Eagledad

Hi All >>So - I'm really down on Crews that skim the older scouts and leave the Troop with nothing above 14yr olds.

Boy, I must say I really enjoy your post Fuzzy Bear. You have a great grasp of all angles of this subject and have a gift into putting it all in words. >>We fail to appreciate the millions of other good citizens all around us that make up America and the world that have these same qualities but achieved them in numerous other ways.

Hi All Yep, Im with Semp, pray for crossover as fast as possible. Ive had good and bad experiences with Unit Commissioners (UC). It really depends on their ability to mediate. Not that many can do it very well and Semp is right that they would rather not get involved unless they are dragged into it. But since no other Pack authority will help, the UC is the next step. If that doesnt work, I would keep planning the agenda and sending it to the parents. In most cases the parents will go the route of the most reasonable adult. Make the agenda, if the scouts show up, great. If not, then look forward to the troop experience. I know it hurts, my wife and I had many sleepless nights. Many. Good luck. Barry

>>Another possible question would be: is a person with a religious-based moral code less likely to violate his own moral code than a non-believer with a philosophy-based moral code?> To be fair, BSA does choose wording in its statement of religious principle that suggests religious people are better than others: "The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God...">As I've said before, I think BSA has good reasons for insisting on religious belief of some kind for membership--I just don't think better morality is one of those reasons.

Hi All >>I admit that I inserted that remark about Merlyn to see how someone would respond.>I think Pack's point may have been that morality, while most commonly linked to theology, can exist without it.

Hi All Wow, great responses. Our pack camped every year and I think it was the key contributor to adult recruitment. I have a couple questions though. Nobodys planning a Sunday service? Its can only 15 minutes long and if you can get that guitar playing parent, it adds a little skip in your step for the rest of the day. Fotoscout, Great reply, but I guess I dont understand the marshmallows thing. Our families always ended the evening with smores. Does it get anymore outdoorsy than that? A few things we did are; have a theme, cowboys, Native American, Pirates, or whatever. Have everyone dress in costume and give your activities a name under the theme. Its gives the den some things to do a meetings before the campout. Most of the families are not campers, so its best to plan menus and even buy the food in balk for all the dens. That way you know that they will eat well. I personally like to cook as a pack. Make sure you have plenty of coffee and hot chocolate in case its still a little cool in the morning. Have a plan B for weather. Boy Scouts will camp in anything, but families are a little different. We gave the rescuers of the Oklahoma City bombing a whole weekends worth of food because the eleven inches of rain over Friday night forced us to leave the camp early Saturday morning. We had a great campfire next week though. I recommend camping with pavilions that will hold the whole pack. This is a wonderful subject. Barry

>>BSA stats show that the largest % of boys leaving the program are doing so from Cub programs meeting only twice a month.

Hi all Im not taking away from EagleInKy because he is pretty sharp with this scouting, but Im one of those leaders that only had two meetings a month. Now it may be my situation that I had 16 Webelos. I just could not do a quality meeting in one hour, so I changed to an hour and a half twice a month. Could only two meetings hurt the scouts preparation for Troop meetings? well I never saw that come up. I never even thought of that until now. Its worth considering, but the Troop program is a big shift in habits anyway. Now what I did do was have my Webelos meetings along with the troop during the Webelos last three months. We would participate in the troops opening ceremony and then move on to do our own Webelos program. I did that to get them more accustom to being around older boy scouts and to see boy run in action. My Webelos meetings had four parts; the opening ceremony where one scout had to arrange other scouts to do a flag ceremony. The second part was program where scouts worked between two different activities that usually applied to the activity badges. The third part was a game or some activity that required the boy to RUN and have FUN. And the fourth was the closing where we also had an awards presentation of previous weeks earned activity badges. The parents usually showed up early to watch and cheer this part of the meeting. If I had any advice about Webelos, it would be dont set goals for the scouts. Instead build a fun program of activities where if the boys participate, they will get the badges. Dont work on badges, instead work on skills that the theme of the badges are attempting to teach. Each badge took at least two meetings to earn, some more. I delegated parents to plan and lead all the badges. They all took pride in it and did a much better job than I could ever do. I would suggest looking at the AOL the first year of the program. I cant say whether you should do two meetings a month, only that it worked for my sixteen families and me. Barry

>>This discussion keeps missing the main point of the Atheists- why should their perfectly good morality be excluded from BSA?

