Oak Tree

Hi Barry, No, I don't think you took me out of context. I agree that we owe Scout-like behavior to everyone (in general). It's the word loyal that gives me some pause here. Loyal generally means showing allegiance to. It's often used with respect to your country. Can you be loyal to someone else's country? Some group of people you haven't met? That just doesn't quite jibe with how I think of loyalty. Benedict Arnold - was he loyal to Great Britain? They may have thought so. Maybe it's just English. When I hear "be loyal to everybody", I hear something like "give better than normal treatment to everybody." That makes no sense. Plus, why would the handbook say "to whom loyalty is due"? Why not just say "to everyone"? I think HICO has the more common definition - showing loyalty to those people with which you have a bond or obligation. I agree that's the definition - I just don't think everyone would agree which groups you have an obligation to. Am I supposed to show loyalty to my company? My town? My neighbors? My extended family? Sometimes we intentionally choose to take on obligations - no issue there. But sometimes people have expectations of loyalty in places where other people don't. HICO - I agree you could come up with a definition of which groups you should be loyal to. I just don't think everyone would come up with the same list. By and large, we might agree on most of it. Certain groups, like your immediate family, are almost certainly included on the list. Certain groups might definitely be off the list (leaders of North Korea, say). But some groups might be on the border. And in practice, I'll show different levels of loyalty to different groups. I'll be very loyal to my wife, perhaps less so to my religious leaders, and maybe not at all to my company (in the sense that I could easily go work for a competitor with no concerns). What do I mean by levels of loyalty? I'm thinking of what level of sacrifice I'd make for them, or how much would I support them even if they are doing something I don't agree with.

The Scouting rules would need to be followed even if the park had lesser rules. But the only Scouting rules applicable here are that Tigers are accompanied by their adult partner, and that any outing has to have at least two adults. Some group may decide to have more restrictive rules - the council, the CO, the pack, the den. But in general, for non-Tigers, the answer to your question is yes, it is ok. Having two adults on an outing is not "youth protection" in my mind. The youth protection rule is "no one-on-one contact". The two adults are there to back each other up. If they have to split up the group because someone gets injured, they can. If one has to use the restroom, there's another one there. Etc. It depends on the outing, too. At a park I think a couple adults could be plenty. Out camping, you probably desire more. We have always encouraged adults to come along on Scouting activities. It has been relatively rare for kids not to have their parents along.

HICO states, referring to me, "I don't see how you're saying the values are defined to be aspirational." Ok, so first off, let me reiterate that I don't like the term aspirational in the first place. As Calico points out, a goal by definition is an aspirational goal. aspiration: a goal or objective desired (from dictionary.com) I think you're really saying that it's not a fuzzy goal, it's a definite goal (and I agree that would be a point of disagreement, as I do think it's a fuzzy goal.) Let's take one of the examples. A Scout is loyal. A Scout is loyal to those to whom loyalty is due. Can you really say that is a definite goal? It's mostly just a circular definition of loyal. Q: What does it mean to be loyal? A: Show loyalty. To whom? To whom loyalty is due. Well, who's that? A definite goal might be more like "show loyalty to your troop by attending at least 75% of the troop meetings each year." I think it is hard to define those "to whom loyalty is due", in any precise way. I agree it absolutely does mean something. I just don't think that it is a definite meaning. But heck, I think we're just debating semantics or definitions here, so there's not too much point in prolonging this. GaHillBilly, you say "Actually, under at least SOME BSA regs on the topic, the CO should define the precise definition of these terms." Can you point me to those regs? I'd be curious to have a look at them. I think that if a CO actually gave these definitions in a way that was measurable, they would get everyone screaming about how "you can't add to the requirements." (e.g., "As a CO, we define loyalty as meaning that you will show loyalty to the troop by attending at least 75% of the troop meetings", or "We define helpful as meaning you must do at least one-half hour of chores at home at least three days a week.") They absolutely mean something. Are they aspirations? Sure. Goals? Yes. Specific? Not the way I think of it.

