eisely

I have seen it done both ways and both ways seem to work. First of all, only Webelos are allowed to camp overnight at all. Having cubs of all levels visit and observe the camporee is a great recruiting vehicle. In that district where joint Webelos and Boy Scout camporees were held on the same dates and the same location, there were completely different activities for the Webelos. It seemed to work well and I never heard any complaints.

I stand corrected on one point. G2SS Safety Afloat does state that a non swimmer can ride as a passenger. This would seem to exclude participating in paddling, although that would seem unnecessarily restrictive. Just for the record, every float trip or canoe outing in which I have been involved has always required that all participants at a minimum pass the BSA swimmer test. BW's point about further conversations with the parents is well taken.

The following news story suggests that the Philadelphia council is conflict with national policy. Assuming the story is accurate, it is not obvious that there is a conflict. Food for thought...should a council that goes against national on such a controversial issue lose its charter? ______________________ Philly Scouts Promise No Discrimination Thu May 29,10:45 AM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo! PHILADELPHIA - The nation's third largest Boy Scout council expanded its nondiscrimination policy to include sexual orientation, defying the national group's anti-gay stance. The board of the Cradle of Liberty Council, which has 87,000 members in Philadelphia and two neighboring counties, voted unanimously this month to make the change after discussions with gay activists and other community leaders that began two years ago. "We disagree with the national stance, and we're not comfortable with the stated national policy," council Chairman David H. Lipson Jr. said. The code of the national Boy Scouts of America organization requires members to be "morally straight," though no written rule specifically addresses homosexuality. A call to Scout headquarters in Irving, Texas, was not immediately returned Thursday. Its national convention was beginning Thursday in Philadelphia. In 2000, the national group went to the Supreme Court to defend a ban on gay leaders, saying that as a private organization, it is free to choose its members however it wishes. The Scouts won the case, but the battle led some businesses and public schools to reconsider their ties with the organization, and at least 50 United Way offices pulled their contributions. A few months after the court victory, gay activists and others objected to funding by the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania for a youth development program run by the Boy Scouts, even though the program was open to anyone. "The reality is, we did get some pressure from other groups who said, `This program may not discriminate, but this organization does,'" said Christine James-Brown, president of the regional United Way. The United Way organized the talks that led to the council's nondiscrimination statement this month. "There was anger about that (national) policy. I think people set that aside and said, `Let's try to make it work in this community,'" James-Brown said. In July 2001, the Boston Minuteman Council approved a bylaw that effectively allows gays who don't reveal their sexual orientation.

I wish to express mild disagreement with the previous post. Ideally you should have no more than two people in a canoe. If an odd number of people go on a canoe outing, then one person rides as a passenger and people take turns paddling. While non swimmers are allowed on float trips with a properly certified lifeguard in the canoe with them, this does not mean they are not allowed to paddle, particularly if there is an even number of people in the total expedition. It is unfair, ridiculous, and unnecessary to say that a non swimmer in this circumstance is not allowed to paddle. They should be required to paddle. The basic rule for loading canoes is that there has to be eight inches of freeboard for safe canoeing. If there is an odd number of participants on an expedition, loads just have to be distributed properly so that each canoe is loaded safely. This includes consideration of the weight of the people themselves, not just the gear. Ideally each person should be in the canoe where their personal gear is stowed. The canoe with three people just won't carry as much crew gear, if any. I have been there and done that. le Voyageur has made the point in other posts that conventional lifeguard training does not encompass moving water rescue. So, if anything resembling whitewater is to be encountered on a float trip, I would not be inclined to accept even the compromise contemplated by Safety Afloat. I have never paddled the boundary waters, but from my understanding it is almost all flat water. If this is where the expedition is going there may not be an issue. The idea that the troop is obligated to hire a lifeguard for the expedition is also over the top. If the parents want to pay for the lifeguard, fine, but even then it might not be a deal. The adults in charge of the event should have the final say in these matters. They are the ones who will be responsible should bad things happen.

I noticed in our council newsletter that the Western Region is offering this course this year.

It probably would have been better if the marchers had been prepared for rain with something other than umbrellas. Depending on the surroundings and the type of storm, umbrellas might even pose a lightning hazard. When I was an ROTC cadet I learned about the US Army attitude towards umbrellas during a downpour. We were in Class A uniforms and had just finished some close order drill when the sky opened up. I had an umbrella by my books at the side of the drill ground and walked over to my stuff. As I was leaving holding my umbrella over me, I was called over by one of the cadre officers who informed me that in the US Army officers did not carry umbrellas. He observed that if we were in the British army we could carry umbrellas. After I folded my umbrella and we were both getting wetter, I asked him, "What do we do?" He, thoroughly soaked by now, responded, "We just get wet." I guess it is a good thing that it didn't rain in Iraq last month.

