selling caramel popcorn and shit for funding too.
Only positive for me, my leaders weren’t pedos or overtly religious thankfully. I don’t really remember much about them except one guy going on a passionate rant about how only the first “The Matrix” film was good. I think Reloaded had just come out. Other kids were mostly fine. Didn’t really befriend them but also no bad blood. Edit: Oh I forgot to mention our troop was unisex, we had girls join too. Given what I remember Alberta being like in the 90’s - early 2000’s that seems progressive of them.