qwazse

E94-a1: your districts' personality clashes aren't going away with a merger. Your activity coordinator needles to lighten up and make amends and everyone whose been offended by her needs to get the burrs out of their butts. If they don't do that, no amount of merging is gonna help. You'll be living with these folks wanting to take jabs at each other long after most of them have moved on to other things.

A thread about a missing QM brought up the problem of a scout who (maybe for good reason) does not do social media. I've only known one boy who as PL made a call to the household of each one of his members. Often they are uncomfortable with that. Do any of you work with your boys in improving their power of personal contact?

The big tent is ripping over this, regardless ... and will continue to do so as long as someone on one part of the country is bothered about the attitude of someone on the other part of the country. At some point we'll have to get out our thread and start stitching. Hopefully before the rain comes ...

Wonder if they can now open every meeting with a moment of prayer?

Meetings with POTUS do not happen every year. Last time the did was three years ago.

Again you are talking about an existing train wreck .... that elephant is in another room. I suspect most youth are indignant about the whole proposition. I figure most of my 18+ year olds aren't gonna bother with the application and be out the door regardless of orientation. They simply won't feel like bothering with one more piece of paperwork. If a couple of indignant homosexuals are out the door as well, I'll probably never know.

Okay folks, the real elephant in the room is this: Suppose Scoutson had enrolled at Pitt then joined my crew for some spring break trip, and was "a little chatty" with one of my HS girls. You betcha her dad would be calling me asking me what I "really" knew about "that guy" and all but guaranteeing that his daughter would not be going on any crew outing until I knew his back-story in full. When a flag goes, up on an adult ... every unit in which he/she is registered is notified. Thus, when the lawyer comes looking for who to blame for a repeat statutory violation, BSA can say it's done due diligence.

If they are generally compliant fellows, I don't worry about it. I just tell them that although they don't have a patch on their sleeve, they still need to figure out how they'll demonstrate scout spirit and leave a positive mark on their troop and in their community. In your case, I would ask these guys if they could take it on rotation to assist the QM. Every week at least one of them should ask "How can I help you?" They already know it's a thankless job, so being there for him will help him fill good about his work. Then ask the boys to give you a quick summary of how they think their young QM is doing and if there's something above his pay-grade that the four of them could pitch in and do. (E.g., fill those propane tanks. Chase down signatures for trailer registration.) In effect, you're treating these boys as JASMs without giving them the patch.

Go ahead and vent. It's good for us to know that any unit can face these trials. "Get off the computer." Might have been a bit harsh but, true, although not for the reason Stosh suggested. This is one of those situations where every detail here lets unsavory types hone in on who in the real world we're talking about. My second bit of advice: When our troop dealt with a trauma our institutional head and all the scouters kept the press at bay. They were given the number of council HQ. There are a few people who you absolutely have to talk to about what's going on. Then there's the rest of us. Maintain a fervent discussion with those few. Along those lines, keep in mid that your daughter's a bright tack. (She was smart enough to join a crew, and to speak up when things turned south.) So figure out how you are going to handle the fact that one day she may find this thread. Asking a moderator to expunge it now is a reasonable request, IMHO.

The SM of my youth was a retiree who never had kids of his own. He was a strong leader supported by about four committee and fewer ASMs (college grads or young parents). Until I went to Jamboree, I had no idea that someone's dad could be SM. Just sayin' any pro's or con's you could think of should have to do with the fella's moral fiber ... not his social situation. An empty-nester with a supportive spouse may as good as any troop could ask for. Or the recent college grad with a steady job may do better. What matters is his/her steadfast reputation. However, any candidate who thinks this can be a short-term gig should do a reality check. If you're the strongest candidate in the room now, you will likely be for a good 5 years.

What would I do with an ASM in this situation? Tell him in no uncertain terms of my complete and utter disdain for his unwillingness to assist the SM. Either he can support the adults who are stepping up or get out of the way. A scout is trustworthy, he betrayed trust by not doing the adult QM like he said he would. Now the boys will need to take up his slack. Why the blazes would anyone want to give him any other responsibilities? If I was asked to be SM, I would talk to the COR about who I trust and don't trust to be my assistants. If he/she puts in who I trust, I stay. If not, I walk. Even if I weren't asked to be SM, I'd make it quite clear who I would be glad to assist.

Ditto on the counseling. If there are any issues with getting her scheduled quickly, call the SE (or whoever he may have already told you is the go-to guy for support). Our directer of field service was very helpful in fast-tracking our scouts when they needed help.

Is there anybody you wake up next to on a regular basis who you should be talking to before you hear from strangers on the internet?

