Things sure have changed..

31. August 2009 by Scouter Jason.

A good thing about my dad, is that he’s much better than me at keeping records of stuff. When he was scout master at St. Georges he kept absolutely everything that the scouts there did. Organized year to year every camp, piece of paper reciept that had anything to do with scouts was kept and saved.

Tonight I was sorting through a stack of those notes and papers that were from scouting years past, back when my father was Scoutmaster at St. George’s. I was getting my material ready for the scouting year to come and looking through the papers and materials to see if I could get some Ideas and insight into what was done in the past.

As I read over the newsletters and updates and notices from New Brunswick Scouting in the late 80’s and early 90’s I noticed a striking difference between now and then. Back then, New Brunswick council sent out a 6-10 page newsletter each month, packed full of training info, events, outdoor activities happening all across the province etc.There were notices for group committees to contact District when they had the problem of actually having to turn away scouts and District would consider creating a new section. There were training programs galore being offered across the province for all the sections and it just seemed that there was a good level of communication going on between districts and the Provincial council.

Fast forward to today,  We don’t even have a provincial council per-say Everything is run out of PEI. The New Brunswick council website, with the exception of a few posts hasn’t been updated properly in 2 or 3 years. I’ve haven’t seen in the last 3 years that I’ve been back in Scouting a single communication from the Provincial level. (it doesn’t mean its not there I just haven’t seen anything). There’s no danger of having to turn away kids from a troop, the problem now is getting them to join. We do get regular communications from the local council level about on goings and upcoming events but is just seems that Scouting today is a pale shadow of what it used to be.

I knew it wasn’t as popular as it was. but seeing all those old documents made me realize just how much the organization has shrunk. A terrible shame really, because its one of the better youth activities out there.  I guess its a good thing that there are still those of us out there that believe in Scouting and know its benefits to children.

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