moosetracker

Mozartbrau - I am not concerned with the scout leaders who ignore this and do not discuss "duty to God" in a SM conference.. Or those who correctly accept scouts who do not have well defined concepts, but are just open and questioning and in search on this topic.. I am more concerned with the gung-ho religious person who feels their interpretation on religion is the only correct viewpoint, or at least people should be church-goers even if not their religion. I went back to look up the CS new requirements.. Be happy that at troop level you have just the SM conference.. Here are the requirements of each rank, some of it looks more like sunday school then Cub Scouts. Tiger - My Family’s Faith Youth Handbook Snapshot of Adventure Become a faith investigator as you discover what faith means to you and your family. Discover what makes each member of your family different and what special gifts they have. Make a banner to show your faith and the reason your family is so special to you! Rationale for Adventure—Helping a Tiger understand what duty to God means in Scouting and for them and their family. Wolf - Footsteps of Faith Youth Handbook Snapshot of Adventure Faith is not only a belief in a God, but showing others by your actions what your faith is. You will learn about footsteps that have come before showing faith. This can help you begin to think about how the footsteps you take as a Scout as you learn lots of exciting new skills and adventures can help you show your faith in God. Rationale for Adventure—Provide consistent awareness of a Scout’s faith and that by practicing his faith he is showing his duty to God. Bear - Fellowship of Faith Youth Handbook Snapshot of Adventure Treating others the way we want to be treated, often called the golden rule, is a principle found in almost every religion. It is a good rule to follow every day! It is one way we can practice our duty to God. When we help our neighbors, treat family members with kindness, help our friends, and even reach out to people in our community, we help make life better for them. Helping others is a good way to have fellowship with others. We become happier, and our faith in God is strengthened! In this adventure, you will have opportunities to practice your duty to God by helping people around you. Rationale for Adventure—To practice their duty to God, Bear Cub Scouts will have opportunities in this adventure to be good neighbors as they reach out in fellowship to those in their communities. Cub Scouts will experience the universal principle, common to many religions, that we should treat others the way we want to be treated. Webelos - Faith in Action Youth Handbook Snapshot of Adventure Understanding more about your religious beliefs, and the beliefs of others close to you, can help you make sense of the world around you. The Faith in Action adventure allows you to explore your own faith, plan and participate in your own Scout interfaith service, and help you plan ways to continue your faith practices in the future. Rationale for Adventure—A Scout is reverent. He is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties and respects the convictions of others in matters of custom and religion. Arrow of Light - Faith in Action Youth Handbook Snapshot of Adventure In this adventure, you will have the opportunity to further explore your faith and duty to God in your own way. You can call on the past (your ancestors) and the present (you!) to get ideas about how to make faith an important part of your life. Rationale for Adventure—A Scout is reverent. He is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties and respects the convictions of others in matters of custom and religion. I pulled this out of this PDF - http://www.scouting.org/filestore/program_update/pdf/New_Cub_Adventure_Program_mg.pdf - page 5

My personal opinion is this is being added because BSA knows eventually they will fully drop the homosexual rules.. It is a battle lost.. This shoring up on duty to God is trying to head off loosing the battle against the acceptance of atheists.. Cub Scouts added a whole bunch of new requirements about duty to god also.. It was at least a year ago when I read about them, and I don't remember them exactly.. I know all the anxiety you have over the new changes in boy scouts I had reading the changes in Cub scouts.. I was UC of a pack at the time.. I talked to the pack leadership at the time and advised them where ever possible keep the requirements family oriented, and where the requirements prevent it being family oriented they had to remember that BSA is open to all but atheists so duty to god does not need to be well defined just some foggy belief that something greater then themselves was at work to create the universe and the world they live in.. Duty to God can just be treating others with respect, animals kindly, and/or the planet clean..

Smart, Smart... You avoided a civil war in the old homestead.

Hello from a fellow New Englander.. New Hampshire to be precise.. Hopefully you are close to some of the great New England wilderness..

Ok, that sounds good.. What is a leaping wolf and a Springbok.. We have wolf as a rank in out Cub pack, maybe your wolfs leap?? At that age ours usually are leaping.

