Stosh

Just because something is written in black and white does not always confirm an obvious once and for all time understanding. Thus we call upon interpreation to make sense out of it. As any school teacher, pollster and lawyer can tell us, valid interpretations can be made out of just about any assumed rock solid statement. "During World War II, the US fought with Germany and Japan, but they also fought with England and France." While this statement is valid and true, it takes prior knowledge and interpreation to make any sense out of it. Without such prior knowledge and interpretation, the statement is true but totally worthless. Just because BSA puts some comment into print does not make it rock solid in its meaning/intent. Guide to Safe Scouting... are they guidelines or are they requirements? From the title/name, sure sounds like guidelines to me. Maybe they should have titled it Requirements for Safe Scouting. They didn't. So what did they really mean by what they printed? Simply making statements or quoting reference sources without explanation or meaning is not always producing understanding or knowledge. A statement that produces a valid obvious conclusions for one can produce a totally different valid obvious conclusion for another. Until one is able to fully understand this dynamic of modern language, they will never fully understand neither what they are saying, nor what others are saying either. Stosh

"Unless these are Tigers there is no reason, and no program recommendation that parents be at Den meetings." If the boys are fighting, there is a reason for their parents to be there to control their child and defend those they may harm. It is not the DL responsibility to referee fights. While there is no recommendation that parents be there, then make it manditory for your den. Every boy coming to cub scouts deserves to have a safe place to learn and grow. If other boys and parents cannot make it happen, then it's time to remove those things that threaten the safety of others. Stosh

Probably for the same reason anyone would ask any kind of question on the forum. There seems to be a lot of scouters out there that would like to have a sounding board to bounce things off of, get differing perspectives, and support for ideas they might be floating around. If everyone knew everything there is to know about scouting, surely this forum would become obsolete. I guess there are those out there that just don't know it all. Really there are those out there that don't have an answer for every minute bit of info that BSA has to put out, nor do they have all the answers that come with 100,000 years of combined experience, nor have they had the luxury of being an insider on everything BSA may spout out of their limited communication system. When I post I'm assuming my 2-cents worth just might give another scouter some bit of assistance that they can use in coping with some struggle they might be having. I guess I've never found it necessary to question why they might be asking for help, I just try and help. Stosh

Eamonn, you seem to be more interested in doing things right than in expediency. BSA has no other medium to handle their female camp staff if they happen to be under the age of 18. Instead of simply registering them as adults they have come up with a work-around called a venturing crew. But even as adults they have to belong to a unit of somekind and have CO approval. As Venturing members this can be avoided. Are you seeing the pattern here? This kind of thing goes back to if one doesn't like their CO they can form their own unit if they have 5 concerned adults to be the committee. Then the CO becomes the 5 Concerned Adults organization with a scouting unit. Maybe one should check it out, their camp staff venturing crew might indeed be sponsored by this national organization known as 5 Concerned Adults. Stosh

When I was a Webelos leader, we made the change when the boys asked about it. This process was part of those steps designed as LisaBob indicates of moving from adult to boy led emphasis. Stosh

Ok, here's my take on the subject. I've been camping in bear country throughout the US so my comments apply to wherever anyone lives. Bears aren't the only animals one has to watch out for. Smaller animals can cause just as much if not more damage than bears. Smelling good isn't the issue it's what does the animal associate whatever scent you are giving off mean to them. Any scent that is associated with humans can attact animals, including the natural scent of humans. And although I am not female, every backpacking guide I have found makes reference to females not venturing out into bear country while they are having their menstral period. Doing everything right isn't going to keep one safe. I was told by a NPS ranger that a family had camped in bear country and left their dishes/food out all the time. Bears came in regularly and helped clean up things. However, the next family came in, did everything correctly and the bears came in, found no food and tore the place to shreads looking for it. It is more important to know what to do when encountering an animals than to try to avoid them. Stosh

They have been selling the military hammocks for years and even those have gone to lightweight nylon. One would think that if they are a good idea, there would be more of them in use. Stosh

