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Let's forget about the order of operations or what some other counselor does or whatever. Does the counselor seem like a nice enough person, have other scouts earned the badge from him, and will your boy learn from him? If so, do it his way. I'm sure your boy may be discouraged, but the folks in the previous troop were cutting corners. (Making you pay for blue cards is a bad sign.) Have the boy arrange a meeting with the counselor and make a plan for completing the requirements to the counselors' satisfaction.

And girls. Please, everyone, don't forget the girls!

Okay, aside from being aggrieved adults, what can we scouters do? Let me give a gentle suggestion based on personal experience from outside of scouting. When I was in high school, my friends did me the biggest favor in the world by calling me out on something offensive that I did. The guys who really weren't my friends gave me "high fives" for being cool and not getting caught. In the grand scheme of things, the offense really wasn't that great, and there was not much that I could do to change things. But the fact that good people who I cared about told me in no uncertain terms what they thought of my actions helped me to be a better person in the long run. So, the very least you could do is encourage your son and his buddies to tell that other scout how they felt about him getting a 'free pass" on something that was really important to them. They can tell him he doesn't have to do anything to make it right. He probably can't. But that first point of the scout law? It's down at the bottom of the latrine at the moment.

What makes this, and the Disney case, more interesting is that it's people refusing to allow equal stewardship of a corporate charitable trust. On one level that makes perfect sense. Carnegie said, "I'm building libraries." And, in the day no purchaser would say, "I'll buy from your competitor unless you build wildlife preserves instead." A corporate trust would pick it's charities, the consumer would have little say, and that would be that. If they happened to pick a charity that tugged at a consumer's heart strings, they could maybe buy a little good will while the executives jockeyed for golden parachutes. On another level, Amazon promotes itself as "the merchant of everything", so showing it can manage a charitable trust as broad as its customers' interests is merely an extension of that model. The problem is, every customer is bound to be offended by at least one of the interests of some other customer. Of course, BSA blogging about Amazon Smile, as it does about every large revenue source, made it easy for those who oppose its policies to pick their next "soft target." What makes this really interesting: the core business of the corporation is not a focus of attack. For example, Amazon was never petitioned to cease vending What is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense.* Because there is this sense that doing so would smack of limiting commerce as well as freedom of expression. Moving to curb corporate charity, on the other hand, is seen as the ideal field in which to fight a crusade. *P.S. - One of the authors is a relative, so pardon the shameless plug.

@JCM, If I were SM and heard about such shenanigans I would be spitting nails. I would ask my COR to dismiss that ASM. (Chances are he would talk me off of that ledge.) I would call the lodge advisor ashamed and embarrassed by what happened. I would follow his and the chiefs lead about what should be done after that.

While we're on the subject. The Venturing Officers Association are tasked with a council-wide event for this. A local park loans us their "Lazy River" so we can "race" dozens of boats at a time! Went through the walk-through with a couple of officers, and I can hardly wait 'till August!

Yep lots of hats. Some with funny names. A party chair sounds like something you'd set around a table with cake and ice cream! Really, a lot of stuff is made up as we go along. Hopefully some folks out there can give you a few ideas of how they handled some of those tasks.

Welcome to the forums. Thanks for your service to our country. Anymore giving back is just gravy. On behalf of your cubs, thanks for that too!

Also, lest anyone else think this is an irrelevant tangent, Chaplains Aide is a position of responsibility available to boys in a troop. So whatever we learn from the military may apply to us if BSA welcomes the godless into troop life before gays or girls.

Sorry, it only walks like a duck and quacks like a duck. It's not insured like a duck. Call your DE. This sounds like a great service you all are providing to your district. Hope you can keep it flying.

Oh, I'm pretty sure my youth could tell you a few "war stories" about me and the SM! One of the more productive sessions of our Venturing Leader Specific Training is when we bring in youth as a panel for these new advisors and committee members to ask questions of. My point is this, if your best backpacker is an adult, fine let him show you all of his gadgets and gizmos, but maybe a scout or two who hike a lot can shake down their packs as well ... and tell you what they liked and didn't like about local trails, where they'd take cross-overs vs. venture patrols, etc ... If you've seen boys who've done a bang-up job teaching orienteering to first-years at summer camp or a district event, why wouldn't you want them teaching soccer moms and dads? There's no YPT violation having a scout shadow an adult while they try to navigate an open-field course with 20 other people. On other things, like when to call your DE or SE, or how to fill out advancement forms ... sure maybe you need adult doing that. But there's no reason an SPL can't be the master of ceremonies and introduce instructors and keep things going.