Yes, what I said (only not with the correct verbage..) "BSA Internet Advancement" / "do your own keyboard entry" .. Potato / po-tot-o ... (Seriously TAHAWK, thanks your summed up my thoughts beautifully).

My husband when he headed up the troops Advancement would ask council for a printout of a scouts advancement records when the scout started working on their Eagle project, he would then go over it with the scout and if an rank or Merit Badge was not recorded, they had time to fix the problem before the scout was ready for his Eagle Board.. He tried to get the Scout to come up with the blue card, but if it was during his time in the position he usually had the paperwork also on when he submitted it to Council.. Council would then go through their on file copy (I don't know if they thought he just squeezed it onto his paperwork after the fact).. Their paper work would have it also.. Proof positive it was someone at Council who skipped over a line when doing data entry.. I suppose still room for human error, but I think it is so much better now that the units have the software that they can do their own keyboard entry for rank advancement for their own units. You may still flub up, but I think less so when you are entering 20 or 30 then when you are entering a thousand or more..

I know when my son was a CS I did have 2 shirts for him (long sleeve / short sleeve) and getting 2nds wasn't too bad, they would ask me why I was getting them and did he earn them but was satisfied with the 2nd shirt story... As he got older in CS and the things being sewn on were a lot (especially when he needed new shirts having grown out of the old one) I regretted the 2 shirts.. So in BS he had one short sleeved shirt and wore a long sleeve under it on the coldest winter nights.. I sort of understand stopping the gun-ho mom not understanding the award system and wanting to get lots of badges to put on sons shirt so he looks cool.. But, I doubt there are many and the verbal check they did with me I think was sufficient.. I am perplexed over them stating that if a boy earns a rank or award it should be given out the very next week, but not allowing the unit to hold a few in stock.. It is enough to get the paperwork done and have someone go to the scout store once a month, usually the den leaders needed to email the person going to the store about a week before the pack meeting, because that person was going to the store when convenient, not an hour before the pack meeting. Therefore ranks were always at pack meetings.. Boy scouts may know at one meeting who earned what and have a week to go to the store, still expecting someone to go to the store weekly is a lot.. With our troop although we could put together a board anytime, the boys forgot about earning rank until just before a COH so nothing, nothing, nothing, 3 tenderfoot - 2 first class - 1 life all in the week before the COH.. Sometimes the week before the COH we would have to get 2 separate boards running just to get all the boys through during that meeting.

In our council, to change districts the DE's have to be ok with it, and although map wise it makes sense for this one town to be in the other district, the DE for that has them does not want to loose the boys, even though it is a struggling pack/troop with not many boys.. The problem is the fact that national puts way to much emphasis on head count and every year increases the head count a DE must have to retain their job.. If the DE is looking already at the need to find 75 or 100 more boys in the next 3 months, the thought of letting 10 boys cross over to another district and ending up with 85 or 110 more boys needed is enough incentive for them to say "No" even if it makes no sense for the unit to be part of their territory.

Moving for them would depend on how far the border is to the other council, they may travel an hour or two for their council event, but not wish to do that weekly.. Also the troop # may not be possible even if the CO is agreeable to all of it.. Another unit in the other council may already be using those numbers.. Stosh, I know our troop would go to different district and different council events.. Not all the time, but when they wanted something different and to see how the other half lived.. It definitely would be doable if all they want is to go to the other council events, maybe a little more pricy, some of the camps would charge an extra surcharge for out of council units.

What do you mean by fiscally remain in the present council.. Seems somehow this is something where they want their cake and eat it too.. I am unsure they can do this, we have been trying to just switch a unit from one district to another because the school the scouts attend are in the other district with other scouts in the school belonging to the other district and they would like to go to the same district events, if you look at a map it also would make more sense they be in the other district as the one they are in swings out to scoop them up, we can't do it.

Well, having been missing for that long, you do loose hope of finding someone alive, but any search and rescue you participate in may have a sad conclusion where it's too late for a rescue, so any scouting group participating in this (even 1 or 2 days after the boy was missing) could have this conclusion.. the child floating face up and near shore sounds like the kids may have seen more then you hope they would, but hopefully the adults kept the boys from getting too close to the body, or get too close a look .. I am sure scouts have hit this before helping in search & rescue after hurricanes or tornados.. I feel for the family, if the father is responsible then I do hope they get evidence, but what I can read from the story they just have suspicion.. So, if not guilty, hopefully he is cleared and doesn't go through life always under suspicion.

