Oak Tree

packsaddle, it was indeed just an oversight. Even as I was listing a few people off the top of my head, I knew that there were others I should be including. One of the others would be that Basementdweller fellow who is pushing his gay agenda... "I don't agree with BSA's ban on Gay or Lesbian Leaders.....I know some folks in the Gay/Lesbian lifestyle that are much better people than some of the Bible thumping Heterosexual folks I have met in scouting... Just sayin..... " (3/29/12)

I'm not sure I see the "focal point of that attack". Sure, there's Merlyn. He's not a registered Scouter and he has an up front agenda. Other than that? I've seen a number of active BSA volunteers state their position. I don't think Eamonn, or Lisabob, or NJCubScouter, or moosetracker, or BSA24, any of the other volunteers who say they are in favor of local option are "PUSHING the gay agenda" nor are they trying to "strike out at the BSA volunteers". I think it's good that there's a forum where active volunteers can state opinions on the current policies. Now, if we were being overrun with non-volunteers, then maybe it would be different.

We have a lot of home-schooled boys in our troop. Maybe a quarter or a third of the troop? Hard to keep track. Some of them switch back and forth. We have all kinds of home-schooled kids, just as we have all manner of public school kids and all manner of private school kids. I'd be hard-pressed to say whether I can notice any overall average difference between any of those groups. At least in our group, I definitely do not see a trend of helicopter parents with the home-schooled boys. The last few cases I can think of where the parents were overly attentive all involved kids who attended school. So I'd say you try to break the helicopter parent pattern the same way here that you would do with any other kid. Remind the adults on a trip that they are troop leaders and that anything they do for their own son they should be willing to do for all the boys. Buying waffles? Bring them for everyone. We try to develop a culture among the adults of reminding each other to steer our boys to other adults when they have issues. We talk about the goals - we're trying to develop independence, self-reliance, teamwork, etc.

Can they still do these positions without being registered in those 5 key positions as a non-registered adult? Well, a non-registered adult can't fulfill the role of being your officially registered committee chair. You must have an officially registered SM, two committee members, and a committee chair. You need a COR, but that can be the CC. A person can be a treasurer, or an advancement chair, or pretty much anything else, without being registered. Note that you do need a registered leader to go on every trip. If they are a committee member and won't bother to take the simple on-line training, I'm not sure how committed they are in the first place. It's not that hard. Getting the ASMs to take their two in-person classes is a bit more of a hassle. We just tell everyone what training they need, and if they don't have it, we drop them from the charter. They can still do their job.

Could be burnout. But that's not my initial reaction. I wouldn't be surprised if he's had this general attitude forever. I would guess that either way he doesn't realize how he's coming across. Sometimes it's easy to roll your eyes at some Scout behavior. We try not to say anything in front of the Scouts, but sometimes it will come out around the adult campfire in the evening. We have to watch what we say there, too, because Scouts are often listening. I could just as easily imagine feeling "Now I remember why I hate riding with groups." Takes forever, you have to wait until everyone is ready, someone has to fill a water bottle, etc, etc. "Is this your crap?" Does he talk that way to everyone? Some people just seem to have a little bit of a negative bias and find it easy to complain. Maybe the Scoutmaster is one of them. I agree it's not good, but it's not easy to fix.

Ooh, ooh, ooh, I like it. Not sure if Lowe's would go along with it. And I fear that someone might call the council, but it would be worth it just to give it a try.

Seriously? There is a Council out there that has made a rule about when you can start selling popcorn? Well, as Basementdweller says, it's competitive and a one-day advantage can make a big difference. Our council does have a date, and it's a Saturday. They want to get all the forms out ahead of time, but they don't want to create some type of situation where some packs or troops have an advantage over others. Everyone around here just accepts that this is the fair way to proceed. I haven't heard anyone complain about it.

Don't know if this is the "best", but it's one I like. We had one Scout join our troop when he was 15. He was the typical 15-year old, nice kid, good in school, likes to hang out with the older kids and not the younger ones. We don't get many his age who join up. I was doing his Scoutmaster conference for Scout - it had taken his mom awhile to get around to doing the child protection exercises, so he'd been in the troop for a few months. I asked him how he was liking the troop, and he said he was having a good time. I asked him what he liked about it, and he said the activities were a lot of fun, and he added, glancing down almost a little sheepishly, "the adults here are pretty cool."