Jesus told a parable of a judge who feared neither God nor man. If He thought highly enough of the fella to use him as a simile for the Almighty, I should be in no position to split hairs. Of course, if he had ever been a member of the BSA ... might have to think twice.

The military chaplains that I've known were a breed apart ... working really hard to be all things to all people. Pluralism breaks down on the battlefield. If a Catholic is at death's door with whatever chaplain happens to be in the room, that Chaplain better be prepared to offer last rites, whatever his background. Yes, I would expect an athiest chaplain to pray over my sorry soul. I really don't care what he believes. *I* believe that the Almighty would regard his prayer in spite of his barrel full of doubt. Fact is you never know exactly where a preacher stands with his theology any given day of the week. They're like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. Of course there are times when the lines aren't so blurred. And that's when a chaplain with a less religious bent might come in handy. If a soldier knows there's this guy on base that isn't going to guilt him about not going to church, he might approach him about getting the help he needs.

A question like this was brought up while I was teaching venturing leader specific training. My bottom line: when adults aren't courteous and kind to one another scouts don't want to be there. I repeated, "When adults argue, youth will leave." Your scouters need to apologize to the boys. If they don't do it on the same night because they can't stand to be in the room with one another, Clearly being unreconciled Is hurting them too.

I think it is insulting to some athiests to suggest their opinion about the lack of existence of spirituality constitutes a spiritual belief. I might use it in an apologetic or debate, but it is just plain rude to insist someone give ascent to something beyond mind and body when they are convinced it doesn't exist.

If the bar foresees a number of cases coming before it related to the issues of the day, I can understand the concern that judges seem above repute and free of bias. On the BSA's side, I can see where a judge with no perceived bias would help any ruling in their favor remain on solid ground. I don't see these ethics code revisions doing that. A judge might not be a member, but one of his family could have been aided by a group of scouts. (Or, on the other hand, a group of folks whose membership policy is more conforming to whatever the standard of the day is.) I'd suspect that would be more likely to bias that judge more than any membership card in his/her wallet. I can't speak for CA, but round these parts, unbridled enthusiasm for scouting tends to come from citizens who are not members of the organization!

Not picking on TT, specifically, but after six post just like this, I gotta say .. ARE YOU PEOPLE NUTS??? Send my crew your $2K. For 1/4 of that, they'll make one out of scrap (metal or lumber, what's the difference?), store it at our CO and ship it to you a week before the race. Heck, some of them would probably deliver, assemble, and train local scouts judge heats and run brackets on a will-work-for-food basis. You can trust them to put the remaining $1.5k to good use. 'Fraid your committee will look at you funny when you tell 'em someone on the internet is giving you the deal of a lifetime? Fine, make that offer to any troop or crew in your area. There's bound to be someone who would see the benefit of doing something like this.

As soon as I find a youth looking for some service hours.

I think we should petition change.org to post a link to the local BSA FOS collection site so that users can have the option of signing a petition or making a contribution to The boys, or both!

It's not about the shopping. (Although with my youth during soccer season, those four days can be pretty full.) It's about the boys knowing who might be "on the fence" about a particular activity and having time to prepare accordingly. Over time, boys come into the patrol meetings ready to either prepare themselves for the next event, our help their buddies prepare. Then they are going home and checking the family schedule and actually taking some responsibility to keep the calendar clear there as well.

Don't worry, you wouldn't have needed to tell him that for much longer anyway. After 8 months they stop asking! I'm sure he'll do a fine job!

You are the expert on your boys (and their parents). There is nothing on paper that says you shouldn't do this.

Sounds like why gamblers don't tell their significant others about their addiction! Full disclosure is the best path to healing. Nobody needs to name names. Parents just need to know that they had been benefiting from donations that aren't there any more. Now, it's their turn to take action. Honestly, I know everyone thinks that it's a sin if boys don't get their bling. But the world won't fall apart if little Johnny finds out that he needs to generate some capital for him and his buddies to be recognized with patches and pins.