BadenP

SP The great flaw in your plan is actually thinking you will actually get the COR's out to attend district committee meetings, why should they?? Most COR's, at least those who are more than just a name on paper, are really only concerned with are the units their organization sponsors. COR's could care less about camporees, popcorn sales, cub day camp, etc,etc. and again why should they? You need to seperate what should be, in your view, with what the reality truly is.

SP To answer both your questions as far as the DE/SE are concerned the answer is simply yes. It is standard practice in professional scouting. The reality is that some units are just thrown together by both volunteers and DE's without a solid foundation or commitments by leaders and parents during recruitment drives, and they usually start disintegrating within 3-6 months. It is much easier to start a new unit than try to resurrect one at deaths door, that is basic business management 101. The strong units are those with committed leadership who develop a fun and enticing program for their kids. Whether they have 10 or 50 kids is unimportant because they will always surpass all the units with apathetic leadership who gives no effort to developing a fun or interesting program and they will quickly die out from their own apathy, survival of the fittest is the way of nature and the world.

(This message has been edited by BadenP)

SP According to DE training I received in Irving and two of my SE's "a professionals time is too limited to waste efforts to try to save a severely struggling unit whether it is from a lack of youth or battling leadership. It is far easier and preferable to start up a new unit with new leadership and a unified vision." You can call it simplistic but it is very true from my own experiences as a DE for five years and is SOP for councils so they do not become weighed down with leadership infighting, arguments over money and equipment, or a problem CO. Besides you can usually and easily start up two new units for every unit that fails. Depending on the density of units in a district the strong ones always seem to survive and thrive, while the weak ones wind up getting culled from the herd due to poor leadership and/or poor program.

It is truly sickening to me the way the know-nothings at National have created this new bureaucracy that gets them some fast money from camp sales and provides less service and facilities to the membership as a whole. I think this is just a precursor to more troubling times ahead for scouting. All National seems to be doing is finding new ways to line their pockets with more MONEY while membership continues to shrink in members and units. It is time for a revolution to give control of the BSA back to the volunteers, where it belongs. If the BSA executives want to close anything else lets start with the National Office, all those executive positions from the CSE on down, viva la revolution!

Eagle732 To answer your question in your last post, because it is easier to let a dying pack fail and then start one or two new units to replace it, that way he gets credit for new unit growth on his annual evaluation. That is SOP with most scouting professionals.

And we scouters still wonder why the BSA has lost most its former prestige. This type of SM unfortunately is becoming more the norm than the exception, at least in my and the adjoining council. We still get some 14yo former boy scouts who want to join our crew who are 1st Class to Eagle, who camped maybe twice with their troop, can barely swim, have no campcraft skills, at least none they have retained. They are screened and get ticked off, especially the Eagles, when they are told they will have to go through a basic skills course with the other new venturers who have little to no previous outdoor experience. Since our crew is mainly High Adventure we have set a minimum skill set and a training course before they can attend any outings, which can be demanding. This is the level of the Boy Scouts being produced in our area and it really makes me sad, especially for the boys. To BD : I would of told the SM "You really aren't doing your boys any favors and you are robbing them of the joy and fun of the scouting experience."

To make earning the Eagle badge a task that really requires the boy to use all his skills he has learned in his scouting experience in leadership, organizational skills, and scoutcraft to accomplishing something really beneficial to his community and giving him the feeling of real pride and accomplishment. Too many Eagle candidates today get weak, pitiful projects approved, get by with less than minimal effort passing the requirements, resulting in no real sense of what being an Eagle means, or even caring. To hear an Eagle say "It was so easy to become an Eagle scout" just shows we have a real problem. My biggest pet peeve is why some leaders rush their boys through their scouting experience so quickly so they can brag about how many 13 year old Eagles are in their troops. Scouting is all about the experience and not a game to see how fast you can finish.

Our crew is really getting more and more into kayaking. One of our crew adult leaders is a pro kayaker, won many medals in the sport, and now leads groups professionally. The teens just love it and we get requests from other crews and high adventure troops to join us. We make sure every participant is adequately trained for each excursion, and not at a level beyond their capability. Our last trip was ocean kayaking along the coastline for five days, camping each night on the beach, we saw dolphin, sea lions, two whales and it was beautiful days and calm waters all the way. I would recommend this activity to any high adventure crew or troop looking for a real adventure.

