GernBlansten

If the Muslim parents of these children wish to pull them out of classes to go to prayer every day, I don't have a problem with it. They can even use a vacant room. If the school sets aside class time exclusively for these children to go to prayer, then I do.

I can't imagine traditional Venturing being in conflict with the goals of the LDS church, unless the LDS do not wish their female members to join a coed program which is not exclusively LDS or customized to their faith.

I wish my council cared about giving the scouts the latest requirements as you folk do.

I can one up you Brent. How about national not adding meaningless requirements which cause problems like these. BTW, I was trained that the scout handbook is the authoritative source. That's the one the scout is using.

Brent, How do you feel about the council scout shop selling outdated books to scouts a year and a half after changing the requirements? Should scouts also get the Official BSA requirements each year so they can update their already out of date books?

I guess that's better than shoeless lacewear.

There is no freedom OF religion without freedom FROM religion

I got a W2000 bumpersticker. Free to good home.

Honesty is the best advise here. Give the troop (adults and scouts) an honest, non-judgmental assessment of the situation. Express your personal feelings and let each decide how to deal with it. I like the advise that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Its my understanding that all male LDS youth are automatically registered in their ward's LDS scouting unit whether they participate or not. So if he chose to join another unit, he would essentially be dual registered.

Kenk, kinda. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_(injury) Usually, scalding is classified as a second degree burn. However, if the burn is especially deep, it could be a 3rd degree.

We too have lots of LDS units. I'm not aware of any LDS scout joining a non-LDS unit. Nor have I ever heard of a non-LDS scout joining an LDS unit. I'm sure the mom is highly encouraged to have her son join the stake LDS unit. The LDS has customized the program to their religion and in my opinion, joining a non-LDS unit would not achieve their goals.

Kinda like our district. Webelos are invited by the troop to join them, but must follow cub scout regs on camping. They have their own tents and their parents join them. They share in the patrol meals. During the camporee activities, they are merged into the patrols. Often, patrols get more points depending on the number of webelos they have with them. Some webelos just come for the day and don't camp. Our winter camporee, webelos are not allowed to camp and must make it a day trip. This is for safety purposes as we can see sub zero weather. The LDS are the majority of our units in the district and camporees are only one night (Friday). The LDS units break camp and head out before sunset Saturday. Us non-LDS units stay Saturday night and have our own program. The webelos usually hang around for that too.

We had a case last year where a scout was elected, signed up to do his ordeal at our council camp the final week of camp, and council canceled the entire camp that week. We got special consideration for that scout to wait until the next season to do his ordeal. It was out of his control. I doubt your situation will qualify for such consideration. But your lodge may vary.

Perhaps national can just issue rubber stamps for us volunteers so we can add and approve the requirement in one easy step to all the books they are selling.

If the council scout shop doesn't retrofit their stock of books with addendums, or return unsold books to supply, how can they expect us field volunteers to follow it? They are still selling the "old" books.

Interesting. This evening at our meeting, I was busy signing off Trail to First class requirements from the sheet we got from summer camp. These scouts were second year scouts and bought their books last spring. The requirement for recruitment was not listed. One scout was a first year scout who bought his book this spring. Same thing, not listed. It wasn't listed on the scout camp spreadsheet either as a first class requirement. Had it not been for this thread, I would have forgotten it. Unless the scout shop dumps all the outdated books, can we really hold them to the new requirement?

We don't need a fitness test, but like most have said we need to do our best to be fit. This thread was spun from a scout who was denied tenderfoot because his SM/ASMs wouldn't sign off on the pullups. I would certainly like to know if every one of those SM/ASMs can demonstrate to the scout how to do it to that standard. SM: Sorry Johnny, but you can't do a single pullup. You will need to keep trying. You have 4.5 years before you age out. Bulk up man! Johnny: But Mr Blansten? You can't do a single pullup either? SM: I'm not trying to get Tenderfoot son, you are. Now go run that 1/4 mile. I'll drive down to the end of the street and time you.

Being physically strong takes some effort and can be measured objectively and observed passively. Fitness takes self control, commitment and perseverance. All worthy scout attributes. It's easy to just give lip service to other parts of the oath. Fitness is a lifestyle and can't be faked.

So if a unit is really having trouble with recruiting adults, they should lower their standards in morality too? Really, unless you qualify for a handicap hang tag on your mirror (and if you do, I'll grant you an exception) you should be able to meet BSA scout fitness requirements for each and every rank. If you can't, how can you serve as a role model? Every one of our ASMs can meet the requirements, even the obese one. And I'd put our SM against any other SM in a fitness test.

GSA dropped 100,000 scouts from 2002 to 2006 from 2,800,000 to 2,700,000. Compared to BSA, those numbers look pretty good eh? Good to see alternative scouting orgs being pursued though. Any update on Baden Powell Scouting?

Why would you hold adults to a lower standard than you expect from the scouts?

Over the years, how many young men have you had to lean on to get the leadership position or POR done to standard? To be honest, all of them. Some because they don't understand our expectations, others because they are truly slackers, still others because perhaps our expectations are unreasonable, the rest are just too busy with other stuff. Never have I seen a scout exceed our expectations with no coaching/mentoring from us.

CPR for a seizure? I sure hoped they checked his vitals before doing it. Nothing like a few cracked ribs to help in your recovery. At least they can't blame it on camping or the woods.

I'm rather surprised you all don't do the requirements with your scouts. I certainly do. Even show them I improve in 30 days. Of course, I might sandbag a bit on the initial measurement. Hard to improve on perfection, you know!