11 regal Record The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 110 No. 10 £1.50 November 2005 AT THE ALPHA-SPES DEBATE, 18 OCTOBER 2005 ( 1 to r: Gerald Vinten, Jennifer Jeynes, Joan Smith (Proposer), Chris Bratcher and Norman Bacrac (Seconder) at the reception in the library after the debate. For a report on the debate, That the Christian God is a myth, see October 2005 ER UNCLE SAM AND SCOUTING FOR ALL Shaun K. Mason 3 SHOULD THE ABORTION TIME LIMIT BE REDUCED? Liz Hoskings 11 VIEWPOINTS — Chris Bratcher, Donald Rooum, Paddy Lewin 13 RAY TALUS AND THE "EXTRA-NATURAL" Tom Rubens 15 THE POLITICS OF THE EUCHARIST FROM JESUS TO MARX (I) Ron Heisler 18 ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 24 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8034 Fax: 020 7242 8036 Website www.ethicalsoc.org.uk email: [email protected] Editor, Ethical Record: Norman Bacrac SPES ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, 13 NOVEMBER 2005 At the above AGM, the following were elected to the General Committee for three years: Norman Bacrac, Donald Liversedge, Miranda Perfitt. The other existing GC members are: Jean Bayliss, Aubrey Bowman, Harold Hillman, Donald Langdown, Edmund McArthur, Terry Mullins, Kyvelie Papas and John Rayner. There is one vacancy. The General Committee is regarded by the Charity Commission as constituting the Society's Charity Trustees. Elected as Holding Trustees were Donald Liversedge and Harry Stopes-Roe (for one year each, being over 75) and Tom Rubens (for ten years). The other existing Holding Trustees are: Norman Bacrac, Terry Mullins, Diane Murray, Gerald Vinten and Barbara Ward. Malcolm Rees has resigned since becoming an employee of SPES. SPES GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING, 23 NOVEMBER 2005 At the,above GC meeting, the following Officers, who constitute the Executive Committee, were elected for the coming year: GC Chairman: Terry Mullins Hon. Representative: Donald Liversedge Vice Chairman: Edmund McArthur Hon. Treasurer: Christopher Bratcher Hon. Registrar: Miranda Perfitt Hon. Editor: Norman Bacrac Subcommittee membership (convenors first) Finance & Hall: T.Mullins, N.Bacrac, C.Bratcher, D.Langdown, D.Liversedge, E.McArthur, with the Hall Manager in attendence Programme, Library, Editorial & Policy: E.McArthur, N.Bacrac,D.Liveisedge, T.Mullins, M.Perfitt with the Librarian and Archivist in attendence. Staff Structure: T.Mullins, N.Bacrac, D.Langdown, D.Liversedge, E.McArthur, Sunday Concerts: The Executive Committee. SPES Staff Acting Administrative Secretary: Malcolm Rees LL B Tel: 0207 242 8034 Administrative Officer: Victoria LeFevre, MA. LibrarianlProgramme Coordinator: Jennifer Jeynes, tASe Tel: 0207 242 8037 Archivist: Malcolm Rees LLB. Tel: 0207 242 8037 Conway Hall Staff Hall Manager: Peter Vlachos, MA. , DMS Letting Assistants: Carina Kelsey, Nanu Patel Tel: 020 7242 8032 Caretakers: Eva Aubrechtova, Shaip Bullaku, David Wright Tel: 020 7242 8033 New Members Jason Courtis, London E8; Giles Enders, Exhibition Curator, London N16; Mrs Yvonne Mayer, London N1; Paul Rattenbury, Alderler Edge, Cheshire. 2 Ethical Record, November, 2005 UNCLE SAM AND SCOUTING FOR ALL Lecture to Ethical Society, 22 May 2005. Shaun K. Joynson A little known but very fierce battle has been taking place in America fought in the most unlikely of places — the Boy Scouts of America. The fight has been between the religious fundamentalists who appear to be dominating that organisation and secularists and gay rights activists who are trying to fight them off and return scouting in America to its traditionally secular roots. This battle which - according to George Davidson, Legal Counsel of the BSA - has been the cause of '25 years of unrelenting attacks' has reached such a pitch that it has led to attempts to change US law and has even prompted leading American legal experts to hold conferendes to discuss the constitutional implications of the matter. One such conference was held last Wednesday. The soldier at the forefront of this battle was none other than a 13 year old boy. Why was something as innocuous as scouting the setting for such a bitter battle? After all, isn't scouting just that silly club where they make grown men wear shorts and lemon-squeezer hats in order to teach boys how to tie reef knots and help old ladies to cross the road? That might be most people's perceptions in this country - but scouting is more than that and to understand Why, you have to know something of its history. A Daring Social Experiment Most people credit Robert Baden Powell — hero of the siege of Mafeking during the Boer War - with starting Scouting. But he did not. What Baden-Powell did was to carry out a