Vladimír Novák

* 1946

Boy Scouts
1968 - 1970 - Second renewal of Junák, 1989 - Third renewal of Junák
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    Summer activities in the Pioneer

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    “I liked being the leader of children, and we managed to keep it for one more year. At that time I was already a student of the secondary technical school, and since the four of us, that is us three brothers and our sister, did not travel anywhere for vacation, we did some summer activities with those kids instead. We were writing a chronicle, going on trips, and many other things. All these activities were then evaluated. Eventually, the leader who got the best evaluation was some girl about whom we knew that she had not been doing anything with her kids. She would just take them to a forest and let them loose there, and they weren’t really doing anything much, but her father was a painter, and he created a beautiful chronicle for her, where they made up some false stories, and thus they placed first. I was so devastated by this that I simply didn’t have the courage to tell my kids how things were, and we didn’t continue anymore it. I stopped being a leader in Pioneer.”

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    Daughters as Girl Scouts

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    “I don’t recall any problems with our daughters when they were adolescent. They were occupied with Scouting and I think that it has helped them a lot in their lives that they tried to be self-reliant. For instance, the older one then moved to the countryside and she had to cut firewood for herself and do everything around the house by herself. Thus it was good for her that she knew how to handle an axe and saw... I was the leader of the unit, and one day I was looking for my daughters at home and they were not there... They were twelve years old. They left the house and took a saw and an axe and set out to the Owl Valley to build a shelter there. I thought I would have a heart attack. They just went by themselves, without the leaders. Nothing happened to them, fortunately.”

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    "Admission not desirable"

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    “The principal was tough and anti-religious. Apart from him there was another communist in the house council, and thus although I finished the eight grade with just four Bs and passed the exams, I was still only as an extra on the list of admitted applicants. On my Mom’s urging Dad got angry and he sent a letter to Prague, demanding explanation why pupils with three Cs had been subsequently admitted to that technical school whereas I with only four Bs was still on the list of extras. They invited Dad to come there and he found out that there had been some five hundred applicants and some hundred and fifty or hundred and twenty of them were admitted. They showed Dad my application, where the principal had made a note. Admission not desirable.”

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    Kladno, 16.03.2012

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I have experienced something nice and I should pass it on to the others

Vladimír Novák
Vladimír Novák
photo: Pamět Národa - Archiv
photo: Pamět Národa - Archiv
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  Vladimír Novák was born in Prague in 1946, but he spent most of his life in Kladno, where his family moved when he was five and where he has been living up to now. Since his childhood he has been gifted in sports and fine arts, and later he made use of these talents in his Scouting activities. He began working with children already when he was in the 9th grade of elementary school when he was asked to lead a Pioneer troop of younger pupils. He however could not deal with the injustice in the Pioneer organization and he left. He returned to children in 1968, when he and fellow Scouts established the 9th Boy Scout troop in Kladno within the unit which is now called Orion. He was awarded with the Order of Scout Appreciation and the Medal of the Blue River Land. In 2009 the regional council approved him as a member of the Svojsík’s troop.

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