Oak Tree

acco40, based on your Q and A, I'm wondering how you got away with not wearing your pants on the other two days. :-) Maybe out in the backcountry nobody minds if you hike in your underwear?

A council, as an independent entity, can pass anything they want to. And National can threaten to revoke their charter, and has made such threats when councils passed non-discrimination policies that contradicted National. According to the rules, what can they change? They can make safety requirements more restrictive, but not less. They can decide on how they are going to interpret or implement various requirements. They cannot outright contradict National. The 5 MB limit would contradict National policy, I believe, and would be prohibited. How would it even be enforced? We don't ever tell council who did the counseling for merit badges.

Eagle92, As you point out, the fallout from certain events can overshadow who has the legal right to do what. The biggest fallout is that the kid got hurt. I'm presuming it was fairly bad, for it to get to this level of dispute. Does the SE have the right to revoke someone's membership? Generally yes. Doesn't mean it's a good idea (or a bad one). Could the SE share the info with his DEs? I would think yes, normally he could, and should. Might depend on advice from his lawyers, though. Will the insurance cover him? Here you say that one of the insurance policies wouldn't cover it. I feel like there might be more to the story here. We'd want to know which policies were in force at the time. Was it that one policy didn't cover it but the other did? Were they trying to get his own personal insurance policy to cover it first? I have no doubt that he had problems with the insurance companies, trying to sort everything out. From Training the COR: Local Council Responsibilities: ... Provide primary general liability insurance to cover the chartered organization and its board, officers, chartered organization representative, and employees against all personal liability judgments. This insurance includes attorney's fees and court costs as well as any judgment brought against the individual or organization. Unit leaders are covered in excess of any personal coverage they might have, or if there is no personal coverage, the BSA insurance immediately picks them up on a primary basis. Here's a long discussion about what typically is not covered by general liability policies in Pennsylvania: http://www.margolisedelstein.com/files/gallogly_4-08_cglexclusions-pamic_copy.pdf . This is only a typical list - we don't know what is actually excluded on the BSA master policy (or at least, I don't). The document lists intentional acts, and adds a few other items like: - acts of war (there goes my planned trip to visit Afghani Scouts), - inability to use electronic data (I guess if you accidentally destroy a Scout's computer, it will pay for the computer, but nothing for the fact that he didn't get into Harvard because you destroyed the only copy of his college application essay) - pollution (I guess it's somehow conceivable that you could accidentally pollute a substantial property as a Scout leader) - anything against public policy (which pretty much is included with intentional acts) - costs for breaking a contract - anything that overlaps with a bunch of other coverages (e.g., auto insurance) - a bunch of other things that appear to mostly apply to businesses Nowhere does it say anything like "injuries that arise from not following the rules", or "injuries that arise from negligence", or stupidity, or "things that could possibly be foreseen." I would be very curious to see what the BSA policy said and how it was possibly interpreted that he should not be covered. Do you know for sure that he ended up unprotected by any insurance coverage?

Barry, by "the program made a big shift to be more exclusive", did you really mean more inclusive? From wikipedia: In 1972, Scouts Canada began accepting female members as part of its Rover Section. This was expanded in 1984 to include the Venturer Section. In 1992, co-ed Scouting was an option for all program sections and became policy for all sections in 1998. Total youth membership in Canada in 2008 was 74,302 From 1961 to 2000 Canadian youth membership dropped by 66%, from 270,000 to 91,170 for the equivalent age group (non-Beavers, where Beaver=Tiger). In 1995 membership was growing, and hit a high of 172,680 youth. From 1995 to 2000 there was an 18% drop. From 2000-2008 was another 48% drop. That makes a 57% drop from 1995 to 2008. The non-Beaver age group had a drop of 81% from 1961 to 2008 (despite the inclusion of girls which would presumably approximately double the TAY). Makes the BSA's problem look minor. One study of the membership decline had this conclusion (unsurprising to most of us): Troops with more outdoor activities and which give more autonomy to the Scouts have higher rates of membership retention. I'm presuming that somewhere from 1995-1998 was roughly the turning point to which Barry refers. It is dangerous to presume that any one change precipitated this decline. Indeed, it is difficult to postulate how badly screwed up this has to be to cause a decline of this magnitude. It appears that the forced policy of having both genders in all units is typical of a national office that is overly controlling and perceived very much this way. Just as the EU countries rebel against Brussels, the Canadian Scouts appear to be rebelling against this and voting with their feet. I'm not sure what lesson to draw, though. I think it's clear that the BSA has to stand for *something* in order to maintain its attraction of new members. I would argue, based on admittedly insufficient evidence, that the primary thing the BSA has to stand for is outdoor adventure. When they took that away in the 1970s, membership plummeted. My sense on the Canadian thing is that there had to be more changes than just the inclusion of girls. I'm guessing an overall change in focus, management style, something...but whatever it is they are perceived as representing, Canadians don't appear to want it. Or perhaps the problem is that they're not perceived as representing anything.

