Beavah

Yah, thanks for comin' back and letting us know the outcome, VentureMom. We appreciate it, as it really is nice to know how things worked out when yeh spend some time tryin' to help out from afar. Don't mind the rest of the discussion here unless yeh have an interest. Long threads like this one slowly "drift" onto other related topics which might not be useful for yeh. Venturing is a great program, and will really help your son learn and grow. It will also help you learn and grow in your relationship with your son. I always tell parents of a child your son's age that yeh have 4 years for him to be ready to be on his own as a responsible adult, and yeh have to plan for that, eh? If he's suddenly responsible for himself at age 18 he's goin' to fail. So it's worth you and Mr. VentureMom to sit down and map out year by year what responsibilities you are goin' to transfer to him, so that by age 17 he's responsible for everything (giving him a year to make mistakes and learn while you're still around). Enjoy da rest of your Venturing experience! Beavah

Yah, so I was at an EBOR last night and I asked about Federalist's statement. I always like bringin' this kind of question to EBORs, so it was handy! The lad was quite a quick-witted fellow. He said something like "Yes, it builds unity. We are unified in how much we dislike the uniform. Yep, it removes class structure, because everybody classifies us as dorks. We do it because all the adults are so into dressing up to impress others. It's just something we do because we like Mr. Scoutmaster and we like scouting. It's not something that we really identify with, though, the way the older adults seem to. Maybe it was different back when they were little. For us, you could do away with it tomorrow and nobody would object." The lad, of course, was more eloquent and pithy than I am in tryin' to remember. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Yah, the more knots I got over the years the less enamored I became of the system. I think us folks who give money get enough recognition if we want it. The real recognitions in the program should be for the folks who spend all their time and treasure working with the kids. I've never been fond of the purchase-an-award awards. Just doesn't seem consistent with the Mission. But I never thought of EBay! What an amusin' idea. Not only would I make a few bucks to give back to scouting, but I could generate another thread where people complain about folks selling restricted items on EBay! Beavah

Just checked the website we have 13 registered sex offenders within 1/2 a mile of the church... Yah, sorry I wasn't clear BasementDweller. I wasn't sayin' that yeh don't have such people in your neighborhood. I'm sure you do. I was sayin' that havin' such people in your neighborhood has no relationship whatsoever to accepting a single person as a scouting volunteer. A background check will catch and reject anybody on the Scarlet Letter list, and probably more than half of the folks on the list were married anyways. Being single has nuthin' to do with being a risk to youth. B

Yah, that's an easy thing to say, Callooh! Callay!. But even on a frabjous day I reckon that goin' to do an 8-hour round trip car ride is a bit much for a person gettin' a call for a kid and so handing the phone to the boy. One of the things scoutin' and especially Venturing tries to teach is communication skills, and that includes communicating with your parents. Venturing in particular is designed to be very youth run, eh? The norm is that the youth decide on plans and communicate to each other, and are expected to communicate to their parents. In this case, one of da big issues seems to be that Junior VentureMom didn't do a very good job of explainin' the plans to his parents and keepin' them informed of changes. That's pretty normal for a 14 year old, of course. But 14 year olds learn by doin', not by having adults do it for them so they can sit back. So when mom calls and wants to know what's goin' on, it really should be junior who tells her. That teaches junior several lessons. How to communicate with mom, but also how important it is to communicate with mom before the trip and to keep her informed of changes so that she isn't callin' and interrupting his fun. It also allows the Advisor not to be interrupted or to stop the other stuff that's goin' on for the rest of the group so he can deal with every parent phonecall that happens to come into the field. From where I sit, most of this seems like it's the case of a parent and a kid who are new to Venturing and who are havin' the typical communication issues / new parent / new unit thing goin' on. Just like we talk about how hard it is for parents to transition from cub scouting to boy scouting, there's a similar shift when they move to Venturing. Particularly if the lad was or is in a troop that is more adult-run. Beavah

