Oak Tree

This whole world is just so foreign. We can go buy any merit badges we want, and most all other awards, too. Rank badges are restricted, but we can usually get them, too, without an advancement report. Typically we do have the advancement reports for ranks, but for everything else, really? Blue cards? Lists of who earned what? Requiring blue cards? I'm pretty confident our summer camp isn't going to start using them. I'm not going to start handing out completely unearned merit badges, and I'm not going to start questioning every last item a counselor may not have done right, either. Really, there's no change I can see here that's going to actually affect our troop.

Wow. That's quite a self-congratulatory piece of writing. Apart from emphasizing how many people worked on this and how much they were really dedicated to good outcomes, there is not that much about why this new structure is really going to be able to be any better. Saying that it's important to provide exceptional unit service is different from having a plan that actually does this. So the only real thing I see here is an opportunity for cost savings by reducing duplication. I do think that small councils are inefficient at lots of things, and it should be fine to combine a lot of the back office operations. And, as Beavah notes, there is money to be saved by closing money-losing camps. Other than some general efficiencies, I'm just not sure there's going to be much difference apparent at the unit level. But it's probably a necessary step, and it's good to see someone take it.

>> Provide a meeting location. >> Provide unit leadership, taking seriously the CO's role in the selection of the committee. >> Represent your unit at the district and council levels, with the COR voting on and advocating for issues that would affect your unit. >> Promote the unit (e.g., recruiting opportunities). >> Recommend service projects. Ha! Except for the first. The CO should definitely provide a meeting location. Beyond that, realize that it's going to be up to the people in the unit to run the unit. You need to provide your own leaders. Find them, recruit them, select them, deal with them. Promoting the unit is also the job of the unit. Sure, the CO might allow you to run a notice or something, but it's really the job of the unit, along with any opportunities that the district provides. A CO might have some service project opportunities, but you can find those pretty much everywhere. Voting at the council level? Hardly anyone does that and nobody really expects it. I want the CO to provide a location, sign papers as needed, and be available to intervene if something goes way off track. The other things are gravy. (Nice, tasty gravy, yes, but still gravy).

No one will complain if each person only has access to his own account. No one, that is, except for the people who have to implement such a system. We just publish our list. It's not like the numbers are all that big for anyone. And no one has an easy way to make each balance accessible only to one person, and no one wants to suggest to the treasurer that he should do the work necessary to provide each balance. If it was free to make each Scout have an individual account, I'd say to do that. I do not, though, see too much of a strong argument for privacy. Our accounts are all over the place, and they do not correlate at all to how much money a family has.

Jeez. My ads are for Discover Card, the iRoomba, Google adwords, and Capital One.

Metric System? English System? Which one do we use? My car's tires have a diameter measured in inches and a thickness measured in millimeters. My caffeinated soda lists the caffeine content in milligrams/oz. Pi ( π )? Tau ( τ )? It's all good. I like tau. But I'm doubting the middle schoolers are going to be up for the discussion of whether e to the pi*i is part of an important equation (eπi=-1). Still SP, I see your point.

I'd say that we have to go with the child's legal gender (this may or may not be the gender on the birth certificate, depending on your state laws). On the other hand, we don't do any gender checks, so if the child actually presented as a boy and the parent claimed the child was a boy, I don't think we'd even know.

We say "show up with the paperwork or you can't go". We usually have blank copies of the forms with us when the kids get dropped off. You've got to push the problem back onto the parents since they are the ones who have to do the work.

We put out emails reminding parents about sign-ups, and we include the list of who has signed up, and eventually we have the "Final sign-up list". We've only had one or two cases where someone has tried to sign up after that. I know we've told at least one boy he couldn't add (he was a repeat offender and needed to get the message). There may have been a time or two when we've been able to accommodate a late add. Mostly, though, I think that it's the regular communication that gets everyone realizing that the sign-up deadline is real.

Arrrgh, matey! That'd be the Pirate's Code to ye!

I'll take the opposite point of view, just so we can have a good discussion. The good thing about giving him the award is that it sets the expectation with all of the boys that if they complete the requirements, they will get the expected recognition. We see this on a not too irregular basis. A boy will be absent for some period of time, but then, for whatever reason, will decide he wants to become active again. He shows up, finishes off the one or two items he has left for rank, and gets rank the first week he's back. Generally, everyone is happy to see him back. Sure, maybe someone should be following up in between, but generally, we know what's going on. Sometimes we have had the conversations, other times it would be good if we followed up but that doesn't always happen. Nevertheless, when the boy comes back, it's typically been something welcomed by the other Scouts, who are happy to see him earn his rank after a long absence.