NJCubScouter, I agree that the drop following the baby boom has to take some of the blame for the drop in membership. However, I found this on the internet (so it has to be true): BSA membership peaked at 6.5 million in 1972, and reached bottom in 1980 with 4.3 million. This 34% drop is bigger than the drop in TAY (total available youth) or the overall birthrate. The Cub Scouts went from 2.4 million in 1970 to 1.7 million in 1980. Explorers actually went up. But the biggest percentage drop by far was in the Boy Scout program, going from 1.916 million in 1970 to 1.064 million in 1980, a 44% drop. The eighth edition of the Boy Scout Handbook was in print from 1972 to 1979. It may be pure coincidence, but this corresponds almost precisely with the steep membership decline. From your table, the number of births continued to decline until 1975, so we would expect the BSA membership to drop up through 1986, when we'd hit the minimum number of 11-year-olds entering the program. But in fact, the years 1981-1984 were up from 1980 for Boy Scouts. 1986 should have then been the low point, based on birth rates, but some other effect began to take hold, and even as the TAY grew, membership in Boy Scout troops dropped below the 1986 level, remaining relatively constant just below that level all through the 1990s. 1999 was the highest point since 1987, and since 1999 Boy Scouts have dropped from 1.028 million to 0.906, a drop of 12% over the past 10 years. Some of that could certainly be attributed to correction from any number fudging that was going on. Just to sum up Youth born 1953 to 1959 (who would be 11-17 in 1970): 29.2 million Youth born 1963 to 1969 (who would be 11-17 in 1980): 26.1 million An 11% drop. 1957-1959 (11-13 year olds in 1970): 12.9 million 1967-1969 (11-13 year olds in 1980): 10.6 million An 18% drop. Boy Scouts in 1970: 1.916 million Boy Scouts in 1980: 1.064 million A 44% drop. So the birth rate change was very significant, but it does not come close to explaining the exceptional drop-off in membership.

Nathan, are you looking at this form? http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/512-728_web.pdfREQUIREMENT 6. Take part in a Scoutmaster conference (with Scoutmaster, Coach, or Advisor). Attach to this application a statement of your ambitions and life purpose and a listing of positions held in your religious institution, school, camp, community, or other organizations during which you demonstrated leadership skills. Include honors and awards received during this service.Emphasis in bold is mine.

