qwazse

The dropping of Bird Study from the required list occurred shortly after National enforced the age limit on rank advancement. The more people thought of this is a badge for kids, the more they thought that what needed to be required was what might not have been taught in school. It took 30 years to get Cooking back on the required list. One of our ASMs is a birder. He’s a great example to the scouts, if they take note of how he does things.

If only scouts were required to learn to track such beasts. Stats for MBs earned 2016-2020: Bird Study 5,199 4,965 5,101 5,629 3,950

So, like what my troop was camping in last November. Truth be told, it was a little rough on the boys.

We’re getting a lot of that here, too. I think partly because it’s risky business demolishing a church. Renovation can be, in the long run, cost effective. It’s interesting to see churches spring up in warehouses while beer gardens move into some old church buildings.

Sell off church camps?

It just won’t count for camping nights!

@InquisitiveScouter, ours seems to have gone through. But, maybe because we were merging troops (again) this year and transferring a lot of scouts, we got pushed through. We made sure clearances were well organized three months ago. I haven't seen a certificate yet, but that's not much of a surprise. The transferred scouts are now visible to us, so something worked.

Just make sure the laundry that you need for the week gets done before he comes back! His will deserve special treatment. ☢️

I don’t like your situation, but I do like your attitude. For yourself, see if the scouts or other youth group near where you are could use a volunteer for “one hour a week”. Think outside of the box. You never know what opportunities may be there. For your family, bust hump keeping them in the loop. Nice thing about the Army, you got plenty of folks who know that drill. Get your replacement up and running. The Mrs. should do the same. That’s gonna be the hardest job. I wouldn’t commit to any specific committee job besides being a sounding board for the new CM. You’re about to find out how well you’ve done advising OA, if they keep rolling without you, great. If not, well, you’ll learn to do it differently the next place that you land.

I’m going to be my own opposition’s advocate a bit in this reply, but in the service of understanding what befalls our youth and young adults … Some US studies showed that parents who abuse alcohol (severe substance use disorder) are twice as likely to commit child sexual abuse as those who do not. However, the causal chain is uncertain, substance abuse doesn’t capture a spectrum of users, it’s hard to generalize from parents to youth leaders, and our health system doesn’t track people very well. A recent study of Swedish men found other factors (age of parents, low education, prior convictions) to be significant in predicting child sexual exploitation while — after accounting for these primary factors —substance use was not (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6225987/ note that compared to Americans, the rate of substance use disorder was quite low.) Many young Americans have severe substance use problems, and there is concern that they don’t realize it and allow it to persist well into adulthood. This means that a Cub unit is likely to have one or two parents on the severe end of the spectrum. It’s not sufficient to not register that parent who always has alcohol on his/her breath when bringing their kid to a meeting. We need to convey to that parent that somethings not normal, and for the sake of their kid, they need to change. We are likely to fail, but doing nothing ensures things will stay the same or worsen, with dire consequences for that youth — one of which may be physical/sexual abuse. Many more young Americans have mild substance use problems. If they have mature parents, made it through college, and steered clear of the law — they won’t think they have a problem. And in terms of child sexual abuse, they might not pose any additional risk to anybody’s kid. Be they raised by shot-and-beer-after-work steel mongers or wine-before-whiskey-after-dinner professional, they will find an alcohol free culture to be foreign. We ask them to step into a new culture, and they find it strange and silly. Hopefully we bring it up in training and they’ll reply (maybe with a snicker) … sometimes it’s not until after the fact. Given that a lot of the folks with mild alcohol abuse eventually will make good committee members, scoutmasters, counselors, we suck in our breath, repeat in our heads “friendly, courteous, kind …”, and tell them something has gotta give and it’s not going to be the camp-out free of booze. If they say “no way”, I say “okay, we’ll leave you at the trail head.” And I have left otherwise very good parents and young ASM’s at home for that reason. I haven’t blacklisted them. or asked the police to do a second check for child abuse.