Eagle92, I almost pro-actively mentioned insurance in my prior post on this thread, just to head off the discussion. I was actually surprised the topic hadn't already come up. If you search for 'insurance' on the forum, you'll find many long discussions of the topic. shortridge, I don't believe that's how insurance works. Can you point to any reliable document that says it does work that way? I've looked at some policies, and they generally exclude 1) intentional and criminal acts, and 2) some fairly specific other causes. In addition to the insurance policies, there is also a federal law that protects volunteers from being sued.

GaHillBilly, I think I agree with what all you've written. I agree it would be possible to define trustworthy in some very specific ways. But the point is, the values are not currently defined that way. That's what makes them aspirational. You could absolutely set performance standards, but Scouting hasn't done so. As for the skills, you're right. That doesn't seem to be the focus the way it used to be. It is indeed much easier to set performance standards for skills. The Scout Law hasn't changed, though, and I'd say it's always been aspirational. If you are arguing that there used to be both real goals and aspirational goals, with more focus on the real goals, then I might agree. There are still real goals today, but as you say, with less focus. Here I agree with skeptic - if you remove all the real goals and retain only the aspirational ones, in an attempt to appeal to everyone, you'll actually end up appealing to no one.

I think that in a way, they have to be aspirational goals. In Wood Badge and everywhere else, we're taught that if you want to make goals that you are likely to be able to go out and achieve, you make them SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound). Trying to live the Scout Oath and Law is not specific, measurable, or time-bound. I'd say it's not specific, because not everyone can agree what it means. How do you know if you are being loyal the way the Scout Law means it? What does duty to God mean? Because different people, and especially different leaders, have differing interpretations of this, it makes it hard to hold people to some standard. It's certainly not a "standard" in the way that international standards are normally set. It's definitely not measurable in the way implied here. Were you 50% as brave as you needed to be? 70%? Did you over-achieve on bravery by 130%? These are the equivalent to the New Year's Resolutions like "I want to be a better person this year", and "I'm going to be nicer to my kids." You could say "I'm going to be more reverent this year", but will you meet that? How will you decide? Now, if you said "I plan to attend Sunday morning services at my church at least 12 times in the next four months", it becomes specific, measurable, and time-bound. I guess I don't the Oath and Law as "goals". I think of them as principles. I don't really like the term "aspirational goals", as it implies they are goals you will aspire to, but not actually meet. Aspirational goals could be things like "We want to have zero defects on our manufacturing line". If you think of the Law as really saying things like "I will be 100% courteous", then I think it's safe to say that more than a few posters here aren't actually following the Scout Law. But if you view it as pointing the broad general direction for how to conduct yourself in civil society, then we're perhaps doing a bit better. So yes, I do think they stand for something, and something attainable at that. Do we all agree on what exactly they might mean in a given situation? No, I don't think so. I'd say it's more of a "fuzzy goal".

At our Eagle boards, all the members have always been in full uniform when I've observed them. They are specifically requested to dress in uniform or in proper business attire, the same instructions as are given to the Scout.

Gern, not sure why you would click the suggested correction, but I had to follow suit just to see. That really caused a jump in the irony-meter.

Great question, Eamonn. Here are some of the questions I think would be relevant: When you think of Scouting, you may picture some things you like and some things you dislike. Can you list for me the three things you like most about Scouting? The three things you like least? That would work well verbally - but you could also do it in written format. You could offer a list to choose from, or make it free-form. You could also check to see which items are most important to people - Would you rather join a troop that camps a lot but pays little attention to character development, or would you rather join a troop that camps very little but pays much more attention to character development? How far would you drive to participate in Scouts? For people who are still in Scouting: What items attracted you the most to Scouting in the first place? Have separate adults and kids surveys: For adults, How did you hear about Scouting for your son? Why did you join up? What age was your child when you became involved as an adult? For kids, What is the best part of Scouting? How is Scouting viewed by your friends? For those friends who are not in Scouting, what do you the top reasons are? Ask some of those agree/disagree statements: For non-members, they could be phrased one way I would want to join (or I would want my child to join) an organization with the following mission: To prepare young people to make ethical choices over their lifetime by instilling in them values such as being trustworthy, loyal, (etc). I would want to join an organization with the aim of growth in moral strength and character I would want to join an organization with the aim of participating in citizenship I would want to join an organization with the aim of development in physical, mental, and emotional fitness for my child Having an advancement program is a good way to help kids accomplish things. Being in the outdoors is important. If Scouting permitted homosexual leaders and members, that would make it more likely that I would join etc. For both members and non-members you could ask agree/disagree for statements like: I like the Boy Scout uniform Scouting would be better if they made the duty to God part optional For members, I think you need a set of questions to assess the impact Scouting should de-emphasize the uniform If Scouting stopped prohibiting homosexuals at a national level, but still allowed chartered organizations to set such policies when choosing their leaders, I would leave (or alternately, stay) with my unit. That last type of question is one that I think you need to be careful about. People are very bad at predicting what they would actually do. I'd rather focus on what people really think, and what they really like, or what really puts them off, about the Scouting program. I also don't think there's a lot of point in asking questions like Do you like recognition? or other motherhood and apple pie kinds of questions that are self-serving. In practice, the most likely new members are Tigers, so the parents of potential Tigers are the most important people to survey in one respect. But I think you'd clearly want to interview members, former members (drop outs), both parents and youth.

