FScouter

Kudu, I think he's still trying to inveigle BW into a logomachy, notwithstanding the confutative ejaculation that that is sure to follow.

There are hundreds of posts in the Uniforms forum complaining about the high price of uniform parts. Maybe that has something to do with overseas production. Of course I could be wrong.

Item numbers with a dash, as 57-492 are "bin" items. They are usually things like handouts and brochures you would find in the literature rack at the council office. In the case of the regulations, they would be so rarely requested I'd be very suprised if the council office even had any. The SE probably has a copy on his bookshelf but I doubt he's going to give it away. Bin items are usually given away at no charge, though the council has to pay for them. I've tried to order bin items direct from the supply division and have usually been told they are sold only to the council and the minimum order is 25, or 50, or 100. To my knowledge bin items are never listed in the catalog nor Scoutstuff.org. If you encounter resistance from the council about getting you a copy it's likely because they don't want to place a minimum order to give away one and have the rest gather dust for the next 10 years. There is no "secret" about them, but requests are so rare it is really surprising when someone asks. And likely as not what they really want is something else like the Troop Committee Guidebook, so don't be surprised if you get a lot of questions about what you want to know. They're only trying to help you. You really don't need them, which you will discover when you actually get a copy.

Every Boy Scout rank includes a written requirement to "demonstrate the Scout Oath and Scout Law in your daily life. Unless the Scoutmaster has excised the 12th point of the Scout Law and chooses to ignore the religious aspect of Scouting, there is no way a boy can skate through Scouting without it. The solution then is not to add requirements for religion, but to insist the program leaders enforce the requirements already there.

Comments along the lines of "dead horse", "I can't believe it", the trite "agree to disagree" (whatever that means), and pie all strike me as put-downs to the person that commented just prior. Its pompous and arrogant to suggest that discussion should be stopped simply because one has lost interest. Who gets to make the call as to when discussion is finished? Every individual can end his own participation whenever he likes. If someone is interjecting useless gibberish into a discussion, that can easily be interpreted as a tactic to squelch the ideas of another person and derail the train of thought. In such a case I think its the responsibility of every other participant to ask that person to knock it off. This should not be confused with a moderator locking a topic after much back and forth bickering between 2 or 3 individuals, which is a completely separate issue. That is an example of the forum membership failing to moderate itself, necessitating a moderator to step in.

It is important to have good meeting attendance. I think you best get that by having committee members that are committed to serving in their role in the best manner possible. Their unwillingness to meet at a different time is telling. If they were trained in their role and following what they learned they would expect the Scoutmaster (not a proxy) to attend the meeting and report on how the program is running and to discuss how they can best support the program. I'm always wary when adults sacrifice content for expediency and efficiency. They're likely also to want to determine the troop annual program, assign boy leader positions, dispense with the patrol leaders' council, cook for the troop on campouts, use troop meetings primarily for merit badge classes, and go to the same summer camp year after year. They do all this because it is more "efficient" and never learned that efficiency is not one of the aims of Scouting. If your troop is looking to avoid friction between adults, the best way to do that is for them attend the training for their respective positions and use the BSA publications for additional knowledge and insight. The formal regulations dont have a section with any statement about when to hold the troop committee meeting or who should attend.

"His time in Scouting will be honored and he may be "graduated" with a nice ceremony. " Hey, that is a cool idea! Include the 18 year old Scout in a final court of honor as he ages out of the youth program.

I dunno nothing about the intent. It says "You may use a week".

We can save lives and property 100 years from now or 500 years from now by what we choose to do today. Don't build or re-build in the flood plain. Seems pretty simple to me. Dikes and levees and dredging the channel are feeble and misguided attempts to prevent the inevitable. Time and again we think we can beat nature with another row of sandbags.