To follow up on the insurance question: From the Guide to Safe Scouting Accident and sickness insurance pays regardless of fault as long as the accident occurred during an official Scouting activity From the BSA (lots of different council websites have identical terminology):This coverage provides primary general liability coverage for registered volunteer Scouters with respect to claims arising out of an official Scouting activity with the exception that the coverage is excess over any insurance which may be available to the volunteer for loss arising from the ownership, maintenance, or use of a motor vehicle or watercraft. ... There is no coverage for those who commit intentional or criminal acts.I looked up intentional acts in a law dictionary. I am not a lawyer, but it looks to me like this is referring to intentional torts, where a tort "is an act that injures someone in some way, and for which the injured person may sue the wrongdoer for damages." It went on to define intentional torts with lots of paragraphs, including:The intent element of these torts is satisfied when the tortfeasor acts with the desire to bring about harmful consequences and is substantially certain that such consequences will follow. Mere reckless behavior, sometimes called willful and wanton behavior, does not rise to the level of an intentional tort.I start to feel like the loss of liability insurance is the boogeyman that some people in Scouting use to try to get other people to do the "right" thing. (CubsRgr8, I'm not saying this is you. I'm guessing someone told you this.) "Jimmy, eat your vegetables. If you don't, the dreaded boogeyman will get you." "Bob, collect your health forms. If you don't, the dreaded loss-of-insurance clause will get you." I've asked here before, and no one has ever been able to point out a time that someone lost their BSA insurance, but the threat of losing it comes up with significant frequency.

From this appeal: http://www.bsalegal.org/downloads/Cradle_of_Liberty_v_Philadelphia.pdf it appears that the agreement was an ordinance, not an actual lease (see point 15 of the appeal). The BSA makes several claims against the city, but it does not claim that the city is breaking the terms of the ordinance, which would lead me to guess that the city is ok on that particular front. The BSA does claim that: 1. Other groups (Baptists, Catholics, Women's group) that have restrictive membership policies also have the benefit of below-market leases, and that Scouts has been singled out due to its viewpoint, which is a violation of freedom of association. 2. For the same reason, the city's action is a violation of the equal protection clause. 3. For the same reason, the city's action is a violation of the free speech section of the Pennsylvania constitution. 4. For the same reason, the city's action is a violation of the equal protection clause of the Pennsylvania constitution. 5. The city and council had reached an agreement that if the council adopted a non-discrimination statement, they would let the Scouts stay. The council did adopt a "no unlawful discrimination" statement that was acceptable to the city. Then the city later decided this was insufficient, but the BSA claims that was a breach of contract. (this appears to be a verbal contract or something, not an officially documented legal-looking "contract"). 6. Unlawful enrichment. They are saying that if the city takes the building, they need to pay the BSA for the value of what they are taking. But at no point do they actually argue that the action itself is unconstitutional - only that it is not permissible to enforce the non-discrimination law against one particular group. That does seem like a reasonable argument to me. Maybe someone with standing needs to bring a similar case against the other organizations, though.

Today's headline: Pennsylvania Union Leader Resigns Amid Criticism for Threatening Legal Action Over Boy Scout's Volunteerism http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,576438,00.html Since the forum software doesn't like that url, here's another one: http://tinyurl.com/ydtfzhv (This message has been edited by Oak Tree)

jstephens42, good catch! It had occurred to me that the questions might have changed, but I hadn't reviewed them. It's not so much that it's a "very large change on the wording", but that the change in wording has a very large change in the meaning of the question. The four words "qualify as trained leaders" are certainly a higher bar than the eight words that they replace "complete Basic Leader Training and Youth Protection Training." Question 6 has also been added to. For 2010, you will also need a unit budget, in addition to the program plan and the financial resources. The program plan also has to be done as a conference (presumably instead of the unit leader just jotting down the entire plan himself or herself.) 2009: "We will conduct annual program planning and ..." 2010: "We will conduct an annual program-planning conference, develop an annual budget, and ..." Ok, OGE, I'll admit, you'd have to do more editing now. Still, you could strike out eight words on question 1 and hand-write in four words, and add five words to question 6. But you'd think there would be an editable version out there somewhere.

I worry about him going on longer backpack trips, that he would get bogged down once his poor nutrition catches up with him. I hear this phrase a lot, but depending on how it's interpreted, I personally don't think this is likely to be a problem. Here I'm presuming that the assumption is that white flour and sugar aren't enough to sustain lengthy physical activities. Have you ever seen what triathletes eat? They can do an all day ironman event by eating what amounts to raw sugar all day long. You can get lots of energy from terrible food choices. The poor food choices are likely to cause two separate problems, I think: 1. If there's not enough of food they like, then they don't eat anything (or enough, anyway). Then they don't have enough calories going in. 2. Long-term health is not well-served by eating only sugar and flour (while technically such a person would be a vegetarian, it seems like a better name would by carbohydrarian). But this isn't a problem that would manifest itself in a weekend or even a week. A lifetime of poor eating habits can certainly leave one ill-suited for long-term backpacking.