There are lots of different policies that get published in a variety of publications. I believe that most of these decisions are made by committees of volunteers.] I think of Scouting more like a school textbook company than as a franchise. Lots of different teachers use the book, and classes look very different, even while they are going by the book. Every now and then the textbook manufacturer gets together a focus group of teachers to give them feedback on the book and come up with some changes that they want to see. Something like that, anyway.

brodiew, you say I am not on BSA property, I am not participating in a BSA event. If that's true, who is going to make you wear helmets? I don't think there are any Guide to Safe Scouting police in the general public. But if you are telling all the parents that you're taking their kids on a Scouting outing, then it pretty much is a BSA event, by definition. You ask, It should be a personal choice for that person to decide. Do you feel that way about all Scouting safety rules? If so, then you would apparently support having no actual rules, just suggestions. If you're asking for some official way to get around the rules, there won't be one. But could you ignore the rules? Sure. You could even write up waivers and have the parents sign them. I'm not sure what you'd be accomplishing, but you could do it. You appear to have two separate points. 1. The rule is stupid. 2. I shouldn't have to follow stupid rules. I think there could be an interesting debate about whether the rule makes sense. Not all the rules do, not all the time. Maybe this one does, maybe it doesn't. It does not, on the face of it, appear to be all that stupid of a rule, but you might be right. As for point 2, there are lots of times when I'd advocate using your judgement to decide if a rule really applied. But it seems pretty clear that this rule does apply, and this is exactly the situation they were thinking about when they made the rule. To counter the quotes you had, check out this:The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) staff is recommending skiers and snowboarders wear helmets to help prevent head injuries from falls and collisions. In a study released today (pdf format), the CPSC staff concluded that helmet use by skiers and snowboarders could prevent or reduce the severity of 44 percent of head injuries to adults, and 53 percent of head injuries to children under the age of 15. The proportion of skiing and snowboarding head injuries is higher in children than in any other age group. In 1997, there were 17,500 head injuries associated with skiing and snowboarding. The CPSC study estimates that 7,700 head injuries -- including 2,600 head injuries to children -- could be prevented or reduced in severity each year by using skiing or snowboarding helmets. The study also shows that helmet use could prevent about 11 skiing- and snowboarding- related deaths annually. "We know that helmet use can prevent serious head injuries in a wide variety of sports and activities, including bicycling and in-line skating," said CPSC Chairman Ann Brown. "This study of skiing and snowboarding shows that helmets can prevent or reduce the severity of head injuries on the slopes, just as they do on the streets." The study of head injuries associated with skiing and snowboarding was conducted as part of CPSC's ongoing work to reduce head injuries in a variety of sports and activities. In addition to the CPSC staff study, research in other countries has shown that helmets can help prevent head injuries to skiers. In Sweden, a national study found that head injuries among skiers wearing helmets were 50 percent lower than for skiers not wearing helmets.That's from http://www.hotelfun4kids.com/travelnews/safetynews/helmetsafe.htm (This message has been edited by Oak Tree)

