scoutingagain

Well the father is correct, if he is referring to the requirement to jump in the water with your clothes on and stay afloat, etc. This requirement was removed in 2005 or 2004 I think. If it is on the record sheet, your using an old record sheet. Take a look at the scout's Handbook or latest Advancement requirements. Ah, I see Sctldr has posted them above. They are the US 1st class swimming requirements. SA (This message has been edited by scoutingagain)

"If scouts in yoour area are raising donations of money or product as Scouts for the Eagle product they do so in violation of the BSA money earning policies." BW, you are of course correct. Acco is a brave man to split hairs with you on offical policy and I choose not to follow down that path. What I pointed out was that soliciting donations of materials and in kind support for Eagle Projects by scouts in uniform is essentially encouraged by our District Advancement Chair. They don't solicit money as a scout. But uniforms are very much encouraged at spaghetti dinners, pancake breakfasts and other fund raising activities to generate funds for Eagle projects. I suppose folks again buy that spaghetti and those pancakes because, well our scouts make the best spaghetti and pancakes money can buy. While you see Trails End popcorn as a "scout product" others clearly don't. I buy Trails End popcorn because it's the best popcorn in the world and worth every penny. Don't you? I merely point out the mixed messages from fairly high levels of the organization, at least from a unit volunteer's perspective, and can understand how folks can get confused. I'm not saying any of these approaches are necessarily correct or incorrect. SA

At our summer camp, the CITs, or Lead Scouts as they are called, are rotated through several different program and service areas during their tenure as a Lead Scout. This is done so the scout and staff can see what they like, where their interests are, and what their good at. If they choose to move onto become paid staff, they have a broader exposure to staff activities and can better choose what they want and camp mananagment has a better idea of where they might best fit or in some cases not fit at all. SA

For the most part I know and understand the "rules" and believe CubMom has been given good advice. But this is another area where various elements of the BSA tend to conflict with the written rule and send conflicting messages so it's no wonder many volunteers and some professionals don't fully understand them. 5. If a commercial product is to be sold, will it be sold on its own merits and without reference to the needs of Scouting? All commercial products must sell on their own merits, not the benefit received by the Boy Scouts. The principle of value received is critical in choosing what to sell. So how many Councils encourage units to do show & sells of popcorn wearing uniforms? How many councils encourage sales of popcorn based not on how good the popcorn is or that it's a great value, but that it supports council scouting activities? I mean how much popcorn would be sold by a bunch of kids in T-shirts and jeans that told customers the popcorn tastes great and they just wanted to earn some money. And ironically for Eagle projects our town is blessed with a number of local businesses that strongly support Eagle projects with donations of materials and sometimes food. It's been going on for years and donations of materials are routinely accepted for Eagle projects. At every Eagle BOR I've been involved with the District Advancement Chair always asks the candidate if he wore his uniform when discussing the project with the businesses. SA

And I have to admit, I find the discussion somewhat foreign to me because in the last 7 years and some 8 - 10 Eagles later, I've never been associated with one that had the DL issue held over their head and had never heard of it before it was posted in these forums. SA

Good luck to your son. My son found serving on summer camp staff to be among the highlights of his scouting career. Serving on staff kept him fired up for scouting as he grew older. SA

Well the Board of Review, reviews what the scout did to reach the rank he is going for. So it is fair to ask a scout, "Tell me about the meal you planned for your patrol." It is not fair to ask a scout to cook a patrol meal. Same goes with knots, you can ask does he know his knots? Who taught them to him? Who passed him on his knots? Does he find them useful? etc. But it's not fair to ask him to tie a knot. If he has done this to the satisfaction of whoever was authorized to test him, he passed. It's not fair for a BOR to test him again. If he didn't demonstrate the skill and was still signed off, the issue is with whomever signed him off for that skill, not the scout. SA

Fastbow, I agree with everything Mike said. Get trained. As long as the SM is beating the "Boy led" troop thing, that's good. What the goal is for adults is to influence the boys to do the right thing, without doing it for them. If you see too much kaos at the troop meetings, ask the committee something like "How can we get the boys to..improve their skills, run better meetings, cook better meals..?", make suggestions. Do what you can to help improve the boy leadership, don't usurp their position. Adults should not be taking over a scout meeting because it's disorganized any more than an adult would go in to pitch in a Little League game because they could pitch better than an 11 year old. Running the meetings IS part of the scouting game. To a certain extent a boy led meeting is not going to be as well run as a good adult run meeting(although I've seen plenty of adults run poor meetings) any more than you can expect an 11 year old to throw an 80 - 90 mph fastball. But you can coach them on fundamentals, like having an agenda, accomplishing action items, minimize distractions, etc. SA

