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It turns out that there are numerous local honor societies in scouting. Only the Order of the Arrow is recognized as THE national honor society. The site below lists a great many of these other societies and you can click on the various societies to get more history and current information. http://usscouts.org/usscouts/honorsociety/honorscout.html I grew up in a different part of Missouri and remember hearing about Mic O Say, but never knew what it was. I also remember Roe Bartle, the regional executive for what was then Region 8 (The Great Central West). Only saw him once at some kind of gathering. A very dynamic personality.

Most of our weekend campouts are one night affairs. Leaving on Friday evening is advisable if the trailhead or location of the activity is some distance away. It is also a good idea if the activity is at a significantly higher elevation. This gives bodies a few more hours to adjust to the elevation. Given the involvement of so many of our boys in sports, pushing Friday departures would seriously cut into partcipation.

The only change that I see is evolutionary in that BSA seems to be more demanding in ensuring that adult leaders are properly trained for the event they are leading. Thus one sees more types of training syllabi being created and more training being offered at the council and district level. "Climb on Safely" comes to mind. Units were engaging in rock climbing for several years before BSA caught on to this and began to create a training requirement. Tour permits are also more specific in requiring that the trained adults be identified by name. Personally I think this is a good thing. Concerning Class III forms, no amount of training can substitute for good judgment. Training will help people identify those situations where Class III is required. I don't know if there is an accepted definition of strenuous. One should consider distances to be covered, loads to be carried, altitudes at which people will be working, the season of the year, the difficulty of the terrain, water temperatures, weather, and anything else that may make one activity more strenuous than another.

There probably is no point in trying to provide a layout for each unit participating. There will likely be a lot of variation in tentage used. The most successful approach I have seen used is to allocate and demarcate space based on the number of people coming in each unit, marking lanes clearly. It may be possible to create a schematic of this ahead of time for distribution to people when they show up.

I tend to ignore posts by people I have identified in my mind as rude and insulting. I read posts by new people and those whose opinions I am generally interested in. I won't miss them.

There isn't a troop anywhere where organized youth sports are available that doesn't have this problem. We have not had an issue with early departures so much as late arrivals. If you force scouts to choose you will lose a lot of scouts. I think it is fair to impose participation requirements as a pre requisite for a leadership position, but tolerate non leaders attending partially. It does have to be controlled to make sure everybody does their fair share of work. There is also a safety issue in knowing where people are at all times. You need to establish a procedure where late arrivals check in with the adult responsible for the outing, and early departures check out. As suggested in one of the other posts, throw it up to the PLC to discuss and come up with a policy.

Does your committee have an adult "equipment coordinator" designated to work with the quartermaster? Where is your stuff stored? Is stuff checked out to patrol leaders or other youth by the QM for each outing? One thing I have found successful is to have a clean up event a couple of days after an outing, if it fits into the calendar. Every scout who enjoyed the use of the equipment gets to help clean it up. I have no suggestions for getting scouts to take care of their individual gear. That remains a parental problem.

If I remember correctly, advancement is a method of scouting, not an aim.

We can at least establish a range. I think we are into four figures, not five, and certainly more than three.

Great thread. I too do not know where all the rules came from. The safety rules I fully support, but one has to wonder about the rest of it sometimes. Part of this is driven by the insidious influence of the plaintiff's bar on society in general. The bureaucratic mind set is to create a procedure or rule to hide behind rather than apply common sense to any given situation. Look at what is going on in the accountancy and medical professions today.

I agree with the other posters that Class III forms are required. Having revisited G2SS on this, there are three criteria than can be applied to the question of Class I, II, or III. These are (1) the duration of the event, (2) the strenuous or non strenuous character of the event, and (3) access to emergency medical services. Anything that is less than 72 hours in duration, that is not strenuous, and where EMS is readily available requires only Class I. Anything greater than 72 hours in duration (e.g., summer camp), that is not considered strenuous, and where EMS is available requires only Class II. Anything that is strenuous and takes place away from ready access to EMS requires Class III, regardless of duration. This could apply to weekend activities. I have required Class III for non strenuous events where I knew we would be isolated from help for an extended period of time. Why expose yourself, the chartered organization, the unit, and everybody concerned to additional liability by not following the requirement?