Yeah, I'm not so sure, BSA24. I feel like Scouting's brand has always been associated with nerdiness. In my estimation that cannot be the primary problem, but your estimation is obviously different. Now, back to focusing on Eamonn's main point. Just to put a little bit of variety into the discussion... Around here units seem to be pretty successful. We have more units being created on a regular basis, and many of the existing ones have grown to be fairly large. Our districts are being split because there are too many units in a district. I do hear folks talk about how "in the old days" there would be a Scoutmaster who would hold the position for thirty years and would be the guy that everyone in town knew as the Scoutmaster. I don't have any way to know if that's less true now or not. I do agree that most of our leaders are current parents and I don't see any likelihood that's going to change any time soon. Training might help, if we knew what training really made a difference. I don't know that the BSA really has a very good idea on how to do this better. I'd love to see training that actually focused on making sure that you knew the material. For example, I can't figure out what the point of IOLS is right now. What are they trying to make sure that I know? If I were going to focus on changing things, - I think I'd change the uniform to be for formal ceremonies only. By and large our kids are not big fans of the uniform and I don't think it really helps attract or keep kids. - I think I'd tighten up the requirements so that there was more of a sense of accomplishment and more respect for someone who had earned something. I'm not really sure how to deal with the fact that the BSA really wants to make it possible for all boys to do these activities - I doubt we're going to see much real increase in any requirements. - I would make training mandatory, but it would have to be available on-line or else really, really frequently available. I would focus the training on the items that are most responsible for successful troops. - I don't know for sure what the items are that make for a successful troop, but I would do some serious in-depth studies to see what I could learn. No one from council or national has ever asked me, even in the form of some simple on-line questionnaire, how we do things in our troop. I would also ask some real statisticians for opinions on this topic, so that we don't end up with a huge stream of correlation-equals-causation errors. - I'd simplify the Cub Scout program and make it more fun and less Chinese menu. - I would switch to local option on the gay issue - it's going to happen sooner or later and right now it just makes the whole program a football.

I've seen Scouts selling popcorn at the local hardware store the last several times I've been there. I talked with a couple of them today. I should have asked them if they've had anyone express any political opinions. Maybe next time. I did ask them how things were going, and the only issue they mentioned was that a lot of people have already bought popcorn. They said they were making some good sales, though. Basementdweller, there are undoubtedly lots of people who share the same opinion as the people who talked with your Scouts. There are lots of people who have an opposite opinion. I think it's clear that the views expressed on this forum are probably a bit more on the side of remove-the-gay-leader-ban than what the average population might express. I say that because my sense is that this forum has shifted over the years to the point where the majority tend to be opposed to the current policy. The general population, though, has continued to vote down gay marriage proposals, and the Scouting population tends to be a bit more conservative than the average population. Your post represents a reminder of why the national level organization is finding it hard to make a shift. They have some vocal supporters with very strong opinions. In addition to the man-on-the-street commentary that you describe, I'm sure that there are also some very conservative, older, wealthy supporters of the BSA who hold similar positions. As do the leaders of some of the BSA's big religious supporters. There are nevertheless a large number of people who hold the opposite opinion. My oldest son, in college, and my daughter, in high school, report that virtually no one they know is opposed to gay marriage. The big corporate supporters of the BSA are going to be in favor of scrapping the current policy. So you're right, there are still plenty of people out there who are big supporters of the current policy. It is indeed odd that this political argument is playing itself out at the ground level of boys selling popcorn.

See http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Media/InsigniaGuide/06D.aspx for the current rules. I'm not aware that there's ever been a minimum number to wear on a sash.