I think it's going to be the economy that beats Obama...People will vote for Romney because the economy has stall/retreated under Obama. Yah, because da president has soooo much control over the economy. For a free country, we sure do seem to want hold our president responsible for the economy like he's some sort of communist Chinese government economic planner. George W. Bush wasn't responsible for the crash, either, eh? The economy is driven by the choices of 300 million Americans. Do they save, invest, spend, max their credit cards, treat their banking job like a casino gambling with other people's money, work hard, get a good education, stay healthy? The economy is driven by a few billion people outside the U.S. as well. Do they save more and work harder then those in the U.S.? Do they have a better education or access to more resources? The president can do very little to affect the economy. Tryin' to reduce defense budgets and involvement in wars I suppose. Ensuring competent oversight and appropriate regulation of the financial markets and aggressive prosecution for fraud when it occurs. Tryin' to negotiate favorable treaties. That's about it, eh? Probably the biggest thing the president does that affects the economy is nominate people to positions on the Federal Reserve board. So if yeh vote for any president because of the economy yeh are a fool. Beavah

Yah, Crossramwedge, it's unclear in da current materials whether any appeal is allowed on individual requirements at the Life Scout level. My read of the G2A is "no." But da easiest thing for the troop to do with regard to advancement is to hold a BOR, deny the scout because he does not meet the Scout Spirit requirement, and send him a letter to that effect. He can appeal that to the council, but national no longer hears appeals for Life Scout, so it stops at the council. All of this is really irrelevant, though, eh? And you know it. The issue is that yeh have a behavior problem with dad, and a family that doesn't buy into the program despite your best efforts at education, patience, and hard work. That's what yeh need to address. The advancement issue is really irrelevant and not worth wasting time on. Since you are the CC and COR, this one is squarely in your court. You are the final authority on the membership in your unit, and it's your job to maintain the character, integrity, and mission of your scouting program. When yeh have an intractable conflict between a member and your Scoutmaster, the choice is fairly straightforward. Are you willing to replace your Scoutmaster over this? Because if in a high-profile, high-stakes dispute like this yeh choose to support the parent/youth, you're sendin' a clear signal to the Scoutmaster that it's time for him to go. No Scoutmaster can be successful without the support of the CC/COR. Since your feelings on this are clear, it is time that you arrange an exit meeting with the parents involved. Inform the IH so that he/she knows what's up, and bring one other senior committee member or person from your CO (NOT the Scoutmaster). A good UC can be helpful, but it has to be a really good UC who yeh know is on board. These meetings are difficult, eh? Much wailing an gnashing of teeth. Yeh handle 'em professionally, just like firing a worker. Yeh explain that it's been clear they've been unhappy for some time, and that they are uncomfortable with the troop leadership and program. Yeh acknowledge their position respectfully, but inform them that yeh have confidence in the Scoutmaster. You indicate that you will be happy to refer them to other troops and to ensure that their son's records get transferred. And yeh do this somewhere like a public restaurant or an office at your CO where their behavior can be contained. Then yeh simply call the council office and inform them that the boy's registration with your unit has been terminated. It's time to pull the trigger, mate. You know it, everybody here knows it, and I guarantee everyone in your troop knows it. Beavah

