Oak Tree

Kudu, Great job with the trek and the report. "sorta surprised the other adults let a subversive influence like Kudu get his nose in their tents" - I'm not as surprised - I know many troops that would welcome another volunteer who plans optional events that enhance the program. I do give a thumbs-up to the Scoutmaster for encouraging this. Also a big thumbs up to Kudu for how he went about it. He doesn't say so here, but I'm getting the impression he didn't go in there and say "You're doing this all wrong. Let me establish a sub-group within your troop that does things the right way.

Tahawk, As long as we're talking about theoretical possibilities here, I'm going to hold you to what you might theoretically reply. I don't think blackmail is any more a concern than being prosecuted for theft, but your response to my concern does not match your initial statement. What you suggested: "If you give me the cell phone, we can try to deal with this as a matter between Scouts and your family and try not to get the police involved." Then: " I didn't suggest that you say you will not contact the police " - well, you said you would try not to. Pretty much has the same i

SeattlePioneer - I'm not sure I get what you're saying...we all agree that BSA has the right to set the age anywhere it wants to. The discussion is over whether it should. Also, how often it would matter is pretty much irrelevant on this forum, but I do agree it would be pretty rare in these parts. And Twocub, I find myself almost always in agreement with you, but I'll have to differ on this one. Sure, the BSA has to deal in generalities, but they very often have ways in place to handle exceptions. You have to qualify for Eagle by 18, unless you go through the exception process. You have

Tahawk, I'm curious. Do you have an example of a youth leader being prosecuted for such a confiscation? I do like your two alternative ways of stating the possible solution to the problem. But with the first option, aren't you now guilty of blackmail? "Give me something of value, or I will release information about you to someone that you don't want to know about it."

I agree on point one; you have two publications that say opposite things. I would interpret the "Scouts never handle discipline issues" as referring to serious discipline issues. Question 10 - I'd say that while Scouts can get others to stop inappropriate behavior, it's the expectation and ultimate responsibility that adults may have to step in. Scouts should not hand down punishments. But saying things like "no games until cleanup is done" is not a punishment, although it could be interpreted as a way of administering discipline. 2. IANAL, but I cannot believe that this would

Total of two, which may have been done at any time since joining.

I'd also like to give kudos to Beavah for being willing to change his position when provided with an argument to the contrary position. I've found the black and white vs. gray thing to vary between young adults and older adults. There are certain things that young people are more likely to see in black and white, and there are other things that older people are more likely to see that way. In general, in all societies, it is young people who tend to be flexible in seeing that old ways aren't working and new ways need to be adopted. I've never had Scouts rigorously push the black and

teacher/scout, Sounds like a good plan to me, too. Here's how I would "finagle" it in one of our units. Have the COR also be registered as the official CC. Then she can delegate all of her duties, including her vote, to you.

The flip side of the coin is that its the job of the CO and the committee to identify and recruit qualified leaders, so maybe any kind of age restriction should be put into their hands? That would be my position.

probably b/c folks are considered minors until 21 You can google for legal definitions of minor and you'll find them everywhere, and they all pretty much say that you are a minor until age 18, except for certain specific instances. At 18 you can enter into a contract. From http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00002256----000-.html - minor means any person under the age of eighteen years;

We have seen this work well, and not so well, in our pack. There were cases where the younger brother seemed to resent having his older brother be any type of official "leader" for him. The cases that worked better were those with more of an age gap - with a five-year difference, things were good. With two years, more sibling rivalry. I got to the point where the stated rule was that we would not have brothers as den chiefs, but we'd be happy to have the brother as den chief for another den. I did make an exception when justified.