Hi All I've been at the other end of this. I was the guy the new SM didn't want around. In my case, I took off for six weeks without showing up for any meetings or campouts. When I came back, it was his troop. That also help me breakoff from the troop as well. The committee could ask this ASM to do that so the new SM can get use to the program, that would be the the excuse anyway. The old SM needs some time off to not be a SM. When he gets back, it will not be his troop. Also, I really like Semper suggestion. That is how I handled other adult situations similer to this. There is something about being in a public forum that levels the field. One on one, the ASM doesn't respect the SM as the leader. But in the group, the one ASM is outnumbered by eveyone else. He will still have opinions, but now its keep in check by everyone else, and the SM. As for his wife, she is pulled in by default. She is emotionally involved which is really hard because logical reasoning is not going to change her. Only her husband can do that. BUT, I found a way to deal with these kind of adults. I suggested, HIGHLY, that all the committee members turn there jobs into the boys jobs with them as the advisor. The advancement positioin is where we started. We gave the computer to the scouts and they had to fill in the Troopmaster every week. The adult then had to let the scout do is work, and check up after. NOw the reality is the adult doesn't really change her job that much, but her job description forces her to not be the owner of the computer, the software and 100% of the responsibility. There is suppose to be a scout in their somewhere. Finally I feel a little anger from you from the uniform comment. Emotions can make us take our eye off the ball. You have picked sides here, but I wonder why. Why do you think the New SM is better? My point is what backs you up that you and the New SM are right, and the ASM is so wrong. It might be that the undermining has the group so stressed that emotions are taking over. Get back to the basics, why is the new SM doing what wants to do? Why did the old SM do what he did? I kind of like both SMs way of handling the uniform. What is wrong with either method. This could just be a matter of needing to listen to each other a little more, which makes Sempers suggestion a really good one. Hey good luck. I always like to say that Scouting is a great program for our sons until the adults get involved. Don't let that happen. Barry

>>I guess I just don't find persuasive the argument that religious people are more moral because their morals are based on timeless, revealed values, when they can't agree on the values, the values change over time, and vast numbers don't even live by the values they claim to honor.>Whether you are religious or not, your system of morality is ultimately based on something that you have to take on faith--that you can't prove to be true

Hi Merlyn I don't understand, are you saying I'm a bigot because I'm not atheist? Are you saying we are both bigots because of different views of God? Barry

>>So with your religious beliefs, if your fellow scouts respect you, they won't want to make you uncomfortable

OK, if I'm out of line, I humbly oppologize. But didn't I read somewhere that after you've cleared the BSA out of the governement, there are other issues with the BSA you can still attack? By the way, just what do I say that makes me a bigot? Barry

Well said Acco You have a great writing skills that make it easy to understand your point. I wasnt talking about extreme lamb killing examples. We have to keep a level of common sense in the discussion so we can get to our viewpoints. I have never heard of a situation where a scout was offended by another scouts religious difference. I not saying it hasnt happened, but to me that is such a small acception that we shouldnt react by restricting all scouting. My reply on the food allergy is more of an example that it is no less respectful to offer several options than to restrict the options. That doesnt mean if a person is truly offended, the group shouldnt also respect that. But in most cases, I would go the way of less restrictions. Not just because that is the easier solution, (to me anyway), but because I think that is the character value I want the boys to practice when they approach all diverse situations. Sometimes the respectful thing to do is allow the group to do what we personally dont like. I think it would be a bit much to ask a group of people to hide a crucifix because you have a personal problem with it. You can and maybe should explain your problem, but the crucifix is pretty much a symbol everywhere. For whatever reason, I hate to watch people spitting. Yet, spitting is normal in many situations, especially sports. As a soccer coach, I just sucked it up. As for the prayer of the week, well even you said it is not a big issue, I find its not an issue to most people. I believe one learns more from it than going the other way. With that said, I would say that 98% of all the prayers heard in our troop is the Philmont Prayer. It all works out. If it doesnt then you can react and bring your adult wisdom into it. My main point was I view holding the boys back from expressing their difference is more harmful than what our fears are trying to prevent. I found the boys work these things out fine, maybe they should guide the adults. Now if they really want to kill a lamb, well maybe that should be held until a survival campout. Barry