I happened to go to the California Department of Motor Vehicles awhile back. There is a literature rack there with all kinds of booklets: prep for drivers test, motorcycles, helmet rules, insurance requirements, smog certificate process, how to register a homemade trailer, driver safety for older folks, info about relief from auto repair scams, etc. All of them are based on the official state Vehicle Code. All of them are written to help the public get done what it is they need to do regarding motor vehicles. The official state vehicle code is nowhere to be found. Of course the branch manager probably has a copy somewhere on a dusty shelf in the corner of his office. If someone was to walk up to the counter and ask for a copy of the vehicle code, he would surely get a quizzical look and a reply along the lines of huh, what do you want that for?? Hed be sent over to the county library to see the reference librarian. I see the Rules and Regulations of the Boy Scouts of America in the same light. It just isnt needed by a volunteer. I doubt even the SE and the council staff ever has a need to crack open the book. Theres just nothing of use to be found in reg book that cant be more easily found in the commonly available publications.

"Should I not be allowed to heal others as I see fit? My track record will determine if I stay in the healing business." And leave a trail of dead bodies of your fooled innocent believers in your wake?

It seems pretty clear that if you are touring for more than 72 tours, the tour permit expects a copy of your itinerary and menus. For the camping merit badge it is abundantly clear that you dont meet the camping requirements by going to 20 nights of summer camp. One week is the limit. So if you want to call long term 10 days, you can use a week of it. If you want to call long term 3 days, you can use 2 and 1/3 trips before the week is used up. This isnt rocket science.

I do think it would be useful to discuss what purpose is served by moderation. While not expressly stated, the forums do have a mission. I see the forums as providing a place where folks can share ideas about Scouting, and thus promote the successful implementation of a Scouting program. The purpose of moderation should be to ensure there is no hindrance to achieving that mission. Folks wont want to participate if the atmosphere is not conducive to free exchange. As I see it, there could be a number of hindrances: Posts that intimidate or discourage others from expressing their ideas. Posts that drive away folks seeking help. Posts that add no value to the discussion, and thus make it difficult to find useful ideas. Anything that discourages other folks from participating. If the membership wants to develop a long list of rules and dos and donts, we can do that. If the Scout Law is general enough thats fine too. If you want a complete absence of control, Terry can eliminate the moderator team. There have been a couple of ideas presented. Lets hear some more ideas for moderation criteria and techniques. So far we have: -Use the Scout Law to determine when to take action. -Ask the originator of the topic for an opinion before taking action. -After taking action, identify the individual moderator that took action. -Send a personal response to the poster as to why action was taken. Thoughts? Frank

Welcome to the forums, congratulations, and good luck with the new pack. There are a lot of folks here that will offer a lot of good ideas for you. I'll offer one, rather negative I'm afraid. Call the district executive and DEMAND that a unit commissioner be assigned to the pack, and that you can't/won't get started without one. It's astounding that a district would have an idea to start a new pack and expect the Cubmaster to flounder around the internet with no idea about how to get started.

How do you reward the boy that does wear uniform pants? Maybe give him 2 ice cream bars and a handful of cookies, and let him help conduct the next uniform inspection.

The requirement says a week of long term camp. Not 2 weeks, or 3, or more. Long term camp is defined by BSA as A camping experience consisting of five or more consecutive days and nights in the outdoors. So the Jamboree counts, Philmont counts, summer camp counts, NYLT counts, a troop 50-miler counts, any consecutive 5 nights outdoors counts. The limit is one week, so take your pick, you cant use them all. http://www.scouting.org/Media/LOS.aspx

Similarly, the church pastor might scratch his head quizzically if someone from the district advancement committee told him the playground project would have to altered before it could be "approved", or if the kids were not allowed to use power tools, or if there had to be a "tour permit".

The answer to every possible question one could ever need answered may be found in the commonly available publications. Seek in the index and ye shall find.

The Boy Scout Handbook, Patrol Leader Handbook, etc. contain nearly all the information needed to operate a successful Scouting program. If there is an idea "The Regulations" will fix anything, that's a clear indication that either folks haven't read the Handbooks, or don't want to get along with one another.

OK. A question has been posed, though in a bit of a roundabout way. Should interjecting into an established topic be an acceptable or encouraged practice? Or more generally, is the Scout Law enough of a guide, or should there be clarification? Thoughts?

