In the mid 70's when I was still in High School The Allegheny Trails Council Now the Laurel Highlands Council after several mergers sent out notices to all troops of an important meeting being held in down town at the YMCA auditorium Green Bar Bill was coming to town with an important message for all.
GBB as some called him came and presented a new train the trainer program known as TTT for both youth and adults which was to present all kind of new concepts to scouters .
It included a special one week camp for youths who where above first class and where senior patrol level that was 4 scouts in our troop
Among the items the course provided where a special white cloth jacket to show you attended the training and a wooden walking stick.
great everyone in the audience thought .
Till they announced the date for the 3rd week in June . This meant any one going to any type of Roman Catholic or other parochial school etc. could not attend this course as typically they go 1-2 weeks longer than public schools . In essence this knocked out 90% of the scouts who lived in the City of Pittsburgh because all most all the troops where sponsored by Catholic or other Christian based churches and the vast majority of scouts who where catholic or christian went to parochial based private schools in the city .
There was a loud uproar at the event about the date and as usual the council executives most of whom where not Catholic could care less.
So a program where young men could benefit the most where left out.
That summer a couple of scouts I ran into had participated and told me how they wished they had not gone as it was totally bogus and they where extremely disappointed in the program which GBB hyped up. The modern fore runner of these so called company retreats and training programs .
After that summer you never saw any of the jackets or walking sticks again and no one ever mentioned it again which pretty much proved the program was a bust. Which I think was the whole Ideal in first place council did not have the money to provide properly for all who wanted to be involved so they made sure just certain scouts who they liked attended.
This is not the scouting way
but this has always been what scouting executives have pulled against city scouts . When we had camporees it was always to help fix up the camps or other work projects very rarely was it ever to actually enjoy a camporee and scouting craft no that was for the soft suburban scouts. It was always made clear to city scouts the suburban scouts where special and better at events always getting best seating at council wide camporees when they had evening shows or any type of competition etc.etc and as far as I can determine it still goes on to this day. What a shame. But when you look at that Taj Mahal office they call Flag Plaza on Bedford Ave in Pittsburgh you can see the whole Frick and Carnegie days all over again the city scouts being the employees and suburban scouts the bosses. Because thats how they have always run scouting in Pittsburgh since Mr. Phillips retired from scouting in the 50's who was a city man and based scouting on not where you where from .
Mr. Phillips never would have allowed such a Taj Mahal to be built. He treated all scouts and adults equal and thats why he has been maligned by council .
