NJCubScouter

I wonder if the people running this program are aware of the longstanding policy of the BSA in not wanting its programs to be "military" in nature - or maybe that policy doesn't exist anymore? Added: Ok I just looked at the links and here is the photo that is in the article: I find it VERY difficult to believe that this is approved by National.

I don't have a problem with this in general, but I think the BSA could pay a little more attention to how people are going to perceive things. The one thing that catches my eye is the "premium linens." Really? The whole setup is still reasonably rustic, I have no problem with a family opting for (and paying extra for) electricity, but "premium linens" seems kind of silly and unnecessary. All it does is lend itself to sarcastic exaggerations like the ones in the original post. (Plus I am not quite sure what would count as "premium linens." I am going to guess the ones we use at home would not qualify, but they do the job in a reasonably comfortable manner.)

I know the feeling... It was actually kind of an eventful week, and the events were kind of unavoidable for us. Prince Charles and Princess Diana got married four days after we did, so we were in the capital of Canada at the time the heir to their throne got married. (They went kind of bonkers over that.) And then the air traffic controller strike as we were trying to get back.

The article is a little confusing because the reporter gets the BSA terminology mixed up, but what else is new.

Not that it matters to the discussion, but the air traffic controller's strike was in August 1981. Wikipedia tells me it started August 3 and essentially ended on August 5 when the controllers were all fired and started being replaced, but even without Wikipedia I knew it was 1981. The first day of the strike was the day my wife and I flew back from our honeymoon in Canada, and if there is one piece of information that I absolutely need to have in my memory at all times (well, two, the other is my wife's birthday), it is the date and year of my wedding. (How exactly we got back despite the strike I do not recall; I think we may have been on one of the last planes in the air before everything was shut down. I could probably get a minute-by-minute recitation from my wife.)

One might also ask why the BSA decided to hold its' Jamborees in a place without adequate transportation facilities. (And "because it was donated" is NOT a good answer.)

I know. Cub Scouting was three years when I was in it. Now it has become the tail that wags the dog. I believe there are significantly more youth members in Cub Scouts than in Scouts BSA (that name is still difficult for me to type) at any given time. That is really where National's focus seems to be most of the time.

I think I am u$ing "value" to mean $omething different from the re$t of you.

When I was a Cub Scout and Boy Scout (mid-60's to mid-70's) there were ads for Boy Scouting on tv on a regular basis. I don't actually know when they stopped. There have been several discussions of BSA advertising in this forum over the years. Some have said that National makes tv ads for Scouting available to the councils but that the councils don't use them. (I had been under the impression that the old BSA ads were "public service announcements," which I assume means the advertiser doesn't have to pay for them. If that's not the case, or is no longer the case, then the fact that the councils don't use them makes a little more sense, because they cost money.)

I already mentioned what I think is probably the biggest reason: The parents push sports over Scouting because they believe it is in their financial best interests to do so - regardless of whether it actually is or not. On a related note, I think that by the end of what is now almost SIX YEARS of Cub Scouting, the parents (particularly those who were not Scouts themselves) tend to think that their sons have "done Scouting" and have gotten all the benefit they can out of it (of course, we know they're wrong, but they don't.) On the other hand, they view the benefits of sports as just beginning at that age.

Our troop traditionally takes attendance, which is to say that there have been times when the scribe has taken attendance and times where he hasn't, usually depending on how hard the SM at the time pushed the SPL at the time to push the Scribe at the time. How the attendance records are used, if at all, is not consistent as well. (I am talking about a 16-year period during which I have been a troop committee member and sometime Advancement Chair. Currently our troop is down to about 6 or 7 Scouts so nobody bothers to take attendance.

I think a lot of Scouters have TRIED to do the same and have found that the parents and Scouts, given a choice between sports and Scouting, will usually choose sports. So the "free market" dictates that it's us who make the accommodation, and not the coaches.

Absolutely. And I have seen #3 happen, although I do not know whether there was any way of knowing about it in advance as there was in the article. When I was in high school a football player suffered a ruptured spleen from a "hit" during a game and died a few weeks later.

I think that's the answer. A lot of parents have stars in their eyes. They look forward to their child getting a free ride on a sports scholarship, turning pro and supporting them in their old age. The fact that the chances of this happening for any given youth are very, very small does not seem to deter many of them.

That's my point. In the BSA you have CO's that are Christian churches, Jewish synagogues, Hindu temples, etc. and many that are not religious at all, like PTA's, American Legion, Elks, etc. If you want a new unit of your own religious bent, you can line up the appropriate place of worship and start a new unit, regardless of which religion it is. None of that is true for Trail Life. You cannot get a charter for a Trail Life unit unless you are a Christian church (and maybe other kinds of Christian organizations, I don't know.) The point is, Christian. Nothing else. I am not faulting them for that, it is their organization. I was just wondering, since people say Trail Life is open to non-Christian youth (but not non-Christian adults), whether the group is open with parents of non-Christian youth about the fact that people are going to try to "spread the word" to their children. If they are, and a parent chooses to send their child into that environment, that's fine. By the way, the general rule within Judaism is to not proselytize to members of other faiths.