Let  me introduce  JUNK -  the Association  of the  Boyscouts and  Girl
Guides in the Czech Republic.  Members of WOSM and WAGGGS
Skautské køiovatce.

Our organization was  founded by A.B.Svojs=A1k in 1911.  JUN`AK was banned
after the nazi occupation in 1940,  after the communist coup in 1948 and
after  the  Soviet  occupation  of  our  country  in  1970.  Scouts were
persecuted,  but all  the time,  scouting had  been continued here, even
illegally. Since 1989 we have existed legally again.

At  the moment  we are  members of  IFOFSAG, WOSM and WAGGGS.

We are  the merged organization  (one organization, one  administration,
but  too   different  programs  for   boyscouts  and  girl   guides,  no
coeducation). At the moment our organization has got approximately
70 000 members (our country has got 10 000 000 citizens).

We are using these age ranks :
(info about  spelling: because I  can't send the  Czech alphabet through
the Internet, instead  of the "hacek", originally a  small "v" above the
letter,  I  have  to  use  "  ~  "  before  it,  instead of the "carka",
originally a small comma  above the letters, I used " '  " before it and
instead of "krouzek", a small circle above the letter, I use " ` ")

6-11 years
vl~cata/wolf cubs and sv~etlu~sky/fire flies
(the  name for  our brownies  was  chosen  by the  book Brou~cci  by Jan
Karafi'at)

12-15
skauti/boyscouts and skautky/girl guides

15-18(25...)
rove~ri/rovers and rangers

18-...
oldskauti/oldscouts


[The czech scout law and promises have been moved to the "law and promises"
article at the end of this FAQ]

As you can see, the Czech  scouts promise is quite unusual. It's because
of the  historical background. In  1911, when our  movement was founded,
our state  didn't exist yet. The  area of the todays  Czech Republic was
part of  the Austrian-Hungarian Empeire.  Czech people didn't  like that
absolutistic state at  all (government tried to oppress  them not to use
the  Czech language  and to  speak German,  in the  last years there was
a strong police state etc.). The main supports for regime were the army,
the police and the catholic church.  These were the reasons, that in our
promise  wasn't  the  loayality  to  the  king  or  to the supreme being
expressed.