to think if you do the fun stuff you should attend the duty stuff aswell.

[missmapp]

Ds1 goes to Beavers, it is a lovely group and they do lots of fun events, camp fires, night time walks, activity days, visits to lots of exciting places- these are always well attended. As it is Rememberance Sunday tomorrow , they have been asked to go to the Church Parade.

I wasn't sure of the time, so phoned a few other Mum's- all have said their ds does not want to go, so they won't be attending. Now Ds normally goes to football on a Sunday morning, but I have told him he needs to go to the service as it is part of being a Beaver. It saddens me that lots turn up to the fun things, but this will be a low turn out ( as it was last year-only 2my ds and 2 others)

So, AIBU ?

The veterans going need to see the younger generation paying repect for the huge sacrifice they gave

On Rememberance Sunday, Beavers attending the Church Parade takes priority- if his football club had an important match on a Beaver meeting night, that would take priority. I have explained to his football club why ds1 will not be at training, they completely understood and said others would be missing for the same reason.

Grrr - As I mentioned earlier, Guiding takes a different line on church parade to Scouting. In Guiding, church parade is a voluntary activity; girls are enocuraged to attend but they're never required to attend and certainly not if they are members of other faiths. Guiding has a spiritual dimension and it assumes that people have some sort of religious belief (even if they're not members of any organised religion) but it is not explicitly Christian.

The commitment to church parade in Scouting is much stronger.

Its not just kids though. A mate of ours is in the army and had a 2 year posting to support a TA unit (in between tours to Afghanistan). He said the TA guys would only go to remembrance services if they were paid but the TA wouldn't pay for what it considered a civic duty ... so none of the TA went. It's a but sad really.

Surely Rememberance Sunday service is more about showing respect than being a Christian?

YANBU - our beavers and cubs leaders give all the children who attend church services a mars bar or similar at the next session, to reward them for attending.
My DSs and DH (leader) will be going tomorrow in uniform and I'll meet them at the church.

It may be different now, I joined Brownies in 1989, and left Guides at 16 in 1998. Back then we went once a month, and had extras for Rememberence Sunday or County Parade. It was compulsory, uniform was smart, badges all properly stitched and you knew you were there representing your troop. I think it taught discipline, respect and pride in your country. I still remember the promise off by heart, I learned lots from my time in the movement. I never had religion shoved down my throat, not once, the parades were fun, and I loved my turn at holding the colours. Rememberence Sunday seems to be taboo, all of a sudden. It doesn't seem to be part of the curriculum which is terrible! It has nothing to do with religion, and its a one off we should all observe.

Rant over!

Ds1 is coming to Mass with me tomorrow and for that reason will not be with his beavers group as they attend a different church

Jethro I was going to say the same thing.

I also think being part of a local scouting group is also being part of the local community, and that where possible you should take part in activities which involve the community.

My DS is a Beaver in a local village group and has been involved with the carnival, litter picking, bob a job, planting a garden at a local National Trust property. This morning the scout group held a coffee morning in the village hall to raise funds for the scout hut and it was well attended by the local community and hopefully we will see many of the same people at the Remembrance parade tomorrow. All these activities take place outside the usual time he attends Beavers, but if we are around we attend.

My DS will be attending the parade tomorrow, and fingers crossed (I have dosed him up with calpol tonight as not feeling very well ) he will be flag bearer and I will be a very proud mummy.

Being part of the scout group is a big committment in my opinion and you have to be prepared to make this commitment. It encourages you to be part of a team and if you only turn up when you can be bothered that is not being part of a team. We have some children not turning up some evenings if there is a craft activity on as "boys don't do craft"

It might be slightly different for us,we live in a village with an RAF base in it and our church yard is full of war graves. We regularly look at them and discuss the people who have died,many of them were very young (the same ages as her cousins) and we have people going off on deployment to war zones regularly. We think about the people who die for our country on a daily basis not just once a year.

YANBU.

Last year my ds (a cub) didn't want to go. I made him because I think it's important for lots of reasons. This year, he is looking forward to going because he found it interesting and he realises its important. The march to the church service is a big deal in this village, and there's always a high turnout.

YANBU. It instills a sense of discipline and that life isn't about doing all the fun stuff, but also the stuff that matters.

I used to be in Church Girls Brigage (loved it). Our (savvy) leaders used to sometimes take us to the beach after Church service on a Sunday as a treat. Only those who attended Church could attend and everybody at the usual fun meeting on a Thursday heard how great it had been.