Curious as to who sent the email, adults in the troop or scouts?.. Also were they trying to keep all the MB counselors as being adult members / parents from the troop, or looking outside the troop.. The District "should" have a list of available counselors within the district and the scouts calling and working with complete strangers is great training for scouts (YPT being followed, usually by a parent within earshot but not sitting in on the conversation is the norm..) It always depends on the talents of the councilor if the MB is interesting or boring.. Take Citizen & the World - my son took it with a councilor who tried to get a decent group of kids together so that they worked together on working with currency from different countries and did a mock up United Nations.. His friend took it with someone at summer camp who passed out the worksheets you find on the internet, and made it a writing exercise.. Fun .vs. boring.. The troop should keep their ear open for counselors outside their troop which others feel do a good job and who do a poor job, and they can take the district list and scratch out the ones who do a poor job, they can recommend those known to do a good job, but leave the unknown one on the list as they might be better travel wise or time slot wise for the scouts, and then the scout can come back and rate them for you. The troop should not be finding the counselor and setting up the meetings (ie have the MB done during troop meetings) for the scout..

I agree we don't need 3 citizenship.. That would be the first thing I would look at if trying to reduce required MB

We put away so much for my sons college, and planned on him getting loans, jobs and whatever for the rest.. My opinion was he was the one with time to pay back the loans while we had to concentrate on retirement.. But, when I had college loans the interest was very low, in fact although you paid off on time, there was no incentive to pay back early, because you could earn more with it in your bank gaining interest then you would loose with the interest charged by the loan.. I was shocked with the interest rate on college loans these days, higher then house loans or a normal bank loan.. It is definitely not a loan to help kids get an education, it's a racket and they are making a huge profit off these kids...

Although I defiantly agree with the student learning to do without mom in tow at the college stage of the game.. I personally was not happy with not seeing the grades, luckily my son went to college locally and lived at home, and he was pretty responsible.. But, the only thing we could do was tell him if he failed a grade, he would pay to retake it.. We never would know if he was passing with D's or C's.. I always wondered how many parents spent thousands for students who partied their college away and four years later they found they were out thousands and their child passed little more then maybe gym class..

Mozart this is an old thread started years ago, that has been resurrected from time to time.. Only the last 4 or 5 posts are recent.. But when I wrote about the ickkkkkkkkk. it was in Feb. 2013, probably around the time they upgraded the old forum and it was very, very, very buggy..

Yes, I was surprised with all the other bells & whistles on the bulletin board it didn't offer a feature for skin customization, Closest I found in Settings was "Profile Customization", but even when I played with the background in that, I saw no change in my profile area (perhaps I was looking in the wrong area for the changes?).. PS... no I think I had the right area, I looked in my profile area, didn't see the background change, but saw a button that said "Remove Customization" I hit it, the button disappeared (but I again saw no change to my profile). When I went back to the "Settings" "profile Customization" the background color was the default background color. PSS... OK!!! I put in a background picture as well as left the different background color, now both show up ! Ugly as anything, but I will play with it..

Sometimes it's the new guys who need to sit back and figure out what they have and what they are trying to accomplish before they step in and try to change everything, so in those cases the new guys might be the "no good".. But seriously it really is everyone needs to be open to ideas the old guy who has been there for 25+ years and knows he will be there when years after all these "new guys" come and go and know what works and what does not, and the new guys (or 2 or 3 years in) who have heard from grumblings from his son(s) and maybe their patrol that they are tired of the same-ol' same-ol' and want to do something different to shake things up, or have seen other units do something differently and think it would be beneficial to try in their unit. In one troop we were in it was the old timer who kept on changing things up, sometimes for the better, most times not.. By the time all was said and done, he got kicked out of scouts due to all the extra hoops the scouts had to jump through to get Eagle, and the 'priviledged' group he made, where he did things with his favorites and excluded the other scouts from the activities.. Wouldn't listen as the parents and scouts started complaining until the Council had to step in.. So it isn't always the new guys with the new ideas, and the old guys who are sticks-in-the-mud.. But, it always falls apart when people forge ahead and do not listen to others.

