Gone

I've been known to spout off about district and council, but I never make it personal...at least to people outside of my circle of friends. People love to gossip and the truth can get lost in the shuffle. @@wc153221, sounds like your best bet is to get a copy of BSA's bylaws and membership policies. Check to see if they have the right to dismiss you from scouting for what they are alleging. My guess is since these docs are hard to find the execs may not know they exist either OR may make a mistake in following procedure. That may work in your favor.

Clearly national doesn't know what's going on in its own backyard. These were confiscated in a recent raid by BSA Police on a unit in my area.

The document that outlines BSA's membership policies is Procedures for Maintaining Standards of Membership (#28-105). Good luck finding it. One would think the pdf would be readily available on the BSA website. Couldn't find it in a simple search.

And yet, not so long ago, the popcorn prize in Cub Scouts was a marhmallow shooting bow. Obviously that was for targets. I think the commentary about BSA's ambiguity around policy still stands. Either it is or isn't okay to have and use certain items.

How do you address safe swim?

The horse was drinking, @@Stosh. That's why there was an accident.

LOL...there goes George Soros' influence.

So....are water balloon fights out of bounds? Splash battles with canoes and oars require eye protection? I think our unit will feign ignorance on this one. Silly rule.

Analogy break down. Not all people drink. Not all people are gay. Drinking and being gay are the acts being scrutinized. Not all people who drink drive afterwards. Not all gay people are interested in young boys. Using your break down you are saying all drivers, whether they drink or not are potential drunk driving risks. I think this horse is dead.

If boomerangs and blow guns are forbidden, what do the scouts in Oz do for target sports?

Our Historian posts and keeps track of such award requirements for the troop. Gets posted on the bulletin board. Boys are on their own to track and apply for them. We've had a few. A few years ago we had an adult submit the paperwork for their son. Our troop scribe asked the parent top have the scout submit the paperwork. Two years went by, they never did and the kid aged-out. Obviously meant more to mom than the scout. Good job!

Awesome! I take it the FOS presentation was done on another occassion? We too don't allow FOS during COH's. Wrong place for it.

No one is saying he has no right to his feelings. I acknowledged that. I have buddies that came back from two tours of Afghanistan hating Muslims. They have a right to those feelings too, however, the generalization that stems from such experiences are seldom, if ever, correct. That's all I was pointing out. As for the comparisons, those are legit. We all know people who have experiences and then generalize a group based on that experience. Those examples are just as valid as anyone who drinks being a potential drunk driver or something else. The analogy with gays was not that they shouldn't be in scouting. I think you missed the analogy. Saying all drinkers are potential drunk drivers is like saying all gay scouters are potential pedophiles.

Sorry you experienced that. I too have had a similar experience. I've also had a close friend who had an issue with a gay scouter. Should we construe absolutes from that? Once we start declaring things as absolute simply based on an experience or two -- no matter how correct the feeling about those solutions may be -- we run the risk of losing credibility of our argument. I would no sooner blame all Muslims for 9/11, or all gays for same sex assaults in scouting, or all Germans for WWII, or all [insert your race here] are responsible for crime, or all [insert your party here] are responsible for the decay of the USA. Saying everyone who drinks is an accident waiting to happen is wrong. Yes, one can argue the correlation is high but that does not excuse the absolute.

Geesh, talk about a boat load of assumptions and generalizations. You might as well say all gay scouters are going to eventually be attracted to a scout. If people can control themselves and exercise good judgement it's possible to avoid the negative side of most anything. Not everyone is an idiot who drinks and gets behind the wheel. Some of us can actually be adults. And what better way to hammer this issue home to scouts early! Avoid the issue and you get kids who will sneak drinks early. Address the issue and kids learn. We follow this example in everything we do. Why turn a blind eye to this?

@@NJCubScouter a quick note to Adobe got use a 5 user license for the full CS-6 suite. I'm sure a group like BSA could do something like that...if they actually had the right people with the right thinking to pull it off.

Breweries do more than beer. Real root beer comes to mind. We teach auto repair, shooting sports, chemistry, etc. Heck in animal husbandry they took the beach balls off a bull. When you think about it there's a whole lot we teach these kids. Brewing, if done correctly, can be just as educational,while avoiding the obvious pitfalls. I get that. I was pointing out that such an event was being promoted on a BSA website. Hardly an arms length transaction. Irresponsible drinking does all that. There are those of us who can do,it responsibly.

Imagine how the STEM scouts will feel.

There's a Leslie Nielsen joke in there somewhere.

Welcome to it. You'd have to toss out a bunch of old crows.

We had two scouts involved in a field project from BSA to get ideas for how animation could be integrated in to a MB. There were several meetings over a 3 month period. BSA was trying to find out how much these kids knew and how adept they were at using technology. Both of these boys went on (last fall) to prestigious colleges in graphics and animation. Both were using Scribblenauts on their GameBoy's 5 years ago while travelling to camp outs; HIGHLY skilled kids. By the time they left high school they could use Photoshop to create nearly any kind of animation you could think of. One of them built a Doctor Who opening sequence for a COH video; looked like it had been done by Pixar!! Long story short, 99% of that these guys suggested to BSA seems to have been left out of this MB. Very sad. Not sure who this was dumbed-down for, the kids or the adults teaching the MB.

Scouts visiting a place that brews beer should not be an issue. Units visit places where beer is served all the time (BBQs, fairs, restaurants, etc.), so as long as they are not violating any of the other standing policies then we should be okay visiting a brewery.

I can only speak for myself as to why WB is "controversial". In my area the WB'ers are very condescending to those who do not wear the regalia. If you are not WB you are seen as a lesser scouter. I actually had a group of WB'ers tell my ex-recon marine sniper/corpsman at RSO training that he'd be "worth something" if he took WB. He just looked at me after it was said with a smile. I know he was mentally picturing each one of them in his cross hairs at 800 yards picking off their beads without hurting them, just to demonstrate how "worthy" he is. The WB program is nothing most of the scouters in my unit already know...darn well. Some have taken WB and reported back how useless it was if you had (x) or (y) skill set already. For some it works. For those with deep experience and Scouting knowledge, less so; hence why many here would like to see an advanced WB course for those who already have that skill set. Also, there should be a way to test out of WB. Personally, in what is hailed as a boy-led program, there's far too much talk given to adult awards. Whether OA or WB or knots or anything, the focus should be on the boys, not the adults. I think all the adult bling perpetuates this elitist mentality. Of course there are those with the bling that are not like that, but for me and my scouters the who adult bling thing is a bit much. We can live and let live, but in our neck of the woods it is hard. For me true servant leadership should be done without any expectation of award or recognition. That's my philosophy. I know many others disagree.

We have SMs doing stuff like this (special projects that benefit scouting) all the time...for the heck of it. Scouters should do that more...just because

Well this district had a brewing based event, so I am going to go out on a limb and take it national does not have an issue with boys learning the brewing sciences any more than learning chemistry will turn them in to a pack of Breaking Bad psychos.