Apache Bob, Are you referring to this link on the national site? http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/513-190_wb.pdf That is indeed the 2010 form, but it is not fillable. The 2009 form on the same site, http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/14-190-09.pdf, is indeed editable. Not sure why the 2010 form would not be.

CubsRgr8, I will follow the advice that we give out frequently on this forum. Can you show me in writing where that statement comes from? I'm inclined to disbelieve that "possession is a BSA liability insurance requirement."

I think the article is referring to Cubs and just has the terminology wrong. As for merit badges during troop meetings, I agree you don't want it to be merit badge school. But the Troop Program Guides do list various merit badge work as appropriate for the skills portion of a troop meeting.

We've always done ours as a fillable PDF. I don't think I've seen the 2010 version yet, though. Here's one place to find 2009: http://www.buffalotrailbsa.org/forms/2009centennialaward.pdf I couldn't find a version of 2010 that's fillable. I must say, OGE, you are well ahead of the crowd if you're already filling out your goals for next year. I'd just fill out the 2009 version, print it out, and cross out 2009 and write 2010 in big letters. Or in my case, I'll actually wait and see if they come out with a fillable form.

I'm with you, Eamonn. But I think you left out a mad. It's a mad mad mad mad world.

Eagle92, your willingness to consider that you might have made a mistake is admirable and I would like to see all posters show that type of self-evaluation. But I actually didn't think that Eamonn's comment was directed at you. Basementdweller said about his own posting: "it wasn't necessarily meant to be kind" To which Eamonn replied: "if something isn't meant to kind? Then it isn't in keeping with the Scout Oath and Law." I agree with Basementdweller that the original comment from EL was not all that kind, but it's not clear that responding with the same tone is really the way to go. And certainly calling someone a "jerk" (now appropriately edited out by a staff member) is not good netiquette on this forum.

Jeffrey - I agree that earning Eagle requires perseverence, planning, discipline, and work, and that all who earn it should be congratulated. Try as I might to restrain myself, I have to comment on the 2% figure. From the national website: "Eagle Scout rank is earned by only 5 percent of Boy Scouts each year." Note, that's not saying 5% of the Scouts who join each year, it's saying 5% of the active Boy Scouts earn it each year. (It's roughly 50,000 out of 1,000,000.) But most Scouts are members for more than one year - the average is probably more like 3 years. Eagle Scouts themselves have an average age of 17.3 years, so they've been in for a few, certainly. There are 636,104 Webelos Scouts, so maybe 320,000 Scouts cross over to troops each year. And certainly a few Scouts join for the first time as Boy Scouts. So I figure it's around 50,000 out of 333,333, or about 15% of all boys who join Scouts. Now, we really beat this topic to death in the past, so I don't want to redo that whole thing. I just wanted to point out the 2% figure is too low today.

Scoutfish, the way I read Basementdweller, he was asking why not make it a clearer statement of "Sheath knives are prohibited" and was saying that his suggestion left no room for interpretation. I think you are agreeing. Personally, I'm fine with room for interpretation on a lot of items. Letting the adult and youth leaders apply their judgement is often appropriate, given the wide range of situations, experience, ages, etc., that are present in the various units. Trying to come up with black and white rules for too many things ends up with situations where the rules do not appear to make sense, and then people start to ignore the rules.

not as clear as it once was It's still pretty clear. From the 2009-2010 Insignia Guide, which does have the new uniform sleeve style. "Unit number, cloth, green on tan, Nos. 10400 throught 10408 (last digit indicates the the unit number for 0 through 8); for unit number 9, order 10406, Boy Scout and Boy Scout leader, left sleeve, position 2, touching council shoulder emblem if veteran unit bar is not worn." [emphasis added]