With all of new sexual offender laws, a large number of these fellows end up in our neighborhoods, most of the suburbs have laws that say a sex offender cannot live with in 1000 feet of a Park or school. Nah, sorry, still don't buy it. Yeh do submit BSA applications for background checks, right? While those aren't da greatest things in the world, they will catch someone on the sexual offender registry. So that takes care of that problem. Now why is it yeh would exclude all the single folks who are out gettin' an education, workin' for a living, tryin' to follow in da footsteps of the Shakers or whatever who are not on the sexual offender registry? Fewer and fewer people are gettin' married each year, so our potential pool of volunteers contains more and more good, honest, upstanding single folks. Why exclude 'em? there were two problems that I don't think can be chalked up as one -- there is supposed to be 2-deep leadership (unless this wasn't considered an "outing") and there is supposed to be co-ed leadership for a co-ed crew. Yah, yah, whatever. The point was that's ticketing the person twice for the same event. The female leader didn't show up. That's not the same as choosin' to break two different rules separately. And remember, this is a crew, eh? It's entirely possible that one of the crew members is a legal adult, so that in the eyes of the law (or had it been a boy scout trip), two-deep was still in place. We know there were injured kids, and so one can quite easily imagine that because they were waitin' for word on an injured kid, they were delayed in their departure. As a result, they did not meet the female co-leader in the field as they had planned. A simple, reasonable explanation. Deciding not to travel late at night when the driver was tired, they instead crashed on someone's floor. Now, should it have been the single leader's floor? Nah, that's sloppy. Lots of times, though, durin' vacation weeks like this families leave town eh? The rest of the family takes a vacation while the high schooler is off with the crew. So yeh can't just send kids home. The proper thing to do may have been to try to get someone's mom to come and sleep over, but not that many crews have two registered female advisors, and this wasn't a big group, eh? Maybe yeh call VentureMom to see if the whole crew can crash on her floor, along with the Advisor. But I think yeh start to see where the headache and "not wanting to impose" makes it seem like just usin' your own place is the most reasonable. I don't know a single scouter who is worth a sot who hasn't at some point "violated" the youth protection guidelines in some way or another. Kid's parents don't pick him up on time and everybody left, needin' to deal with problems or issues and yeh do the best yeh can, just being focused on other things at the time and not thinkin' about it, whatever. If we were to run 'em all out on a rail we wouldn't have a BSA. So is this sloppy? Yes. Does it merit a respectful conversation? Yes. Should it trigger heightened alertness? Yes. Could it all be a fairly reasonable lapse in judgment that's understandable under the circumstances? Also yes. It is not at all likely that a fellow is abusing high-school aged kids with six of 'em around all equipped with cell phones. Real predators isolate kids, they don't keep 'em together. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Yah, not to stand in the way of your prejudice there, Basementdweller, but being married doesn't offer a lick of protection against abuse. Just ask the victims of Jerry Sandusky. I often wonder where da people who don't want volunteers for this, that, and the other thing get their leaders from. No single people, no young people, no female scouters, no old folks without kids, on and on. Yeh just took out the majority of the best scouters from da best troops in our council. Beavah

Yah, SN95GT50, welcome to da real world of Scoutin'. I don't think yeh really have a Boy Scout troop until your patrols are doin' this sort of thing. Absolutely, support 'em! Sounds like a good, strong group. Have the adults camp separately quite a ways away, with an understanding that they can come to you if needed but the adults will NOT go visit or otherwise bother them. Da hardest thing will be keepin' the adults in line. Beavah

Yah, hmmm... Some of the very best scouters I have known have been older, single fellows who got into scouting when they were young and made it their volunteer effort for the community. I also know men who kept up their volunteering for scouting after their boys graduated, or who kept up their volunteering after their divorce and loss of custody, or after their spouse passed on. Sometimes the Scoutin' community and ability to contribute to help someone else's kids helped 'em work through the issues of losing members of their own family. I think we have to be careful about bein' prejudiced about people who have made different life choices or happen to be in different circumstances. Honestly, parents are often the folks who have the least time to give to the program compared to us older folks and the young adults. Not all COs have space available even for meetings, let alone space available after hours some Friday evening to host a get together. My guess is the majority do not. So I don't think there's any particular issue with usin' some scouter or scout family's home to get together. In fact, that's the norm for a lot of Venturing crews. I also don't see "multiple" YP violations, eh? There's a provision within the guidelines for cabin camping / sleepin' on a church floor all in one room, and it's done on a regular basis by crews everywhere. The only issue here is da overnight without da second (female) adult. That is more of a concern, especially for "appearances sake", but apparently an effort was made to ensure no one-on-one was adhered to. So a bad judgment call, with how bad dependin' on whether there was some other stuff goin' on that caused the second adult to cancel at the last minute or somesuch. Certainly somethin' to be alert to that merits some conversations and heightened awareness. I'm not sure it quite merits breakin' out the torches and pitchforks quite yet, though. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Yah, VentureMom, one of the sad things is that the folks who harm or take advantage of kids often do the same sorts of things that the very best mentoring adults do. They treat kids with respect as young adults, they talk to 'em as older friends, they are generous with their time and resources, they build meaningful relationships. They become "family", eh? In fact, the most common molesters are relatives. So it requires some degree of alertness, wisdom, and balance both as a parent and a young person. We don't want to deprive our kids of those meaningful adult relationships with strong mentors; by all accounts they are essential to growing up. At the same time, we want to maintain enough alertness to be able to protect our kids from the very rare but still real possibility of someone being a "bad actor." It sounds like you've done your job in terms of having those hard conversations with your son, and you're stayin' appropriately alert without goin' overboard. That's as it should be. Drop back in and let us know how the conversation goes with the crew advisors after they return. Keep an open mind and stay friendly, but if in the end yeh aren't satisfied please do call the local scout executive and the crew's chartered partner to share your concerns. Sometimes other folks aren't being as alert as a new family, so things go on that shouldn't. Beavah

