dsteele

NJcubscouter -- The degree of difficulty varies greatly by church and denomination. I had a Hindu Scout in my troop and he worked toward his award. By my judgement, there wasn't much difficulty to the award at all, but it was his religion's award. Created and administered by the religious leaders and recognized by the BSA. I meant the comparison with the presidential physical fitness award only from the point of view that both are important awards, but simply not allowed on the Boy Scout uniform. Wiccans have their own type of scouting and I applaud their program from what I've seen, but that doesn't mean we should allow their awards on a BSA uniform. And yes, if you have a Cub Scout who is a Wiccan and he earns that religion's award, I think it should count toward the requirement. DS

AK-Eagle and I are kicking back by the coals. Come on in, if you're still awake. Http:/groups.msn.com/BoyScouts DS

Laurie: Best of luck to you in your quest. I like the advice you've been given and the direction you've chosen. I also remember a simple sentence my first Scout Executive (meaning the one who hired me into the profession) said when we watched four Boy Scouts utterly screw up a flag-raising. Please keep his sentence in mind as you proceed to learn BSA leadership. He shrugged, smiled, and said, "Well, we're not finished with them yet." Amen to Floyd Seibert. A good mentor, even to a fuming District Executive. I have since changed my philosophy a bit . . . DS

NJcubscouter put a question on the table as follows: "I have a question about this. Both the Bear and Webelos ranks have requirements that say: "Earn the religious emblem of your faith." Can a boy satisfy these requirements by earning the UU religious emblem?" The answer is yes. It says nothing about "approved" religious emblem, or "uniform wear" religious emblem. The religious emblems are created and established, indeed governed by their respective religion. There is an organization who's anacronym is P.R.A.Y. that helps with administration. The BSA picks and chooses which emblems to recognize for uniform wear. The BSA recognizes the importance of religion with the requirementsmentioned above, not the importance of a medal on a uniform. It's kind of like the Presidential Physical Fitness award I won in fifth grade. It never occured to me to wear it on my uniform -- I earned it through school and not the BSA. DS

Regarding the District Commissioner, Eamonn and FScouter are mostly corrrect, but when it comes to district nominating committee and the district election process, the District Commissioner is a different story. Districts don't elect their district commissioner. They recommend the individual for the job. The recommendation is to the council executive board with the approval of the Council Commissioner. Technically speaking, Eamonn, if the Scout Executive wanted the District Commissioner out of that position, it should have been the Council Commissioner doing the removing. FScouter and Eamonn were right on in that he who does the approving should do the firing. It's also understandably confusing when you wonder who is doing the approving. (Just having fun with "ing" rhymes.) I'll be happy to entertain further questions DS

Bob58 -- when you scroll to the bottom of this post, you'll see why I didnt' answer your question posed (I believe to me) on the previous page. You were correct when you discussed the charter, property and the Unreregistered Unit Report. Nicely done. Bob White, your answers are correct as well, with the possible exception of the question of whether the tenure goes to the chartered organization, the charter, or the unit. This is a grey enough area that there is actual leeway on the part of the council. I've dealt with variations of this theme several times. Here's how I usually decide how to call that particular shot -- right, wrong or indifferent, when there are no solid guidelines, someone has to make a judgement call. Usually the key three has heavy input into it and makes recommendations to the Scout Executive. My general sense is if the only thing that is really changing is the chartered organization -- which has given up the charter and equipment, etc., then what you really have is a continuation of the unit under new ownership. The number and tenure remain. The above is the exception rather than the rule. A lot of other variations on the transfer the tenure idea have been attempted, and I have not allowed those. One was "Well, pack XXX used to be down the street and the church is gone, but they still have an account. Can we restart that pack and keep their tenure? (and their bank account, I might add.) Answer: No. Dave Steele PS -- Bob58, don't apologize to me, I should apologize to you for not answering your question sooner. I can't fault anyone for calling me Dan when I usually end my posts only with "DS."