I'm so sorry. Be proud of your daughter for speaking up. It sounds like you have sufficient depth in leadership that she'll have a safe place to go. You all will soon know if you've stopped something before got worse, or if this is just the tip of the iceberg. Either way, it's best this sees the light of day.

I think Stosh's last comment taps into some of the suggestions we posted earlier. Fact is, his world is not going to fall apart if he doesn't make Eagle. It's really better to go through life philosophically consistent than compromising here and there. If people are expecting something from you that you just can't give, it's better to leave their accolades behind.

Don't forget to add the pages for honors, special recognitions, training awards, service stars, universal and non-unit insignia. No, not complex at all . If you have one boy who gets into the IG and shares what he learns with his buddies, it really can make uniforming exciting. Plus, by recognizing various insignia on scouts and scouters in other troops, crews, and ships, he'll have a touch-stone for interesting conversations. But, say you have boys who just go by the inspection sheet (http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34283.pdf) because they are too busy camping and hiking and gourmet cooking to read the IG. Under "Right Pocket" Jamboree insignia (only one) worn above BSA or interpreter strip. Order of the Arrow lodge insignia worn on pocket flap. Temporary insignia worn centered on the pocket or hung from the button. The Varsity or Venture strip is worn above the BSA strip or above the interpreter strip. Nameplate, if worn, is centered above the BSA strip, interpreter strip, and Venture or Varsity strip. Note that the "only one" stipulation for Jambo insignia is not applied to temp insignia. There's nowhere else on the sheet that suggests deducting points for "stacked patches". So, Mr. button-busting-12-event-patches may look stupid, but he's not getting docked for it! I don't know if Bryan needs to delete impertinent posts as much as we all need to come up with a good standard reply to them that lets the world know that we scouters love our youth warts-and-all.

I'm beginning to buy in to Stosh's view. For Son #2, a councilman has a project in mind of nebulous scope ... one of those federal/state unfunded mandates with lots of steps, and no idea how long each will take. But, if he can get a dozen youth to have at it for a couple of weekends, they may achieve Step A. Even if incomplete (i.e. not successful from the viewpoint of some scouters), the borough will have a good estimate of how long it would take to complete the work, then they could budget/solicit more volunteers accordingly. They would be happy with anything ... not for the boy's sake, but because otherwise they can expect to have nothing for quite a while. The metric in this case would be several afternoons/weekends coordinating volunteers in the community. The deliverable would be a summary of the results and the man-hours expended. With that data in hand, a clever grant writer can apply for some real money, a lawyer can fend off a plaintiff, or the next group of volunteers can commit to finishing.

That's what is intended for patrols ... greatness. It could be your troop's COR is insisting that things be more stringent. Let's face it, if a group of boys are discourteous in broad daylight in front of one ASM, a knee-jerk reaction would be to insist that two adults team up as "minders" for each patrol. And suddenly, it's the unwritten law of the land. As with all such fabrications, unpack this one gently. Figure out if there was any real negative experiences that are driving it. Ask if there is a way a patrol can build up enough trust to operate more independently. The truth is, in a couple if years the boys will do this anyway. The only question is if they will do it with or without the BSA.

That's all fine and good. But not every kid has a parent who obsesses about detail. Kid sews his tot'n chip on his pocket flap. or leaves it in a heap on the floor. Which one is a parent more likely to remedy? Sometimes the invisible scout is a consequence of an all-too-visible scouter.

It's an odd youth who wants to wear something that requires a 100 page manual. If someone unfamiliar to scouting does a cursory search for a boy in uniform on the internet, they are likely to find a post criticizing a picture of someone (maybe a scout, maybe the CSE) for some deviation from it -- with the phrase "correctly or not at all". Those of us who did get our picture in the paper as scouts (back when everyone read the things, and the editor/photographer would mail the original positive to your house with thanks): imagine how we'd feel if the next day there were letters to the editor complaining about our patch placement and the kind of slacker adult that would let you be photographed that way. Yep, I could see the boys in school coming up to me saying "Wow, where can I sign up to be picked on by the town's crochety uniform police?" The current complexity of the uniform almost guarantees that a noble scout will not apply his many well-deserved insignia 100% correctly. And the current ease with which some scouter with nothing better do can berate him or his leaders for it makes the fall-back to only posting pictures of activity shirts a constant temptation.

What internet activity should I stop doing so that I remember to log service hours? What if my youth have qualms about "bragging" about hours? Should I do it anyway? Come to think of it, this would be an ideal job for the troop scribe. During roll-call, the SPL would request after action review from each patrol. Then and there the scribe would key in the data as it is given. Now, if only our CO gave us access to their internet ...