Saturday, April 21, 2007

Earth Scouts

Surfing on the net today, I found Earth Scouts. There is also a yahoo group. I am looking it over to see if I think it would be good for Thomas. Just thought I'd pass the info on. It appears that you can do this as a family if there is not a group in your area.

"Earth Scouts
Imagine a community where children and youth

Appreciate one another's differences

Have awe and a sense of wonder about nature and the cosmos
Engage in making their school and community better
Value independence and cooperation
Seek peaceful solutions to problems
Welcome new knowledge and experiences

Earth Scouts is a new
national program developed by Earth Charter US that inspires the above qualities in boys and girls from 3 to 13 years of age and engages them in actions. It is based on the Earth Charter: A Declaration of Interdependence, with badges centered on universal human rights,
eliminating poverty (economic justice), participatory democracy, respect for nature and a culture of peace.
Our slogan, 'Changing the World One Fun Badge
at a Time', was developed by a 10 year old member of our design group."


4 comments:

Gerkin Pickle said...

AWESOME! Thanks for sharing. I think the picklets would love it!

Dru said...

Did you just run across this or are you looking for an alternative to Boy/Cub Scouts?
If it's the latter, you might want to check out Spiral Scouts too.

I do like the family-as-a-unit/den option with this one (earth scouts) - I really am getting tired of going to Cub Scouts each week just to meet up with other misbehaving kids for an hour of babysitting and being told what fundraisers we're gonna be doing. I love the people (well, most of 'em); it's just getting to be kind-of a meaningless weekly hassle. We'd enjoy it so much more if we were solo (and we've been considering that, too).

Frankie said...

Carrie, I can't remember where I found that link now, but I was not looking for info on scouts.

I was a den leader for my son's den from Wolf to Web II. The boys just crossed over this February. I "worked" my boys hard and four of the six boys got every single Web. badge and a majority of the belt loops and pins. I ran a tight ship. The boys had fun, learned a lot. We were highly organzied and didn't leave room for misbehaving.

We couldn't decide about boy scouts...back and forth we went. Thomas in the end decided to join. Well, the last troop meeting they had was the night before our cross over in February. We showed up for Scouting for Food in March. No boy scouts were there, the Cub Master was just leaving. He told us the boy scouts had postponed their bag delivery but didn't let us know.

Because of the food thing, and because there have been NO troop meetings, we just give up. I feel another rant post coming on about scouts. lol

I have checked spiral scouts out before, but there isn't a group even within 60 miles of us. I'm completely spent from running my den, so I don't have the energy to start one.

Besides that, I live in a small town that is right-wing conservative -- if they read the story of spiral scouts (the minority faiths part), they'd call me the devil!!! (I'm not kidding about that, either.) So if we lived in the civilized world, we'd jump on spiral scouts. I thought it was a wonderful program.

Dru said...

Doh - I just came here and read this after responding to your late night post and the scout rant. (Boy do you have a reason to rant, too!)

You're right, you'd be ostracized if someone looked it up. That friend of yours whose son asked why you don't go to church - she'd be crossing the street to avoid you.

And never mind all the stuff I said in the other comment about maybe starting your own troop or patrol - obviously you know how to do that, lol (4 of the 6 getting all of the Web badges, woohoo!). I can definitely understand being wiped out after 4 years of being a leader. It does take its toll.