evmori

I think that is suppose to represent Indian Guides, not Scouting. They have pinewoods, too.

If a camp staffer yanked of my hat or one of my Scout's hats that person would lose their job and possible an arm.

Give the popcorn to someone who will sell it or try to return it. As Lisa posted, he's not going to pay you for it and if he has collected money for it, that's his problem not yours.

No. It's not the same thing. Yeah it is. You can cut your leg real quick while hiking through the woods in shorts. And if you have open toe shoes! Then total disaster is imminent! And while we are at it, we might as well ban knives! Someone could get hurt! Ed

I live in sandals in the summer and wear them at camp. If we are going to ban open toed shoes let's ban shorts, too, for the same reason - because something might happen.

I have a question - why do they have to wait so long for another BOR?

Short answer - No. Long answer - No it's not.

Common Sense should ALWAYS prevail!

The COR has the final say. However, when it comes to recharter time, just don't recharter the person.

Excellent! Thanks for sharing.

I don't think there was another person who would have done anything different. Good job!

I have always thought the way my council handles advancement to be a little iffy. Based on the way they calc it, a unit can have 110% advancement! If a Scout advances more than one rank in a year you can get these percentages. I don't agree with this method. If you have 10 Scouts and 9 advance one or more ranks during the year you have 90% advancement.

It's time for pie.

HIPAA applies to doctors and hospitals and emergency care facilities. It does not apply to the BSA. If you have the written permission of the parents to hold and dispense their sons meds, you are covered regardless of state law. Common sense people!

E V, When the application is turned in, the council checks the MB dates and other stuff against their database. If all is equal, the application then goes to the advancement chair. What if all but one of the MB's were done outside this Scout's council? What are they going to verify? Just because this council approve of this practice doesn't make it correct. I agree that Scouts should be using multiple counselors for MB's but until National makes this a requirement, a single qualified counselor may sign all of one Scout's MB cards. That's not an opinion, that is a fact.

You also need to protect the scout - not just HIPAA regs, but basic respect of privacy. HIPAA doesn't apply.

What denomination is this 800lb gorilla?

To get back to the subject, if in fact a Scoutmaster/father did sign off on the significant majority of the Scout's requirements to Eagle it represents a failure in troop leadership. To me, this statement is just as faulty as the blue card policy. There is no limit to the number of MB's a counselor can counsel. A Scout can use one or 50 MB counselors. A father/mother/uncle/SM ia allowed sign all of a Scouts MB cards. There is no requirement to own a Scout Handbook so requiring one at a BOR is ANOTHER direct violation on policy. Starting to wonder if this council does anything by the book??????

This has nothing to do with legalese! This is all about making a decision. The ASM made the decision not to count this for the Scouts and is sticking to his decision. Kudos to the ASM. One can only hope the SM will have his back.

We always had an adult assigned to "med duty" and kept the meds locked up. This helped ensure the kids got their meds and there was no abuse or theft.

That seems to be more common Eamonn. And I think it is coming from the attitude "It's all about me".

Except in my district, and I assume we are not unique, where the Eagle candidate MUST bring to the EBOR all of his signed blue cards. It doesn't matter that the Merit Badges appear on the computerized report from national, the blue cards must be there for the EBOR to review. And one of the things on their checklist (I have a copy) is "Good mix of merit badge counselors." I know this does not appear in the requirements, but I have to assume that if they decide that criterion is not met, they are not going to sign the application, and leave it to the appeal process. That may be an incorrect assumption, but then why would it be on the checklist in the first place? I'm not sure exactly what a "good mix" is, but I'm pretty sure that a Scoutmaster signing off on EVERY merit badge (see Basementdweller's post) would not be it. A Scout's father signing off on every merit badge would not be it either, and combine the two and obviously there would be a big problem. And then what happens if the Scout is already 18 at the time of the EBOR? And what happens if the Scout fails to bring the blue cards? Or they were all signed by the same or a couple counselors? This is one poor policy.

Based on the original post, it seems that this is a case of boys being boys and that the boy who got kicked and poked was nothing more than an accident. Since it seems you have a good relationship with the ballistic dad, maybe a phone call to him would be in order. I don't think I would go into his threats and such. Sounds like this was a reaction to his son ending up at the wrong end of the stick (pun intended). I would involve the PLC in this but not for any Scout violations. To me, there were none. The PLC involvement should be how to prevent this from happening in the future. It seems the adults are the ones who dropped the ball. A 7-10 minute walk away is pretty far away. Gotta ask why so far away? A parent meeting is what's called for. I would include the SPL since he stood up to ballistic dad for his perspective on the situation. I wouldn't make this a Q&A session but more of a "this is what happened & here is what we are doing to prevent this in the future" session. Good luck.

I am a bit conflicted on how to respond. How about the truth?

Boy Scout Merit Award? Did this reporter do any research? There should be a follow up article to correct the major errors.(This message has been edited by evmori)