Oak Tree

Are they not following the policy? Nope, they aren't following it. And I don't really see why they would need to. Doesn't this cause headaches when a Life scout checks his scoutnet report in preparation for completing the Eagle application? It hasn't ever caused problems for us. We do always turn in advancement reports for rank, but I really don't think our council cares if the merit badges are listed correctly in Scoutnet. As far as I can tell, they take the unit's word on what merit badges have been earned when. In fact, the part about "a Life Scout checks his Scoutnet report" is something that never happens. We don't use internet advancement, our unit doesn't ever look at what is in Scoutnet, and a Life Scout certainly never sees his Scoutnet report. I have no idea what parts of the report the council looks at when they verify an Eagle application, but they have never come back to us with any questions. Our store does not easily sell rank badges, but we can usually talk them into selling us some, either as replacements or just because they know us. Would it be nice if the records were all consistent? Yes. But unless they make it easy to do, and painful if it goes wrong, there's just not much incentive for us to try to make sure all the Scoutnet records are correct. Right now I don't think the council has much incentive, nor does the unit.

The article seems to give the impression that the Scouts were pretty much out of line in their behavior. The council received complaints. The part that makes the SE sound like he was too aggressive in his statement is "it's a direct violation to use the uniform to try to wield influence". It doesn't seem like you want to come right out and throw the Scouts under the bus. The rest of the SE's comments sound pretty reasonable, and this quote is only paraphrased, so I'm going to give the SE the benefit of the doubt here. At first I thought it was odd to think that the Scouts would actually be trying to "use the uniform to try to wield influence", but the article specifically says "some people at the hearing thought they were trying to use their uniforms as leverage." I think I'll go with the SE here. Teenagers...sigh...

it is NOT a local option for a parent to choose in lieu of a local troop. Sure it is. I've seen it done. That may not be the intention of the program, but it is indeed an option of the program. The Lone Scout Friend and Counselor Guidebook says that boys can apply for membership when they cannot conveniently join a Boy Scout troop. I realize that one interpretation might be that you'd have to join the one convenient troop, but I think that if you don't like the close-by troop and other troops are at an inconvenient distance, that would meet the requirement. At any rate, it would be up to your council registrar to decide whether to accept it or not, and I know our council would accept it. The guide does say that boys who can attend regular meetings of troops are not eligible for the Lone Boy Scout program. It would be my opinion that meeting once a month is not "regular", but it won't be my decision. Talk to your council office and see what they say, if you really want to pursue it. I'd actually pursue getting a new troop started, though. I find it hard to believe that a council is going to turn down a new unit. What council out there isn't trying to create new units? Maybe it's one with a new SE who is trimming all the excess units off the roster in a one-time swoop, but then they'll start wanting to build their unit count up again in a year.

This is the Scoutmaster's call. Someone has to decide what the phrase "secure the ingredients" means and whether this Scout has done that. That is either the Scoutmaster or someone that he has delegated. I would definitely sign off on 4a, c, and e. It can be done piecemeal, but if he does part b on some other trip, that will mean that another Scout won't get credit for it on that trip. In general, I don't think we've ever signed these off for someone who wasn't the designated head cook for their patrol - so in our troop he'd have to find another opportunity to be head cook. It's really a pain in the butt when a Scout does the great majority of some requirement but doesn't quite finish it. Sometimes you have to decide what type of judgment you can use to make things fair. That's also a good lesson for leaders involved to make sure that we're as clear as possible with the Scouts on what the requirements are.

There's no reason that you couldn't do it, at least not in our council. Of course, in our council, you can start a new troop with five Scouts, too. In fact, the council can waive that requirement and I know I've seen units recharter with as few as three youth. It does seem unlikely that there aren't more troops around, but you can certainly pursue other options if you want.

I don't believe I've ever vetoed anyone. If the Scout wants to run and is otherwise eligible, I'll let him be on the ballot (I can imagine some extreme situations, but they've never come up). The Scouts have shown pretty good discernment in who they elect. The ones that I might have considered vetoing end up getting hardly any votes.