True - I am just thinking that those with kids in the troop and those without kids in the troop looking at the troop from different perspectives.. I know even if the unit consists of all parents there can be disagreement.. We had some good knock-down drag-outs, between parents.. But, parents are looking for the best experience for their kids which could vary greatly, but it tends to be at micro level, while those without kids have the macro vision and are working to strengthen the unit as a whole..

I do agree with that.. As long as both listen and respect each others views and where they want to take the troop, the mix is good.

SA scouting sure sounds different !!! More then half of what you rattled off I didn't understand, communication skill are excellent that's not what I'm saying but things like Rover Crew, and Leaping wolf and Springbok (etc..) all are foreign .. Your 26 and still a youth member? How old is it before you age out? How old do you need to be in order to be Adult leaders?

It is hard to get anyone to volunteer.. Usually the only way to get them is to twist the arms of the parents in the unit with the threat of if they don't step up then the unit will fold.. But there is also a fear of pedophiles or really anything (like mosquitoes or normal play) in this country, that I would say has gone from being a good thing, to being paranoid.. So, although we do get some with no children volunteering, if they are not known in the unit because they recently were scouts from the unit, or their kids were in the unit and they stayed on even after they left.. Very rare if you just sign up as a stranger with no kids.. Many times the unit rejects the application due to being suspicious.. My son wanted to stay in and had issues in the troop he aged out from.. So he went looking for a new unit to volunteer in, even though he was young and had the history of being in scouting since he was a tiger scout, he was not welcomed to join.. He finally did work with a cub pack for a while, but he almost was a one man band and got burnt out after 2 years.. The pack took him because none of the parent wanted to do ANYTHING.. He is currently content to hold down 3 or 4 jobs at District level (in two different districts) currently...

I would say if your a stranger trying to come in with no kids you may get suspicion.. But, if you are a known member usually you are very welcomed.. Two things I know that causes it to grow a little sour... 1) if the old-timer starts getting stuck in their ways and starts thinking that they have more say in the direction of the troop then parents with kids in the troop.. As an old-timer it is good to give the wisdom of the ages, but in the end if people want to experiment with new things (whether it be the scouts or the parents of the scouts) they really should have more say in the direction.. If they fall on their faces, they have learned and you are there to pick them up.. But if the experiment works, and they get a more robust enthusiastic troop because it offers new challenges and it isn't the same old boring routine.. All is good. 2) If the old timer starts loosing it.. That is sad.. There are a few (Luckily the ones I know are at council level) that have been greats in their day, but now we try to keep them involved in small ways, but cringe if they want to take on more, and no one wants to tell them they should pack it in. One guy was a fabulous orator and was asked to be at Eagle ceremonies and at trainings and various other things.. Now we try to keep him out of speaking though he still wants to, yet he can stretch what was suppose to be 5 minutes into an hour talking and on nothing related to the topic.. Another on the Eagle board who keeps asking the same questions over and over again.. And they took going out to look at projects away early because when the scout would call, he would tell the scout he wasn't his counselor... Also he really should not be driving anymore.. I think he did recently stop coming because of driving issues.

Yeah, my kid wasn't thrilled with some of the electives.. But I as a parent saw it as a great educational tool for my son.. I guess I am not someone who saw Scouting as just for "fun", but if you were a kid just wanting fun, you could do so and not work to get your Eagle.. I kind of look as it as preparation and training for college and jobs.. Having electives and required (and some required is a choice of doing 1 of 3 again just like college).. Life will not ever be going along only doing what you want.. Also talking to adults as counselors prepared him to talk to school councilors and professors. And if your troop does it right them enforcing that the parents do nothing for the scout, (like talk to the counselors for them, and not have all the MB done by only one or two counselors which would limit the scouts interactions with a lot of different adults.. If you scout doesn't plan on going to college it is still good for them going off in the working world.. Rarely do you get a job where you only need do what you want to do, and interacting with different managers and co-workers is needed to get ahead.. Also some scouts given the opportunity would pick the easiest merit badges that could be knocked out in a few hours.. I am sure with Packsaddle's students if they could take anything in order to get their credits to graduate.. It is very easy to just pick the simplest easy courses, but that doesn't prepare you for getting out in the real world and doing the job.