The actual question asked in the topic appears to be a bit difficult to answer based on a quick search of the web. It seems clear that most European countries take a more liberal approach to this topic than the BSA does, but France has additional complications. There are five Scouting groups in France, which appear to be the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim Scouting organizations, as well as the original, plain, Scouts of France. They all belong to one French Scouting organization. From their interactive map of Scout units, it looks like the Catholics are the overwhelming majority, followed by the Scouts of France, then the Protestants, and way down the list were the Muslims and the Jews (looking at the map I only saw three Muslim pins and one Jewish pin). The simple answer to the question would be that yes, no doubt, there are some gay Scout leaders in France. Finding the official policy, though, I'll leave to someone else.

Our district holds one event per year, the district camporee. We generally attend, although sometimes we also offer an alternative event that month. I'm not entirely sure what "go it alone" means in this context. There just isn't much for the unit to do with the district. Our district Eagle boards used to be very difficult, at least the proposal part. The chairman gradually pushed out some of the overly aggressive old-timers and they are now much more pleasant. I think that for many district issues, what is really needed is for new blood to come in. The guy who runs the district camporee was complaining the other day that he's been doing the job for 20 years (or something like that) and that he needed new people to step up. Well, guess what, you've got to recruit them and let them have meaningful input. I really like the Wood Badge model in that respect.

Our unit does not receive any funding from Intel, but we do receive funding from similar programs at other employers. As for the question of whether Intel would fund Christian organizations, they will, depending on how you define "Christian organizations." From the Intel Foundation section on Intel's web site:Intel will not fund:Programs that are outside the defined site community (see list) Foundations that are strictly grant-making bodies (Section 509(a) under US tax code)Sectarian or denominational religious organizations, such as churches, temples, missionary groups or funds which benefit members or adherents, unless grant is being sought for a community outreach program to benefit the community-at-large and offered to without discrimination or restrictionOrganizations that discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, veteran or disability statusIndividuals or trusts/funds to benefit an individualSporting events including team sponsorshipsArts organizationsScholarship funds or awards Requests for in-kind contributions for fund-raising auctions, events, raffle prizes, or giveaways.Travel expensesEndowment or capital campaignsAnnual operating funds or debt-retirement appeal.Advertising in yearbooks, program books, or other good-will advertising Hospitals or healthcare organizations That's not from the employee-matching requirements (which I did not see at first glance), but it does indicate their criteria for inclusiveness.

Part of your assumption is that "strong" units are swimming in volunteers. Gotta agree with this. Our unit always has an adult position or two that are open, and we are constantly having to recruit adults to fill certain roles. Occasionally even twist arms. We don't have lots of adults hanging around with nothing to do. It's not like I just snap my fingers and hordes of adults leap to do my bidding. I have been entirely unsuccessful at getting any other adults to go to Wood Badge. The one thing we've been able to do is to get a few of our adults to serve on district Eagle boards. It's easier to see a direct correlation between that and the service that our own Scouts receive. There are a few troops that become very well established and do end up with a lot of adults. The biggest troop in the council is often over-represented at the district volunteer level, because they've been established for quite awhile and they have developed a cadre of "retired" Scouters - whose own sons have long since aged out but who continue to volunteer. Our troop is relatively young in that regard - we still have a fair number of our founding adults who are still vitally involved in the unit. As Lisabob says, many of the district committee positions do seem to be filled from a network of personal connections, from people who have been involved for a long time. My unit's adults aren't in that network, and we probably wouldn't be able to serve very much even if we were, although there might be a couple of adults who could teach classes if they were asked. And Twocub asks "someone mentioned the BSA model that district volunteers should be community leaders and business folks. Does that happen anywhere?" Amazingly enough, our district committee chairman follows that model. The one meeting I went to, I was surprised to realize that he was the one person that I didn't recognize was the guy running the meeting. He seemed to do a good job, running down the list of people who had to give their reports. I was surprised to see that our district was actually following the model. I'm not sure how effective it really was going to be...it seemed like there were a lot of things at the district level that would benefit from some actual knowledge of the Scouting program...but I could see some benefit from having a fresh set of eyes looking at the situation.

I doubt much, if any, of those contributions ever trickled down to the membership base anyway. These were grants made to units and councils. It doesn't say how much went to units and how much to councils, but many volunteers get matching grants at the unit level. If you were a unit that regularly received these donations, this could make a fairly big difference to you. This pressure is not directly on National, but it is a way that corporate America exerts influence. I expect more and more of this.

