Hal_Crawford

The winter edition of National Capital Area Council's Scouter Digest arrived today. In it there is a two page article about Washington area Centennial events. A Council Camporee in the spring... we normally have district jamborees so this will be big. NCAC Scouting on the Mall. "A showcase of all things scouting between the Washington Monument and the WWII Memorial" July 17-August 10 (tentative). NCAC Grand Centennial Parade down Constitution Avenue (July 25 target date). NCAC Packs, Troops, Crews and Teams joined by the the Jamboree troops on their way to AP Hill. That is a lot of scouts! The NCAC Centennial website is http://www.boyscouts-ncac.org/openrosters/view_homepage.asp?orgkey=2010

Unless this has changed in the last five years (when I moved from CC to ASM) the policy is: 0-3 months after 18th birthday: No explanation required. Normal EBOR. 3-6 months: A letter explaining the delay accompanies the application. This is a formality, they do not approve or reject the letter. I used to keep a form letter on my computer because I had to send the letter for at least three scouts. Over 6 months: Need permission from National to hold EBOR. I believe this info is all in the Advancement Committee handbook but I cannot find my copy to verify it.

Barry: Yes, a first class scout should know that stuff. Teenagers should always think things through the way adults do. News flash: they don't always do that. It is the scout leader's job to make sure they do. Balance of guidance and experience: no argument-checking on the scouts plan is balancing their inexperience. Boys believe they are immortal and do not know their own limitations. Do you think that maybe we need to make sure they have thought it all through? G2SS only applies when it doesn't get in way of big picture? Are there other rules that we should only acknowledge when convenient? I work in a field (performing arts) where people sometimes get hurt,die or cause others to get hurt of die because they do not believe the rules (even the laws of nature) apply to them. They believe that Art is above the rules. A nightclub full of people died because the club owner and a roadie with the band thought the rules (in this case building and life safety codes) did not apply. The rules got in the way of the "big picture" and over 100 people ended up in body bags. Who took responsibility for the scouts that started the forest fire? Who didn't ask the questions? Someone else on this forum uses the Reagan phrase "Trust but Verify". Amen! We are the adults, we need to give our scouts freedom but we need to make sure that they have planned and prepared and they are ready to safely enjoy that freedom. Hal

36"x36" also works better when used as a triangle bandage. The smaller size does not work well for a sling or a head bandage.

Question: How do you handle cooking on a patrol backpacking trek? G2SS requires adult supervision for use of stoves, LNT requires using only established fire rings which may or may not be available which leads us back to stoves as a preferred choice. Has anyone dealt with this? IMHO I would be more comfortable with well trained scouts using stoves than open fires but that is not G2SS compliant (did I really say "compliant"?). A few years ago a group of scouts on an unsupervised wilderness survival overnight burned down a significant part of a national forest when their campfire became a forest fire. Thank God the scouts escaped but their council got hit with a tab of about 15 million for that mishap. Most of the money was the fire fighting bill from the state of Utah which has a law requiring those who start a fire to pay for fighting it. For those who think that BSA overreacts to liability issues, isn't surprising that, given the above, they have not banned unsupervised patrol camping outright? If I were considering a patrol backpacking plan I would want to the discuss all the things that Kraut-60 mentioned plus a discussion of emergency (what if...) plans. What level of first aid training do the scouts have, what are they carrying as a first aid kit, what are the "bail outs" along the trail, how would you get help if you needed it?

When my son was a Webelo the camp we went to offered Safe Swim Defense for interested adults. If I recall they did this during an evening activity period when all the Webelos were being supervised by camp staff. SSD can now be taken on line but for a number of adults this was the first hint that such training existed. There was one amusing moment. A woman asked why this training was important. Before the instructor could answer a leader wearing a USMC Long Range Recon tee shirt stood up, swaggered up to the front, turned and said "Because water is DEATH... WAITING... TO HAPPEN". The class continued in dead silence. On the Boy Scout level our council camp has recently started offering a range adult of training including CPR. In addition to the training opportunities, our SE comes to the reservation every week and hosts a steak dinner for the adults (there are 3 BS and 2 CS camps so it is huge) while staff eats with the scouts in the various camps. After dinner there is a discussion of some relevant topic... one year it was about the camps and what people liked and didn't, another it was a discussion of the concepts put forward in the book "Last Child in the Woods" and another it was a lively discussion of whether Paint Ball should be an approved scout activity. Never a dull moment.