I'm nmore of a James E. West man, than a BP man. Is what you're looking for the original book BP wrote "Scouting for Boys" that was the run-away best seller that got the movement started? BP-ers, please correct me if I'm incorrect in my guess at the title. DS

Scouter56 -- Welcome to the forums. There may actually be no help for your unit. First of all, please realize that your unit dropping sometime in its history had nothing to do with you or the current unit leadership. Secondly, the BSA treats unit tenure very seriously. If the unit dropped in the past, the tenure clock usually begins again when it finally recharters. I don't say that to be mean, it's just a reality. However, I think your unit should proceed with its celebrations regardless of what the official recording of tenure is. This will harm no one. If the unit was, for example, chartered from 1925-1945 and dropped because the male leadership (who were the only allowable leaders during that time) were drafted into WWII and started back up in 1949 and has been continuously chartered since 1949, I would wear the 75 year strip and count our units tenure as being 78 years with a clear conscience. I hope this helps. DS

Eamonn: Thanks for the nice story. I bet the poor kid was surprised when he got wine instead of the grape juice he's used to tasting. DS

Many any too numerous to name them all, my Scouting memories include: Lighting the candle over the Wolf badge when I earned it. I had never played with matches because my Mother strongly warned me against it and lighting that candle was a first. I held the match upside down and burned my fingers. I remember crossing over into Boy Scouts -- what a thrill! I remember one of my first campouts as a Boy Scout -- a polar bear at the district Klondike derby. We were sitting around on bales of hay and the one my Scoutmaster was sitting on caught on fire. I never saw him move so fast. 10 minutes after he put the fire out, it started again behind him. He didn't believe us until he felt the heat. Then he moved even faster! I remember my first week at Rota-Kiwan for long term camp. Being called out and going through my Ordeal. I remember that it rained like nobody's business during my vigil. I remember being my father's Vigil Guide and being very proud of him. It never occurred to me that he was proud of me as well. I remember my Eagle Court of Honor and kissing my mother's cheek when I placed the pin on her blouse. I remember the day I got my commission as a professional Scouter. I remember my first troop meeting as Scoutmaster and I remember my last meeting as Scoutmaster and a whole lot in between. There were three boys there for the first meeting and 21 there for the last. I try, every once in a while, to imagine my life without Scouting -- and I can't do it. May the Great Scoutmaster of all great Scouts be with us until we meet again. DS

Merlyn -- If support by the government of the Boy Scouts of America were unconstitutional, we would not be chartered by the United States Congress. The latest attack failed. I have now expended more energy on you than is worth my trouble. Now I'm on to other topics. Good Day. DS

Merlyn: Go ahead and quote whoever you want. There are a few facts you should consider in your fight against us. The United States Congress -- which charters the Boy Scouts of America debated rescinding the charter within the last five years. They voted strongly in favor of continuing the charter of the BSA. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that as a private organization, the Boy Scouts of America has the right to determine its standards of membership. That's a two-thirds majority of the branches of the U.S. Government. No one has yet asked the President, but I would suspect that since all Presidents since at least Theodore Roosevelt (and it may have been Taft, I'm not sure) have been Honorary Presidents of the BSA that the Executive Branch is on our side as well. Your argurment isn't invalid -- would it kill you to admit that some of us are trying to be fair? -- but history sides with the BSA. DS

Pardon the heresy, but another one not to use is Follow Me Boys . . . The Scouts won't understand why their leaders are crying DS

Merlyn -- That question is better posed to the government agencies and the agents who sign the charter. It is they who are agreeing to abide by the policies of the Boy Scouts of America. The local council accepts. I don't want to encourage you in your quest and I can assure you that as long as agencies of the United States government are willing to work with the Boy Scouts of America, we will continue to work with them. However, I believe in fair reporting of the facts -- regardless of who it helps. DS

I thought the French word for "fart" was Indonesia.

I love the idea of this topic. Excellent thread. However, I'll have to get back to you. It will take looking at nearly 30 years of archives in my 38 year old brain and some condensing, but I promise you a few glimpses of memory. Please don't let this thread die while I dust my mind. DS

Sctldr: Actually, I was hoping to avoid further confusion by avoiding mention of the Varsity letter. There is one, and Varsity is also, as well as being a patrol in a Boy Scout troop (perhaps "is" should be "was") a stand alone unit. Varsity patrols and Venture patrols were rolled out at the same time (Sports leaning and high adventure leaning) in the late '80's-early '90's. Actually, I think you bring up a good point. Both terminology exists for an older boy optional patrol in a troop (Varsity and Venture patrols) or as stand alone units -- Varsity Teams or Venture Crews. Perhaps this is another reason the National Council (AKA BSA) did not see the terminology to be a problem. DS

