Stosh

Churches' ministry often times do it without regards to whether or not they have insurance. As well as it should be. I've done a lot of stupid things over the course of the past 66 years.

Even as adults one has to be careful. As an American Red Cross volunteer I am present at all kinds of disasters even around the country. Present are always the media with their cameras. Before taking any pictures they always get a signed permission slip to photograph or tape your image. Do they do this out of respect? Do they do it out of fear of a lawsuit? I dunno, but they do it anyway. I was at a large apartment fire just last week and they panned the area I was standing in next to a Red Cross vehicle and I was wearing a Red Cross vest of identification. They came with a permission slip and asked me to sign it. I asked what would happen if I didn't. They said that part of the video would be edited out or masked. They are VERY careful with this issue. The BSA policy as well as individuals need to be too.

As one knows, my personal mantra for leadership is "take care of your people". Part of that is protecting them as any good leader would do. I try to walk the talk.

Stupid is a perfectly acceptable word in the dictionary, None I could find indicate it is a derogatory term. stu·pid ˈst(y)o͞opəd/ adjective adjective: stupid; comparative adjective: stupider; superlative adjective: stupidest 1. having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense. "I was stupid enough to think she was perfect" synonyms: unintelligent, ignorant, dense, foolish, dull-witted, slow, simpleminded, vacuous, vapid, idiotic, imbecilic, imbecile, obtuse, doltish; More informalthick, dim, dimwitted, slow-witted, dumb, dopey, dozy, moronic, cretinous, pea-brained, halfwitted, soft in the head, brain-dead, boneheaded, thickheaded, wooden-headed, muttonheaded, daft "they're rather stupid" foolish, silly, unintelligent, idiotic, scatterbrained, nonsensical, senseless, harebrained, unthinking, ill-advised, ill-considered, unwise, injudicious; inane, absurd, ludicrous, ridiculous, laughable, risible, fatuous, asinine, mad, insane, lunatic; informalcrazy, dopey, cracked, half-baked, dimwitted, cockeyed, lamebrained, nutty, batty, cuckoo, loony, loopy "that was a really stupid thing to do" antonyms: intelligent, sensible dazed and unable to think clearly. "apprehension was numbing her brain and making her stupid" synonyms: into a stupor, into a daze, into oblivion; More stupefied, dazed, unconscious "he drank himself stupid" antonyms: alert informal used to express exasperation or boredom. "she told him to stop messing with his stupid painting" nouninformal noun: stupid; plural noun: stupids 1. a stupid person (often used as a term of address). "you're not a coward, stupid!" It this case it does show a certain lack of intelligence (i.e. military intelligence, information) or lack of knowledge and a questionable amount of common sense before taking on the objective. Be prepared? I don't think this whole idea has been carefully thought out, not enough intelligence gathering and to proceed thus would indicate a questionable lack of common sense. I apologize if the word might have offended someone, but it is a perfectly good word which puts into one word how I perceive this endeavor. One of the lessons I learned in life as a wordsmith is I cannot be held accountable for everyone's perceived definition of words. I just do the best I can. If one were to go back and look carefully at the comment I do not use the word as a noun, just as an adjective. If anyone might have derived any one as stupid, it would have been me, having been stupid enough to write that word with a permanent ink Sharpy on my forehead. That means at best everyone else is off the hook. As @@Col. Flagg mentioned in another post, be careful with words, they have a lot of perfectly good meanings many of us are not aware of.

I never said I wasn't part of the problem. I do my best, however, to be part of the solution. I don't blame the kids for wanting to be involved in sports, their churches, their schools, and their families. I hope to have the opportunity to help them do better in everything else they are involved in in their lives.

