qwazse

So sorry to hear that. I would follow the lead of the SM and his family. The boys might all arrive at visitation together, they might offer to help at the service (directing traffic, ushering, providing lunch afterword, etc ...). The family might want them to be in uniform, or they might prefer religious dress. For many boys this may be their first funeral. Especially if they are a different religion than the SM, you may need to explain to them the appropriate way to approach the casket and how to introduce themselves and convey their sympathies to the family.

Nor do they have to ... "While a Life Scout, plan, develop, and give leadership to others in a service project helpful to any religious institution, any school, or your community." I think you may have substituted "or" for "and" in your mind. Not every project has to be community based - in the geographic sense. Many religious groups, certainly the Baptists, feel their institution is buoyed by their parishioners serving the needs of the poor in the farthest reaches of the world.

Have a product the public can trust, delivered courteously and cheerfully, with a spirit of helpfulness and loyalty to one's community. I tell my boys if they can provide that, they'll get approval. I've never had to factor in activist politicians who wanted to protect the public from making their own decisions of conscience. But, would encourage boys to convey that they are are brave enough to receive comment from the voting public in a friendly manner, that all they are asking from their elected leaders is to grant the public fair access to them to do so.

I hate when it rains on a parade.

There's not a quid-pro-quo. But, if you are not welcome as a vendor, why would you feel welcome as a volunteer? In the case of Montpelier, the two actions were not purely on opposite dimensions (fundraising vs. service). They were both forms of self-promotion. I honestly wouldn't be surpised if half of the scouts show up out-of-uniform to help anywhere they are needed anyway -- thus avoiding the political magnifying glass. If you've been made a spectacle of by virtue of your association, why would you subject your kids to more of the same just a couple weeks later? I've been in situations where I could have put scouts in the spotlight. (Fortunately they weren't political in nature.) It might have got us a couple of grand at a critical time. But, in each case I could tell the youth involved were not comfortable with the whole "poster-child" role. So, contrary to some very strong suggestions by adults, I steered clear of media attention.

Okay, the list of who should be directly informed ... SE, COR (and IH), CC, and all direct-contact leaders (SM, ASMs, Advisors, & associates). That last one can get pretty hairy. The list of associate leaders's can be longer than the number of folks likely to actually deal with the boy in question. That's why it's usually on the SM and Advisor(s) to pass it down the chain at their discretion. Likewise, CC determines if any of this should go to committee. You will find in situations like these, a scout is terribly uncomfortable with everyone knowing his faults.

Lest by the back-and-forth between diatribes anyone has lost the evolving story ... SE was notified, which necessarily brought in the cops, etc... CO notified (and, since it sounds like a fairly healthy community with an active grapevine, so was everyone else). All official boxes checked. Officially, the COR and CC can determine the boy's membership status: on the roster, off the roster, somewhere in between. Guess what? Once all of the official stuff is done, none of that matters. Boy can be banned from campouts/meetings/advancement or any combination thereof. MattR is stuck. Years of working with the kid trumps paperwork or degrees at the end of one's name. Trusted by dad, feared by boy, he is uniquely qualified to lend a hand. And, durn that third point of the scout law, it leaves precious little loop holes! Been there, done that, seen it done. Probably shoulda wrote the book. The real challenge is balancing time so this one kid's issues don't become all-consuming. You need to give the kid enough of your ear so he can tell you what's going on between his ears, but (and this is they only practical suggestion I have) just like finding a kid counselors for MBs, you need to get the kid to tell you who he can go to (besides yourself) to address each problem that's put on the table. And over time, follow-up to make sure those "counseling" relationships are doing what you would intend them to do.

Except maybe church camp or youth group or finishing school? I'm sorry, leading up to Feb 14th, my youth need to learn about winter survival. For being long gone, we got millions of boys getting a kick out of it. We don't have anywhere near that many girls in the wings willing to "mix it up."