"But what is CERTAIN is that LA must cut the ties in obeyance of the law." Without knowing the exact language of the City Code, and the specific language of the charter agreement between LFL and the City, I don't know if it is certain the City is in fact violating it's law. I think that might be subject to interpretation. This case is not the same as BSA units that discriminate being sponsored by a government entity. LFL Explorer units are open to all. There is no dicrimination in the service provided. While the BSA may have discriminatory employment practices, are folks who work for LFL subject to the same employment requirements? Are the BSA and LFL sufficiently separate as to be considered two different organizations even though they have offices in the same building in TX? Is a LFL charter agreement a "contract"? What goods and/or services are exchanged? Does it even go through the City's procurement system? The article explains the City's "affiliation" with LFL is illegal. Is an "affiliation" a contract? I don't know the answers, but without the specific wording of both documents I don't know that anyone can answer them. I'd be curious as to how this might play out in court. SA

Ed, The DRP requires a recognition of God and references the requirements of the Scout Oath and Law. It prevents atheists from being members of the BSA so it directly effects any theist that would want to be a member of the BSA. I don't know if that would include Merlyn or not. Even if he didn't want to be a member, government support of a private organization effects all taxpayers. Even the ones that are atheists. SA

"By using the courts to deny the BSA and other organizations from using "government" moneys, not only are they denying good programs from doing good works for their communities, good works that probably will not and could not be done by any government agency, but they are indirectly "prohibiting the free exercise thereof" which the Bill of Rights grants us as citizens. By giving organizations as the BSA funds to provide various programs the governments are NOT "promoting" one religious belief over another. They are providing funds to help the citizens of their communities and making use of an organization already in existence to do it, thus saving taxpayers a lot of money." OK based on this rationale, if we, as in we the people, believe it is in out best interests to have the government provide funding and assistance to private organizations because they do good work for those persons they feel worthy of membership in their organizations...what other organizations beyond the BSA are worthy of such support? If these cases were overturned, it would not just effect the BSA, all kinds of private organizations would be lining up at the trough of government for specialized treatment, grants, etc. because they also do "good work" and provide "good programs". How much should the Federal government increase taxes to add such an entitlement program for private organizations? Talk about radical liberals SA

"Each of us PL's knew what we had to do each and every week, only because the SM sat with use at the end of each meeting and went over the agenda for each month, and the troop scribe took notes. Now this troop, sits down and discusses things on a sunday for the coming saturday only if something has been planned, other then that....it's a free for all." Welcome Fastbow. Not to get all Bob White on you right away, but what you've described above is highly symptomatic of an adult leadership problem, not a boy led problem. The adults are there to set expecations, train and coach scouts to meet those expectations. In your old troop it sounds like that was being done. In this current troop, where is the SM? How does he interact with the SPL and PLs? While he should not be running the meetings, if the meetings are a mess, undisciplined and the scouts aren't learning anything, who is giving the boy leadership Positive feedback on how make things better? Not just critizing the boy for what is going wrong. SA

Ah, I missed the City Code thing. My question would be, do they actually "contract" with the City? Does the city "pay" anything for services received? The City simply sponsors a club anyone can join. You'd have to see the exact wording of the code. Does it prohibit all agreements with organizations that may or may not discriminate or is the City just not allowed to purchase goods or services from such entities?(which I suspect was the original intent of the law) I can buy into no public funds or special treatment for a private organization that does not serve the entire public. But this threat really does sound a bit petty and I see no purpose other than to directly punish the youth involved and take an around about slap at the BSA. SA

Well they can always write as many letters as they want regardless of facts or reality. This is a much tougher nut to crack though than a BSA unit, that does discriminate at the local level. While, it is true the two organizations share office locations, and probably staff and some intermingling of finances, I don't see how those actions in Irving, TX effect participation and membership in LA. If there are any intermingling of finances I would be willing to bet the private discrimanatory part of the BSA, provides financial support to the non-discrimanatory Learning for Life. I would hope the City would have the kahunas to say, "See you in court if you want. Oh by the way, expect a countersuit for any legal expenses incurred on the City's part to defend itself." SA

I agree with the others, support the SM. However, there is a however, this really puts pressure on the SM and PLC to make sure the 90 minutes of meeting time is used productively. If others who are asked to stay late, feel there is wasted time during the meetings that could be used productively for this 10 minute time of review and reflection, you are not going to get interested and productive use of their time by keeping them later than they think they need to. SA

