NJCubScouter

The current BSA policy on this subject, announced on Jan. 30, 2017, is here: https://www.scoutingnewsroom.org/press-releases/bsa-addresses-gender-identity/ It has been discussed in this forum before. The policy is basically that the BSA considers a person to be the gender indicated on their membership application. I prefer the GSUSA policy, which looks like it was written by people who actually work with children, as opposed to the BSA policy, which looks like it was written by lawyers. (Apologies to myself.) As far as I know, the BSA has not had to deal with someone "switching back and forth." They tend to deal with things that have actually happened.

That's been going on for years in my area, due to the merger of councils.

Let's assume they could. But why would they?

I think it is time for the BSA to stop "selling" their decision and instead look forward and say, here's how it's going to be, here's what volunteers are supposed to be doing about it, etc. They are never going to convince a lot of people that the decision-making process was a good one, and that includes me. If they keep pointing to one survey and not to others, they are just going to keep making people angry. And they can keep talking about the meetings that were held for volunteers in each council, but then they're just inviting people (like me) to point out (again) that the meeting in my council was held in the middle of the summer at 6 pm on a weekday, and the flier that they sent out said not a single word about girls in Scouting as the subject of the meeting. Instead it was "making Scouting more accessible to families." I figured out what it was about, because I read this forum, but the large majority of Scouters do not read this or any other online Scouting forum. So if I were National, I would stop talking about the process by which we got here, because I don't think very many people think it was a good process, except for those who are paid to think it was a good process. They are not going to convince anybody at this point. I think there are a lot of people like me who didn't really think this was a good idea in the first place, but are now willing to "live with it" and even help make it work if I am called upon to do so. We had a discussion about this at last night's troop committee meeting, and we all seemed to be in basically the same boat: Kind of wary of the whole thing, and we're not going out promoting it, but if a sufficient number of girls (and their parents who are willing to be SM/ASM of a girls' troop, and to join our committee) show up on our doorstep, and our CO is interested (which they probably will be), we all seem inclined to help them and become a "linked" troop. So, National, let's focus on where we are and where we are going. Too much looking back is not good for you, National. Try to convince us of that which we know is not true (i.e. that this was a good decision-making process), and you just make us ticked off, which kind of interferes with our "enthusiasm" for helping to make this work. (Or, as Rick says to Ilsa in "Casablanca," "I wouldn't bring up Paris if I were you. It's poor salesmanship.")

Wow, you've got a lot going on there in a fairly short post. Specifically you have a lot of money and real estate changing hands, or not changing hands, opposite of the way it does now. It seems pretty unlikely that that is the future. (And I do realize you said it wasn't a prediction.)

You know you're in trouble when a FAQ is so long that it needs a table of contents...

I don't know whether it is going to "work," but I do know that there is only one way it is going to "work." It will work if the people who are concerned about whether it is going to work put themselves in a position to make it work, and then make it work. Otherwise, you're correct, the people who want to take the easy way out are just going to turn it into a coed program.

And the champagne that she was not legally permitted to drink at her wedding.

Verbal abuse of Scouts by leaders is not permitted. The leaders (at least the IH/COR and his wife the CC) are abusing their positions to benefit their son - which, if we are being honest, happens often, but there is a line of "way too far" and what you describe crosses that line. There is no rule that says the COR and CC can't be husband and wife - in fact that wouldn't make sense, because one person can be COR and CC at the same time - but it seems to me that if a person effectively owns the troop and his wife is CC, trouble is almost a certainty. And trouble there is, since it appears that the SM is not being allowed to do his job. Nor are you. The CC is not letting you do your job, which includes arranging BOR's. She definitely should not be selecting members for her son's BOR. I have extra sympathy for you here, because I am Advancement Chair in our troop, and have been through a situation where the CC was not letting me do my job. So I quit and was just an unassigned committee member until the CC was replaced by the person who had succeeded me as AC, so I then became AC again. I arrange the BOR's, recruit the members, and chair the BOR's - even when the CC is also a BOR member, which he often is. I feel very lucky to have a CC who understands what the roles are supposed to be, and I wish those in other troops the same. You already know what the answer is. You just need to keep your son at a minimal level of unhappiness for the next few days so he stays in Scouts long enough to move to another troop.

Keep in mind we have had a lot of new members since then, and a lot of people who were participating then are no longer participating. I knew it has been discussed in the past, but was not industrious to go back and search for it.

It is now clear to me that the BSA has said that it is a religious organization, and it has also said that it is NOT a religious organization, depending on the legal situation in which they found themselves. Check this out: http://www.foxnews.com/story/2004/01/16/is-boy-scouts-america-religious-organization.html Normally I would not be quoting from Fox News nor would I be quoting Bill O'Reilly, but I have no reason to doubt that the words quoted here were actually said. This demonstrates that the BSA has been inconsistent on this question. It is especially amusing to see the BSA attorney try to dance around the issue, but it eventually becomes clear that he does not think the term "religious organization" should be used for the BSA - even though the BSA has sometimes used the term for itself. For me, I agree with the BSA on the days when it says it is not a religious organization.