We've had a couple of boys earn Hiking. I think that essentially the only ones who do it are the ones who don't like to swim all that much. We've also had a couple of Scouts earn Cycling for the same reason. But the substantial majority (80%+) use Swimming out of those choices.

You must turn in a report with the blue cards or you will not be allowed to purchase the merit badges. Yeah, not in our council. Anyone can purchase a merit badge at any time, with or without an advancement report and with or without blue cards. We never turn in the blue cards - I can't imagine that the council office would want them. The link that BasementDweller gives is not an official BSA link. Here is a link to the card at the national web site: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/boyscouts/pdf/34124.pdf - all it says is that "Applicant will turn in this portion to his unit leader for record posting." The Advancement Guide (http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/33088.pdf) says "the applicant submits one part to his unit leader". The Advancement Report (http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34403.pdf) doesn't say anything about needing to turn in the blue card. In our troop the advancement coordinator keeps the blue cards. We'd certainly forward them on to another troop, or give them to the Scout himself, if he was leaving the unit. I don't know why we'd want to keep a copy.

I would have really hoped that they would have expanded their search to include people from outside the BSA. I still think that a former secretary of defense, or someone else with a high profile, could make a big difference. Let's put Mike Rowe in the job for two years.

Part of the BOR's job is to make sure that the Scoutmaster isn't just rubber-stamping things. "one reason for a board of review is to ensure the Scout did what he was supposed to do to meet the requirements." "If any member dissents, the decision cannot be for approval. If a board decides not to approve, the candidate must be so informed and told what he can do to improve." As a committee member, you do have an obligation to uphold the standards. I would suggest, though, that talking to the Scoutmaster ahead of time would be a better approach than fighting the battle through the Scout. Also, if you do decide that the boy really doesn't merit approval, you'll need to decide what the requirements are. It doesn't really seem fair to the boy to tell him that he didn't do the POR well enough, if such requirements weren't communicated to him ahead of time. If there were indeed requirements that were given ahead of time and he knew about them, then that might be a valid reason. From your description, though, it sounds like Scout spirit may be lacking. If you truly believe that this boy isn't showing Scout spirit, and that everyone else knows it, that may be a more defensible position on your part. You could try to hold him up on either requirement - a board's decision is final within the unit and would have to be appealed to the council to be overturned. If I were you, though, I'd try to work this out between the adults first. If the committee really has no faith in the Scoutmaster, you're going to need to figure out a long-term solution, hopefully without using the Scouts as cannon fodder.

There are separate questions here. One is whether the board was right in what it did. The majority here seem to believe it was not. The second question is what should the UC do about it. I'd shoot straight from the hip and unconditionally on this one. I am not and have not been a UC. But as a unit leader, I can tell you that if you were a UNC who did this with our troop, I'd just politely tell you that you aren't welcome to back to our meetings. I don't want a UC who is going to shoot unconditionally, and I don't want him to go to the COR without talking to me first. Now, a UC who is willing to listen, he might be able to help. I don't need someone saying "You can't add to the requirements." I, as SM, am well aware of that. I also doubt that if you come barging in and tell the committee that they are doing the BOR all wrong, that that's going to have a magical effect of changing their minds. For the long term health of the unit, you need to deal with the relationship problem, not just one advancement issue that is a symptom. I like several suggestions from the group: "mediate this dispute" [which is going to involve listening] "contact the CC & SM to see if they agree with the findings of the Board. As part of that conversation, you want to find out what the BOR's side of the story is" [again, listen] "give them the benifit of hearing them out" [more listening] "suggest a sit down to discuss the issue" [but you need to let them do the discussing. You can ask questions, or provide facts when asked, but you need to listen. They need to know that you are listening, or they aren't going to listen to you.] "I'd advise the parents to consult with the SM first" [Yes, absolutely.] why NOT involve the COR? It could be that this would just make things worse. Get everyone all good and riled up. I always thought UC had to guide, but they could strongly guide during time of crisis. Most of the time, people don't want to be strongly guided. Maybe there are situations where they want someone to tell them what to do, but no one wants someone to blatantly try to override them. Most people here are saying the board is wrong, but most people are also saying that you are the UC, you have to be a friend to the unit.