OK, Son finally finished his Eagle paper work and passed his COH last November. Yeah! Really. Yes I'm another proud Eagle Dad but now have a new challenge. My son was the last Eagle our unit's Eagle Advisor decided to guide through the process. Being the sucker ... err dedicated volunteer that I am, I volunteered to continue on in the unit as the new Eagle Advisor. The good news is that in addition to my son, I have helped out with a second candidate who got his confirmation from National a couple of weeks ago. The unit I serve continues to struggle with some issues, patrol method, uniforming, boy led, the usual, but I will hold our Eagles up to anyone's. All those that achieved the rank while I have been associated with the troop have truely been fine young men deserving of the rank. Now I'm assisting in planning two Eagle COH's. One of my tasks is to track down all those letters of commendation. ie. from the President, Senators, Representatives etc. I'm OK with our local politicians, (the Gov. of Massachusettes has a dedicated email address for Eagle Scout and Gold Scout award recipient recognition requests). Does anyone know the protocol for contacting the White House and Congress for the traditional letters of recognition? Our old advisor has been difficult to get ahold of and time is running out. Do folks request recognition via hard copy letters? email? What's appropriate? Thank for any help. SA

"Get them away from the cars and backpacking more. The extra food and the wasted food will stop if they need to carry it around. " Amen to that brother. I don't think I've ever seen food go to waste on a backpacking trip. SA

I suppose I shouldn't be suprised. I mean how interesting would coverage of a campaign be if it focused on issues and the positions of the candidates. If that hapeened, either no one would read about the candidates or voters might make their decision based on something other than inuendo and appearances. I mean how many times can a newpaper or television news organization simply talk about the issues and expect people to watch or buy papers? Can't wait to see the article about Obama and a white woman, or maybe in his entire career he has never talked to or been seen associating with a white woman. Or an article on how he's not really "black" enough or some other absurd stuff. Funny thing is I see the bigger issue in the article is McCains being seemingly oblivious to the potential appearance of conflicts of interest. The article make him seem a little naive and I had the impression he would be more sensitive to such things. I'm a little suprised this nonsense started with the the Times though. I would have expected it to come from one of the television stations first, but I guess there's not much integrity left in political journalism in any media. No wonder we're all skeptics. SA

Unless there's somekind of back room deal making done, I'd agree we're headed to an Obama/McCain choice. Seems like the candidates are beginning to believe that. I'll admit I'm partial to McCain and have been for a while. I would have voted for him 8 years ago if I he were the nominee. I'm persona non-grata in my household now of 4 voters. All the others voted for Obama in our recent primary. As a probable McCain voter I would say the Right wing of the Republican party better get their act together, 'cause like it or not if you look at the NUMBER of voters, not percentages, Democrats are voting in numbers nearly twice as high as Republicans. Obama stands a real chance at being President and might even be considered the overall front runner. I was going to say something about at least niether are the current administration but Pack has put it far more eloquently than I. SA

Welcome Burnside. Your observations and opinions are welcome here. I don't know how long you've been involved with scouting but I hope you stick around to learn more about the program and it's history and traditions. As BW notes scouting has had a long association with Native American culture and lore. In our District there is a Native American ceremonies team that is available to units to assist in the type of ceremony you describe run by the local Order of the Arrow Lodge. They go out of their way to make the dances and ceremonies as respectful and authentic as they can. They consult regularly with local Native American tribes and leaders. Their intent to to make their ceremonies and dances authentic to the tribes of their local area. I believe many districts and councils have similar groups making similar efforts. I would hope these efforts are recieved with the respect and solemness they are intended to portray. SA

We have used these Bear Vaults. They are kept away from camp and have never been disturbed by a bear, but I don't know that we've just been lucky. http://www.fuelforadventure.com/beprst.html SA

"The hard ones to catch are my "errors" like the Polish Scout belt that I sometimes wear. Or the neckerchief from Singapore that I've been known to wear." Nah, see if you can catch anyone wearing their knots upside down. (Guilty as charged. But if you think I'm going to tell SWMBO, she put them on upside down forget it.) SA

I think that is a question you need to ask the course director for the course you plan on sending the scout to and the individual scout. I know our course director likes to see scouts at least Star and 14 years old. He expects a certain degree of maturity, basic scout skills and physical capability. The course he teaches is not just book learnin' stuff. It has a significant physical component to it and many scouts under 14 might not be up to the physical elements of the program he presents. Among other things they do a night hike, carry their backpacks everywhere, and do other things that physically challenge the group. SA

"Yah, to add to the confusion, doin' this sort of thing for a woman but not for a man will get you an earful for being a misogynistic putz in some parts of the country." Well I work in that liberal bastion of Cambridge, MA(don't get caught with a nuclear weapon because they are banned from this city) and use public transportation nearly everyday and see all kinds of behavior both courteous and non-courteous but have never seen the above occur. Most folks behave as Firekat describes with the exception of the hats. SA

"Truth be told, it seems to me we have a certain amount of Balkanization in both our American political parties. Might we see fracture at some point towards a multiple parties and alliances as other nations have? " This might be true ... and it might be a good thing... I'm not certain. Sign me up for the "Normal People Party". SA