mn_scout, thanks for the pointer. I was already aware of that one, and it's not an official BSA web site or form. It's just the opinion of someone at boyscouttrail.com. There are a lot of unofficial descriptions of this award out there. You can see the official rules on the document "Our Camping Log" from BSA, or in the Scoutmaster Handbook. The Scoutmaster Handbook (2007 printing) saysIndividual Scouts and Scouters may qualify for a National Camping Award patch, provided that the required cumulative number of days and nights of camping has been met. This total can include any combination of camping experiences with the Scout's family, patrol, or troop.The wording in "Our Camping Log" is only slightly different, I believe, but I don't have one handy. The SM Handbook goes on to sayTo earn this award, a Scout must keep track of his campouts and have them approved by his Scoutmaster or assistant Scoutmaster. [...] Both the unit and cumulative awards are retroactive to January 1, 1991.

I would probably step in here. I agree with you the boys aren't going to fix it. You hate to see the new Scouts drop out. The patrol can't pick a patrol yell? It's really hard to tell about this, but I can suggest some things I might try. 1. Take the patrol leader aside, and tell him that if he wants to keep his job, his patrol needs a name and a yell and a flag within a week. Then offer up the old ones, or something. You might have the SPL do this if you prefer. 2. I would probably just go with one patrol for this group, instead of two. I don't know that you have enough critical mass, or enough maturity in the group, to really sustain two patrols. 3. Remix the patrols, letting the Scouts choose them. See what they come up with. Your option 2 sounds like a possibility...I think the organization would be fine, but I don't know how the patrol would feel about being handed their new leader. Might be fine. You mention that this would leave a gap in the good patrol, and I think that's another indication that you might not really have enough Scouts to make two viable patrols.

Lisabob, I too find you to be a voice of reason and would be happy to have you serve on my committee. But given your lone position as Cassandra in the troop, I don't know how much influence you can expect to have. I would normally recommend starting with the Scoutmaster. He's going to have to be on-board with any decisions. If you don't think he'll be receptive, you may have better luck with the SPL. He may be in the best position to make something happen. I doubt you can get the guys thrown out for "eating someone's chips", as the Scoutmaster says. Probably the best you can hope for is some type of probation. Now, if the Scouts can come up with an impressive enough list, maybe they can get some such action to be taken. Have any Scouts left the troop because of these guys? Are any of the guys willing to go in and testify at the committee meeting and break down in tears describing the abuse they've taken? I think that would pretty much do it. But short of that - the SPL could ask the Scoutmaster to talk to all of the complainants, and see what he finds out. Somehow, you have to find an ally in here. I too thank you for posting the problem. I'm sure it's common for parents to want to change things, but not know where to start. And as Mafaking points out, people are often reluctant to post because of all the potential criticism. Even though you specifically said you weren't looking for comments on the troop's past practice, you got them anyway. Good luck.

BSA certainly encourages showing the video annually. Our troop used to do it, giving parents a chance to watch it in advance and have an option to have their son not see it. The main problem was that the kids who haven't seen it are all the new, youngest Scouts, who are still relatively sheltered and sometimes overly protected. Still, most parents let their kids watch it. I wasn't a big fan of showing it, though. Having kids watch it every year really seemed like overkill. BSA recommends that all youth attending the jamboree be required to view the video A Time To Tell. I think BSA is doing as much as it can to encourage the video, but I don't think it's going to be mandatory. Too many hissy fits, I agree, although we did not experience anything like that when we showed it. I'm sure it has a lot to do with various sociological factors.

We use TroopMaster, so for at least the majority of the years, we would have complete data on the troop's camping dates. We have never applied for a unit award, though - probably just because it's one more thing on the list, and wouldn't really have much meaning to our Scouts. I'm not sure who it would really be rewarding...the Scouts and the leaders are all new compared with those back in 2000. And for the annual plan, we normally camp about 28 days a year (11 x 2 + 6), and that's pretty built in, so it would be just an award for doing what you normally do. The individual awards, we do give out. We've had a number go over 100. We'll count any camping since 1991 - family, Cub Scout, youth group, whatever. It does have to be camping, though (Scoutmaster's discretion on what counts as camping.) Staying in a cabin on staff at a Scout camp wouldn't count for us. No one's earned 250 nights yet. The Scoutmaster will probably be the first.

