perdidochas

IMHO, that is the courteous and kind thing for troops to do.

Public speaking is something most of us hate (I read somewhere that public speaking is the biggest phobia in the U.S.). The more we do it, the better we get. Skits don't need to have much in terms of speaking. I have one skit where only one boy needs to speak. Leave No Trace Skit Props--a clearcup of water, and a cup of dark drinkable liquid (coke, fanta, root beer, iced tea, koolaid, gatorade), and an empty clear cup Before the skit begins, the end boy needs to hold a mouthful of the dark liquid in his mouth, until the end of the skit. Boys go out in a line, then turn to face the audience. First boy (with cup of water) says, Mr.?Mrs. ____ our ____leader taught us all about Leave No Trace and about keeping clean on campouts. Then the boy takes a sip, pretends to totally fill up mouth with it. Then he pretends to be cleaning out his mouth with it (semi-gargle), then he turns and pretends to spit it into the next boy's ear. That boy blows up his cheeks as if filling up with water, gargles and then pretends to spit into next boy's ear. (do this 4 or 5 times). Then, have the last boy spit his dark liquid into the cup, and say "See."

Cubs love skits. I think two are in order.

We have a few scouts that have gotten the camping award. Will have a few more in the next year or two, along with some getting the aquatics. Every new Eagle should have the Camping award, IMHO. If they don't, they are Paper Eagles.

Units should tell parents the truth about gay leaders. If they have them; if they don't have them and never will; or if they don't have them but are open to them, should be told to parents. That said, this decision should have been made at the same time that the gay scout decision was made. Local option should have been allowed for both youth and adult members.

Who is calling homosexuality moral? I never read that in any statements. I did read a statement that left judgement of morality up to individual units.

Well, they should have made this local option decision (and it should have been for both leaders and scouts) a few years ago. In case you haven't noticed, there has been a major sea change in the whole gay rights issue. Gay marriage is now legal in all 50 states. When the last decision was made only a handful of states (if any, I don't recall exactly), allowed gay marriage.

How does keeping a Scout unit hurt the non-scouts? That's a mighty big stretch. There is nothing about dropping Scout units that helps anybody but the folks that have been trying to get rid of us for decades--and it's not conservatives. I'm Catholic, and see nothing in the recent changes that at all cause me to doubt that Scouting is a good thing. I wish that two years ago when gay youth were allowed, that BSA would have decided to go for local option then. It would have caused a lot less disruption as a whole.

We put it in. That said, it's not needed for the EBOR. There are no minimum hours for an Eagle Project. However, here in FL, students who want to get certain state sponsored scholarships need certain numbers of volunteer hours. We keep track of them, to make it easier to consolidate those hours.

Hmm, so I guess the Catholic Church in Bismark diocese has to close down the chapels at all the universities there. IMHO, this is a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The only people that will be hurt by this decision are the Catholic Scouts and Scout leaders. I say this as a Catholic Scout leader.

They have never had a common meaning. Just use my example of what the LDS Scout vs. the Catholic Scouter believe in terms of Duty to God, or how a mainline Protestant differs from the two aforementioned, or how a Jewish Scouter views those. The meaning has always been according to the views of the Oath maker.

The Scout law/oath has not been reinterpreted by recent decisions. The meaning of the Scout oath is unchanged, for those of us who believe in standard Catholic doctrine. My duty to God is unchanged. My view of morally straight is unchanged. What the recent decisions allow, is for others to look at the Scout oath and law in another light. I don't feel the above is perfectly clear, so I will give examples. For myself, as a fairly devout Catholic, my duty to God involves Mass attendance on Sunday, etc. For others in different faith traditions, that means other things, for example, for LDS units, part of their view of the Sabbath, is that Scouts shouldn't be camping past midnight on Saturday night. Does the fact that we have different views of duty to God make it impossible for either me or my LDS friend to obey the Scout Oath? Of course not. Well, the same goes with morally straight. My view of it says that homosexuality is a disordered choice and lifestyle. A liberal Christian might think that morally straight means something else.

Don't know about the Micosay thing, but I think OA is pretty good, and I don't think it takes up too much attention from regular scouts. Our OA members in our troop are for the most part, exemplary scouts. At camps we've been at, OA has a separate cracker barrel/ice cream social one night, but that's about it.

Would the name Order of the Arrow be appropriate for a non-native American themed organization?

We don't have an age requirement. We have a rank requirement--Life (if we have enough Life Scouts to have an election), or Star. We theoretically would go down to First Class, but haven't had to. We have had several successful Star SPLs, as well as the usual LIfe SPLs.

That can be a tough one, and we are wrestling with it as well. We have a couple of ASM's that baby their kids. We are workign on them. My boys pretty much only ask me for medicine if they have a headache. Other than that they are pretty independent, although as older teens, they sometimes stop and look out for me. We sometimes stop the Dad stuff with the boys by a joke. When a scout comes up to the adult area, and starts to talk to "dad" we all respond. My sons pretty much call me Mr. Lastname when we're doing scouting because of that.

Our troop has several African-American kids. We have had Asian kids in the past, but we are predominantly white. Scouting is a relatively white activity.

If BSA does go coed (which I anticipate in the next 20, not the next 5 years), I would hope that options remain for boys only troops. I know at this time Venturing crews can be boys only (and I guess girls only) as well as coed. I think we wouldn't have a single boy SPL if we had coed Troops. Girls understand the politicking much better than do boys.

I agree. I'm in process of forming a Venturing Crew, and that's my main concern.

You can get thin mints in the store now. (not labeled GSUSA, but the same cookie nonetheless).

Would work in a heavily Catholic area, but in the Southeast, there just wouldn't be enough boys. My troop is chartered by a Catholic Church, but of the 35 or so boys, only 6 or 7 are Catholic.

I did mention it on Post #12. We have the page set up per BSA policy, and we have it locked down (not mentioned in BSA policy, but just common sense). Even though pages are open for all, you can restrict posts (you can set it up so that only page manager approved posts/photos/videos are shown), and of course, tagging. We also have multiple page managers (I believe we have the SM, an ASM (me), and three MCs as page managers). I would prefer a closed group, but am following the policy.

We don't tag pictures, and don't allow others to tag. We have control over it.

As a Catholic Assistant Scoutmaster, the answer is no. Every alternative Scouting organization I've seen basically pales to the current BSA. Could the current BSA be better? Sure, but every alternative I've seen has been either a close copy or has been weak. There is no reason for a Catholic Scout Organization.

Just my general personal rule for posting on internet boards.