Eagle92, not sure who you're correcting here. You're the first one to bring up the term Dress Uniform. Field Uniform is indeed correct, as was stated earlier. OGE - yes, I acknowledged that reason in my opening question ("that's what the BSA says"). But the handbook also says you can wear "other appropriate attire", so even though they do define the activity uniform, they don't say whether or when you are supposed to wear it. BDPT00 - I think your reason captures a real reason why many units do it - because the adults think it looks sharper. You say, It sure seems to me that most of the comments lean toward wearing Scout pants with the activity uniform Based on my observations at summer camp and at camporees, I know that it's a real minority that wear the pants around my geographic area. On this forum, we have an approximately even split (based on my interpretation of the answers): Yes, wear Scout pants - Lisabob, Eagle92, nrp1488, emb021, BDPT00, OGE No, any pants - Oak Tree, SMT224, jblake47, desertrat77, Jeffrey H Reasons given for wearing them: Why not? They have them and don't mind wearing them. Look more official on duty. To make it easier to throw on your Scout shirt and be in full uniform. That's the way National defines it Look pretty sharp. Reasons given for not wearing them: Keep the Scout pants clean Kids don't want to No good reason to wear them Shouldn't make any difference (my addition) For summer camp or jamboree, don't have enough pairs of Scout pants

I am leery of over-simplification of the issue by both sides. Hal asks, Or are you suggesting that WE have the best system in the world? It can't be our life expectancy, we lose there I was more curious about that. According to the CIA world fact book (per wikipedia), we do in fact rank 34th in the world, out of 191 countries. The question then is, why? It could be due to poor health care. It could also be due to any number of other things - too much smoking, too much murder, too much dangerous work in the timber industry, too many taboos - one could hypothesize all day. My first theory, admittedly, with only anecdotal support from my own experience, would be that health care is probably pretty good for the top N% (where N=80 or so) of the population, but that poorer people with less access, or drug addicts, or a variety of others, don't fare as well, and their mortality rates could significantly pull down the average. I did find this interesting paper (2009) on the web: Low Life Expectancy in the United States: Is the Health Care System at Fault? http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=psc_working_papers In the abstract, they sum it up: "We conclude that the low longevity ranking of the United States is not likely to be a result of a poorly functioning health care system." From the paper, the U.S. "had the highest level of cigarette consumption per capita in the developed world over a 50-year period ending in the mid-80s" and goes on to state that the rank of the U.S. would improve noticeably if smoking were removed. "Recent trends in obesity are also more adverse in the United States than in other developed countries." No surprise there. Comparing with Europe, "For the major sites of lung, breast, prostate, colon, and rectum cancers, US survival rates were the highest of any of the 18 countries investigated. Cancers first diagnosed on the death certificate (5% in Europe and 1% in the US) were excluded from analysis; if they had been included, the US survival advantage would have increased." and "For men ... 47.3% of Europeans survived 5 years, compared to 66.3% of Americans. For women, the contrast was 55.8% vs. 62.9%. The male survival difference was much greater than the female primarily because of the very large difference in survival rates from prostate cancer." They go on to analyze the statistical evidence and show that the U.S. has higher screening rates and more effective treatments. "Among those with hypertension, 65.5% were being successfully treated in the US (i.e., their levels were reduced below the hypertension-defining threshold), compared to 24.8% to 49.1% in the other countries." Significantly more (88% vs 62%) of our high-cholesterol population is using lipid-lowering drugs (shown to be very effective). Five year survival for heart attack (acute myocardial infarction), U.S. vs Canada: "the hazard rate was 17% higher in Canada", and "our findings are strongly suggestive of a survival advantage for the US cohort based on more aggressive revascularization" This table is pretty telling: 5-year survival rate (%) Site United States Europe Prostate 99.3 77.5 Skin melanoma 92.3 86.1 Breast 90.1 79.0 Corpus uteri 82.3 78.0 Colorectum 65.5 56.2 N-H lymphoma 62.0 54.6 Stomach 25.0 24.9 Lung 15.7 10.9 They conclude by saying that it's pretty hard to tease apart international data due to so many reporting differences. The graphs on pages 45 and 46 show a tremendous improvement over time in the U.S. and our treatment of prostrate cancer and breast cancer, far better improvement than other countries over the past 25 years. Final summary: The question that we have posed is much simpler: does a poor performance by the US health care system account for the low international ranking of longevity in the US? Our answer is, no. They do not present too much data on what the reason is...that does not appear to be the point of the paper. They suggest smoking rates, obesity rates, diabetic rates, availability of primary care physicians, and access to health insurance. You can also check out this government report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf Everything is getting better, it seems. Death rates are down. Life expectancy is up. The gap between black and white is down. Heart disease deaths are down. Cancer deaths are down. AIDS deaths are down. Stroke deaths are down. Flu and pneumonia deaths are down (til this year, I imagine. There's some fluctuation in these, no doubt.) Fifty-four percent of people live to age 80. All in all, it's not a bad place to get health care. We develop and adopt better, newer medical treatments far faster than most of the world. For all of those reasons, some people are understandably hesitant about doing a major overhaul on the system. They like the health care that they personally have.