I actually don't think that any explanation is owed. The council president is a volunteer, yes? He may have had good reason to remove the district chairman, or not, but it was apparently his call. There have been times when I've had to remove an ASM from his position, and we treated it like a personnel issue. We wouldn't have shared the reason even if people had asked. That's pretty much the norm in all companies, too. As for whether being a thorn in the side is a reasonable cause for dismissal, I don't know. I would normally say no, it's not sufficient. Usually I'd just put up with it until the end of the year, and then not re-register the person. However, I do agree it's a good reason not to re-register someone, and depending on the circumstances, it might be a reason to remove someone. It would depend on how many other people he'd ticked off, whether there was someone who could take his place, whether he was receptive to suggestions on improvement, whether his removal itself would anger people, etc.

This sounds to me like how we always did things. I know the official BSA advice was not to focus on achievements at den meetings, but that's pretty much how we did it anyway (and how a number of other packs do it as well). So I expect the change will make little difference to us.

Ok, I'll try. My last question was indeed a way of answering the question. I looked up the statistics from the Department of Justice the last time they did a study of people who committed violent crimes (mainly sexual abuse) against children. They showed it was overwhelming men who committed such acts - 96.6% to 3.4% - but it's clear we can't ban men from leadership. Blacks were twice as likely as whites, on a per capita basis. People 18-24 were more than twice as likely as those over 40. High school dropouts were far more likely than those who had completed high school. College graduates were significantly less than high-school graduates. And unemployed people were more than twice as likely as employed people. Do you believe that the discrepancy between gays and straights would be greater than any of those discrepancies? I would answer your question this way - we make decisions all the time that may or may not increase risk of all kinds of things. We say that safety is the most important thing, but what we really mean is that we will not do things that have a risk above some threshhold. If we always did only the safest thing, we would presumably stay indoors almost all the time. That's true with sex offenders as well. People who have been arrested once for doing it are significantly more likely than the general population to commit a sexual offense. That likelihood is enough to justify banning them. But being unemployed? Being 18-24? Your race? None of those would be a good enough reason. We as a society have also decided that it's important to treat people as individuals and not discriminate against them based on many personal characteristics. Even if a company had a definitive study that showed that men could do some particular job better than women, it can't discriminate. We do this for a variety of reasons. One reason is that by consistently discriminating against a set of people, we can create various backlashes, or hidden behaviors; and another is because we simply don't believe it is fair to discriminate on the basis of something unrelated to the job at hand. This argument is certainly stronger for things that clearly do not involve choice - race, gender, age, for example. But we also protect religious beliefs, even though people can choose to change religions. To me it's clear that whether someone is heterosexual or homosexual is not simply a choice. I have no way to know if abuse would increase or decrease if open gays were allowed to be leaders. I'm pretty confident the absolute numbers would show little change, because I don't believe we'd see any massive influx of openly gay leaders, and we know there are already some number of gay leaders anyway. I wonder if some people made the same argument about women leaders? "What? You're going to let an 18-year old girl be an assistant Scoutmaster and let her go sleep in the woods with a bunch of 16 and 17 year-old guys? Surely that's just begging for trouble." In the end we will no doubt avoid certain groups of people for leaders. Paranoid schizophrenics, for example, may not make the best leaders. Or people with Alzheimer's disease. But for most things, we accept that there is some risk, and we decide some way to decide what an acceptable risk is. Why, for example, would we let a 60 year old man who weighs 260 pounds go backpacking? Surely he is far more likely to have a heart attack than a 30-year old man who weighs 185 (at least, on average). But we do it because the benefit of getting the leaders out there is worth the risk of having kids watch their Scoutmaster die. At least, up to some point. I suspect that the biggest counter-argument from you would be that you see little or no benefit, so there's no reason to take the risk. But the benefit could be 1)BSA gets more good leaders, 2)toleration is a good thing in and of itself, 3)BSA stops being perceived by some as an outdated organization. How much do you think sexual abuse would increase and why? If you could show clear evidence that the risk would increase substantially, then we could discuss that particular evidence.