It wouldn't surprise me if the reporter got Bev Buswell's title wrong -- I've been in several articles and have almost never had a reporter get my title correct. They usually try to translate it into somethine easily understood by the public -- which is perfectly understandable. Lead Advisor isn't a title in the BSA. Institutional Head is -- and perhaps that's what Ms. Buswell is. It sounds like it with the reference to "her charter." Now to the youth led thing. I agree wholeheartedly. The charter, however, is adult owned. The charter belongs to the chartered organization. Three signatures (all adult) are required on unit charters. Each of the three has a different purpose: The Crew Advisor, Scoutmaster, Cubmaster, sign off on the charter at the bottom to verify the membership of the youth listed. The council representative signs the charter to renew the agreement between the chartered organization and the Boy Scouts of America. (The goldenrod carbonless Chartered Partner Agreement forms available for free from your council office.) The chartered organization head (Institutional Head) signs that it will abide by the above-mentioned agreement and uphold the policies of the Boy Scouts of America. In essence, if the chartered organization does not want to agree to uphold the policies of the Boy Scouts of America, as was done in this case, the charter will not be approved by the local council. Just for the sake of clarification -- take a deep breath and pretend that the IH of a troop chartered to a Church wrote next to his/her signature on the line on the charter: "We fully support the Boy Scouts of America on the issues of religious belief and sexual orientation. However, we will set our own requirements for rank advancement, guaranteeing that every boy will receive Eagle Scout after 5 years tenure with our troop." Would you expect a charter to be granted or renewed to such an oragnization? I'd yank it. DS PS -- Ralph, congratulations! Sorry you had to see the elephant before you even started.

NJ -- I'm glad I read your post twice. At first I took it to be an attack, but now I believe it was not. As has been said, Exploring was under the traditional BSA programs like Cub Scouting and Boy Scouting until August of 1998. Explorer posts tended to fall into two broad categories -- those based on hobbies and/or high adventure -- and those that were based on hands-on-career education. There were lots of Law Enforcement Posts (some call them Police Explorers) and firefighters, etc. most of which were chartered to municipalities or other organizations. Now we're getting into theory backed up by some information: In the late nineties a municipality was sued because of it's Explorer Post which then had the requirement of a belief in a supreme being in order to join. Other suits were going on, but I'm only familiar with this particular one. In fact, the individual leading the charge is rumored to be the individual that sued the village previously to have the cross removed from the Village Seal. If you'll recall, the BSA was also fighting the battle that ultimately led to the Supreme Court decision. Tensions were high and I believe the National Council (which is made up of volunteers and professionals like any other council) took a good hard look at the difference between career education and teaching values. The Church youth group using the Exploring program and the high adventure explorer post look a whole lot different than the Police Explorers. They have different purposed. Both are good. So we needed to split them into traditional BSA type program and Learning for Life career education. Literally, each council had to submit a list of which was which in August of 1998. Now, to the original question -- why the name Venturing? Or the varation -- why not leave Exploring name as the traditional and come up with something new for the career programs? Let me answer, as best I can, the second question first. My theory is that a large portion of the career posts were police and fire. I could look up the numbers, but it's Friday evening and I'm getting tired. The police and fire explorers have uniforms -- that say Exploring, and are likely to have a post flag -- with Exploring on it. Possibly letterhead, etc. The uproar if they had to change all their "stuff" or felt they had to change all their stuff would have been bad at every level. Now, on the other hand, the high adventurer explorer posts tended to have no uniform. They didn't have any sort of advancement available, and program support was weak. So there was an opportunity to build a new program. But what to call it? Many other Scouting organizations around the world have names similar or the same as Venture. Perhaps our name for this new program should echo others around the world because they might actually travel to other countries and would be more easily recognized there. Whoops -- we're already using Venture Patrols. Yes. But think about how long it takes change to take hold in the BSA (and I'm not referring to attempts to change the standards of membership. I'm referring to program changes in this context.) For evidence of this, I point to a question under the thread about safe swim requiring a BSA lifeguard -- from the recent past. That was required for about six months ten years ago -- but someone remembered it and thought it was current. Venture patrols were introduced in 1989 or 1990. Took a long time to catch on and still very few earn, buy or wear the Venture letter on their merit badge sash. So, ultimately the National Council (again, volunteers and professionals like any other council) decided the new program will be called Venturing and will be different than Venture patrols in troops. DS