Consider, for a high country ski trip, do we send an 11 year out on the slopes to do a shovel test to judge the avalanche risk, instead of a seasoned guide trained, and experienced for that task! Of course we do! How else is the lad goin' to learn? Especially these days when so many teens are optin' to ski off-piste and sidecountry areas? Scouting is about helpin' lads learn and grow. That means that we don't do safety for them, we do safety with them. We model judgment and decision-making and allow them to participate in that. Even as youngsters! We expect 11-year-olds to learn the basics of hiking safety and poisonous critters for Tenderfoot and of water safety and rescues for 2nd Class and of boating safety for First Class, after all. If yeh live in ski country, then teachin' the lads avalanche safety seems completely right and proper. Beavah

Yah, hmmm... VentureMom, I assume by the age of your son and the nature of these questions that you are a new parent in the crew. Perhaps yeh might call one of the other parents in the program who have been involved longer who might have more detailed information on the outing that would set your mind at ease? Yeh might have heard the term "Committee Chair" or have a roster of the crew with that position listed. That's probably a parent who can fill yeh in. I'd start there. There are lots of good reasons for a crew to get together the night before departure, to gather gear, buy & repackage food, load cars, etc. And sometimes, when plans get hit by injuries or other problems they have to be adjusted to the circumstances. The BSA expects no one-on-one contact with youth, and two-deep leadership on outings. The first is a barrier to abuse allegations, the latter is for safety should there be a problem, and also as an additional barrier to such allegations. There are emergent circumstances where either might break down. Particularly in the case of an injury, it is likely that one adult would accompany the youth to medical care, leaving the other adult "alone" with the rest of the group for a time. Additionally, we don't allow tenting between boys and girls or leaders and youth. Sleeping in one big room happens fairly frequently in large cabins, church floors, and the like, in which case youth and adults are just careful to maintain privacy and separate changing areas and such. There's also a balance between adults sleeping separately and adults needing to be there to supervise in such situations. As you're learning here, most experienced adult leaders would consider what you're describing, if you're describing it correctly, as being a bit too "fast and loose" for our taste. Odds are it's not a problem, but there's certainly enough there to raise our collective level of alertness. I'd be less concerned about the finances; particularly this early in the season amusement parks have all kinds of specials and group deals and such, and it may well be that the crew has some sort of complementary early season tickets. I'd be mildly more alert to the change in itinerary (if this is a change), but that may be a result of the injuries you mention. It's also good to be aware that calls from home in the middle of trips that aren't family emergencies are often treated as inappropriate, and some units just prohibit cell phones so as to avoid all of that stuff, so yeh might cut leaders a bit of slack if you've been makin' multiple calls. So I would start by calling the Committee Chair and talking parent-to-parent. Perhaps, if yeh feel comfortable, share what your son said when you spoke to him on the phone and that might tell us a bit more. After that, yeh have two choices. If yeh are really uncomfortable, go pick him up from the event and bring him home. If your concern does not rise to that level, after he gets home pull him from the program until yeh meet with the adult leaders and yeh get your expectations straight. As others have mentioned, what you're reporting is too fast-and-loose for the program, so unless there is a satisfactory explanation yeh should also call the local scout council office and ask to speak to someone to report a possible Youth Protection concern. Please let us know if yeh have any additional information or questions. Kindest regards, Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Oh, yah, and... April Fools!