I think I have actually seen a grid for this in the past - but of course it would be out-of-date now. It was when they decided that Venturing crew members 18-20 were no longer "youth" and were not "adult leaders" but were now considered "adult participants," which resulted in there being (I think) 6 different categories of people for YP purposes.

And I think it's getting worse. I am still irritated about them taking a clearly-worded policy on use of alcohol at Scouting events and turning it into a mostly-meaningless mishmash - and at the same time they left the poorly-worded policy on smoking as is.

Where does the Lion badge go? No, not THAT Lion.

It's right here. In spirit. So to speak.

I think what this boils down to is that if you complete your Star Board of Review before your 17th birthday, and your Life Board of Review before your "17.5 birthday," then you have met the time requirements. Of course you also have to complete all the other requirements. Also be aware that for every day that you are still working on Star, you are creating an ever-shrinking window of time in which you must make Life. If you have your Star BOR ON your 17th birthday, then there is only one day on which you can have your Life BOR - the date exactly six months after you turn 17. Not the day before or the day after. And let's hope your birthday isn't Feb. 29. And then this also brings up the question (which almost mattered in my son's case) of whether the last day to complete Eagle requirements is the day before your 18th birthday, or the day of your 18th birthday - I have seen both answers given. I strongly recommend that you not find out. In other words, you want to get Star ASAP, leaving you some room to meet the time requirements (and all the other requirements!) for Life and Eagle.

Thanks. I knew the second sentence. I must have missed the change mentioned in the first sentence. That's not good. And I don't get it. An 18-year-old is an adult. I can understand the BSA wanticng at least one person who is a little older, but I don't get the reason for both. And having had three children go through those ages, and having observed some 18-20-year-old ASM's, I really don't think that a typical 21-year-old is leaps-and-bounds more mature than a typicael 18-year-old. Sometimes, not more mature at all. So this means you can still have an 18 year old ASM, and they count as adults for the no one-on-one rule and no-sharing-tents rule, but they don't count as adults for the two-deep rule? Is that basically it? Now I see WonderBoy's point: They actually will be LESS useful than a JASM, because they have turned 18. It also appears to mean that it is pointless to have an 18-20 year old Assistant Den Leader. I have never actually seen one of those, but when I was a Den Leader and my oldest daughter was in that age range, I got her to consider being my ADL. She decided against it, but I am sure it happens, somewhere. Before October 2018. It will still be possible, but I don't see the point of doing it under the new G2SS.

Was that in the Dale case? Regardless of whether it was that case or a different one... I will try to put this gently... what the BSA's attorneys evidently told the Supreme Court in the Dale case - as reflected in the majority opinion, which I have read several times - does not serve as what I would call a role model for trustworthiness. So it wouldn't surprise me if they said that too. It was my understanding that the BSA parted ways with both public schools and the military as CO's not necessarily because it was a religious organization that was discriminating, but because it was was an organization that was discriminating on the basis of religion. (The Supreme Court has stated that discrimination against atheists is discrimination on the basis of religion.) A public school or military unit being a CO meant that the government was discriminating on the basis of religion. I could be wrong, but that was my understanding.

Can you explain that? Apparently I haven't been paying close enough attention recently... including to some of things posted in this forum, it would appear.

I think you are correct, but that still means there is a risk management person(s) somewhere deciding how large the self-insurance fund needs to be, and I am sure that amount is correlated to the perceived total risk - which is affected by issues like the ones we are discussing. I am sure the bigwigs at National would much rather be using as much as possible of that self-insurance fund for other crucial needs - like their own already-inflated salaries. (Hey, who took that cheap shot? He ran away so fast, I didn't see his face...)hInEAgency@gmail.com (I am ignoring the part about the lawyers, since I am one of those. )

Or if it's the BSA's insurance company saying, "Your rates are going up 40% (or whatever) unless you require two adults to be at every activity, including meetings." I don't know that to be true, but it's certainly within the realm of plausibility.

That might be true in some situations, but not others. If the patrol is going on a day hike, for the adults to be "nearby" also means thrat they are "involved." In other words they are on the hike along with the patrol. I was trying to come up with a way to avoid this, but all I get are jokes. The two adults flying overhead in a helicopter? The patrol is hiking a trail along a riverbank and the two leaders happen to be rowing down the river at the same speed and direction? Nothing serious suggests itself.

For awhile, the PLC in our troop was meeting at the SPL's home, after school, on a schedule that they determined. (Without the SM, but that's another subject.) There were no adult leaders there. For part of this time the SPL happened to be the son of the CC, but that doesn't necessarily mean that any parent was home while they were meeting. This was not just a group of friends meeting; they were planning future troop meetings and camping trips, which suggests to me that this was an "official" unit function. Is THAT now going to be prohibited?

Let's assume the National Council of Churches is a religious organization. (I'm not really familiar with it so I will take your word for it.) Is the National Conference of Christians and Jews a religious organization? The name suggests it is an organization of people who express a faith, but it is not the same faith. To me it does not meet the definition of a religious organization, for much the same reason as the BSA doesn't.

The BSA is not a religious organization. A religious organization has a specific creed relating to God, the Supreme Being, etc. The BSA does not have that.