My response would be tailored somewhat to my perception of the audience, but I would say (1) we emphasize fun for the boys, (2) we introduce boys to the outdoors and other skills that they might no otherwise ever lear about, in a way that emphasizes safety, and (3) we try to teach values. I know the official position places the third response first, but I don't think that is what people necessarily want to hear in the kind of conversation as the first words out of your mouth.

Amazingly strong words from a council representative on this issue. Taking everything in the previous post at face value, it seems to me that the council has a cause for action against United Way for breach of contract. I stopped giving to United Way a long time ago.

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the uniform one of the eight methods of scouting? Shouldn't this be kept in mind? I agree with all the posts that sugggest serious discussions with the youth leaders to garner their support for full uniforming. We have gone to full uniforming (finally) for all functions except car washes and camping, and it makes a difference. It is also critical that adults set the example. Adults who are slovenly in their appearance are better off in civvies. At least they are not setting the worst possible example. Maybe the adult ought to submit to a uniform inspection by the older scouts. Just a thought.

As an aside in all this, the fellow who was kicked out of scouting for declaring his atheism (name escapes me, but he lived somewhere in the Seattle area) apparently had his eagle board at the unit level. I do not know from the public record as reported in the newspapers if there was any district representation at that particular board, or if there was, how effective it may have been. This fellow and his parents claimed he had been an atheist for some time, even before he got his eagle. Apparently his mom chaired the BOR. Hmmm.... All the eagle boards I have ever seen have been conducted by the district. This is not always feasible and units can do their own eagle boards, but the district should clearly be represented.

There are no official guidelines of which I am aware. Here is what I suggest: Save all membership records at the family and unit level forever. Both the unit and the scout's family should maintain complete advancement records. I suggest to new parents that they purchase a three ring binder and get the plastic pages that baseball card collectors use. All your blue cards, membership cards, OA membership cards, training cards, and rank advancement cards will fit nicely in that. Save all of them. Forever, or at least until the eagle rank is received. The unit should preserve training records for its adult leadership (anyone over 18). The treasurer should maintain files of bank statements, and statements of individual scout accounts if the unit holds funds for each scout. I would probably discard any such records more than ten years old. Separate files should be set up for major outings. These are valuable resources for planning future activities. These files should contain the permits obtained, menus, and information about other special requirements (e.g., bear canisters, special training required, transportation, etc.) We also ask the outing leaders to submit a roster of attendees, including nights camping, miles hiked, and miles biked for each outing to the advancement coordinator. This report should include a statement concerning major injuries, if any, and how these were handled. If there were no major injuries, the report should state that. Likewise, separate files might be desirable for meeting activities, particularly if you think you might repeat certain events in the future. Saves re-inventing the wheel. Correspondence files of letters of recommendation and letters regarding disciplinary actions should be maintained, probably for ten years. A real lawyer can advise you further, but these suggestions probably exceed any legal requirements.

Something like this is always disturbing and very hard to deal with. I am sure that you are up to it. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Echoing what le V has said, I would not rely solely on the resources within the troop for this kind of outing, unless you have someone on hand with a lot of qualifications. I would be inclined to deal with a commercial outfitter that provides guides and all the gear. It is more like being entertained than going on an outing, but the single most important thing is to be comfortable that you are in good hands.

I agree with the advice to contact the district OA advisor. If there is no one acting in that capacity find out the name of the council (lodge) advisor. I also agree that holding an election should not be an option of the unit leader, although many do decide to neglect this part of the program. One word of caution. Nights camping has to be accumulated in activities under the "auspices and standards of BSA." Camping with the family or with other youth groups does not count. Also, the camping has to be done in 24 months preceding the election. You cannot simply count everything a youth has ever done if they have been in scouts more than 24 months.

One activity to include on your agenda is the "electric map". It sounds really tacky, but it is definitely worthwhile. This is a commericially owned and operated tourist attraction. What they have done is create a relief map of the entire battlefield in a large room. The spectators sit on bleachers elevated above and around the map. They turn the lights down and the map comes alive. They have put little pea lamps in the map showing the ebb and flow of the battle along with narration. It really is informative and unique. You come away with a much deeper understanding of what happened.

I don't see any reason why they could not donate directly to the troop and take the deduction for the charitable donation. There has to be a precedent out there somewhere. Somebody who is a tax attorney could provide a more affirmative response.