I've been thinking about this question. I don't even want to ask the guys about what we'd want to do unless there is something meaningful that we could achieve. I don't want to have a 50% attendance requirement for a POR - that's so low as to be not really worth tracking (right now we don't track attendance at troop meetings, so it would be a change to track it). I think it comes down to whether we want to require a Scout to make Scouting his primary activity in order to advance. If it's his primary activity, I'd expect at least 75% attendance, maybe 90%. If we allow it to be a secondary activity, come when he wants, enjoy it, etc, then I don't think we need any requirement on attendance, although we could still track some expectations for the POR separate from attendance. A boy wouldn't have to make Scouting his primary activity all the time - there could be seasons where he does other things. Recently we've increased our expectations and our coaching of our senior patrol, and the Scouts have stepped up. I agree that increased challenge is a draw, but it takes some art to craft the challenges appropriately. I think Sea Scouts uses 75% as the national standard.

Abel, Looks like to me like you're really disagreeing with Gary. He suggested that if CORs really did their job, they could take back the BSA. I replied with a clever one-line tongue-in-cheek response indicating that wasn't going to happen. If I read you right, you are saying that even if that did happen, it still wouldn't really be enough, since the pros have so many other advantages. No argument from me. I still say you're never going to get an entire set of activist CORs, but I think you're right, the pros are the ones who can control the big picture. Too many words, this time... sigh... I'll work on getting wittier.

It can be hard to see which trends are going to result in some kind of tipping point. I think that there has been an explosion of things that compete for people's attention. Scouting, appealing to a general audience as it does, can't really become too overly specialized, but it's many of the specialty activities that draw people. I think Scouting has to remain focused on the outdoors - that is the signature of the program, and without that, there is no real draw. I know that the program is designed to be flexible, but I am comfortable predicting that Scouts will continue to camp. Maybe girls, gays, and atheists get admitted - but each of those is on its own schedule and won't happen quickly. There will be increasing use of technology, both in the program and behind the scenes. I think some councils have to merge. Roundtables can go away. Money-losing camps close. Percentage of Eagles continues to increase. I do think the uniform could become more of a "formal occasion" wear. I could imagine splitting the program into troops and crews, where troops only go up to age 14. Paperwork could get easier.

There are some odd questions here, for sure. The lasting value question is based on a false assumption. The age question seems irrelevant, and certainly a bit unusual to be asking the Scout. Most of the merit badge questions seem fine, but it would depend a lot on the way they were asked. Asking about how many were earned at summer camp seems ok, and asking what he's getting out of it also seems fine. That could be part of a conversation that was encouraging, or it could be said in a tone of innuendo. The Scout sounds like he did well, and at any rate, the real question would be whether the board approved the application. If it's just a matter of what questions they asked, I don't think this would be a big deal. If they are actually turning down applications for one of those reasons, that would be a whole different kettle of fish.

As soon as you get true volunteers sitting in COR positions, who get trained in their position, who understand that they control what happens, who then attend meetings at both district and council level in order to ensure that the district and council does what the units want and not what the professional scouter's want just to make themselves look good. Or, "never".

Steven Spielberg resigned from Boy Scouts due to this policy. The Fortune 500 company I work for will not give matching donations to Boy Scouts (or to any discriminatory organization, for some definition of discriminatory). There is clearly *some* effect, but there could be a counter-effect as well, and as Eamonn points out, it's hard to know the overall impact. I don't believe the Catholics would jump ship, and I'm not so sure about all of the others that are confidently predicted as leaving. I think most troops would continue one way or another.

This is going to come down to local custom, I think. It's nice for the Scout to see that the adults take it seriously, so I'd be in favor of either a uniform or more formal attire. In our district, I don't think I've ever seen anyone do an Eagle BoR without being in uniform, and I've sat in on a number. We'll typically have several running at any one time on the given evening.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.... it's like I can remotely feel the weight falling off your shoulders. Good for you.

Right - there are going to be two parts to the API. There's the format of the data, and there is the nature of the call ("interfacing"). What does one do with the CSV file? Email it? Ftp it? Transfer it via http? Open a socket to some particular port? What type of acknowledgement do you get back that the transfer was successful? There has to be some specification on how to do the transfer. And then there's all the detail on what the data itself should look like. I wonder if they have some type of automated certification test that you could use to validate whether your software is working correctly. Have you heard anything back? I got the impression that they weren't too eager to certify more programs - not too much upside for them. It might be easy to figure out if you just capture one transfer log.

We've never cancelled a trip in the nine or so years I've been with the troop. I don't think the pack ever cancelled one either. We've modified a couple, and we've proceeded even when some parents didn't feel like they thought it was safe. Parents turn out to be pretty terrible at assessing this type of risk - we've had people afraid to drive based on media reports and when we went the roads were clear. We've had people afraid a hurricane would extend hundreds of miles inland when we knew it wouldn't. We've had parents afraid for the cold even though their son had previously survived trips that were twenty degrees colder. We've never had to cancel a trip due to insufficient adult leadership, although we've had a couple adults cancel due to the weather. Generally speaking we'd have some type of backup plan in place. We could either change our location, or the timing of our arrival (e.g. go Saturday morning instead of Friday evening), or our activity. We've always had enough adults that even if one cancels we've been able to provide enough vehicles. We did have one trip where the park was closed due to flooding up until the day of the trip. The most likely reason we'd cancel would be if we had a trip to some specific place (a ski trip, for example) and the destination was closed. Camping in 30-40 mph winds sounds like fun. We did camp in 55-60mph winds one time. The tents were fine, but there sure are some challenges in other regards. It depends a lot on what you're prepared for, what your backup plans are, what evacuation options you'd have. Scoutfish - I'd never have cancelled that trip - I'd just say "Come if you want." People always have the option of staying home. Our pack once did a trip to the Outer Banks that had torrential downpours. A majority of the families moved to a hotel. They still did all the planned activities. Adapt and keep it fun. A cold steady miserable rain is indeed the worst possible camping weather in my opinion. Been there, done that. Still didn't cancel. Interesting memories. Sometimes shared suffering builds camaraderie, but you need to know your audience. If it was younger guys in that situation, I'd look for ways to find some indoor activities to break up the time spent huddling in the rain. With the older guys, we had a great time.