All elections are in some part popularity contests. If the adults get to pick, then the question becomes which Scouts are popular with the adults. We had one particular case where the boy in question was a kid named Eddie Haskell. Some of the ASMs thought he was great. The kids, not so much. Out of six candidates, he was the only one not elected that year. He was the highest ranking Scout, and he was very active. The dad couldn't understand it. Some of the ASMs couldn't understand it, and were asking how we could change it so the adults determined the outcome. I knew exactly why he wasn't

http://www.unc.edu/~nielsen/soci111/m17/hs13012a.gif By looking at this graph you'd think that marriage was headed for the trash heap and that soon all marriages would end in divorce. But as the graph on this page shows: http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2010/01/fact_checking_t.html the divorce rate actually peaked in 1980 and has declined ever since (you can verify with other web sites) - even as No-fault divorce spread across all 50 states. Turns out that no-fault divorce was not actually the cause. I doubt that gay marriage will do it either.

Yes, you have it right. Yes, it is easy now. Troop Committee Challenge used to be done in person.

The Troop Committee openly and knowingly choose to break trhe rules when they asked your son to be the Outdoor Coordinator. Bzzzt. It is not against the rules to ask a non-committee member to be the outdoor coordinator. If somehow it were possible that somebody became Scoutmaster who did not meet the BSA's qualificatons, and a disaster happens on a camp out, will the BSA insurance pay? Yes. But woo-hoo! Beavah, look, someone has turned it into a discussion about insurance! They broke rules Scoutfish, I don't see how they broke any rules. They were not official committ

Check out the graphic in this article. Something of a trend here. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/gay-marriage-opponents-now-in-minority/

We never did "bridging" for any rank but for the Webelos Scouts who were moving on to Boy Scouts. And in that case we separated the rank ceremony from the bridging ceremony. Not everyone has to earn rank.

How valuable to the Scout Depends, but I've generally seen this be a pretty positive experience for the Scout. The planning process is not always great, and it can result in a lot of nagging by parents, but I'll give a plus to this one. the benefiting organization, Depends again. Most of the projects appear to be something that the organization truly needs. We may have a small number where the organization didn't keep it up (e.g., a refurbished park area becomes overgrown) or where the idea was more the Scout's than the organizations (e.g., how about I put up some

It's true that people can be concerned about the rules. I think the COR could easily manage the set up and yet still follow the official rules. Rules: The COR/IH picks the SM. In order to give the COR a good idea of whom to recommend to the IH, the COR will take a vote of people who are active on the committee, regardless of their registration. Rules: You must be 21 to be on the committee. Nevertheless, you can have non-committee people attend committee meetings. They can still be active on committee items. Work can be delegated to anyone (in most cases) - and the official registered

Over the psst few years I'd say our troop has elected maybe 50% of those who run. But we have a relatively low percentage of those eligible who choose to run - I'm not sure of the exact number, but it's going to be something like 25%. (so for example, maybe 30 eligible Scouts, 10 run, 5 elected). When I ask the ones who don't run why they don't, they just look at me like I'm from some other generation or some other out-of-touch demographic. "Why would I?", they ask. "Not the Ordeal. Not dressing up like Indians. And I don't care about the sash or flap." There's obviously a lot of tr

I did once send out a note after a winter backpacking trip detailing all of the preparation that the leaders had made and what type of extras we had just-in-case (extra fuel, extra down jacket, hand warmers, extra gloves, load lightening options, extraction options, etc). I think it went a long ways to convincing people that we did know what we were doing. Several people asked me if there was some particular parent who had expressed concern.

Who gets to decide what are stupid rules? You do. There is a proud tradition to civil disobedience. Also a long tradition of pretend speed limits. Riddle: What's the most common legal lie these days?...."I have read and agree to the terms and conditions ..."

You could camp here: http://www.gb.nrao.edu/nrqz/

you can't ignore them. Literally? Are you sure? I pretty much think you can. If a leader walks into a public restroom and I know there's only one Scout in there, I'm going to ignore that "rule" and not call the SE. Yep. It's true. You've got me. People ignore this rule all the time. It's not a law. It's some editor's choice of wording. Maybe they didn't want to use the word "serious" because they were worried people would debate what that meant. So instead they went way over to the other side, still knowing that people will only be reporting the serious items, because it turns o

Well, I do have various data points on my council's membership for various years. The Learning for Life program is very much a come-and-go kind of thing. I don't know how they really track "members". The reports mostly focus on traditional membership, and I'm fine with that.