daring social experiment in the summer of 1907. It consisted of his taking 20 boys on a camp held on a small patch of mosquito ridden land on Brownsea Island, just outside Poole Harbour in Dorset. One of the reasons why BP's experiment was so daring was because the boys came from all walks of life. Some were the poorest of the poor from London's East End, while others were from highly privileged backgrounds and attended schools such as Harrow. Once on camp all class differences were set aside and the boys were divided into 4 teams of 5 — called patrols and set to work on a series of teambuilding activities Baden-Powell had designed. His method of dividing up the boys is another example of why this was such a ground-breaking social experiment. The decision to break them up into this number was based on Baden Powell's observations of street gangs. He noticed that boys tended naturally to congregate together in numbers between 5 and 7. Indeed, if you observe the hoodie dressed street gangs that menace our streets today, that still tends to be the case and 'the patrol system' whereby troops of Scouts were divided up into self-contained groups of 5 to 7 Scouts still forms the basis of the Scout method of delivering training. Any teacher will confirm that it is a lot easier to train children in small numbers. Ethical Record, November, 2005 3 The other successful element of this experiment was that it demonstrated the great levelling power of Scouting. It wasn't the case that the high class boys naturally rose to the top of the camp. Very often the best boys turned out to be the poor ones, and again, this is still true, not just for children but for adults as well. For example, in one group I worked alongside four other leaders. Two of those leaders had two university degrees and a masters each, while the third was just finishing her degree. I had been educated at Ruskin College Oxford and the London School of Economics, but the fifth member of the team — our leader, because he deserved to be — was a dyslexic plumber who had left school at 16. So, the unqualified success of that experimental camp prompted Baden Powell to write a book entitled Scouting for Boys in which he listed the training methods he used. The Best Selling Books Of All Time Now here again we see why Scouting is so important. If you look at the list of the best selling books of all time, you will see that the Bible tops the list, closely followed by the Koran. In third place is Chairman Mao's Little Red Book; while in fourth place is Scouting for Boys by Robert Baden-Powell. When it was first released in January 1908, Scouting for Boys was a part work that was intended to be a guide to the kind of activities that youth groups around at the time — like the Christian backed Boys Brigade — could run for their members. However, what happened was that CHILDREN started buying Scouting for Boys in vast quantities. And, they were so excited by it that they set up their own Scout patrols to run the new activities. One child who brought one of the first copies was 14-year-old Harold Price of Chiswick in West London. As a result of reading the book, he formed the 1st Chiswick Scout Patrol with a group of friends. This patrol was so successful that Harold soon found other children demanding to join his new gang. Unable to cope on his own, Harold approached Tom Foley, the organist at his church and a noted outdoorsman, and asked him to become their leader. Tom quickly agreed, but the next problem was to find somewhere to meet. Both being churchgoers, Harold and Tom approached the minister of Chiswick Free Church, where they were both congregants. The church was happy to provide a hall, but only if they could recruit the Scouts as potential believers. However, Harold's circle of friends included Jews, Catholics, Baptists, and some downright heathens. So the offer from the church was tumed down in favour of a room in the basement of a shop owned by Tom Foley's father. And it was in that basement at 468 Chiswick High Road — which today is a funeral director's - where the 1st Chiswick Scout Troop began meeting in September 1908. Open To All Regardless Of Faith Mindful of the diverse nature of his friends, Harold declared that the Troop must always be open to boys - and 90 years later - girls regardless of whether they had 4 Ethical Record, November, 2005 a faith or not. That principle was ingrained into every member of the 1st Chiswick from then onwards, including into myself, when I became their leader in 1994. Sadly, the 1st Chiswick ceased functioning in 2003, and became integrated into a neighbouring group that was started in 1909 by Hubert Martin, a man who later helped spread Scouting around the world.