Yeh can see da information on the Central Region Area 2 project here: http://www.bsaareaproject.org/ B

Of course then there's da tall tales that tend to get spread around on days like today, eh? Do April Fools count? B

Yah, every year around this time I meet up with an old friend and gold-tab scouter who comes into the area to visit family for a special event or reunion that they have about now. Gives us a good excuse to catch up and share scoutin' tales. Talkin' to him over brunch this mornin', we got to chatting about the Michigan Area 2 project, since we're both Central Region fellows. Folks here might know this past year there was an effort to merge all the councils in Central Region Area 2 (Michigan) into one Greater Michigan Council, which got approved in the fall and has been in process. He was describin' how much investment national was makin' in the new effort, includin' big costs in database reconfigurations and other efforts to accommodate this new structure, as well as some significant changes to the professional development / promotion pathways for executives to match the new configuration. As some of yeh may know that stuff tends to be the prime mover behind a lot of executive action. I was curious about that since it seems like a lot of effort for a one-off. Turns out that National is not seeing the Area 2 Project as a one-off, but as a strong model for the future. Most of us here know that Irving has been quietly encouraging council mergers for some time, but typically only between two councils here, two councils there sort of thing like the recent Kentucky merger. The apparent success of da Michigan effort which merged 9 councils all at once has opened their eyes to new possibilities, and the exec from Area 2 (who came from Massachusetts I believe, where council mergers and camp closings were also a topic) is seen as a rising star. The Michigan model is being seen as a much faster and more effective way to consolidate operations. So word on the street is that National is settin' up to try to scale this up by pushing for a test-case Area-wide merger in each of the Regions. They figure if they can get this goin' in multiple areas of the country it will give 'em more information and become a snowball sort of thing. Right now he's thinkin' that the likely places for big multi-council mergers are: Northeast New Jersey (Area 5) or New England seacoast of Maine/New Hampshire/Massachusetts (Area 1) Southern Florida (Area 4) or Oklahoma/Arkansas (Area 8) Western Northern California & Nevada (Area 3) or the Southwest States (Area 6) without the Hawaiian folks. The guess is that for legal and other reasons there might be an advantage to the state-boundaries thing, so merging all of Florida into one council and all of Northern California seems like the most attractive in those two areas, with Northeast being the test case for a cross-state merger (cross-state mergers are a bit harder because the council corporations are incorporated in different states, which takes a bit more work). The plan is that they're currently layin' the groundwork with the regional and area execs, with an intention to do the same sort of fast-blitz of the volunteers that was done in Michigan to get approval without providin' a whole lot of details on things that get people's dander up (like which camps will be kept and which sold, which service centers will be closed and all that stuff). Roll out looks like it might be pretty quick. So could be by this particular day next year, we'll be seein' the same sort of statewide merger votes in Florida, northern California and New Jersey that we saw in Michigan last fall. Or maybe some other cockamamie notion. I'm curious if folks volunteerin' in these places have heard anything yet about these plans? Or any other amusin' changes comin' down the pike for that matter. Beavah

Hiya silvereagle. Six months means six months, not the sixth month. If the lad made Star on October 12 last year and turns 18 before October 12 this year, then there is no way for him to earn the Eagle rank. Life is a fine accomplishment, though, and there's nuthin' to stop him from doin' all the badges and runnin' a great service project, or having other fun and accomplishments in his last year as a boy scout. And there's always Venturing and Venturing recognitions! Beavah

Yah, hmmm... I reckon I'm partly confused because I don't find the language of objective and subjective risks all that useful myself, so I'd never use it with scouts. I'm more fond of the old 3-E's bit. Yeh have to match Equipment and Experience with Environment. So if you're goin' out snow campin', yeh have to imagine the worst ordinary conditions you'd expect, eh? Yeh have to know what to expect from the Environment. I suppose those are objective hazards, but that just seems like makin' up a buzz word to sound highfalutin. Then yeh have to make sure personal and group gear is adequate for those conditions. That's the point of 10 essentials or other gear lists. But the more important thing is to make sure that yeh also have the necessary Experience to deal with those conditions, eh? Not just the leader, either. The leader can't be everywhere and do everything. If boys don't know how to dress themselves in layers, the leader can't go around dressing all of 'em. Enough people in the group, youth and adults, have to have enough experience to be able to accomplish all the tasks together. A lad on his first winter campout better have a boy with strong winter camping experience watching over him and helpin' him out. Experience and judgment roughly match to "subjective hazards" I guess. Buzz word again. For some things, like rappelling, yeh make sure there's enough experience by controlling the site. Yeh limit it to one boy at a time, so yeh have an experienced person paired with a novice for both the rappel and belay. Other boys wait, because yeh want 1:1 experienced to novice. For other things, like a float trip, yeh can't send only one canoe at a time down the river while everyone else waits. So yeh have to make sure each lad has decent swimming ability and has learned enough skill to be able to handle reasonable things, pairing up weak with strong so as to make viable boats that can manage the level of river Environment yeh have chosen. That's what G2SS and Safety Afloat really mean, eh? Make sure yeh know the Environment to expect, make sure yeh have the right gear, make sure yeh have enough experience, both as a leader and as a group. How do yeh learn what gear or what experience is needed or what environment is likely? Well I suppose yeh can memorize mnemonics and watch Hazardous Weather training videos online, but I don't think that stuff really works. I think we all learn the way scouts learn. We begin by going out as one of those young, clueless fellows who relies on older more experienced boys for guidance. We watch, and we listen, and we try, and we try some more. We think, and we read, and we practice some, and we learn more. We improve, and then we start helping others, and that teaches us some more. We go out a bunch of times, and learn more about the range of environments and the hazards. That teaches us more. Then we're ready to lead, and that teaches us more. Scoutin' is about apprenticeship, not about training. It's about knowledge, not rules. Training and rules are dangerous, because they lead to overconfidence and the illusion of safety, like le Voyageur says. Real safety requires experience and judgment. Beavah

