The last few weeks every time I go to a shopping mall I see dozens of boy scouts in uniform. What’s up with that?
Boy Scout troops always need largish spaces places to meet and do projects and sometimes needs storage space for popcorn etc. until delivery. A mall with empty, unleashed spaces might be giving them space for this.
It’s not just one mall. It’s all of them. And why would using a storage space in a mall result in whole uniformed troops mallratting for the weekend?
Per my note it could be a meeting space as well. If there are ice creams shops etc it’s quite common for a group to go out for food and drink after finishing a project.
Because young men LIE and tell their parents they’re going to boy scout meetings. Then they go to the mall and hang out.
Around here, they’re tourists who happen to be in uniform while visiting a food court.
I think it must be the tourist thing. There are literally entire troops of them. They can’t all be lying to their parents about where they are. And they’re hanging around all day. It doesn’t look like they just happen to be meeting nearby.
Are they perhaps engaging in some sort of fundraiser?
I saw them socializing and buying things, just like everyone else at the mall. And whatever it is has been going n for several weekends.
True. Tradionally the Scouts could count on being able to meet afterschool in an empty classroom or in some local government building for free, but that’s no longer the case. The BSA is trending toward avoiding relying on local governments for meeting space or support and using private alternatives wherever possible.
Our troop met at a Church. They let us use their Fellowship Hall to meet.
Fellowship Hall is a rec room with a kitchen for church dinners and other activities.
Thousands head to Va. For Boy Scout jamboree
I’d have thought they’d have come up with something better than shopping to fill out their trips. Seriously, I don’t get why tourists go to shopping malls. You have all the same stores where you live!
I don’t. My home is not a major metropolitan area.
I remember that we always went shopping on Choir trips. That’s where I learned that it was just something to do to hang out, rather than some annoying chore that my parents did while I tried to find what little fun I could. Heck, today kids hang around the local Walmart for the same purpose.
I saw hundreds, if not over a thousand, boy scouts crawling around the Pentagon City mall in Arlington yesterday. In fairness, while many of them may have been wasting their time at a shopping mall, (1) it was 100 degrees outside and they’re going to be here for over a week and (2) large food courts are a practical place to herd troops of preteens for lunch.
I have fond memories of my dad doing the scout thing at AP Hill and my mom coming to visit me without him … we are the typical i’m stubborn you are pigheaded deal … i am a strong personality and my dad was also, so we would get into conflicts so keeping visit time to a minimum was usually good [he mellowed out in the last decade of his life and it made visits a lot more pleasant]
I dont remember him really discussing what the kids did other than the jamboree stuff, other than the year they pretty much had a monsoon and whole gangs of the kids had to be shuttled to laundromats to dry stuff out.
This isn’t what you are seeing, but one my most memorable Boy Scout thing that I got to do as a kid was a “campout” at a local mall. Bunch of Boy Scout troops from my area got the run of a mall for a night (everything was closed, naturally). Didn’t sleep much, naturally…though a sleeping bag on a tile floor isn’t the most comfortable of sleeping arrangement anyhow.
BSA doesn’t want to depend on help from the public sector…
Gee, why do you suppose that is? Just asl the next gay, atheist scout you see.
The vast majority will likely disappear after today, as they have to report to Fort A.P. Hill in the morning. Though Jambo doesn’t start until tomorrow, many troops came down early to tour DC over the weekend. My son’s local contingent aren’t doing shopping malls, but they have hit the Mall area pretty hard. He’s been sending us picture texts today. Most of the Scouts you’re seeing are probably teenagers rather than pre-teens. Fortunately, the weather is supposed to break after today, so they’ll be a little more comfortable in their tents during the week.
Well, that would explain why I can’t turn around in Crystal City with out taking out 50 of them.