There is no such provision https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title36/subtitle2/partB/chapter309&edition=prelim

The official description of FBI identity history, and how to check it, may be found here: https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/identity-history-summary-checks

Let’s just assume that both both girls and boys like having you as SPL and elect their own PLs. And, they don’t see much point in two SPLs considering how tightly you all operate. You’ll wind up picking an assistant SPL to fill in for you. (Sticklers to current rules will say their should be two SPLs. Fine. Determine who will make your best female counterpart and run with that. Some would say you need two PLCs. Fine. You’ll be two PLCs who work together. But, if you all are really that tight, you’ll be effectively one PLC. ) You, the ASPL, the two PLs and the two APLs will form a PLC. Whoever’s scribe will also sit in on meetings and take notes. Your mission is to keep those PLs talking to one another and deciding how they will implement your troop’s program (which sounds like fun,). Each of those PLs should should help their scouts make patrol-specific plans. This would include the meals for their patrol, what equipment they need, what they will do as a patrol to contribute to the activity. This will impact your meetings as your patrols will need more time to plan stuff and have less time during meetings to work on merit badges. It’s up to your PLC to decide what parts of an activity they will do as a troop, what will be each patrol’s responsibility, and what things will be patrol competitions. You’ll learn as you go. But, one thing that will help is how you all set up camp. If you have a big field, a good set-up is with each patrol camp 300 feet apart from each other and the adults. You might meet in the middle as a troop to raise a flag and have troop announcements, but patrols would separate to set up camp, cook, plan a skit or game, etc… The exact distance doesn’t matter, and safety standards usually mean you should at least be within viewing distance. But the way to imbue patrol spirit is to give them the space to be their own groups. Do this, and you’ll see a lot of the other things come together. Keep it simple, Have fun!

On the other hand, now that PA’s law is in place, I find working with it to be very convenient. It’s very handy to have a standard process for every youth organization I volunteer with.

@IrrationalGoat, welcome to the forums. And from this side of the internet you seem like the kind of scout any troop would love to have. Two pieces of literature to look at if your troop doesn’t already have them: The SPL Handbook The PL handbook As far as dividing patrols, I’d still segregate them by sex. It’s not how my European friends would do it, but it’s certainly what my Indonesian friends would do. There is something to be said for complying with an organization’s wishes. The key thing is that doing so guarantees that you’ll have a boy PL and assistant and girl PL and assistant … both sexes will have representation. For some girls, that will be very important. As far as meetings go, you could have one patrol be responsible for set-up and opening and the other responsible for closing and cleanup. Making sure they have responsibilities that they can take pride in is a good first step. Being SPL should be fun. Have you picked an ASPL who will help you make it so?

My apologies if I confuse anyone. But there is a distinction between substance dependence (very prevalent in our country) and substance abuse. Or, at least, there had been. The two obviously blend into one another. So much so that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders now no longer makes that distinction, putting most of the symptoms under substance use disorder. (Data wonks may click here for more.) Based on recent surveys, it is very likely that at least one of the scouters and several parents in an average unit have an alcohol use disorder. Hopefully they will identify it, seek treatment and recover before scouts notice it. I’ve also learned that the high prevalence might be distinctly American, I saw a profound absence of Hungarian subjects with SUD (all young adults, the rate was low single digit) and when I contacted my colleagues about it, they said, “No, how much would you expect us to have?” Oh, and alcohol is the tip of the iceberg. Cannabis dependence is rising rapidly with the increasing availability. It’s a whole lot easier to conceal as well. So, going forward, substance use will continue to be a consideration with our young ASMs (or young adults in any youth program).