Units are free to organize the adult side of their unit pretty much any way they see fit, as long as proper regard for the decision making roles of the scouts is taken into consideration. The official BSA guidelines for committee operations suggest what organizational experts would call a "functional" structure with individuals assuming specific responsibilities and performing specific tasks for the entire unit. The SM and ASM work directly with the boys on an ongoing basis. What is not addressed in the official guidance is the role that individual adults may play in planning and executing specific one off events. It has been my experience that larger units designate specific adults to "be in charge" of a specific event. I call them trek leaders, although the event may not include trekking. These people interact with the youth and the other adults to help pull the event together. Their names go on the tour permit. In effect there is a third structure of adults that revolves around events. We have moved towards expanding a subcommittee solely concerned with outdoor events and calendar coordination because of the volume of activities that we have. This subcommittee is responsible for training adults and includes the adult equipment coordinator. We generally make tour permits the responsibility of the trek leader. Personally I would not want somebody else to process a tour permit for me because I want to control what goes onto the form. Having said all that, I think it would be a mistake to delegate to a group of adults the authority and responsibility for events outside the committee structure. Such people should attend committee meetings to report and discuss the events for which they are responsible. You can't just turn people loose without oversight.

Zorn, Did you really mean that? Maybe you ought to rethink the point that you are trying to make.

The joining requirements for Boy Scouts (not Cubs) are stated on page four of the eleventh edition of The Boy Scout Handbook. This has nothing to do with rank advancement or how physically demanding requirements might be handled for physically challenged scouts. I have never had to deal with that kind of situation, but the rules are clear that for such scouts the requirements can be modified. By whom or how is not clear to me. Somehow I doubt that the unit has the unilateral authority to do this.

I for one agree with the national BSA policy on "avowed homosexuals" as members of BSA. I don't know if the three million figure is at all accurate, but that is largely beside the point. If such a family wanted their son to join a troop I was involved in, I would have no problem with that. Adult membership would be another matter. Regarding the percentage of the adult population that is homosexual, it is my understanding the ten percent figure came from a single question in the original Kinsey surveys done in the 1940's. The question was apparently something to the effect, "Have you ever had a homosexual experience?" Apparently 10% of the adult males responded yes to this one question and this became the basis for inferring that 10% of the adult male population is homosexual. Since I was molested as a boy scout by a boy scout leader once, I suppose that would make me gay too by this reasoning. The best current figures that I have seen, based on more comprehensive surveys put the male homosexual population at about 2% to 2.5% of the total male population of the US.

Bob White has taken me to task in other threads on this issue of voting. While formal voting is not normally necessary there may be situations where it is necessary. In another thread several months ago I think I was the first on this forum to use the word "consensus" to describe normal committee decision making. I also observed that in, what is now almost fourteen years as an adult volunteer, a unit committee in which I participated found it necessary to go to a vote only once. Bob is correct in saying that taking formal votes adds a usually unecessary layer of bureaucracy, but to take the position he seems to take, that a vote is never required, strikes me as a little dogmatic. For those committees faced with tough decisions where a consensus cannot be found, a vote may be the only way to resolve an issue. What is wrong with that? Just because BSA doesn't authorize the use of Roberts Rules of Order does not exclude their use.

In principle I have no difficulty with units, working through their PLCs, setting participation thresholds, particularly for leadership positions. I have no concrete thoughts on what those thresholds might be or how they might be administered. That is up to the unit to work out. It is interesting that our OA lodge, in its election instructions sent to unit leaders, defines a minimum quorum as 50% of the "active" membership without defining active. I presume this reflects OA national policy. When you think about it, just going off of the roster of nominally registered members, which includes everybody who re-up'd at rechartering time, will most likely overstate the active membership. Some boys are removed from membership. Some boys affirmatively quit. Some families move out of the area. Some boys simply stop showing up. The OA wisely gives some latitude to the unit leadership in allowing the unit to determine the starting number of "active" youth members in order to determine the quorum requirement.

Agreed. For the kinds of outings I am now involved the risk of the parent becoming the casualty is greater than the risk for the boys. So I get data on everybody, self included, and we carry two sets of the forms in ziplocks in different packs.