A Venturing crew can choose their own uniform, right? So a kilt could be a fine part of a crew's actual, official, uniform. Kilts could even be worn with the Venturing uniform shirt, and still be legal, as far as I can tell. From scouting.org "It is recommended that crews adopt a charcoal-gray casual pants and/or backpacking-style shorts for their uniform. However, each crew may determine what, if any, specific uniform pants or shorts they will wear based on crew activities."

If this SE and the cronies associated with him make it work.....He could end up bein your SE.. Yes, I realize that. We're lucky to have the SE that we have. It doesn't sound like this new system is working all that well, though. Don't think your protected..... I realize that there are many factors that influence whether or not we are successful, and many factors that influence whether a council sells a camp. I don't think we are "protected", but I do think there is a low likelihood that the camps around here that we use are going to be sold off. The reasons I view it as unlikely are: - the camps are pretty full during the summer - there are substantial capital investments going into the camps - the camps are in relatively rural settings so the land prices are not high That said, if a camp did get sold off, we'd just go look for another camp.

SeattlePioneer, Like TwoCubDad, I recognize that you do valuable work at the district level and that your work in revitalizing the pack(s) is excellent work at the unit level. Maybe there are districts and units where things are much more district-centric. I do not think that my unit is all that unusual around here. DO you organize your own unit Cub Scout Day Camp and Cub O'ree? We did organize our own pack outings that seemed to generate more individual family satisfaction. They were more organized, had a higher ratio of adults to Scouts, and had fewer frustrating logistics. Does your pack participate in the popcorn sale? Yes, I did mention that. We raised a lot of money for council. Use council camps or training? We made incidental use of council camps, but that's at the council level, not at the district level anyway. We do attend a few training classes, but most of that is on-line now. And as I said, I'm so frustrated with the entire council training program that I'm not inclined to give them credit. Unfortunately, this sounds like the self satisfied comments of someone blessed by being in a strong unit who doesn't care a fig about anyone else. So I just don't view it as being "blessed" to be in a strong unit. Our adults worked together as unit leadership to keep the unit strong. I do wish other units the best, but I just don't get the idea of being loyal to the district. When I signed my son up for Scouting, and I signed on as a volunteer, I did so in order to make his experience in Scouting useful and good. We all have limited time and energy, and I choose to devote mine to the unit. The district doesn't have some automatic "right" to demand anything of me or of the adults in the unit. There are strong units that manage very well decade after decade. Mostly they are in upper income areas and draw from well educated, intelligent families. That is in fact true for our units. If that's our intended membership, we can certainly dispense with lot of Scouting activities --- and probably about 3/4s of our membership. My sense is that most units are staffed by parents of the Scouts. Four years ago I undertook to rebuild a Cub Pack in a poor area that was down to a single boy. We still depend on the Cub Scout Day Camp, Cub Scout Marble Tournament and Cub Scout Bowling tournament as pack activities we use the popcorn sale as our major fund raiser --- families can get their Cub Scout expenses down to $0.00 if they want to sell popcorn and most get at least a free membership. We started out using the District Pinewood Derby that first year. That is excellent. The question, though, is how you manage to draw volunteers to help you provide functions like this. I don't think you'll have a lot of luck in demanding or expecting that other people are going to see it as their duty to help you. I think you want to sell other volunteers on why they would want to contribute time or money. You should appreciate of how fortunate you and your units are. Relatively few are in that position. I do recognize that we are fortunate in a number of ways. There are a few "super-troops" around here that are in even better shape than we are. But we do have supportive parents, a reasonable CO, decent finances, a sensible council, and a growing youth population. That said, it still takes a lot of work at the unit level to make this work. I've seen a number of other units deal with substantial in-fighting among the parents, or wither away for lots of little reasons. I do not take our ongoing success as something that will necessarily continue. As I look around at the successful units, though, I don't see that much of it is due to work at the district committee level. So please, if your units appreciate the work that you are doing, keep doing it. But understand that not everyone is eager to jump in and help at the district level. Some people can make a meaningful contribution at the district level, but I know in my case I can have a much bigger impact at the unit level.