Based solely on this description, if your son wants to walk, I'd sure encourage it. What does the troop do? They don't appear to focus on camping or advancement, that's for sure. Is there something else that they do that appeals to your son? Maybe he's getting something out of the program. Admittedly, it doesn't seem real likely. You could always ask if he wants to visit another troop, or if he knows of any friends who are in another troop. I don't think I'd tell him it's time to find another troop, but I'd sure say it's time to ask him if he wants to.

Yes, you can, and we've done it both ways. We've had one board cover both ranks, but my preferred method is to have two different boards composed of different individuals. We once did three boards in one day for a Scout.

I don't know about that...the link says "The BSAs new Chief Scout Executive will be announced May 21" I don't think I'd announce a date unless there was already a pretty good idea who it was going to be.

Unit Leader refers to, essentially, uniformed, direct-contact adult volunteers: Scoutmasters, Cubmasters, and their assistants, obviously, but in keeping with the principle should probably include Den Leaders, too (for pretty obvious practical reasons, despite their not being specifically mentionedbut this part is my own personal thought, having been a DC; its not a stated BSA policy). The above is from "Ask Andy." I know the advice is not official, but a lot of Scouters trust and liten to his advice. If that quote is from "Ask Andy", then Andy is totally incorrect. "Unit Leader" has a specific definition in Scouting. From the official BSA site:unit leader: The adult leader of a unit is a Cubmaster, Scoutmaster, Coach, Advisor, or Skipper.See http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Media/LOS/All.aspx#def-head-u I used to look at Andy's columns, but he is so frequently wrong on the facts, and so often represents his own opinion as fact, that I came to not trust his advice much, and stopped reading. An assistant Scoutmaster is explicitly not a "unit leader". There is one "unit leader" for each unit.

We have a district camporee in the spring and a council camporee in the fall. Our troop doesn't usually attend the council event - too big, too crowded, too much crowd control required.

We don't have a full slate of commissioners in our district, but we do have a fair number. So far as I know, none of them are real unit leaders. I think some of them continue to be registered as ASMs or Committee Members or whatever with their home unit, but at the district level I've only seen them function as commissioners.

If the badge has already been processed and set to be presented, YOUR SON needs to go to the SM and explain that he didn't earn the badge and shouldn't receive it. I've had a couple of boys do this for badges from summer camp. It fills me with admiration for them. They do the actual requirements on their own, earn the badge for real, and everyone feels much more satisfaction. I think it's made even tougher on your son if everyone else got the badge and is keeping it, but perhaps his actions might spur people to rethink how easily they are handing out merit badges. Sometimes this might be easier for the Scout if the parent is there with him. A lot of how I would approach this would depend on the actual leaders involved and their personalities. I don't want to send my son into a meat grinder. But if you ask your son what he wants to do about it, and he agrees it would be good to actually finish the requirements, this could work out just fine. I especially like the approach of saying "I don't feel like I earned this" - it doesn't accuse anyone of anything. If this is a common practice in the troop, pencil-whipping the boys through everything, then you're going to have a long-term issue to deal with. If it's just a one-time thing, you can work through it. If you have to change the troop culture, that's a whole different issue.

What would you do, if anything? It depends on who I am in the situation. If I am just in your role, as a parent, I think I would do nothing. At most, I might have a discussion with the Scoutmaster. If you really aren't happy with the leadership of the troop, I think you'd be better advised to find a new troop, but I don't think that privately going against the troop leadership is going to serve your son very well. If you are a parent who wants to get involved as a volunteer, then I'd start with something where I could make a positive difference, rather than starting out with a battle. If I was a leader in the troop, I would definitely be talking to the Scoutmaster about changing the troop philosophy. If I was the Scoutmaster, this wouldn't count at all as a merit badge. I know where you are coming from, and I'd be frustrated too, but I don't think that this is a good place to start working on things. How well do you the leaders and other parents in the troop?