Even with all the professional ministry and working with youth all my life, especially Scouts, I had an interesting epiphany just recently. Since retiring I have upped my volunteerism and have taken on working with the American Red Cross. My first national deployment I was lead on a crew doing Bulk Distribution, which means I drove a truck out into the neighborhoods and handed out food, water, supplies, clean up kits, and things of this sort. When we handed out stuff we could tell there were many items going out that were going to be showing up on craigslist and Ebay by that evening. But we were told to never question it, just hand it out, no questions asked. I was in one neighborhood and I handed out a full compliment of supplies to a young boy about 15 years old. Within a few minutes he was back asking for another load. I had to give it to him by ARC policy. Sure enough he came back a third time, but this time I watched him. He took it over to a house nearby and knocked on the door. An elderly woman answered and he pointed to the stuff he had just put on her porch. He was back again, this time going to another house, and back for more. By the time I had emptied my truck I was on cloud nine. If I had but one boy like this in my troop I'd be in heaven. When I got back in my cab to drive back to the warehouse, a terrifying thought ran through my head. "What if I had said no?" I might be an old-fashioned stogie in my thinking and opinions cemented into place, but like W.C.Boyce's experience in London, I may never know his name, but it changed my way of thinking forever. No is such a devastatingly destructive word.

Are you insinuating I may have been promiscuous in my earlier years? I'm offended, NJCubScouter just warned about such slanderous attacks on one's character. I love it when kids do this to me, it assures me that my legacy will live on in future generations!

Welcome to the forum! It's the roller coaster of the Scouting world.

Or as Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and it is us."

Preparing encompasses a wide range of things. I didn't let my two year old play in the kitchen knives, although it may come in handy in the real world to know how to use them. The pots and pans were free game. I told them to look both ways before crossing the street. Any child that gets run down at age 6 won't live long enough to know what the real world is. I told them not to play near the electrical outlets, I told them they couldn't climb on the top of the piano. I told them to wash their hands before eating and after using the bathroom. I told them the stove and oven gets hot which eventually in the real world which is good to know when it comes time to cook dinner. Is all that preparing them for the real world? Or is it protecting them long enough the get to the real world where they can figure it out on their own? I have three rules in my troop and Safety First is #1. How's that preparing them for the real world fraught with danger? I don't let them play with knives, I comment when they play in the fire. Again the boys need to survive long enough to get to the real world, that's what parents work very hard at doing. A person's sexual life used to be a private matter between husband and wife. The master bedroom was off-limits to us even in the daytime when no one was round. It might be a bit old-fashioned, but then marriages lasted 50+ years whereas today making it to 5 is a great accomplishment. A gentleman of decorum had more important things to talk about than what seems to be the focus of conversation in today's "real" world. I think a gentleman of decorum might also be synonymous with the kind of men BSA used to develop. And as an after thought, look around, is the "real world" out there is there any place one really wants to be involved too much with? To this day I still do many things to protect my adult children and my grandchildren from the "real world". It's called survival and from birth on, it's what parents do for their children regardless of age. And one last thought, these children have been in the "real world" since the day they were born.

The focus of any problem should never be what other are to do to correct the problem. One cannot expect others to fix one's problems. We spend a lot of time, money and energy in our society doing exactly that. I'm hungry, we have a program for that, I need clothing, we have a program for that, etc. The solution is always someone or something other than the "poor victim of society". Well, if one wants the problem to go away, one needs to first start with oneself. BSA complains about all those out there that aren't sending their boys into the program as the problem and if they do, then that will solve all the woes of the BSA. It' doesn't work that way. So, since the 1970's, what has BSA done to fix it's problems other than shooting itself in the foot? OMG, look at how the world has changed and left BSA in the dust! No, BSA changed too and look what it got them. Nothing but more problems. BSA was built on male development through the childhood years to produce good men of character. It worked for the first half of it's history. The world went through a lot of changes during that period including 2 world wars and putting a man on the moon. But scouting stayed strong. Since then it has faltered...not because the world changed, it did that since the beginning, but because BSA changed. Put the blame were it belongs.

Sheltering one's son from the real world is a parent's responsibility until they are 18. Then they should be able to protect themselves. This is why we have laws against abuse of children so when parents don't protect them someone else has to. When a scout says he feels uncomfortable, a parent, scouter, clergy, teacher, and law enforcement are there to protect him. If none of them are capable of doing that, the parent has to so it alone. It's all part of the pamphlets in the front of every scout book. It's for parents to discuss with their child. It might be appropriate as scouters to read it as well. Flaunting one's sexuality in front of others isn't an appropriate activity for adults, definitely not for those under 18.