An aside first: Eagle92: "Class A" I will say that the Scout store has traditionally not been the most reliable source of official usage. The term "Class A" as applied to uniforms looks like it only occurs twice on the national site scouting.org. In the OA Cub Scout Support Tool Kit: "Proper wear of the official Class A uniform" http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/24-416_combined.pdf And in the Philmont Trail Crew Trek 2009: "Wear my full official BSA Class A uniform or work clothes as required." http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/philmont/trailcrew.pdf The term "field uniform" is clearly the preferred terminology instead of "Class A". It is used both in the Insignia Guide and on the Language of Scouting glossary. The term "activity uniform" is more unclear. My usage of it instead of "Class B" is matched in the Scoutmaster Handbook (2007 printing) and in the Varsity Scout Guidebook (2000). It doesn't appear (or at least I couldn't find it) in the eleventh or twelfth editions of the Boy Scout Handbook, though. That says something like, "For outdoor activities, Scouts may wear troop or camp t-shirts with the Scout pants or shorts, or other appropriate attire." Not counting the ideas section of scouting.org, I couldn't find any official usage of the term "Class B". The term "activity uniform" only appears once on scouting.org (according to google, and google knows all, I've heard). "The presenter should be in full or activity uniform, with a hiking stick." From the Orientation for New Boy Scout Parents, http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/18-110.pdf So I'm going to say that my usage is still correct, but it certainly does seem like they are phasing it out. So, back to the main question (which I will now slightly rephrase): When the Boy Scout Handbook says "For outdoor activities, Scouts may wear troop or camp T-shirts with the Scout pants or shorts, ..." why does it recommend wearing Scout pants? Does your troop do this? (and I think we've established that most of the troops do in fact call something like this Class B). And if so, why? I've heard a couple answers (paraphrasing): from Lisabob: Why not? They have them and don't mind wearing them. from Hal: For the aquatics staff, so they'll look more official on duty. I'll add one: To make it easier to throw on your Scout shirt and be in full uniform. And those reasons are all fine, but none really talks to why you would want to enforce the usage of Scout pants with a T-shirt for typical activities. The usual reasons given for wearing a uniform just don't seem to apply very well to a T-shirt and Scout pants combo. I asked my son, and he said it could be because the leaders will feel like better leaders if their Scouts wear the same pants, because it makes them look more unified. He feels this is a terrible reason (unsurprisingly).

Nike - thanks for the answer, but just to re-emphasize my question - I'm not asking whether or not the Scouts should wear Scout pants when they wear the Scout shirt - that question has been discussed repeatedly and at length on previous threads. I'm asking about the activity uniform, when they are *not* wearing Scout uniform shirts. What would you give as the reason for wearing Scout uniform pants when you are not wearing Scout uniform shirts?

Welcome back. Good luck to both you and your grandson.