OGE - you keep making the point that units don't normally assign tentmates, (and here I'm going to try to capture what I think you're saying), so we shouldn't need new rules to avoid having an aggressor and a victim being forced to tent together, because the victim would presumably avoid choosing the aggressor, or anyone he doesn't like, for that matter. I'm not sure I buy the argument as a total defense, for several reasons. 1. Part of the reason for the youth protection rules is to prevent people from tenting with people that they like too much (boyfriend/girlfriend, say). 2. Tentmates aren't always buddies. We used to have this problem more - where we'd end up with the two last guys that no one wanted to tent with. They didn't really like each other, but they tented together anyway. 3. I can easily imagine some type of predator bullying a kid into tenting with him. 4. Because of reason 2, our troop did used to occasionally assign tentmates, and I'm sure there are other troops that do as well. I realize that your point does significantly lessen the chance, but it is really enough to make it a moot point?

vol_scouter - how about this? We do a study and figure out which age range of adults is the most common to commit sexual offenses. (18-25, 25-30, 30-35, 35-40, ...) I'm sure BSA already has the data. Then we will ban that age range from being Boy Scout leaders. If we have a chance to reduce any sexual molestation of children, why wouldn't we do it?

Kay424 writes - I was able to find a quotation from the litigation department of the BSA guidelines that does say I, as a human being, living of my own free will and with the constitutional right for the pursuit of my own happiness, am legally not allowed by the BSA as an organization to lead their youth. Kay - I'm sorry that the organization does not welcome you. I'm sure you are making a positive contribution and will be missed, if you do decide to resign. You do have the option of continuing to work with the kids if your unit wants you to. You also have the option of continuing in a don't-ask-don't-tell fashion, which appears to be what many gays do. I don't believe that would be actually illegal, in the sense that it is against any actual government law (just a BSA policy). It's not even really against BSA policy, which only prohibits "known or avowed" gays - so if no one in the organization knows you're gay, it doesn't appear to be a problem. P.S. I realize that you mean that pursuing your own happiness doesn't hurt anyone else, but it's not the strongest argument. First, that's not actually in the constitution, and secondly, there are lots of people who pursue their own happiness in ways that would make them not good choices for Cub Scout leaders.

SctDad, my sympathies to you and your family. I think naming the campership program is a fine idea.

I would say it's youth-only. That's the only way I've ever heard it. The term POR comes from the requirements for youth ranks of Star, Life, and Eagle. The requirements could just as easily have read serve actively for six months in one or more of the following positions:, but instead, it added the phrase of responsibility, and hence, those youth positions became known as PORs. For adults, I've only ever seen it referred to as a position. That's what it is called on the leader registration form. Sure, the words seem to be relatively interchangeable, but the practical usage makes a distinction.

Well said, Twocubdad. The only thing I would add to the description of the system is that it undoubtedly also limits liability to some extent. There is no doubt that COs vary from completely uninvolved all the way up to what LDS does, and to those troops that only accept members from within the CO's ranks. Regardless of how involved the CO is, though, I think that any troop that thinks they can ignore an instruction from the CO is likely to find out quickly how the system is set up. Heck, Scoutmasters have been let go for such things. As for COs having a large voice, I think that only happens when the national body of the group speaks to BSA National on behalf of all of their units. Then, as noted in many places, there can be a significant impact. For many troops, if their CO declined to continue to sponsor them, it would be no big deal to find another CO. For others, it could be an issue. For some (e.g., an LDS unit), I think it would be essentially impossible. If Catholics dropped sponsorship of Scouts, I think many of the troops would move and the Scouts would stay involved. If LDS dropped Scouts, a lot of those people would largely disappear from BSA, I think, although I'm sure there are a number of LDS people who would join another troop. How big of an impact would that be? Hard to say. The council of my youth only has one LDS troop. I'm sure some councils in Utah would just about have to fold up camp. LDS runs their units so independently that it certainly wouldn't have much impact on my unit. The real question would go to council finances. But I still don't get why the LDS would need to stop sponsoring units. They appear to believe that women shouldn't be Scoutmasters, and women can't camp with the troop. And that troops shouldn't be active on Sunday. Etc. But they have no problem being in BSA, since they have the local option to do as they choose in these matters. It seems to me that you would want to either 1)design your own program, like Royal Rangers, that matches all your religious views, or 2)accept that other groups that sponsor units will have different values from you.