I tell my parent during orientation of new scouts that finances are the responsibility of the parents. I can pay my own way and so can your son. If not he needs to get a job or work as a group/patrol to raise the money from the community, it's up to them. After that it's not my problem. What I see happening is the motivation comes from the parents, not the unit and if Momma ain't happy, nobody's happy.

We go through all the hoops to make sure the requirements on Cyber activity is carefully checked off for advancement, yet the real problem often times is the parents. Seriously I don't want to know what you had for dinner, I don't care how cute your kid is, I get tired of chain posts, I I don't click "like" because I don't want FB and Google to target market me with stupid ads that get blocked anyway. I saw someone the other day on the "Off the Grid" account on how to connect to FB with only solar generators. Really? I thought you wanted off the grid, don't you understand what that means???? Sometimes I wonder if our kids know more about this stuff than the adults to or maybe the whole lot needs some Cyber training.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article133213859.html Op-ed piece from NC

A recent death in the family required a search for a long lost next of kin for this homeless man. We knew he had a son who he had only seen a couple of times. As son he was the legal next of kin. It took me only 10 minutes to find him, his wife and his 2 children in a state half way across the country. If someone knows the photo of a scout unit is from a particular "place" he can readily find out the names of those in it even when not tagged. A casual search of the text will reveal the names of those in the troop, where the troop is, where it goes for activities, etc. I do not use any social media when dealing with any youth organization. PERIOD! My ASM who deals with activities uses direct emails only.

Back when I was in college, I was working with a church youth group and went along with the pastor to supervise. The boys section of the retreat center one night turned into a "sports locker room" in it's conversational tone. The pastor walked in, sat down on a bunk and said, "So, you want to talk about sex? Okay, let's go, I'm ready." Dead silence and the subject never came up again. Although it is only a personal definition expressed by just a few, a homosexual is one who prefers the accompaniment of the same sex, a person who is gay, makes sure everyone around them knows it. I have no problem with homosexuals, I do have a problem with the social agenda of gays. I had a roommate in college who was homosexual. He asked me early on if I had a problem with him being a homosexual. I said no. The subject was never brought up again and we got along just fine.

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/10/09/101-great-scout-service-project-ideas/ Happy now!

We got through the Civil Rights era and the Vietnam era, and we all pulled together, why are we tearing each other apart now? It would seem that the more things change the more they don't.

If the rank was awarded, was it registered with the Council before it was revoked? If so the council should have a record of it.

IH doesn't need an application.

One can add anything they want to the requirements as further instructional material or might help the boys retain the material taught. I for one go beyond the Buddy System requirement that doesn't just mean they have a buddy to swim with and go to the bathroom with without getting lost. I add the idea that it's the start of leadership, everyone buddies up as someone they are to take care of (Leadership = taking care of your buddies") Just one other scout, but it's a start. I also put it into real life and talk about how this is seen outside of scouting. The focus is on marriage, the taking care of someone other than yourself. The next step is Patrol Leader who takes care of the boys in his patrol, like a parent takes care of his family. None of that is required, but well into the upper ages of leadership, the boys remember that and demonstrate the buddy system and patrol method much better in that context. All the advancement requirements are meant to enrich the boys understanding of how it applies to real life outside of scouting. Otherwise, read the answer and check the box and move on.

At least you didn't say noose, that's the first thing that came to my mind.

40 years ago it is exactly what I did as a parent without first telling the lie. We started out with the solution without the problem first. Kids can handle it well. Our kids were told to say, "At our house he's real." and nothing more so that it doesn't ruin it for other kids who think he is really for real. They all kept the secret (it wasn't their place to tell).

WOW Thanks @@NJCubScouter No background checks, no YPT, and make sure you have $1,000,000+ in homeowner's liability insurance and own a home! Sign me up! I have "Stupid" written with a Sharpie on my forehead!