By Jay Shenai
Nicole Dennis is a “Timberwolf” leader with a scouting organization known as the Baden-Powell Service Association, or BPSA for short. She makes time for scouting for herself and her eight-year-old daughter Reece, in between running her own sales business and waiting tables at restaurants, because of the importance to her of experiencing the outdoors.
“I enjoy the simplicity,” said Dennis, 29, owner of Abiqua Naturals, “getting away from being so hectic, where there is no wireless.”
“When you’re out in nature and you’re disconnected it makes you more observant of the things around you.”
It’s a shared love of the outdoors that brought four parents together late last year to form a local chapter of the BPSA in Silverton.
Currently there are five adult leaders in the Silverton group, with seven Timberwolves (ages 8-10) and one Otter (ages 5-7). The group meets twice a month, once for scouting meetings and once for community service projects. Members could be seen marching in the Homer Davenport Parade. There is currently a waiting list for youth enrollees as the group seeks additional adult scout leaders.
The goal is not to compete with the Boy Scouts of America, according to Astrid Potter, 42, group scoutmaster and one of the driving forces behind the founding, but to adhere closer to the vision of Robert Baden-Powell (1857-1941), the founder of scouting.
“We are brother and sister to all scouts,” she said.
Although the organization has been in the US since 2006, the BPSA has existed in various forms around the world since 1970, according to the group’s web site, and is a member of the World Federation of Independent Scouts (WFIS), which joins together over 5 million scouts from 130 organizations in 64 countries.
Per the BPSA web site, the group “harkens back to the origins of scouting: promoting self-reliance, good citizenship, training in habits of observation, and loyalty.”
According to Potter, one main difference between the BPSA and other scouting organizations is a willingness to integrate boys and girls together with adults and people of all identities into a shared scouting experience. Adult BPSA members must clear a national background check before joining, she said.
“We have always been open and honest about the differences that exist between different cultures, and different religions, and why it’s important to be respectful
of the differences and similarities,”
Potter said.
“[Separating boys and girls] wouldn’t be true to who we are,” she said.
For Dennis, this inclusivity has a special appeal. A Girl Scout as a child, she remembers her own frustration at having to earn sewing badges while boys got to work with pocket knives.
“I don’t like the idea that boys do this and girls do this,” she said.
For Astrid’s husband Russ Potter, 42, being a team leader in the BPSA has given him a chance to impart outdoor survival skills on the pair’s nine-year-old son Joseph, skills he had learned growing up and in eight years of service in the US Army and Army National Guard, but not widely taught anymore, he said.
“I always wanted to show him all this cool stuff that I did,” he said.
However, it’s about more than camping, according to the Potters.
“The outdoors is a lot of fun and I love spending time with my family,” Astrid Potter said, “but my interest in the organization is in the citizenship and community service side.”
“It’s not just the direct benefit of service, but the indirect effect of having children in the community that are well behaved, confident and reliable, and spreading that to their peers,” Russ Potter said. “It’s a community building organization, from the children up.”
There’s an effect that Nicole Dennis can already see in her daughter Reece. Normally pretty reserved, she always tries to hide her smile, she said. At a recent camping event, however, she remembers watching Reece with the other children, learning to light a fire with flint and tinder. It was fun to see her take pride in her accomplishments that day, she said.
“She was the kid smiling in all the pictures,” Dennis said. “It’s awesome to see her show her feelings.”