I heard about it in a training course last Spring and I saw it on BSA's safety page shortly after the tornado incident in Iowa. Don't know how long it had been there or if they posted it faster because of the tragedy. Interesting that our council has not posted the new tour permit on their website. They have a editable version of the old form.

3-6 months is not an issue. It requires that a letter of explanation accompany the application but the application does not hinge on anyone's approval of the letter. When I was CC of my troop I wrote several of these for scouts who's BORs were delayed by college schedules. Over 6 months requires approval from national; glad I never had to go there.

That makes sense for people handling money. Do they run a check on councilors working in program areas or just senior staff who would be handling money? Camp Director, Trading Post manager are two that come to mind. Checking the credit of lifeguards or archery councilors seems unnecessarily intrusive. I can here it know, "I'm sorry you can't be a CIT because you don't have a credit history".

I think I missed something here. I know that BSA is doing criminal background checks on volunteers but did they every say they were doing credit checks. As far as I know a credit check is not part of a criminal background check. Credit checks are routinely required for government security clearances but I don't think that BSA has started requiring Top Secret clearance. Does anyone actually know that they are credit checks? My experience with background checks at work is that the accuracy depends on who is doing it and how much they are being paid. The checks sometimes miss things (a check failed to find a conviction that the applicant had disclosed on his job application) and they sometime reveal convictions that had been allegedly removed from the record. Had an job applicant who was very surprised that a 5 year old "minor in possession of alcohol" conviction showed up on his background check. The young man had understood that the conviction would be removed from his record with the completion of community service and probation. With this in mind he did not disclose the conviction on the job application which did not please our HR department.

We get tons of ribbons in the National Capital Area Council. We get ribbons for all the things you mentioned and then some. Our troop has been chartered since 1945 so the flag staff is pretty top heavy.

With regard to the scout who will age out in two weeks. The COR is not being allowed to reregister but her current registration probably won't expire in the next two weeks. She is still a member, she can sign. She might not be a member at the end of February but Eagle candidate won't be a youth member either. Check with the DE but I don't see a need to transfer. Good luck to you all, the COR, the unit and the Eagle candidate. Hal

Wow! It never occurred to me that anyone in scouting would think that doing an Eagle project with laborers that Mom hired from outside 7-11 or Home Depot would be OK. It seems wrong on so many levels. Mom hired, mom paid... where is the boy's leadership? Never mind that she may have been employing illegals and violating who knows how many other labor laws. If you took Mom out of the equation then you have a 14 year old picking up workers from the parking lot. I don't like that image either (from a safety standpoint). Just doesn't seem like a positive life lesson for the boy.

I suspect that most of the other posters here have more experience than I do but as a CC I have seen more than a couple scouts plan and carry out their Eagle projects. One thing that I think needs to be clear, the hours are not just the hours that the candidate puts in but the time that all those who work on the project put in. I have had several members of our Eagle board say that what they like to see (not require, just like) is about 40-50 hours from the scout (including all the planning time) and an additional 100 hours from others. It is important that the scout not do all the work himself because that would probably not be demonstrating leadership. I heard a rumor that a local mother eager to get her 14 year old to Eagle went out and hired day laborers to do the work. That did not go over very well.

Travel and camp on durable surfaces.... asphalt and concrete!

Our council (NCAC) does a Trail to Eagle week. Looking at their schedule it appears that they offer 30 merit badges, some requiring serious prerequisites. Theoretically a scout could get maybe 11 merit badges without having to be two places at one time. In reality, I would think 5-6 would be more realistic. They are not all Eagle required (obviously) and some are low hanging fruit (fingerprinting, mammal study). I don't think our troop has ever had a scout use this program. I personally think that scouts get enough summer camp merit badges as it is and I like to see them do more work with councilors at home (adult association). That said, I could see the usefulness if one lived in a smaller community where finding councilors might be more difficult. I doubt that I would tell a scout they couldn't do Trail to Eagle unless I knew for a fact that the camp was not following the requirements. I do know some scouts that can get intensely motivated for a week and Trail to Eagle might work better for them.