To me all these posts show is that the BSA has a serious credibility issue concerning what seems to be an evergrowing trend, scouts cheating/skimming by/not actually doing the requirements for the rank of Eagle. This seems to be such a common occurance that the executives in two large companies in my area no longer use the Eagle as a factor in choosing potential employees because in their own words, "the Eagle scouts we have interviewed over the last five years have been sorely lacking in presenting themselves with confidence, their inability to articulate their leadership experiences or explain what achieving the Eagle has contributed to their lives." These companies have instructed their HR departments to no longer consider a resume listing "Eagle Scout" as a factor in determining the best candidates for the job. The saddest part of all is those boys who have worked hard, actually done all the requirements, followed all the rules, and legitimately earned Eagle Scout, are now tarnished by all these eagle mill rejects who have found a way to cheat the system and be rewarded for it. We as scout leaders wonder why people have lost respect for the BSA, I think the examples in these posts answer the question pretty well. SP, maybe your book should be titled, How to Restore the Respect and Honor of the Eagle Scout Award.(This message has been edited by BadenP)

eisley Sorry to say you are dead wrong, the charter is not helpful other than as a piece of congressional endorsement that carries no legal weight behind it. If the National BSA was to somehow become localized the BSA we know would cease to exsist. However your scenario, as far fetched as it is, might be the best way to save the BSA from its own self destructive tendencies.

What is wrong with competing scoutlike organizations? Are we so paranoid that we see the Charter as some type of legal protectionist document, because that is not what it was ever meant to be. Beavah is correct the terms scout, cub, venturer, or explorer and others could easily be overturned in court. As could the ranks of tenderfoot, 1st class, star, life, and eagle because of their common usage prior to the BSA. Maybe as Sherminator so aptly put it, "diluting what it means to be a scout, the BSA has been doing that for four decades now." At one time we had the Y-Indian Guides, Woodcraft Rangers,Young Pioneers, Sons of Daniel Boone, and the BSA all competing for the same boys and the BSA came out on top. Do you really think another scoutlike group could really get organized and offer any real competition to the BSA in todays world with todays youth? I think not. Look at the AHG trying to go head to head with the GSUSA, they are still a small group and not really showing any potential of getting much bigger. Some of the Catholic scouters here may disagree but in todays overly secular world a group which promotes a devotion to Christianity as its centerpiece and focus is going to have great difficulty recruiting girls from the 20-35 year old parents most of who are skeptical of all organized religious groups. So to paraphrase a line from a classic movie, "Charter we don't need no stinkin charter".

Tim You and your wife are Cub Scout leaders not GSUSA leaders. It is nice you do some joint activities together but it is not your place to confront this parent you should let the GS troop leadership handle it. All you will do is exacerbate the problem and damage the GS troop. Learn where your boundaries are and keep to them.

Wouldn't it be nice if the BSA uniforms were simplified more like the Canadian or British scouts instead of it being a myriad of patches and pins that cover almost every inch of the uniform shirt. I have been to a few Canadian scouting events with our crew and the American scouts always seem to stand out with their garish looking uniform shirts like little generalisimos. Makes me wonder if the BSA is solely about the patches instead of the scouting journey, and about our incessant need to have to display, every award ever earned on our uniforms.

SP Still tilting at windmills I see. Look a district/council can develop any recognition for adults they would like, but that does not mean they should use a youth award or a facsmilie of one. Most adult scouters are just fine with doing a good job or going above and beyond and someone saying thank you to them or be given a certificate or plaque to recognize their efforts. What is your obsession with receiving a youth award to wear on your uniform, a patch developed solely for youth members who bring someone into scouting??