I’m saying that screening for predators starting with adults who are dependent on alcohol is likely to miss its mark. The link cannot possibly be causal to any high degree. Alcohol use disorders far outstrip rates of known sexual predation. This means that the preponderance of people who feel it’s their right to have a drink while taking care of youth will likely not be predators. That is not to say they should be given a pass. From my perspective, if one can’t go a week without a drink one has a problem. As a kid, scouting was a respite from alcohol-dependent adults (one errant college age ASM the notable exception); however, those adults did not abuse me or any other kid I know, and many fought the fiercest soldiers the world has ever known to keep the likes of us safe and speaking freely. So, with no malice towards such folks, and recognizing that other parts of the world think differently, I’d rather them not join us at camp if they’d rather imbibe — not because they might be predators — but because some scouts could use the break from reminders of their troubled homes. @johnsch322, let’s ignore your feeble attempt to paint me in a pale light. Are you saying that it would be worth our while investigating every alcohol dependent person for the risk they may pose as a predator? Seems to me that a predator need only sober up to fly under that radar. I need rules that actually make kids safer … not ones that constitute a witch hunt that ultimately leaves their risk for abuse unchanged.

This …. In addition to the collegiate ASM who couldn’t do without a bottle of cheap beer on a camp out, maybe @yknot should have ordered an investigation of the “… moms and wine in go cups around the camp fire.” @SSScout should have called the FBI on those boys who “wanted to be sociable.” @Armymuttshould do some soul searching about the risk he poses to our youth (given the point of this thread being that leading a unit makes demands on behavior at home), and certainly he should put chain-smoking-mom on a National d.q.-ed list. I do think there is some merit in seeing how much damage someone has done when a scout is found having stolen contraband. I don’t think there is a straightforward leap from substance dependence to child sexual abuse. (If only it were that easy.)

Would you therefore conclude that those with alcohol dependence (not abuse) should be targeted as potential sexual abusers?

@johnsch322, yeah, I recall a lot of anguish related to alcohol dependence/abuse in my family … but that’s balanced with a lot of memories that were positive. That included banter over brands. It’s not about bringing brands to camp, it’s about a shift in cultural norms. Most post-modern nomads are astounded by the indiscriminate preference of drink of the modern working man (and occasional female riveter). Regarding sexual abuse, my suspicion is that although predators may groom through sharing alcohol, alcohol dependent people (i.e., ones who think it’s an essential to survive camping with youth) are not at elevated risk to become sexual predators. They do pose a risk of kids finding their liquor and perpetuating a cycle of dependence. However, Scouts Germany don’t seem to have nearly the concerns that we do. Regardless, there was never any implication that anyone mentor an ASM to bring a preferred brand of alcohol to scout camp. Your friend read into that from the evils of his abuser. That’s on that wretched fiend, not us.

@SR70 on behalf of all the non-moderators, welcome to the forum. There’s no such thing as a busy parent. There are parents with priorities other than scouting. Pot luck is a common tradition, but if your Pack has built up the funds, there’s no harm in doing it differently. There’s always a balance between games and songs and skits and guest speakers. Leave that choice between the Cubmaster and Assistants. Your role as CC is hard enough without getting bogged down in those weeds.

I have no further comment except to say that: It was quite easy for Dad to quit drinking, at Mom's request. Neither my brothers nor I, having worked the business around the summers of our 11th year, drink but for rare occasions, and it when we do certainly is not beer. If there were Totin' Chits for alcohol use, we'd have the squarest corners, and I'd give Dad's well-timed mid-summer exposure to return cases with spilled half-used bottles of stale IC the credit.

.... finally found the cut-corner emoji ... 🛑

<Laughing out loud> Miners and maulers were not finicky. You'd have to travel in time to find a steelworker like my son who preferred crap craft beers instead. My dad, the main distributor of IC in the county, then retired, was the troop's CC at the time.

Nice, aspirational piece. It's sort of like the Totin' Chip corner-cutting argument. The objective is to allow a scout to continue having full access to his tools rather than isolate him (however briefly) and subject him to remedial training (however discrete). It gives the SPL/PL/Instructor the ability to assert, "You botched it this time, I know you can do better, carry on." We can prattle on about other mechanisms for discipline just like I can dial in a lecture for fitness. That's not bad. It's just much more fun and rewarding to "learn a little, do a lot."