Cutting back to Massachusetts for a moment - apparently the Boy Scouts were not the only people having difficulty with the Minuteman sympolism. This from the Wall Street Journal... MINUTEMEN RELIEVED:In face of a public backlash, the University of Massachusetts has backed down on plans to drop the school's mascot, the Minuteman. Athletic director Ian McCaw was quoted as telling the Associated Press that the Minuteman logo--a white guy with a gun--not only wasn't cutting it in the lucrative logo market but was plagued with unfortunate "gender, firearms and ethnicity issues." The Massachusetts Daily Collegian editorialized against the change, quoting ESPN's Tony Kornheiser: "Without Minutemen there would be no University of Massachusetts, there would be the University of England at Amherst."

LauraT7 Your question about oldtimers deserves an answer. The OA people in charge of any given ordeal will typically have very limited information about the health issues of any particular candidate. Our lodge is now finally at least asking the right questions. If you or anybody else has any limitation, this should not prevent you from participating in an ordeal, but it should be brought to the attention of the adults in charge so your needs can be properly accomodated and the ordeal still be a meaningful experience. Yarrow's original post reminds me of an incident when I was a scout involving a tornado. It was not an OA event. I was leading an overnight canoe trip on the Lake of the Ozarks ten miles from the main camp. We were in a completely isolated camp site accessible only be water. A tornado passed nearby that night. We got a little wet, but everybody just sucked it up and lived to tell about it. I do remember standing in the rain with the lightning and trees crashing about us asking myself what the h--- I was doing as an 18 year old out there with all these kids.

Going back to Saltheart's post about the Minuteman council... When the Mel Gibson movie "The Patriot" was coming out, there was some commentary about the absence of movies about that period in our history. Think about it. Besides "The Patriot" can you name one movie based on the Revolutionary War that you have seen? One commentator suggested that one reason that period was neglected by Hollywood was that our freedom from Britain was won by working class white guys with guns. How much less PC can you get? I hope they keep the Minuteman name for your council.

When fund raisers become goals in themselves they are out of hand. Several years ago in a different town, the folks running the PTA at our elementary school one year went hog wild on fund raisers for no reason. There was no idea or vendor that they turned down. They totally burned everybody out. Set a financial objective based on the program needs and work towards the objective. Anything that overshoots that objective should not be done. Fund raisers also need to be evaluated in terms of their payoff in relation to the effort and risk. Some fund raisers just don't make that much money. Manage your volunteer resources as if you were paying them and ask yourself if a particular idea makes sense.

The man of Steele beat my last post in. I was referring to the previous post.

Somehow I think not.

Hey I made a rhyme... The news story below relates a name change for a BSA council in Virginia. I have no strong feelings about this one way or the other. I presume that the local decision makers know what they are doing and what will serve scouting and youth in their area best. Nevertheless, I wonder how many other councils and districts are insufficiently PC. ________________________ Va. Boy Scouts Remove Confederate's Name RICHMOND, Va. - Robert E. Lee's name is being removed from the uniforms of Boy Scouts in central Virginia, a change applauded by some black Virginians but criticized by a Civil War heritage group. The Confederate general's name has been used to identify the Richmond-area Boy Scouts of America since 1942. The executive board of the Robert E. Lee Council voted last week to drop Lee's name from its title and logo, beginning sometime next year. Local Scout executives plan to have a new name in place by June 2004. "The suggestion box is open for any and all ideas," Scout executive Robert A. Tuggle said. He said removing Lee's name "was the right thing to do." Board members "acknowledged Lee as an outstanding man, leader and influential person in our country's history," Tuggle said, "and changing the name ... has nothing to do with the character or opinions" of Lee. King Salim Khalfani, a former Scout who is now Virginia director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (news - web sites), believes the decision will boost minority recruitment for local Scout troops. "It is something whose time has truly come because (Lee's name) has been a sticking point for many in the African-American community and many progressive and non-Confederate-loving whites and others," he said. Brag Bowling, commander of the Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (news - web sites), disagreed with the decision. "American history has very few people who have represented honor and integrity such as General Lee," Bowling said. "His fame is worldwide. Everything which General Lee stood for are virtues which all people should subscribe to."