When I lived in Brazil during the late 1960's I was told that everyone with a German accent was Austrian. Hal

SSScout: I've heard some of the same NCAC rumors you have. My understanding is that Obama was involved at the Cub level of scouting in Indonesia. Don't know if he has any particular feeling about the BSA. By the way, the Indonesian scouting organization is the largest scouting association (over 8 million boys and girls) in the world. Hal

GWD: Congratulations to your husband and son for their efforts and success in keeping weight under control. I know it isn't easy. A friend of mine who fought weight issues said to me "you can quit smoking or drinking cold turkey (it isn't easy but people have) but with food you have to lay down with the devil every day". There are in fact a lot more restrictions for the Jambo than just weight. Diabetes and asthma are two of many risk factors discussed. See there website on health risks: http://www.bsajamboree.org/prepared.html I like the level of detail that it gives and in most cases it leaves some leeway for whether or not a particular condition precludes someone's participation. It is clearly written and provides a point of contact for questions not answered by the document itself. IMHO this is a model for how BSA should write policy. YIS, Hal

I have to agree with Eagle92. I don't think that Mr. Bourlon's letter clarifies all that much. He somewhat explains National's thinking, informs us that they are very smart (and by inference that we should not question them) and says that it doesn't necessarily apply at "most" council summer camps. It is however strongly recommended for all events, presumably including those council camps where it is not required. I'm glad we cleared all that up! I really think they need a better definition of what constitutes evacuation. I suspect many camps fall outside the 30 minute radius; more than they are acknowledging. A quick check on Yahoo maps indicates that is 31 minutes travel time from a point near the entrance of Goshen Scout Reservation (National Capital Area Council) to Stonewall Jackson Hospital in Lexington, VA. This does not include the travel time from any of the 5 camps or the health lodge to that point. That would add 5-20 minutes (my best guess) depending on which camp. I suppose that if you assume that ambulances can go slightly over the speed limit (though on that road I wouldn't recommend pushing it too much) and pretend that evacuation begins at the reservation entrance then maybe the camp is within the radius but that is stretching reality. There is better than average (for scout camps) medical facilities on the reservation but not a full service ER. I can imagine that out west the evacuation times are a lot worse. I take little assurance when I am told about the "depth of knowledge" of people who make policy. The "best and the brightest" in government have gotten us into wars that we later regretted and the most brilliant engineering minds in the country thought that filling the Apollo 1 capsule with pure oxygen was a good idea. I am more concerned with the logic and practical application of the policy than the creds of the committee that created it. I am in agreement with the H/W requirements high adventure; it is probably a good idea for the Jamboree given the numbers and the heat/humidity. I just think they may not have thought this radius through as well as they should have. Hal

I agree. Some of those who I consider to be the great (Thomas Jefferson for instance) were deeply flawed by 21st century standards. How could TJ be against slavery as an institution yet still own (and beget children with) slaves? Charles Lindbergh (and Baden-Powell and Gandhi for that matter) thought highly of Hitler at one point but ultimately realized the error of his thinking. John Newton who wrote Amazing Grace was a slave ship captain before becoming an Anglican minister. I constantly marvel at the contradictions. Hal

There was a feature article in this morning's Washington Post about Ota Benga and William T. Hornaday. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010202444.html Note that the article is written by Ann Hornaday, great great grand niece or WTH.

If I read the article at BSA Legal correctly (and I am not sure I am as I am not a lawyer), in June a panel of three judges from the 9th sent the case to the California Supreme Court for clarifications on some issues of state law. This hearing was an attempt by BSA to get the case heard by the full 9th (which isn't really the full court since they have 28 judges, it would be a panel of 11). The three judge panel disagreed 2-1 with holding an "en banc" hearing and so it goes to the California Supremes. Once they make their rulings, I believe it goes back to the 9th for a ruling. I suppose it will be heard by a panel and then there may be another motion to review it en banc. However the 9th ultimately rules it may then get appealed to the US Supremes who may or may not be the same people who are there today, may or may not choose to hear the case and may or may not rule in favor of the BSA. IMHO, if any of us holds our breath waiting for a resolution we will turn blue and die because I don't think an end is coming anytime soon. If I have made total hash of this I look forward to someone with a legal background shedding some light on the many and varied ways I am wrong or more importantly what the real legal situation is.