Hmmm, an MBA accountant with 25+ years of scouting? Look at the books of a scout troop for any problems? Look at their program? It would seem to me that such a request would not be "odd" but rather quite efficient (aka THRIFTY). Not every accountant knows that much about how troop money is properly spent and surely not every scouter knows how to do a unit assessment. While I hold almost 30 years of scouting experience under my belt, and 3 academic degrees, (and I am blessed that none of them are in skepticism) there are those with far greater credentials that still seek my advice. It's not the degrees and experiences themselves that offer the greatest value, it's how the individual puts them together to offer the greatest value to those around them. Obvious there is a CO and DE that think their choice is wise and it's a wise man that seeks the advice of others before taking on a challenge. Maybe hherifor can multi-task this opportunity. After all that seems to be acceptable in today's world. I would recommend that the dual-focus can lead to doing neither very well (which has been shown to happen), but he can do one and then the other and still do a great job. Stosh

As a CA of a coed unit, I checked into it and was informed by my council (for what that's worth) that no one under 21 in Venturing is ever considered an adult. With all the double standard and legal issues revolving around this whole setup, one would wonder how they could maintain this for almost 10 years now, but they have. Well, they have either maintained it or avoided it by not registering husband/wife in the same unit. I wonder what the policy might be if a Troop and Crew go on a high adventure activity and the troop SM and or ASM is under 21? Does she bunk with the adults or with the kids? I may be a far-fetched issue that may never happen, but how did this whole thing get through the legal dept of National? Stosh

Badge Magic and Smoke Shifters are two very important working, scout realities one must be able to come to grips with eventually. Welcome to Scouting. :^) Stosh

"She cannot attend at all because in the crew she could only register as a youth." One should almost be able to deduce that if she can only register as a youth she must be under 21. Sorry I didn't make it perfectly clear, but one should have been able to conclude the point from the information given. The point being she could be a registered adult in the Boy Scout program, but would only be able to be registered as a youth in Venturing, and couldn't register in her husband's crew either. When one makes up conflicting rules, one might be able to draw a strong case for the validity of G2SS. ASM915 - the wife could register as a youth in the new crew, but her 21 year old husband cannot be involved either as a registered leader of the crew nor a chaperone even though he is a registered ASM. Stosh(This message has been edited by jblake47)

Impressive list of credentials, but with some folk they don't amount for much on the forum. Hang in there and don't let this first impression be an influence on one's contributions. There are a lot of very nice people and nice people with as impressive credentials as your list, that can offer some great assistance. There are a number of us with 25+ years of scouting under our belt that don't get any better reception than the one you got. :^) Stosh

Once an Eagle always an Eagle. Stick with what you do best. Age or having kids have nothing to do with being an effective leader. Welcome back to Scouting, you will not regret it. Stosh

I would think that hherifor is accountable to the appropriate people and for some odd reason I don't believe anyone on this forum is on that short list. Stosh

Yes, Thank you! Everyone has been very helpful. The Troop has been notified, given the order number for the star(s) and the Council has a heads up on it. Everyone has been extremely helpful! Stosh

I'm thinking that the pool of incidents is far greater than the number suggested by BW. My crew operates almost completely outside of the council so I have in a year's time a lot more than 3 national permits going on at any one time. Our activity schedule is finalized in Jan-Feb and IMMEDIATELY our national permits are submitted for the whole year. If we are extremely lucky we might get half of them on time. We are lucky to be a crew with separate insurance because when we don't have a permit, we notify the council as such and go anyway. They have gone through this problem with Central Region so many times our adopted process has become routine. The gal at the council office rolls her eyes when I bring in my permits all at once because she knows it's going to be a huge mess for her over the course of the next 9 months. I don't know exactly how many permits I can offer to the pool of statistics here, but I've gone through this process with my one unit with at least 5 national permits per year, if not more over the course of the past 10 years. That means that I can assure you that only one of them have ever been processed in less than 2 months time and that was because we were going to go half way across the country for an event and the council gal pulled off a miracle to get it done quickly. That's not counting the double filing of applications that have been "lost" by Central Region either. The record for them is losing the same application twice. I am but one unit in this council and from the comments by council office, I am not the only one that has this problem. So maybe statistics can be skewed in a variety of different ways, but if BSA is going to require these permits to be filed, they have to make sure they can handle them in a far better way than what is being done by at least one region. Stosh