Thanks Trevorum, I cant remember where I got my numbers, but they dont really change the point. Most every law or policy, good or bad, is Judeo Christian driven. Your examples Hunt are basically self-serving behaviors that have pushed the boundaries values for many hundreds of years. Man learns from his struggles and the pendulum swinging one way or the other because divine revelation keeps trying to pull it back to the center. Slavery comes to mind. Man's flaw is we have to see ourselves at our worst to become so disgusted that we turn away and change. I have found that eternal truths dont collide as much as mans interpretation of the eternal truths. For example, the Christians are blamed for resisting the acceptance of homosexuality as normal behavior, yet much of their support comes from the Old Testament or Jewish books. And I understand the Korans readings on the subject is much stricter than the Old or New Testament. God is of one mind, but man has to learn the hard way. Im not sure what we are debating really because what Ive stated is pretty much just facts, not opinion. Our laws and the laws of Western Europe are based from Judeo Christian principles or values. Atheists either accept those values or make up their own do to lack of any other resource. Let me ask this, Merlyn_LeRoy pretty much admits he is out to kill the BSA because he wants revenge for its discrimination against atheist. What value in the scout law or oath would support that kind of action? Barry

>>out of respect to people with differing (and especially minority) viewpoints>I also don't think it's enough to give the minority Scout his turn to offer a prayer invoking his own deity--you're still emphasizing his position as a minority

>>A person who feels that he or she cannot offer a nonsectarian prayer should probably decline to pray publicly in such a situation.

>>While religious people believe that their morality is based in divine revelation, different religions have different revelations and different moralities. (Plus most religions have changed their positions on various moral issues over the years.) So this argument is pretty hollow for BSA.>BSA doe NOT define "God" as the Judeo-Christian-Islamic deity known respectively as Yahweh, Jehovah, and Allah.

Hi all Boy, everyone has given great wisdom in their replies. Six month old, wow! I think it can be done, but Im with Semper, CM takes a lot of time to do the job right and can easily take the fun out of the job. Committee Chair (CC)? I agree, if you dont have a good CC, your work will double because the title of Cub MASTER naturally pulls pack business matters to your phone. Rewarding, I have to say it was a blast, but it took me a couple to really get it right. How do you get parents involved? Keep the meetings fun and short. Anything longer than an hour is too long. My meetings of 80 scouts were usually about 50 minutes long when I got good at it. And everyone should be smiling or laughing all the time. If the boys start talking to each other, that part of the meeting is too boring and needs to change. If you do it and manage to have fun with it, it will be a highlight of your life. Have a great week. Barry

Happy Monday All I guess after all these years, I have lots of mommy stories. But as n adult growing up from what the scouts could teach me, I learned that moms are the same as dads, they only want the best for their sons. They just have a funny way of doing it. Moms are just different until they see the program work. For me, I used more experience to teach about boy run to improve my skills of explaining each part of the program and how it made their son better. I found that if I couldn't explain the value of a part of the program, I researched until I could, or I take that part out of the program. One mom learn to trust and love the program so much that when she moved to another state, she made the SM of their new troop call me to learn the boy run program. It's hard to explain feelings of pride and humilty crashing together in that microsecond. Thank goodness the other SM was a really nice guy. Buy I really wrote this reply to brag about a mommy that helped a lot of boys by touching my heart. She was the one who taught me how to do this scouting stuff. She changed my life I guess. I'm one of those adults that you can still find the heal marks where they dragged me into this program. Through a slight of hand, I becaame the CM of broken Cub Pack of 90 scouts, eight new adult leaders, and one experienced leadere. Debbie, the experienced leader was a Webelos Leader with lots of years of wisdom she had gained through many years of Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts. She showed me how to keep the program focused on the boys, to make sure that character counts and that little boys aren't really boys, but men without experience. I can't even imagine how things would have been different had she not given me that push start. I was blessed by that mommy. Barry

>>No, it requires THE GOVERNMENT to accept everybody. Public schools are agents of the government. >Would you prefer giving public schools the authority to create, say, whites-only football teams (even though non-whites are also taxed to pay for the school)? Refuse admission to Jews (even though Jews are also taxed to pay for the school)?

>>And if you don't think anyone has ever suggested that certain races or creeds are better at things like chess or science, you need to get out more.>This isn't restricting freedom of choice, it's insuring that government agencies like public schools don't unlawfully discriminate.

>>And since Fischer successfully argued in court that his clubs can discriminate, the only legal recourse is to have all public schools stop their Fischer club franchises.

Hi All >>And therein lies the lesson. The proper time to rise depends on whatever is needed for that day.