"So I'm not saying I'm confused. I'm saying like many other aspects of BSA policies and procedures I see plenty of different interpretations, even by those one would expect to have a full understanding." Right. The confusing part is trying to correlate the myriad (mis)interpretations of others. Paraphrasing Bob White, don't waste a lot of time reading more into policies and procedures that what is there. It's OK if the other guy has interpreted things wrongly.

Its plain to see Packsaddle that you arent happy with the forum moderation. I do believe I responded to your questions in sufficient detail. A post was made disparaging another forum member, and was dealt with. What else needs to be said? Your other concern about starting a topic on forum moderation has also been addressed. It is best not to hijack an existing topic of discussion into something completely different. I am sorry you had to repeat what you said in your deleted posts, but this new topic (now into 3 pages) doesnt belong imbedded in a topic about adult leader membership applications. To all, it might be helpful to discuss what you expect in the way of posting guidelines and moderation. I encourage constructive ideas and Im sure the rest of the moderator team does too. Feel free to comment here, or in the topic in the Announcements forum, or spin-off. Frank

"The references given earlier in this thread are incorrect. " Are you referring to the links to the national website being incorrect?

I thought it was clear that the moderation done in the leader application topic in the Council Relations forum was done by this moderator. I did state the reasons early in this topic. The post from Bob White was in response to the attack initiated by Gold Winger, with support from Ed. With the posts from GW and Ed being deleted, a defense from Bob standing alone then serves no purpose, thus it was deleted as part of the group. Packsaddle posted his objections, turning the topic into a discussion about forum moderation. The forum software has a spin-off feature that enables one to easily start a new discussion based on an idea from the parent topic. None of his posting would have been deleted had he chosen to spin-off or otherwise start a new topic. It really doesnt work to abruptly change topics in the manner that was done. There is no ability for the moderators to split an exiting topic, or that would have been done. Instead, I asked that a new topic be started, and deleted those posts. Packsaddle obliged, re-posted what was deleted and continued on with this new topic.

No individual moderator sets forum policy. That is reserved to Terry Howerton, the site owner. While I will admit to word-smithing everything in the opening post above, the two guidelines come from Terrys past postings in the forums, as well as most if not all of the examples. I agree with all of it and do think it needs to be brought up again from time to time. As Eamonn stated elsewhere, the moderators were selected and recruited by Terry. We were told, and I believe he made a general announcement, that those selected were chosen because they represent a cross-section of the membership. We have different points of view. We do not agree on everything. Terry has suggested to us that moderation should ideally be kept to a minimum. In fact it is so minimal that when it does occur it seems to be a major event. Moderation is about as even-handed as it could be, given the number of moderators. Each moderator has his own techniques and threshold for action. We dont always agree with the form of moderation taken by another. I do tend to moderate more than the others, and some topics I moderate may be handled differently by another moderator, if at all. Moderators are not expected to remain silent, and have been encouraged by Terry to participate in the discussions. There is bound to be disagreement and different points of view amongst forum members. That does make it somewhat difficult for a moderator to participate in a discussion, and then to moderate the same discussion. Thus its not surprising that the moderators get accused of being unfair, or editing/deleting posts with different opinions. The truth is, all points of view are welcome as long as they are presented in a Scout-like manner. Moderation never happens to squelch a point of view. There is no special significance to serving as a moderator. We all have the capability to move topics into different forums. We delete duplicate posts. We have the capability to edit and delete posts, and to lock a topic to further discussion. That is it. Posts that are edited are signed (This message has been edited by a moderator). The placement of that wording is done automatically by the forum software and was designed to operate in that manner by Terry. It cannot be altered or removed by a moderator. Obviously, deleted posts cannot be signed, nor can locked topics or moved topics, unless the moderator adds a separate post to that effect. Since the moderation system was not designed to identify specific moderators, and since Terry has not suggested or encouraged the practice, I generally dont choose to do so. When the moderators were selected by Terry, he chose to not reveal the identities, but left it to the individuals to reveal themselves if desired.. All of us have since outed ourselves. It really is no secret. The moderators are: OldGreyEagle Acco40 Eamonn hops_scout FScouter The owner of Scouter.com is SCOUTER-Terry All of us can be contacted by PM.