I don't think the OP was cross with the Beavers who had other commitments, but the ones who just "didn't want to go".
As a rule of thumb - or at least a starting point, my dc will attend whatever is on the calendar first, and not drop that to go to something that is an extra for that week, but, that said, occasionally things are deemed to be more important and we negotiate with the group they are missing. That, however is different from just not bothering.

Have actually joined Mumsnet after lurking&reading for aeons purely because the "Guides/Scouts are a Christian organisation" comments on this thread made me want to weep & joining so as to post a response seemed preferable to that.

Neither Guides nor Scouts have EVER been Christian organisations: they are faith-based. Baden-Powell, in the earlyish days (IIRC it was in the early 1920s) of Scouting, had a Scouter complain to him that there had been no mention of Jesus during a Scout's Own at a Jamboree. His response was something along the lines of "How would you have liked it if the service had been all about Allah? Not much? Then shut up about it." (I am paraphrasing massively, but that was what he was getting at.)

It is an incredibly common misconception that Scouting & Guiding are Christian organisations - probably because there are lots of Units in the UK with strong ties to churches (generally as a result of meeting in church halls) which will usually lead to there being a tradition of attending Church Parades & sometimes a slant towards the Christian faith in the Unit programme. However, there are Units linked to Mosques, Synagogues & Temples that are more focused on the related faiths; and there are groups with no "affiliation" at all (generally ones that meet in Scout/Guide huts).

I do think that if a Unit is part of a faith community there needs to be a certain mutuality of support/interest & that in Guiding & Scouting you can't just be there for the "fun" stuff. Scout & Guide groups are not simply Youth Clubs - they include the Serious as well as the Silly & children should be doing it all (as far as is possible) not just turning up for the stuff they [think] they [will] like best.

Yes I am with you on this. My dd is a Brownie and goes every week unless sick. But some of her friends pick and choose i.e. skip it if it's Guy Fawkes or learning to wash your hair outside or, as you say, Remembrance Day. I think that part of joining a group is about learning to commit and not skipping it when they have a better offer. Mind you, their parents are the same so I guess they are going to be like that no matter what.

If beavers is normally during the week and this is a weekend then the family may have something already arranged, plus if they are atheists the fact that it is part of a church parade not just going to the remebrance memorial may put some people off.
Plus although you call it "duty" will anyone be disadvantaged if only a few beavers turn up? They are too young to "remember" anything about either world war anyway as are most of us now. You can't remember something you never experienced. "Commemeration" Sunday would be more appropriate.

Well two Beavers turned up, Ds was flag bearer, which was lovely. I did feel sorry for the leader who kept checking the door to see if anyone else was coming. interestingly the scouts, cubs and guides had a much better turn out. It was a lovely service, and ds is glad he went.

Sadly, 2rebecca, watching the rememberance service in London, there are all too many young men and women who remember their war only to well.

OP, YANBU. There are some awful disrespectful posts on this thread, which unfortunately show exactly why there were so few children at the parade your DS was at.

Well done on doing the right thing and ensuring he went.

When my DDs were in Brownies, it wasn't one a year, it was about once a month. At first, I thought like you, but after a while, it was a bit much.

Incidentally, DS doesn't go to Cubs, but does play rugby for a club every Sunday morning. If he was in Cubs, should he miss rugby, and therefore let down his team, to go to church with the Cubs? (They have a minute's silence at rugby, in case it's relevant.)

As I have already said, I feel on this occasion Beaver's came first- he did miss football- but at other times, football would come first. If another activity linked to Beaver's was on a Sunday morning, he would not be missing football, so would not be able to attend.

At his pack this is a twice a year commitment- St George's Day and Rememberance Sunday- so I think it is not too much to ask for Beaver's who are available, to attend.

Well done to your son, Missmapp.

Good to see you here, ZebraOwl.

The fact there are few people alive who still remember the world wars is exactly what makes it all the more important that people make the effort to remember what has been sacrificed, and what still is being sacrificed by those in our armed services and their families.

I have just returned from parade, it is lovely to see so many people young and old parading or lining the route showing their support.

Exactly, Sirzy. Remembrance Sunday is emphatically not just for the dwindling number of people who lived through the world wars.

The service I have attended for years has always had the names of the fallen read out by war veterans then same 6 have done it for as long as I have been going, over the last few years their numbers have been dwindling as you would expect. Today only one of those Veterans was there but 5 ATC Cadets took the place and proudly read out the names on the fallen. It was very moving to see the next generation ensuring these people never get forgotten.

DS (13) went to parade again, I go just to see how impressive the ATC are. DS has just updated his FB to say RIP for those lost in wars.

Now winding up little brother, of course.