To respond to some of the points raised... It is correct that at least one youth has to be elected by the unit during the election cycle for the unit to be able to nominate an adult. If no youth is elected, or no election occurs, not adult can be nominated. I have been in OA longer than some participants in this forum have been on this earth. There is no denying that popularity has a lot to do with getting elected. If the OA election has degenerated to nothing more than a popularity contest within a unit, then the adult leadership needs to look at what it is doing. Most elections that I have observed have resulted in deserving scouts being elected. That does not mean that some other deserving scouts were not elected, but few outright jerks get elected regardless of their superficial popularity. Most boys take this more seriously that this most of the time. It is up to the unit leadership to see to it that the election is presented properly to the boys. Candidates, both youth and adult, should strive to go through their ordeal within the council in which they are elected. OA national has a policy prohibiting candidates from doing their ordeal outside their local council. If you anticipate electing some youth candidates and those candidates having an opportunity to do their ordeal outside their home council, you had better talk to the OA adult volunteer hierarchy before doing this. Talk to the lodge advisor and see what he or she tells you. I get the impression that most lodges no longer conduct their ordeals at summer camps. You should have plenty of chances for your kids who may be elected to go through their ordeal with your local lodge.

There isn't that much difference between Class II and Class III. My reading of the requirements for Class III is that Class III is required if the activity is particularly strenuous or if you are going to be in an area where emergency medical assistance is not readily available. It remains a judgment call even so, but that is my understanding of the difference. Also, all scouters at all levels age 40 or greater, both male and female, are required to provide a Class III annually regardless of the program being pursued. Class III is the best standard to adhere to, since you will always have met the requirement for Class III and Class III will serve for Class II. If you do not have Class III forms on file and you believe you need Class III then you have to send everybody back to the doctor. Those who are considering Philmont should be aware that Philmont has its own form which is even bigger than Class III. As far as I can tell the Philmont form really is a Class III, but it contains language for the benefit of the parents and medical practicioner regarding the nature of the activities at Philmont. It really puts the practicioner on notice before they sign the form. I don't know if the other high adventure bases have yet different forms. Concerning the legal question, in our unit the permission slips include explicit authorization from the parent for the scout leaders to authorize treatment.

There are some committee actions that are difficult to execute without some kind of voting; specifically approving an annual budget, approving the calendar, and key personnel decisions. While committees should and do normally operate by consensus, I think every person who shows up expects to do more than simply report and accept their next assignment. There is no boy scout procedure for voting, but Robert's Rules of Order will do very nicely when required. I agree that it can be dangerous to impute too much authority to unregistered parents who show up and do nothing else. It is also correct that the SM and SA's are not technically members of the committee. If you exclude them you risk losing them.

There is a committee handbook. As I sit here I don't know the publication number. You might be able to download a copy off of the BSA National website. The committee has the authority to change the program the boys want, but the committee should not be ignoring the boys' preferences as you describe.

It seems to me that the Class I form is all that is required for an event or activity lasting less than 72 hours that is not considered too strenuous. It also seems to me that any form is considered to be good for a year unless the condition of the scout, or adult, changes. That seems awfully loose, but is consistent with Bob White's statement that a great deal is left up to the unit. You can either collect, and re-collect, this information on an event-by-event basis, or collect it once and hold in a single pair of hands such as the cubmaster in your case. However you do this, separate copies of the information should be in the possession of the adult named on the tour permit and his or her deputy. It does no good to leave the medical forms in a file somewhere. If you maintain a central file, then copies can be made for the specific youth or adults for whom a form may be needed for a specific event. In the case of Webelos, since parental presence is required on a camping activity, I would think the issue would be of somewhat less concern. That may be why the question of the medical forms did not come up. There are separate rules regarding Class II and Class III forms. Class I is essentially the parent providing information and certifying the fitness of the youth for the activity. This is the information gathered on the back of the membership application. Class II and Class III require the signature of a licensed medical practicitioner of some sort, normally a doctor.

Few chartered organizations do anything for their units. This is unfortunate, but maybe you just want to leave well enough alone.

Another way to think about a charter is that it is a license from the grantor of the charter to the council or chartered organization to operate the program and call the program a boy scout program. All licenses are contracts that impose requirements on both the licensor and the licensee. In scouting the license is subject to annual renewal. I don't know, but I presume that national does have some expectations and ways of measuring councils in deciding whether or not to re charter a council. Presumably it is largely a pro forma exercise most of the time, unless a council has really screwed something up. Does anybody know of a council that has lost is charter?