:3

I was one for a couple of...months...back when I was a small fry, but it seriously cut into my lounging around time so I gave it up.

Guilty as charged.

I can get raped by a grown man at home, thank you.

Yo

I was that rank that's right under Eagle Scout. Then I stopped because I didn't enjoy it anymore. I never really made any friends in scouts, so there was nothing keeping me in it.

>>271660
>charged
>selling girlscout cookies
>charged
icwutudidthere
>>271661
HA

I was a Brownie (and a Rainbow before that). Never went to Guides though, because the Guide leader in my area was quite known for being a bully. I went to the Sea Cadets instead. That's where I learned to be a real man drill and how to polish shoes.

Scouts! Woo! Tying knots! Setting things on fire! Making winter camps out of igloos!

yo

>>271668
SEA CADETS FUCK YEAR SOME DAY YOU WILL BE A REAL SAILOR

I was a scout once, back when I was much smaller, but not much shorter.
I stayed with it for a food few years before I got bored off my ass.

>>271675
Like me.

I was in Webelos. Did that a year.
Felt pretty good, man.

I was a scout for a number of years.

I achieved the rank of Eagle Scout at the age of 13.
After that, I worked towards achieving every single merit badge available to me during my remaining time as a youth (There were 5 or 6 badges that had been discontinued when I was a youth, and there's now about the same number of badges that have been newly introduced since I stopped being a youth.), finally getting every single badge, the final one just a few months before I turned 18. My merit badge sash literally had no space left, my mom had to sew the badges even in the little spot where you put the sash under your uniform loops.
I've been a member of the Order Of The Arrow (a Scouting high-honor organization that I'm not really supposed to talk about) since 2001.
I've been to one National Jamboree, and two World Jamborees, visiting/temporarily living in such countries as England, Scotland, Ireland, Japan, and Thailand.
I am so many awards, I refuse to wear them because it weighs my shirt down so much.

Granted, spending all that time as a youth in Boy Scouts afforded me absolutely no social life during middle/high school and lowered my self-esteem considerably, and spending time as an adult leader to help my parents (they run the troop nowadays) has left me disappointed in myself and lost me countless opportunities to be with my friends and pursue personal goals, and all that stuff they tell you about jobs and colleges preferably hiring and accepting Eagle Scouts is bullshit, but hey. That's life.

Got to eagle, then just sort of stopped I guess.

USA scouting sounds like one great achievement hunt. Never really cared much about badges myself, most scouts here don't. Except the knife wielding badge, that one's important.

>>271694
It is.

Brownies, then Guides. The woman who ran Brownies was super outdoorsy and took us out camping and making fires and looking for wildlife and stuff.

Woman who ran guides didn't really care and we learned how to glue googly eyes to pompoms.

>>271663

>>271694
USA Scouting used to mean something. Back when it first came over, it was nationally embraced as a way of improving America's youth and subsequently America's future. Everybody in the program was devoted to this goal, and it remained that way for some time. Ever since about the 80's though, America as a whole stopped caring about Scouting, and the program stopped being about how one can improve themselves and their community, and became little more than 'how good can you possibly be compared to everyone else?'.

The whole 'we touch young boys' reputation hasn't been helping either. Shit, I still get dirty looks from random people who don't even know me when I mention I'm doing something with the Scouts as an adult leader.

>>271699
I will say this, though:

Scouting (or maybe the other kids I met in Scouting) taught me how to make fire in the harshest conditions, wield a knife like a combat veteran, perform field surgery with great efficiency, makes explosives out of most any household items and utilize said explosives so that one can achieve the greatest possible explosion without wasting any materials, and find both my and/or someone else's position without knowing where I am. I can pretty much easily survive The Most Dangerous Game, and I think I'm a better man for it.

>>271697
That sucks, I can see why you quit. It usually goes the other way around, you get to do more fun outdoor stuff the older you get, but most people quit before they get to the good stuff.

>>271699
I see. All those weird stereotypes kinda make sense now. Over here we're a bit more focused on the "If it isn't fun, it isn't scouting"-part.

i was in scouts for a little until i realized that i did not enjoy spending time around the other scouts

>>271703
>wield a knife like a combat veteran
>field surgery
>make explosives

No wait, your way of scouting is awesome.

>>271705
because they were assholes

Eagle Scout here. Bunch of dumbasses. But I stuck at.

>>271705
Homophobe.

>>271709
it might have been partially my fault for being so unathletic and without the dexterity to tie weirdass knots

you can only watch your thrown dodgeball wobble uselessly through the air only to be caught and whipped back into your face a few hundred times by people who proceed to give you shit for it before the entertainment value wears thin

>>271709

Hey Moe, you've been acting more Moe-ish than usual. Did that girlfriend that was making you all nice and wussy leave you or somethin'?

>>271712
>caught and whipped back into your face
That's against the rules. If it's caught you're out.
They can't hit you once you're out.

>>271737
What are you, a baby?

Closest I got was 4H for seven years. Poultry, rabbits, sheep, shootin' sports.

>this thread.

Started as a regular Cub Scout and made it to Webelos until my troop was dissolved/disbanded/whatever due to corruption. All the adult leaders were women & related to each other (sisters, IIRC), with the head den mother's youngmale relatives in the troop, including her son. He kept getting all the badges, ranks, & awards without doing anything. I maybe saw our Boy Scout troop twice and they seemed pretty cool; all Eagles.

Besides that nonsense, I loved the uniforms & accessories; I was PROUD of being apart of the organization. I was especially fascinated with the literature & what I could learn. That & the few times I went camping, it was fun. I'm just disappointed I never got deep into Scouting due to the machinations of others.

Eagle Scout.

It's been over a year since the Board of Review, and I can still look at that patch and feel like a million bucks.

I got up to Life Scout, but really didn't care after that. I was raised Mormon, and the LDS Church is really big on the Scouting thing. What this ends up meaning is that often the boys are just pushed through all the requirements like an assembly line, and there's little sense of truly enjoying it.

It also didn't help when I spent a couple days at a Scout Camp doing training to be a leader during the camp itself. I love all the camping stuff, but when I was doing the training it was just overly regimented, overly strict, and just sucked all the fun out of it by obsessing about wearing Official Boy Scout Brand socks in your uniform or marching ceremonies than the meaning of it all. It convinced me that the sort of people who were really involved in that kind of stuff just were different than me, obsessing over protocol instead of enjoying the outdoors.

>>271812
I wish I could feel that way about my Eagle Scout.

Made it all the way to Eagle just in time. I was awarded my Eagle patch literally on my 18th birthday. I made Order of the Arrow several years before that.

Scouting was a great experience for me, but I guess a lot of that is because of the Troop I was with. I was actually one of the founding members, so we were really compact for years. We'd get three to five new boys every year from our companion Cub Scout troop, and everything was very well-run and organized. We all had a great time and I made a lot of friends.

It wasn't until my last year there that things started turning sour. We started getting eight or more boys all at once every year and very few of the more experienced boys were stepping up to leadership roles. Still, I can say that the program had a positive impact on my life.