While it is hard to read the minds of those at National I don't think this is about the ability of people to carry an injured or ill victim out of the wilderness (or summer camp). The word that keeps popping up in places like the Jamboree web site is "risk factor". Being overweight puts one at higher risk for heart attack. If a person has a heart attack any delay in treatment can be fatal. According to Red Cross CPR classes victims who do not get defibrillated within 10 minutes have a very slim chance of survival. According to the ASHI/BSA Wilderness First Aid course I took, CPR is of minimal benefit in the backcountry because you can't perform it long enough to get the victim to the type of life support needed for them to survive. Philmont has used these weight limits for a while and they seem appropriate to me for the conditions in that specific program. Someone suggested that the weight ranges are based on BMI numbers. I ran the numbers for my height and found that for my height (68") the top end or the recommended range is already considered "overweight" and the maximum weight is well into the "obese" range. If they are using BMI as a standard then they are giving us a lot of leeway. To be in the BSA recommended weight I need to lose about 10 pounds; to be good by BMI charts I need to lose more than 20. That being said I think that BSA is over-applying this standard if it will be applied to non-high adventure activities. This will impact some long-time and/or active scouters I know. More distressing is that it could exclude some scouts from things like summer camp and many other activities. I have seen at least one overweight scout decide after several years of scouting that he wanted to lose weight to do a high-adventure trek. I don't think he would have lost the weight for summer camp by itself and we might have lost him from the troop.

Pinkflame: I am pleased to hear that it's working in your area. We have a large immigrant community in Northern Virginia but I have not seen much success in our area. The latin community is heavily involved in cultural events (music and dance festivals) and soccer. There are day laborer sites, some government sanctioned and some not. There are many latino businesses and markets and yes, there is gang activity as well. What may make us different from your area is that most of our latino communities come from Bolivia, El Salvador, Peru, Columbia and Ecuador. We have very few from Mexico. We have a Vietnamese troop in out district and some small but active African-American troops but no Hispanic units that I am aware of. I have seen may be a handful of hispanic scouts in mostly Anglo units but nowhere close to the proportions of the school population. I have not been involved in Cub Scouts for quite a while so it might be different at that level but I doubt it. Looking at our council's website it seems that they put most of their Scoutreach effort into reaching the African American community which is huge as our council covers the District of Columbia and Prince George's County, MD. The Scoutreach page has a lot of detail about the program in our council but if you click on "Scoutreach page in Spanish" you are linked directly to the national "Vale la Pena". Hmmmm, maybe that is a clue/ I hope that BSA is looking at councils like yours where it is working well and councils where it isn't and trying to figure out what works, what doesn't and why? BTW, and this is not directed to any one individual on this forum, traditional scouting is alive and well in our council. Our troop is boy led and I think most of the others in our area are as well. There is a lot of variety in the programs but most of the units I know are seriously outdoor units. Some do more car camping than I would like to see but others do Philmont, the AT, Seabase, Cranberry Wilderness and/or organize treks in some pretty exotic places. Our troop is transitioning from plop and drop to doing more backpacking and high adventure but it is up to the scouts to decide how and what. I think most of the Eagle projects are good ones and our district maintains pretty solid quality control (including the LDS units). The scouts get out of it what they want to get out of it and I think that is what counts. Its not totally like it was when I was in scouts, we don't ditch our tents or dig big ditch latrines and I never saw a gas stove when I was in scouts but we go to a patrol cooking summer camp... our scouts haven't seen the inside of a dining hall since Cubs. Actually, when I was in scouts (early 1960's) we did a lot of car camping with heavy chuck boxes and we went to a dining hall camp. If I recall the camp was whites only. I don't remember the patrol method being that much stronger at the time but we maintained better uniform standards. And the snipe hunts and some of the other acts of hazing could be pretty brutal. So some things have gotten better, some have stayed the same and others may not be so good but I think BP and Bill would be OK with the way it is working. Hal