Seattle, I don't think the problem is with those who are signing up new recruits with the consent of the pack. If you are, in fact, their designated recruiter, then fine. But as a unit leader, I'd expect to have to sign the application forms or specifically ok you to sign them for me. In our area, this behavior would be totally out of the ordinary, though. Our unit signs up our own Scouts. The district and council will direct Scouts to packs and troops, but they don't sign people up. They just give out names, phone numbers, email addresses. We don't take applications without the money. If someone wanted to hand me an application and say they'd get the money to me, I don't think I'd take it. Even if I did take it, I think I'd say "I don't really have this application until you pay." Basement - you might not be in charge of your unit policies, but you are in charge of yourself. You don't have to do everything. You can say no. Sometimes it's a very liberating experience.

Systematic political agenda. Whoosh. Guess I missed it. I think that we've gotten to the point where there is pretty much always one active thread on gays. It lasts until everyone has said all they want to, it dies out, and then a slight variation pops up. So let's take a quick look at who started all those threads. Tough questions - sherminator505 When will National realize this *IS* affecting membership - Trevorum Florida School Board Rejects Grant - Merlyn Which lifestyles are acceptable? - Engineer61 Where does BSA tell us homosexuals are not allowed? - Shortridge Potomac Falls woman removed from sons Boy Scout troop - Merlyn So a Scout tells you - Basementdweller That's a pretty diverse set of posters, and that's not counting all the participants who weigh in on one side or the other. You can find threads on this topic from lots of others, too. I think that it's not so much that there is a systematic political agenda as it is that there is a current political issue that gets mentioned in the news from time to time and always gets lots of responses when posted here. Just looking at those who started various threads: 5yearscouter - how would your troop handle a rumor of a bisexual scout? - Posted: Tuesday, 8/9/2011 SequoiaWDL - Another Victory for Freedom of Association? - Posted: Monday, 6/6/2011 jblake47 - Homosexual Scouts- Posted: Thursday, 5/20/2010 shrubber - Another gay man plans to sue BSA Posted: Wednesday, 10/20/2010 Joni4TA - homosexual behavior is automatically disqualifying Posted: Tuesday, 10/16/2007 SaintCad - Questions about homosexuality in BSA- Posted: Wednesday, 5/31/2006 Beavah - The other thread (for those wanting to discuss homosexuality) - Posted: Thursday, 10/21/2010 TomTrailblazer - A possible solution to the gay issue - Posted: Wednesday, 11/17/2010 Scoutfish - The Gay, Communist, Gun Club! - Posted: Wednesday, 2/24/2010 bkale - Boy Scouts vs. Philadelphia - Posted: Monday, 12/1/2008 fgoodwin - Gay rights vs. religious beliefs - Posted: Thursday, 8/24/2006 It goes back a long ways. Prairie_Scouter - So, What's so bad about being gay? - Posted: Monday, 5/16/2005 eisely - The local option on gay membership in BSA - Posted: Thursday, 5/29/2003 bluecrash - Gay Lifestyle vs. Good Rolemodel - Posted: Monday, 6/10/2002 littlebillie - this just in... - Posted: Wednesday, 11/6/2002: tjhammer - Scouting's Real Gay Policy - Posted: Saturday, 2/9/2002 dan - gay leaders - Posted: Tuesday, 11/19/2002 Mike Long - How do you approach the Gay issue? - Posted: Monday, 2/12/2001 I'm willing to bet these people are not all part of any system, albeit that they all serve to keep the topic alive. I'd say if you don't want to see this topic being discussed, you shouldn't look at this forum.

At least you have a sense of humor about it. Keep imagining the troll in underwear. Or something like that.

Well, that's just all very unpleasant. It's amazing to me how they think they can tell your unit what to do. You are in charge of your unit. They are there to help you put on a good program. If they aren't helping, you don't need them. We don't use unit accounts. We tell the district when we will do FOS, and sometimes we've told them we won't do it, and sometimes we've told them we'll do the presentation ourselves, and sometimes we'll invite them, but on the dates that we specify. You don't need lectures. You need help. It sounds like you are really close to burnout and you need to give these tasks to someone else, or at any rate, you need some way so that you don't have to care so much about every little detail. So play a little game - for every request that comes in, see if you can either say no, delegate it, or give it back to the person who made the request.