Okay, now we enter a less positive time in my Road Show history.
But before I comment on this, I need to explain how things changed from the
last Road Show to this one.
In the mid-1970s the Church noticed that the Youth Program
was completely run by adults. Each youth class had a presidency which meant a
leadership structure. But the youth leadership was almost completely ignored.
The adults thought up, planned, and executed all activities.
The youth simply went along for the ride.
So, rather than being an experience to help cultivate
leadership, the Church youth program simply entertained us. All we had to do
was show up and something happened. This was especially true when it came to
Road Shows. They were all completely controlled by the adults. The youth
neither had say or wanted say when it came to being in charge. We were all
pleased with the status quo.
But the Church was not. They could see great potential in taking
a program that already had a rich history, MIA, and making it a training ground
to develop youth leadership. Scouters would argue that is what Scouting had
done for years. I beg to differ. I was a scout an I learned very little about
leadership during all those years. But my disdain for Scouting is a topic for another
post.