NJ-"I do hope the BSA starts to change before large pieces of it start to disappear." Truer words were never spoken NJ. I think we have seen many pieces already disappear over the last 20 years, in programming, council camps and property some that were built and maintained by volunteers for up to 70 years being sold out from under to make up for severely diminished revenue and membership or corrupt scouting professional SE's who drove the councils into bankruptcy and with NO accountability. An apathetic National office who really could care less what the volunteers think or need to deliver the program in the field, or which direction the program should take. Personally speaking and as a former DE for five years, I think Britian has the right idea with scouts being a mainly volunteer run/controlled organization. Professional scouting on a National and local level has spun way out of control and needs to be reined in before it is too late.

Eagle92 While you might be correct IMO what killed traditional sea scouting(power boats/ships) was plain economics, cost of repairs, fuel, insurance, docking fees, etc. for a ship these days are way beyond the means of most organizations.

tgrim As a minister I really hate people who use scripture out of context and incorrectly to validify something they do in the BSA that the regs clearly state is improper, like wearing a youth patch on an adult uniform. Scripture is not something to trifle with, like using the sacred to justify an inane secular act. God keeps count you know.

What pj says about Sea Scouts and National is also true about Venturing and National. They just don't seem to get it or even care to learn. Sea Scouting is pretty much dead in our council and their remants have now joined crews. I have a former Sea Scout Skipper, and three former sea scouts, as an asociate advisor in our crew who has really expanded the crews water activities with kayaks, white water rafting, and smail sailboats. It is sad that the BSA has allowed the Sea Scouts and Air Scouts to die off, even though it seems economics may have been the deciding factor.

NJ Yes I do know the difference but I think you are way off. If you are basing your argument by what you find on the internet then I would be very cautious as to your conclusions. If you get out into the REAL world you might find what I have said is true. There will ALWAYS be prejudice against gays but as the society is rapidly changing and becoming more tolerant and accepting those bigoted people are becoming a smaller and more isolated group. But again these decisions by the BSA will be based on dollar and membership factors alone and not by public sentiment as you seem to be so fixated on in your argument.

NJ The 20 years you are talking about have already passed, the time you speak of is already here. Whether you like it or not society has rapidly changed in these last two decades and the BSA has not kept in step. That is why in many circles people view the BSA as an archaic and obsolete organization, out of touch with todays world and youth. As scouters we may be far too close to the subject to be truly unbiased or objective in our views.

I think many are missing the real issue here about lifting the ban. It is not about ethics or morality, as far as the BSA is concerned it is a matter of survival. We have all seen firsthand the major restructuring of the National office, the elimination of the regional offices, the trend to form mega councils in all states and the reasons for all of this are dramatically reduced numbers in membership and devastating diminishing returns of ALL contributions, corporate and individual. If National thinks there is a possibility for both larger membership growth and financial growth by eliminating the ban on gays you just watch how fast that happens. The BSA is in crisis mode, their now exposed overinflated number reports on both membership and contributions is just the tip of the iceberg. Why do you think Mazzucca got out of there so soon? It wasn't about retirement age since we have seen that it too is flexible. As far as the religious sponsors having a fit, they like the LDS will be able to formulate their own scouting programs to accomodate their beliefs. Bottom line it is all about numbers and money both of which have been tanking for years now, and if the BSA thinks they have a way to reversing them they will do it, if for no other reason to insure their own survival. Time will soon reveal all.

Beav While I agree with you in principal we both know that has never been the reality in our country going all the way back to the founding fathers. If you had said this back in the 1950's Sen. McCarthy would have branded you a communist and have you blackballed. Still it would be nice if we as a society put the welfare of our citizens over large profits in the corporate world. Sad to say that will probably never become a reality.(This message has been edited by BadenP)

Well SP I bet you and BSA24 are the only two adult scouters who do wear the recruiter strip. Say to yourself over and over again "Its all about the youth."

BSA24 Your main argument has been "the ability for adults to earn rank and skill badges would make scouting more fun for the adults." To me that sounds self serving and totally ridiculous. You are also implying that to be a leader, teacher, and role model to these boys is not enough, that you need more recognition by earning patches, come on now you sound like a child. There are plenty of recognitions you can earn as an adult scouter, why do you need to regress to competing with your scouts? You have offered absolutely NO VALID reasons to create or support your idea. Your motivation IMO for being a scout leader is highly questionable.