Yes once again the national Scout jamboree will be here now at anew Scout reserve near Beckley in southern West Virginia .
and once again only about 10% of all scouts will get to participate I was at 2 of them in 1973 and 1977 and was not a participant just a day time visitor there was no way my family could afford to send me let alone my 2 brothers to it for a week and now with costs well over $1000.00 dollars to attend it is nearly impossible for a kid to work and earn that kind of money to attend and then be put in a provisional troop of other individual attending scouts .
Both times I got to be a day visitor was because it was close to our home they held it at Moraine State Park in Butler County Pa.
In 1977 I attempted to get on the jamboree staff and work all week and week before and after with set up and clean up to be able to at least attend at a discount but even those who volunteer and work all week have to pay the full fee. what kind of shit is this and to add injury to insult when a bad storm hit that week the jamboree called over to Camp Semiconon to ask if myself and other staff member and couple of fathers camping with the scouts who were electrician's come over and help get all the event areas back up and running since all the electric got knocked out.
Everyone agreed and told them to shove the request up there ASS.
They where so snide with us to begin with when we first offered to help staff things there was no way any of us where going to help them.
Its the same way with many of the High Adventure bases have gotten as well
Philmont and the Florida Seas base etc. are out of the reach of most scouts even with trying to raise funds there lucky they can even go to regular summer camp which keeps going up .
I often thought as an adult hopefully one day I would get out west and stop and see Philmont as a day visitor but my travels are east coast based and I got to see many other neat things instead.
The bad part to all of this are the scouts who rub it right in your face when they tell you they attended all these places frankly who cares If you got there if you did good for you but don't rub it in instead share the experience . Not all are like that some shared there experience and showed slides etc and answered questions and encouraged us to raise funds and go provisional All I care about is that for scouts who really want to go and are lower income do not even have a chance these days to ever be able to attend.
So you have to ask your self are they deliberately keeping prices high to keep out the Riff Raff sure sounds like it.
Thats not what is suppose to happen in scouting but it does everyday and scouting discriminates against many. Unlike in the days when Mr. Phillips personally paid to allow a couple scouts to attend national events out of his pocket. Something you just never hear about anymore.