In a traditional scouting setup, patrols last forever. New boys come in, other boys move up the ranks to leadership, old boys move on to the adult ranks. Patrols develop a history, and a character, and a sense of pride. Think Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. In an age-based patrol setup, patrols typically last until attrition or attendance causes 'em to "merge", typically by high school. Think sports programs, where the middle school rec leagues gradually merge down to one high school varsity team. In an open-patrol setup, patrols last until the social dynamics which held 'em together change and the boys shuffle about. Think social cliques and Facebook groups. Which style and variant yeh choose just depends on what yeh want to achieve with your boys. Each approach has a very different dynamic and the lads develop different skills and learn different lessons of character from each. All of 'em have their pluses and minuses, eh? In terms of the outcomes I like to see for boys, my personal preference is for the first, traditional way of thinkin' about patrols. Beavah

Yah, JustaHuman, welcome to the forums, eh? While I suspect from the fact that yeh just sort of waded in and resurrected a few old dead threads that you're here mostly to go Trolling, I figure yeh merit a response. If yeh go back through and read some of the innumerable threads on this topic, you'll find that by and large the BSA and most of its scouting units are open to kids who have doubts, who are strugglin' with religious ideas, who are unchurched, who declare themselves atheists for a stretch. Most young people question and struggle to work through these and other big issues, and that's fine. But Scouting in the BSA and most scouting worldwide is not atheist. As an organization and as a movement we profess a Duty to God, and as a Method we incorporate that belief and that duty into our daily practice of scouting. That is an issue of freedom of expression, eh? We are free to express our belief in a Duty to God, and free to include only those people who share that belief - particularly at the adult level, where we're askin' adult members to help teach Duty to God to young people, in both word and example. That's no different from an atheist group that wants to support secular values which might choose not to admit a bunch of fundamentalist Christians. The fundamentalist Christians, especially if they were admitted as leaders, wouldn't work well with the stated values and mission of the organization. I can appreciate how the activities of scouting look (and are) for the most part secular, and how they might be attractive in that way to atheist families. In a similar way, the activities of many Christian youth camps also look largely secular, eh? But in both cases, there is a goal to use those activities to help teach Duty to God, and that may not be comfortable to you as a family. In both cases as well, the resources, both human and financial, are provided by people who believe in the mission of teaching Duty to God and Duty to Country, and it isn't fair for them to give resources for that purpose and then not teach those things. The BSA is not a religious sect, though. So while we believe in and teach Duty to God, we don't try to define "God". Buddhist striving for Enlightenment, Hindu worship of multiple deities, Wiccan attunement to the Goddess or nature spirits, AA's recognition of a Higher Power, all are OK. Sometimes that can make for lively discussions, and we aren't always perfect at balancing majority desires for religious expression with minority expressions or comfort, but then that's part of a Scout learning to be Reverent to his own beliefs, and to be Reverent by respecting others. Nobody in the BSA would say that atheists are "all bad" or not moral or any such thing, though some of us as religionists have a hard time groking a moral system that isn't grounded in deity or at least Natural Law. There is a difference between "we want to teach Duty to God" and "we think atheists are bad". We are the former. We just want to teach and live by Duty to God. For us, that's the "best" type of citizenship. So we want our adults to live by it and to teach our kids to live by it. And since peer leadership and teaching is such an important part of the program, we believe both youth and adults must be willing to accept or at least be open to that mission. Now, you say that you and your kids are in the BSA and that you lie and hide so that you can stay. That's your choice, and only speaks to your family's values and ethics. If you think it's OK to lie to make use of other people's resources and time because you want them, I doubt anybody in Scouting is going to track you down to throw you out. It would just make us a bit sad. We would want to teach your son to be Trustworthy, and Loyal to his own beliefs and those of his family. Down the road, I wonder a bit. When he just wants a college scholarship, will it be OK for him to lie and hide and pretend to be Native American so that he can get a Native American Scholarship or affirmative action admissions advantage? Isn't that really the same thing? Yeh want resources that have been designated to a particular group that yeh aren't part of, so yeh lie to get access to those resources. Yah, I get that it seems righteous and all to compare it to African-Americans and da civil rights movement and all that, except there's a big difference. The mission of a for-profit company is to make money, not to exclude blacks. The mission of a private school is to educate kids, not to exclude blacks. It remains OK for a private organization to exclude blacks if its mission is to advocate for racial separation, just as a black institution may exclude whites if its mission is to serve the development of African-American identity and culture. The first is discrimination, and unjust. The second is expression, and a part of liberty. It is just fine for the NAACP to exclude from its membership white supremacists who do not believe in its mission to advance people of color, and it's just fine for the BSA to exclude from its membership atheists who do not believe in its mission of teaching Duty to God. Beavah