Yeah, I agree with what everyone else said here. My own preference is more of Troop 1. I've seen boys get very discouraged in Troop 2 situations where things failed too regularly. The troop of my youth was more of Troop 2 kind of troop and I know I found it frustrating. Others may find it more to their liking. I do not think that Troop 1 has the adults doing too much. In fact, you tend to see a lot of troops where the adults do a lot more than that. So my answers to your questions: Are they both boy led? Yes. Troops always reflect the philosophy of the adult leaders, and there is a large continuum of "boy-led". Is either of them doing it wrong ? No. How much adult involement should be taking place, while still being "boy led?" Different strokes for different folks. There is no "official" amount of adult involvement that is "correct". Different people have different preferences - mine would be for more involvement than Troop 2, but others do well in other troops. If you want to know which style is more likely to retain Scouts, you could always ask them. Are they [Troop 2] allowing too much adult participation? No. It's not too much, but they might be able to do better with a little bit less. I'm with SeattlePioneer - too much failure leads to a failed program. At the same time, though, too much adult micromanagement, even via the Socratic method, can annoy some boys - especially as they get older.

So even if we can't figure out what it is, something is clearly driving this. On the insurance side, I wonder if there is a potential concern about having it look like the BSA is really running the units. If the units are basically self-chartered, that seems like it puts a hole in the BSA contention that they are merely providing material for other organizations to use in their own youth program. My understanding is that one reason the BSA does this is to protect the national assets of the BSA. BSA still provides the liability insurance for the CO, but those lawsuits go against the CO and would likely result in a much smaller settlement than if a lawsuit went against the national BSA organization. As for the continuity and oversight, I agree that those are suspect reasons. I'm not sure that they are totally bogus, though. It's true that PTA leadership changes all the time, but the PTA continues to exist. Church leadership changes, business leadership changes (not that many businesses really sponsor units, though). But churches are pretty stable. There actually ought to be pretty good data on the continuity thing - what is the median life for a "parents of" troop, and what is the median life for other sponsors. As for oversight, I do think it could be a benefit to the BSA that if the troop starts to go off the rails, there is some chance that there are some reasonable people one level up who might set things straight. I know that Scoutmasters do get fired by the CO more commonly than I would have guessed. Obviously there is no guarantee here, but I do wonder if there ends up being more political drama with "parents of" organizations. I don't think there is any way we're going to see the real data behind this, but it's interesting to try to speculate.

So the quote from the Orange County Council web site is "After 2 years of advocating the change, BSA set December 31, 2012 as the last day for Parents of charter partners." How can this possibly be true if this is the only place it has been announced? It doesn't say that it's true only for their council, although I suppose that's a possible (albeit stretched) interpretation of what the statement says. It seems to imply that BSA is eliminating all of these organizations on a national basis and doing it by the end of the year. There is just no way that's going to happen, especially since it's already half-way through April.

So far no effect on our plans. Gas is typically a small part of a weekend camping trip, and it gets built into the price we announce. I suppose there might be a Scout who doesn't go a trip because the price is going to be $35 instead of $30, but I haven't heard of it.

One of the big things that the BSA tells the chartering organizations is that the BSA provides the insurance. "Your $20 charter fee covers your organization with the liability insurance provided by the BSA. The general liability policy issued to the Boy Scouts of America provides primary liability insurance coverage for all chartered organizations and participating organizations for liability arising out of their operation of a traditional Scouting unit" From http://scouting.org/filestore/pdf/04-515.pdf At any rate, some of the parent organizations are definitely incorporated as 501c(3) organizations and I'm sure that some have their own insurance. I know one group that recently switched from a church to being a parents' organization and they incorporated. It's a little bit of a pain. I suppose it might be slightly easier to claim you are a religious organization. Those don't have to incorporate. First, though, I think it would be relatively easy to find some organization that would sponsor a unit. All the PTA units did it. Second, I do wonder if they would really go through with rejecting the charter.

Our Sea Scouts seem to like it.