It makes me wonder ... what if the borough councilmen in my conservative denied a neighborhood troop the permit to sell hot-dogs at our community fair because of last year's permissive decision? Would the SM feel pressured to say he was PEHMOC (pro-exclusive-herterosexual-monogomy-or-celibacy) just like the majority in our community, just so he could be on equal footing with his political elites?

Maybe it was terror? But, having already lashed spars onto 30' poles, dashed UPHILL to my tent in a thunderstorm, hopped electric fences in the rain, etc ... I hardly noticed it.

I wonder how much of the units' reaction is youth motivated?

I wonder if any boys will have advancement postponed because they were counting on those service hours?

So, the public doesn't have a right to know that he is proud of his families involvement in scouting?

You just reminded me to wade through my cards. I don't have any from when I took paddle craft safety, etc ... I also have to check in with my SM to make sure he got my BSA guard cert. (I left camp before the AD could issue it.) Given he speed of program changes, if patches don't have the year issued on them, you'll still run into the same problems.

I think you'll find yourself needing to corral about one in 10 of your boys if those "beach girls" were spending the week at camp in the heartland. You would appreciate it if those girls wore something that communicated "I'm here for scouting." Alternatively, you would appreciate it if the boys had done their scouting all along in a co-ed environment where everyone learned boundaries from an early age.

On your life preserver and throw ropes! Honestly, your certification cards are more significant than these patches.

I know you mean well, but let me say here what I've said to other adult (volunteers and pros): The girls in my crew are not honey, and your boys are not flies. We give our troop free reign to decide when they want to invite the crew on camping weekends. Guess how many weekends a year that amounts to? Maybe one. Guess how many summer camps that amounts to? Zero. That's right. Our older boys have the option of picking a co-ed high adventure week on the other side of the lake from where they always camp, and instead they choose the run-of-the-mill all-boy campsite. Venturing is the fastest-shrinking program of the BSA. The behavior this crew demonstrated is not going to motivate any of the SM's attending camp that week to want a crew in their CO. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them are looking at camp next year and calling the CD's asking point-blank if any crews will be in camp. It will take young men and women of great character (and modest dress) to change their opinion, and those seem to be in rare supply.

For Pittsburgh scouts, XI(a) Discuss the minimum number of varieties of tomatoes to advertise on your bottle of Ketchup to reach market saturation. XI(b) Determine the tensile strength of bun required to hold all four food groups (including fries and coleslaw) on your sandwich. XI© Estimate how many miles your patrol can hike on a large order of O-fries (with and without cheese sauce), or XI(d) Estimate the added time the Perogie needs to round the bases during a Pirate's home opener after eating a large order of O-fries.

Don't let the internet fool you. There aren't hoards of disenfranchised boys out there looking to hop to a troop that will allow them to run in an OA election. But, from time to time you will have a boy who realizes that OA is really important to him and his family, and a troop that won't "bend" to accommodate him. There are three basic options, stick with the troop and abandon aspirations of being elected, transfer to a troop that holds elections, or sit around pouting making everyone miserable. In those cases where a scout transfers, the boy isn't necessarily leaving the unit in pursuit of a sash (or "pocket rocket", or really cool lodge flap, or whatever). The boy is choosing a troop that performs scouting as he understands it. He may return service to his new unit -- and maybe even his old one -- in any number of ways as long as we scouters don't bear any hard feelings. Really, it's like a boy transferring from your troop because all your PLC does is backpack and the troop down the street canoes! It's not that the canoe outfitter is encouraging your boy to leave, it's just that the other troop is using the outfitter to create a program that suits the boy.

Here's another "culture clash" entirely of national's own making that folks fail to recognize: older youth keep later hours. The BSA has countered that by training boys since age 11 to respect taps and lights out. But they have not been doing the same for girls, many of whom have become conditioned to treat every campout as a slumber party. Guess how much the G2SS or leader specific training discusses this? Zippo.