Scouting, Volume 59, Number 1, January-February 1971 Page: 14
58 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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on that hike." It could hold back the
Scoutmaster.
Peter Rapp. I have some differing opin-
ions. First of all I'd like to say that our
committee, the council committee on
training, was the first committee to have
a woman on it. She was a member last
year. She's a member this year and she
represents Den Mothers and Cubbing. It
has been one of the most successful ad-
ditions to the committee that I can think
of. On the unit level, I feel women as
committee members are valuable for a
number of reasons. If I have women on
my committee along with the men, I gain
a little more insight and ajittle more
byplay on how boys react at home,
what they're looking for. And, women
are extremely useful in activities, troop
dinners, for instance. Women can be use-
ful in transportation and finances. And
they can cook a meal in tinfoil as well as I
can. But I would not like to put them in
the position to be training boys to cook a
meal in tinfoil. You don't want women in
the field with your program. That, I think,
is the man's job. I personally think women
are a welcome addition.
Ralph Fingar. Certainly we know fathers
generally seem to be rather scarce. Either
totally absent in the ghetto areas of our
cities or in the suburban areas where they
are busy working and taking trips and
generally being away on business. So fa-
thers are not around as much as a lot of
14 people would think. In the absence of
fathers, to fill the gap with women makes
good practical sense. But on the other
hand, one of the biggest problems we
have among our youth is what we call an
identity crisis. Now maybe I'm old fash-
ioned, but somewhere the idea of males
relating with one another, whether on a
board of review, old and young males,
good and bad males, still appeals to me in
a psychological sense. I would like to
think of Scouting as someplace where we
still strive at least for some differences to
be emphasized. But again, some people
may jump all over me for saying that dif-
ferences should be emphasized.
Peter Rapp. I could throw an establish-
ment comment in at this point, Ralph.
What about the citizenship angle of
Scouting. Citizenship in the home? Do
you think women added to a committee
would help in the procedure of trying to
teach boys citizenship in the home?
Ralph Fingar. They are already, as far as
that goes. Certainly women tend to man-
age the homes these days. And that is
part of the problem. Mothers complain
about this. "I am everything at home.
He's never home. When he does come
home, he's the good guy who gives the
kids goodies and takes them on trips and
it takes me three days to get them dis-
ciplined again when he gets back to the
office or on his next trip." So they might
resent being pulled in to perform still
another role as the citizen in the home.
Jim West. When I have a boy come in my
troop, I tell him he must bring his par-
ents. In most cases I'll be at the troop on
a Saturday morning for this meeting. The
average father is working Saturday, so
the mother brings the boy in. She is the
one who wants the boy in Scouting. Why?
Because she feels that it would help him.
She feels Scouting will help discipline
the boy . . . After a boy's been in a short
period of time, she says to me, I don't
know what you're doing to him, but he
talks about you in the highest way. He's
changed overnight. He washes the dishes,
he does chores, everything.
Ralph Fingar. You're the surrogate father.
7
Jim West. This is it. Yes.
Bill DeMarco. You mean to tell me that a
woman is going to sit on the committee
and she's not going to voice her opinion
or not take over? I'd like to see that
woman.
Jim West. You've got to use psychology
on her. Tell her to come to leadership
training so she knows what she's doing.
She might work out. You don't know this
until it's tried at least once.
Peter Rapp. If I had a committee made up
of the parents of every boy in my troop,
I'd have the most fantastic troop in the
whole council. Men and women. A trained
troop committee can function with women
in their place and men in their place.
Bill DeMarco. There isn't anybody in this
generation that's ever put a woman in
her place.
Ralph Fingar. The point I'm making is that
if we are bringing the women in, it had
better be for a reason other than just as
a social resource we have to fill a gap.
Peter Rapp. Maybe the women on your
committee will order their husbands to
take that weekend trip with the Scouts,
Ralph.
Ralph Fingar. Perhaps. That would be
great.
How do you use community resources as
part of your unit programming?
Bill DeMarco. I think our community lead-
ers don't yet think there's enough for our
Scouts to do. They don't buy my sug-
gestions. What about planting trees, I'll
say to them. Or something of that sort.
"We'll get to you," they'll say, and then
I won't hear from them again. Yet these
politicians, these community leaders, are
people I grew up with, played ball with,
went to school with. They just don't fully
buy Scouting yet as a way of helping out
the community.
Peter Rapp. I interpret the question in
two ways. One, community resources that
we use as part of the program, namely,
the fire department, the police depart-
ment, the FBI building, the headquarters
here in Boston, the museums, the parks.
Out in my area there's an old Nike site
that's no longer used. It's now used for
camping. On the other angle of the serv-
ice project for a community, I consider
this to be a public relations campaign for
Scouting. Planting trees, for instance.
We got the State Commissioner of Con-
servation to filter the word back to town
and we formed a town Scouting commit-
tee and planted a thousand trees. Then
we did other things. There's a conserva-
tionist who wanted to protect wood ducks
—a dying-out breed of fowl. So he or-
ganized a project by supplying all of the
Cub packs with a diagram of wood duck
houses. We got all the packs working on
wood duck houses and got permission
from the city to install them in the
marshes. So we used resources and put
something back. We built up a fine rela-
tionship with the community. And Scout-
ing got its name in the paper.
Ralph Fingar. As you pointed out, Pete, it
takes extra effort to make sure that the
Scouting movement does something sig-
nificant and relevant. Certainly today the
young people need a feeling of relevance.
Today with all the problems of ecology
that are facing us head on, I think it
would be a golden opportunity for the
Scouting movement to jump with both
feet right in the middle of the near-
est mess, of which (there are plenty
around, and do something for the com-
munity and mankind in general. I know
the Metacom District here in Boston
is having a big cleanup camporee, apropo
of my point. This is an opportunity for us;
not a problem.
James West. This ecology movement is
the greatest thing that's happened to us
since Baden-Powell. Like Pete said, we
use some of the facilities and we put
something back. Like the YMCA which is
not too far. We walk with the boys instead
of riding them down. In uniform. To show
the public one thing, that we are a troop
and we do know what we're doing. We
give the boys swimming instructions.
Then we use the church, naturally. But
we do all the work for the church, from
vestment repairs to anything that they
need us for. The parks—we use the
Franklin Park right near there as you
know. They had this big problem with
trash and people just leaving a mess. So
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 59, Number 1, January-February 1971, periodical, January 1971; New Brunswick, New Jersey. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353586/m1/18/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.