Congratulations to you and your son! I'll bet there were times when you thought this day would never come.

I went to a district committee meeting once. I was bored beyond what any reasonable participation in any Scouting activity should make me. The only interesting thing was to chart how boring it was. I agree with TwoCub that the district is there to support the unit. And I agree with BSA24 that a strong unit really doesn't need the district. Things of value that the district does for us: - organizes a join Cub Scout day at the local park. Gets a flyer for that into schools, and invites the packs to show up and have a table. - delivers popcorn to the units. At least for the Cub Scouts, this is a big fundraiser. The council gets a ton of money out of it, too, though. - organizes a luminaria fundraiser for the Boy Scout troops. - runs the Eagle boards I really feel like that's about it, and that doesn't take much of a committee to run. There are a few other things the district does but I would not want any of my unit volunteers to spend time on them when there are other things at the unit level that would have more impact. I know my COR would never go to such a meeting. I think the only thing the district committee meeting really does is to provide a deadline for some volunteers to report back on how they are doing on some of the items. Running a Cub Scout day camp seems like a huge undertaking, and it never seemed all that valuable to me. We could do a better job at the unit level. Same thing for the district Cub-o-ree. We do have a district Boy Scout camporee, and it's fine, but I don't think we'd even notice if it got cancelled. We'd just put a different monthly outing in its place. The district does occasionally put on training, but I've become so frustrated with the fact that they don't ever publicize it more than a month in advance that I'm not going to give them any credit for it. Seriously, you have to ask yourself, why would a leader want to attend this meeting? There might be things you'd want him or her to do, but I think you could find a way to encourage them to do those tasks without pulling them into a meeting first.

If the different activity was known in advance to the leaders, but was not shared with the parents, I'd expect to have at least a few unhappy parents. I can't imagine doing this, actually, just because it would create a huge trust barrier. That said, there have certainly been events where things were probably riskier than the parents understood them to be, but that's just because it's often difficult to assess risk when you aren't familiar with the activity. Heck, there have been events that I've gone on, just to find myself partway through, saying, "Dang, this is a little bit riskier than I'd expected." But that's a different thing. It's kind of hard to imagine exactly how the parents would react in my unit, because a lot of the relationship we have with the parents is based on not doing things like this. However, with other leaders in other units, I've seen some of the following reactions: 1. Complaints to council. 2. A lot of grumbling among the parents. Lots of discussion about what to do. 3. A decision by a parent that his son would never go on another trip with that particular leader without the parent attending. 4. Discussion with the committee about what might be done. 5. Discussion with the CO about the leader's actions. A lot of what would happen would depend on exactly how bad the situation was. Council might do nothing. They might wait to see if they got more complaints. They might ask the district commissioner to look into it. They might ask the CO to look into it. The committee might have a private discussion with the Scoutmaster. The CO would likely ask some of the trusted members of the unit leadership for their opinion on what had happened. Honestly, the more open, up front communication you have, the less any of these things are likely to happen.

I had one older woman from the church mention it to me in passing..."Did you see the latest news on the Scouts? [shaking her head] That's terrible..." That's the only local reaction I've seen. No parent has brought it up, no one of any authority at the CO has brought it up. From that I am inferring that anyone who has seen any of it recognizes that it is not a troop-level issue, and it does not affect the day-to-day operation of the troop. I think I would do more harm than good if I were to bring it up in any general fashion. If people were to start talking about it, my reaction might be different.

Do they keep serving in their position? Typically yes. There are many adult roles in a troop and most of them do not require a registered leader.

The best thing about this is that nothing like this is happening around here. I suspect that the large majority of councils are not doing this. If you looked at the last census bureau map, it appeared that a state's population grew in proportion to the distance from Michigan. Seriously, Michigan was the only state to lose population, and all of the states with 15%+ population growth form a concentric arc from Idaho to NC. You had to be at least four states away from Michigan to grow that fast. Anyway, just wanted to report, things aren't like that here, as far as I know.