I must apologize to the person who asked me back in June how we got the list of second year Webelos. I didn't mean to snub you, I simply missed the question. Let me answer it now. One poster said, call the packs. Yes, that will work, but you'll miss some boys that way because the usual answer will include only currently active kids -- and miss those who may have dropped out since the pack rechartered, but may still be interested in being a Boy Scout. At the time we started doing this, Scoutnet wasn't even a dream. There was no way for the office to generate a list of boys by age or by grade. After some digging, I discovered that you could search by a window of dates of birth. Scoutnet can do similar searches, but more powerfully -- you can tell it you want Cub Scouts between the ages of 10-11. This isn't exactly a clean list of second year Webelos, but gives enough raw data to get started. The next step is to call the packs and ask them for their roster of second year webelos. If there's a name on the list from the council that is not on the pack's list -- ask about it. Perhaps he moved, perhaps he got bored, perhaps the unit just knows the kid hasn't shown up for two months. By the time you combine the two lists, you have a pretty good idea of who your graduating webelos or prospective new scouts are. DS

Not sure if I'd use it or not, but what was the name of the movie that was based on columnist Mike Royko and starred John Belushi. He was a columnist who had gotten crosswise with the mob and his editor sent him to the Continental Divide for several months. Very funny -- especially if you're about to go on a trek. DS

If I may address a point brought up in the original post on this thread -- the requirement of a BSA Lifeguard on canoe trips, etc. No, it isn't an urban legend -- it's just old information. For a brief period in or around 1992, the BSA did make it a requirement that if a troop was going to be in or on the water, they had to have a BSA Lifeguard. Someone implied that "Strongly recommends" opens the BSA up to be able to say "I told you so" at a later date if something bad happens. Actually, when the requirement was changed to a strong recommendation, I asked the National Director of Boy Scouting at a professional conference why it was changed. I believed him becaue I know how many of my troops, being unable to qualify, simply ignored the rule and went anyway. The rule was actually changed to protect troops and the BSA. If the BSA had a written requirement that said, as it did for that brief period, that you must have a BSA lifeguard and the troop ignored it -- the troop would be hung out to dry by the law. DS

Sorry to disappoint, Sctldr, but the Man of Steele (soon to be called Remmington by someone) had 60 hours of college English that netted him a minor in Literature. The major was social science and business, but the GPA was only 3.0 -- not enough for a double major. In spite of my only slightly above average gpa, I have to admit that I did get the joke. Thanks, Fat Old Guy, for the benefit of the doubt. DS

Mark -- Buddy, don't fret over spelling. If you can spell Presbyterian in your sleep you either belong to Lamda Chi Alpha (which I do) or there's something else wrong with you There was no offense taken other than we don't kneel. I was once asked to be a prayer sponsor to one of my Scouts who was about to be "confirmed?" whatever in the Episcopal Church. I did pray for him every day as I was supposed to, but no one told me I'd end up having to spend the entire day in his church with him. I did it gladly, but remember grabbing him on the shoulder when the priest came up the aisle and saying, "Tell me when I have to kneel." He did, and we got through the day when the Bishop layed hands on him (along with about another 150 youth.) I was real proud of the kid at the end of the day, but I'll never understand (although I respect) the kneeling thing. I do respect it, I truly do, but I simply wasn't raised that way. Kneeling is but one of the differences between many denominations. As to the stuff brought up in this thread about polytheism, monotheism, etc. as it relates to the BSA, I simply wish to point out that the Hindus and Buddahist organizations have religious awards recognized by the BSA. Zorastriasm also does . . . but I don't know what that means. If anyone can enlighten me, I'd appreciate it. I respect the sanctity of all religions as long as it is belived. That will probably light some fires, but oh well. The lack of a religion is not a religion. That's what I mean to say. DS

While I don't have the proper names in front of me at the moment, I suggest you give your newly appointed camporee chairman all the proper BSA resources for Camporees. There are backdating schedules, a pamphlet about the District Activities committe (which contains great philosophy) and, I believe, an even older resource that refers specifically to camporees. Ask an old (tenure) professional in your Scout office. If they can't come up with something, contact me privately offline and I'll see what I can dig up. DS