Yah, I had to go look these guys up. Accordin' to the Southern Poverty Law Center, "The New Black Panther Party is a virulently racist and anti-Semitic organization whose leaders have encouraged violence against whites, Jews and law enforcement officers." In other words, a bunch of whack jobs equivalent to the KKK and various white supremacist splinter groups. Even Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson haven't resorted to quotin' from some skinhead rag to impugn Zimmerman, so I can't figure why it seems OK for the folks who follow the reactionary echo blogs to bring up the NBPP. It just doesn't make any sense... unless there is some benefit for somebody in deliberately raising racial tensions. Beavah

Yah, SMT224, I guess I'm mostly havin' a hard time followin' this thread, because I really don't understand your question, eh? Le Voyageur was talkin' about hypothermia when he mentioned "umbles." Are yeh tryin' to say there's some rule out there that will universally prevent hypothermia? Well, I suppose somethin' like "don't go outdoors when temperatures are below 90" might work. Kind of like yeh can prevent jet ski accidents within your program if yeh have a rule prohibiting jet skis. Conveniently, the lad who injures himself on a jet ski during summer break that might have learned better doesn't count against your program. I appreciate that folks seem to like the simplicity of trite little mnemonics like STOP or SODA or whatnot. I'm just not convinced they're worth much. Stop-Think-Observe-Plan or Stop-Observe-Deliberate-Act are fine loose rules of thumb for beginners I suppose, but I've never seen 'em really be helpful IRL. Da problem is that if yeh don't know what to look for when you Observe, or yeh don't have the experience to properly Think through a situation, or yeh have never before Planned or Deliberated when under that kind of confusion and stress, yeh aren't goin' to be successful because yeh remembered a mnemonic. And if yeh really have those skills and abilities, yeh don't need the mnemonic rule. Besides, if yeh really are ataxic from hypothermia (mumblin' and stumblin') the dumb mnemonic ain't goin' to help yeh a lick. Yeh better hope your buddy is doin' better! Beavah

Yah, but as Bill Murray demonstrated, if you're goin' after gophers, it's more fun to use explosives. I think it's perfectly right and proper to teach young men how to handle firearms responsibly and to hunt ethically and responsibly. I think havin' youth in contact with formal programs and other adult members besides their family or their buddies only enhances their experience and their safety. I think whatever the state law sets as the minimum age should be the minimum age the BSA considers for its programs, because that's the age our boys are likely to be goin' out outside of scouting. So if we as an organization want to have an impact on citizenship and ethics and safety, that's the age where we have to reach 'em. 'round these parts, that would include most or all Boy Scouts. Beavah