Sometimes the district boundaries make no sense at all. My council has 3 districts. I live in one, have a troop in another and a crew in the third. Sometimes things don't have to make sense. Needless to say a council wide RT would be the shortest distance of travel for me. Stosh

And yet another scenerio: In a crew both need to be over 21, one male and one female. If they are married and the husband is over 21 and Crew advisor, and the wife is registered as a Boy Scout Leader (ASM, or example) she still cannot attend the crew outing as a leader. She cannot attend at all because in the crew she could only register as a youth. Go figure on that one. Stosh

Because our troop was mostly new boys this year, we did the whole advancement routine for our in-site cooking. The boys each did a one day menu, planned the shopping list, bought the food, cooked it, the full cycle. Next year our numbers will probably triple our size, but I have at least 15 boys who know how it works from start to finish. We didn't have problem with the time element. Going early for KP, standing in line waiting for cafeteria chow and then staying for KP, the boy with cooking responsibility didn't really spend any more time than that. What happened when he "got behind" was his patrol pards help bail him out. Some of the food cooked up pretty fast on the gas stoves and so we didn't notice being cramped for time except to get down to flags and back in the middle of the prep time. How does one work the menu prep and shopping advancement requirements when one attends summer and the food is provided patrol-method style? Stosh

Resubmitting permits is a good idea, I have had two permits "lost" after they had gotten to Central Region befor getting the third permit approved. I have for the past 2-3 years been submitting my national permits 6-8 months prior to the event and only ONCE did it get approved within a 3 month time period. It was our last one this summer and maybe that's a good sign that things have changed. Time will tell. Stosh

Gee, I guess I've been doing it wrong for all these years. I was an ASM for many years and NEVER did a SMC.... but now that I'm SM I do them ALL. Some of them take a few minutes, some take a few more minutes than a few. None over 15-20 minutes. I guess I have to add a few hoops, hurdles, and obstacles for my boys to suffer through so everyone can know how difficult it can be for boys to work with the adults. The only "exception" to the rules I adhere to is: if there is a boy who doesn't feel comfortable with one-on-one with the SM on his first couple of SMC's then his PL is invited to sit in on the process for emotional support. Stosh Stosh

One of the forum members reminded me of the importance of getting in touch with this boy's home troop to have a gold star placed on their flag. Our council personnel don't know anything about this process and I do know that it has been discussed previously on the forum. A search of the forum didn't produce any assistance. Would someone please be so kind as to give the process details once more so I can have this done appropriately for this other troop? Thanks Stosh

What totally surprises me is that the Central Region's excuse is their backlog of permits. It would seem that reading that one page and signing off on it and faxing it back to the councils must be a quite a challenge for these people. Last time I checked, it took longer to fill out the form than it does to read it. For real, people, the permit with a threat will expedite the form and it only takes 2-3 weeks if your council puts the pressure on. Stosh

Yes, it was because the camp was not patrol-method in it's emphasis. They did try and make somewhat of an effort, it was close to home, but in the long run, the boys were not satisfied. I do have to admit that their research into other camps that emphasize the patrol-method will cause some lively discussion over the course of the next few months as they try to narrow down their choices of 2-3 in the state that cater to the patrol-method. It should be interesting in that the 20+ boys I have presently will turn into 60+ before we head out for camp. That means the scope of our patrol-method emphasis will be even that much greater and will need a camp that can handle the situation, not just "accommodate an exception" to the program. Stosh

That was the same requirement posted by the camp we attended last year out of state. I serioiusly was concerned that when we showed up it wouldn't be there and we had just driven 1000 miles for nothing. One would think the regional offices could be a little more sensitive to this issue. Stosh