It was about two years ago that the BSA in South Florida entered into an agreement in Dade County to refer youth who self identified themselves as homosexuals to other youth oriented homosexual programs. I do not know the details of that agreement, but apparently it has fallen apart. Hopefully other sources of funds will become available. Too bad the political activists are willing to sacrifice a beneficial program for minority youth to their agendas. This story is from the Miami Herald. ________ United Way in Dade ends Boy Scout funding Disadvantaged areas hard hit BY KARL ROSS kross@herald.com The United Way of Miami-Dade on Tuesday discontinued its funding for boy scouting programs, saying the local Boy Scouts of America affiliate failed to abide by an agreement requiring it to help gay youths cope with their sexuality. In a private meeting, the United Way's board of directors voted unanimously to withhold its yearly funding grant of $480,000 for ''traditional scouting programs,'' according to the agency's spokeswoman, Tamara Klingler. The grant serves primarily to pay the salaries of scout leaders in low-income areas including Little Havana, Liberty City, Homestead and Hialeah. About 4,200 kids, most between ages 6 and 17, will be directly affected by the cuts, she said. Boy Scout leaders criticized the decision as ''unfair'' and said it could curtail services to three times as many youngsters in Miami-Dade County because of a ''spillover'' effect into other administrative areas. ''We really think this is a breach of the county's trust in the United Way,'' said Jeff Herrmann, scout executive for the South Florida Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Herrmann said the cuts are poorly timed, as the organization gears up for summer camps and wilderness expeditions. He said scouting programs will have to be scaled back unless funding is obtained elsewhere. LATEST SETBACK The funding hit, effective June 30, is only the latest setback for the Boy Scouts of America since a 2000 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the group's ban on homosexual scout leaders -- a policy critics decry as bigotry. More than 50 United Way affiliates -- including those in Broward County, Orlando, Seattle and San Francisco -- have terminated their funding in recent years, costing the organization millions of dollars. Some of that lost funding has been offset by ''designated giving,'' as United Way donors are still entitled to direct contributions to specific programs, the Boy Scouts among them. A six-point agreement between the United Way of Miami-Dade and the South Florida Council, reached in July 2001, was touted as a national model for depoliticizing the funding issue. `DIVERSITY TRAINING' Under the terms of the accord, local scout leaders would have been required to undergo ''diversity training.'' The training would have been crafted with the help of Project YES, a Miami group devoted to the needs of gay youth. Klingler said the purpose of such training was learning how to orient ``the young boy who might be questioning his sexual identity, who might think he's gay.'' The South Florida Council agreed to the training, but the Dallas, Texas-based national organization stonewalled its implementation, she said. ''The signals constantly were that the national organization was not happy with this agreement,'' said Harve Mogul, United Way of Miami-Dade's president and CEO. The Boy Scout's national spokesman, Greg Shields, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. United Way executives say they will consider directing some of the funds to a character building program called Learning for Life, a subsidiary of the Boy Scouts of America, as United Way organizations have done in Boston, Los Angeles and Cleveland. That program is endorsed by state education officials and administered through the public schools system. ''We still have to do our homework before we make that decision,'' Mogul said. The United Way of Miami-Dade was a major funding source for the South Florida Council, which runs scouting programs in Miami-Dade, Monroe and Broward counties. The Broward United Way suspended its funding in 2001. Only the Monroe County United Way has not shut off the funding spigot, kicking in $5,000 annually. ''We're talking about nearly half a million dollars,'' Herrmann said. ``That's roughly 20 percent of our annual budget. So it's a serious blow to the council's ability to deliver scouting programs.'' The council is holding a press conference today at its Miami Lakes offices to appeal to the community for funding, he said. Herrmann said the Boy Scouts do have diversity training, but balked at the particulars in the agreement reached with the United Way and the gay rights organization SAVE Dade, which helped broker the talks. ''We did look at expanding our training until we understood what they expected from us,'' Herrmann said. ``We will not engage in lifestyle training. That's not in agreement with scout oath and law.'' He added the Boy Scouts would not refer youth in its program to ''groups we are not comfortable with'' -- meaning gay service organizations. TELLING PARENTS Herrmann said the organization's policy remains to tell the parents of gay youths about any concerns about their sexual orientation. He said the parents can consult their clergy or spiritual advisors. Gay activists say such a policy could be devastating to gay youths, who have a higher-than-average suicide rate. They say scout leaders should be aware of counseling alternatives. Jorge Mursuli, past executive director of SAVE Dade, said he was disheartened by the turn of events. Mursuli helped negotiate the 2001 accord. ''It's a shame the Boy Scouts have chosen not to live up to their commitment,'' Mursuli said. ``I think the community was really optimistic that we'd reached an original compromise.'' Fallout from the controversy can cut both ways, as was seen in Oregon last month when a United Way chapter there severed funding after adopting a nondiscrimination policy. The agency had allocated nearly $500,000 over three years. The cuts prompted one Multnomah County commissioner to resign from the United Way's board and threats from elected officials to stop payroll-deduction campaigns, The Oregonian newspaper reported. Elsewhere this year, a Cook County forestry board withheld granting the Boy Scouts permits at a suburban Chicago campsite it had been using for years. The board was concerned its ban on gays might violate the county's human rights ordinance.

These are tough issues. I see no compelling reasons for term limits for indians, but I do see reasons for term limits for chiefs. One of the most difficult things to do is to remove a volunteer. In the instance of age, such people should not be disposed of completely Even if a person cannot do a commissioner or SM job well anymore, there is still a role for them somewhere in the movement. There is too much valuable experience there just to send such people away.