scoutingagain

I agree with FScouter. This is a judgement call by the COR, IH and CC, with input from the SM. Bottom line is, will involvement of the adult in the unit be a positive or negative for the scouts. If he is not a threat to the scout's safety and can help with the program, keep him on. If not, he goes. SA

Lisabob, you've hit the nail squarely on the head. These positions serve at the pleasure of the SPL, with the approval of the SM. If the SM sign's off on this POR as having actively served in a list POR for six months, the requirement has been met. Unless the SM is willing to challenge this, with the support of his/her committee, there is little that can be done. As I noted in another thread, if there are youth who are not living up to the responsibility of their positions, more than the youth are not meeting theirs. SA

"God and global warming must have melted it. " Temps were in the mid to upper 50's(near record highs) and sunny & dry accross the state yesterday. Also record voter turnout. The results really throw both parties into what looks like a process where we won't have a clue who might be the nominees until Feb 5 at the earliest. Personally I think the Dems will take their race to the convention. For the Republicans, it's wide open again. Fred, Rudi, Mitt and the rest are all counting on later races. McCain swept the New England State's primaries 8 years ago, but still lost the nomination to Bush. Personally I think Mitt should pack it in. If he wants to burn his personal fortune, there are more productive endeavors. He was a decent Governor of MA, and I believe he's probably a good manager and administrator, but many Massachusetts Republicans, who for the most part are fairly moderate, feel betrayed by his convienient enlightenment on social issues. He may not even win the MA primary. Virtually everyone in the State GOP establishment have endorsed someone other than Mitt. SA

Excellent point V.! And thanks. Sometimes it's not so much what you do as the fact that you do something. For a unit, such as the one I serve, that doesn't do much in the way religious expression, a simple non-denominational prayer, thanking the Great Scoutmaster for the outdoor experience, fellowship of other scouts and a safe return home at the end of an outing would be a big step. SA

Lisabob, You said, "My bigger point was, this lady misunderstands the BSA's position and is unwilling to accept that she's wrong." That's probably true, but I suspect no amount of evidence you provide her is going to change her mind and she will continue to express her thoughts on the matter to whoever will listen to her. Take some deep breaths, count to 10, go on a hike. I believe your scouter energy might be more productively spent than trying to change her mind. Just my 2cents. Good luck. SA

" "Secret moderation" is like "secret prisons". " I see it more like "double secret probation." Wow a thread on Moderators. Here's a test of freedom of expression. SA

Lisabob, Does your unit do a Scout Service on Sunday mornings or before you break camp? Many units do and you could mention that. Many units don't, the unit I serve included, but you if you are aware of units that make faith a greater part of unit's activities, she might find one of those Troops more appealing. There are units that are all Christian, Jewish, Mormon, Islamic etc., depending on the desires of a particular CO. Many other are more like yours and mine, and are much more open to all faiths and the religious aspects of scouting are a minor part of the unit's activities. So she needn't choose between scouting and her faith. She may need to choose from one scout unit or another. SA

I forget who said it but there is a quote that goes something along the lines of, a true measure of how much we support freedom of speech or expression is not the support of the expression of ideas or speech we agree with but how much we support the expression of ideas or speech we find abhorrent. SA

Mark, Please take this as positively as I can make it. I truely mean no disrespect here, but; "As a Scout demonstrates he isn't fulfilling his responsiblities, I will be much more up front with him so that he knows well in advance that there is a problem." Based on this sentence it seems to me it was not just the scout that had not fulfilled his responsibilities. I confess I am also guilty of the same for BORs for at lower ranks. SA

I tend to agree with the others, if your personal feeling towards a scout have the potential to effect your ability to objectively evaluate whether or not he had completed the requirements for rank advancement, you should recuse yourself as you did. On the other hand, if the scout really does rub you the wrong way, and you feel you can objectively evaluate him, in spite of your personal feelings, and the scout knows how you feel, you may lose a learning opportunity by being able to demonstrate to the scout how an adult can still be objective and fair in their evaluation, regardless of how they personally feel about an individual. However, you should recognize your refusal does not make the CCs job any easier, and now he has to find someone else. Maybe a small matter, maybe not. As advancement chair if I apporached a committee member about sitting on a BOR and they said, "Ah, not this time." without an explanation, I might display some frustration as well. At least you have plenty of snow this year! SA

"So, for Merlyn, and others of similar feelings; explain how the simple exposure of someone to the mention of God is somehow hurtful to you." I'm curious, would the phrase "and others" include those that find the phrase "Happy Holidays" somehow offensive. SA

"Overall, I agree with Eagledad. It's somethin' that a good troop is always workin' toward, and never quite getting to. Sometimes you gain ground, and then yeh just up the challenge and do more high adventure to keep 'em stretching. Then they all graduate and yeh have to scale back down a bit to where the next lad and the next group are at. " I agree as well, and on top of youth turnover, you have a constant supply of new parents coming in that don't understand the program. Some want to be very active and they are well intentioned, but unless they come into a troop with a very well run boy led program, they remain skeptical of the boy led concept, because they rarely see it run well. If there is adult leadership turnover, along with the youth(i.e. parents that move on when their sons do.) a unit probably never really gets there, as the adults turnover as well and the cycle starts again. We've had some discussion on how long it takes to turn a unit around and some have said anywhere from 3-5 years. (well me) I would say that's with a very motivated and good adult leader that is willing to spend the time with the youth leadership to coach them along and get them to do things, a rare person. As noted, they are not likely to "grab the bull by the horns so to speak". Why should they? In every other aspect of the lives, adults run the show, and that's their expectation. SA

We have not seen it in the unit I serve. I have heard of it and agree, it is not the kind of motivator I would like to see. So far I can honestly say, all the scouts that I have seen achieve Eagle in our unit have been internally motivated. Not that they didn't need a good nudge here and there, but it was something they wanted to achieve and for the most part, 90% have been very active scouts, serving as SPL, ASPL, working on camp staff, etc. Which is as it should be in my opinion. SA

"But he's a moderate Republican who was governor of Massachusetts." Well he was a moderate Republican when he was governor. Like I said, he has since changed his mind on a number of issues since he decided to run for President, and is now not nearly as moderate(or so he says) on some social issues as he has previously stated. SA

I'm suprised it took until Dec. 9 for an article on the alleged "War on Christmas". As far as I'm concerned the war started two weeks BEFORE Halloween, when I walked into the local big box hardware center, and the "Holiday" Decorations were up, along with all the "Holiday" stuff for sale. I was looking for grass seed to plant and it had been pulled from the shelves to make room for the the "Holiday" stuff. SA

Beavah has interpreted my request correctly. I used to get the single white MB cards and printed labels using the label feature in Troopmaster. However it was still a bit of a pain to transfer the labels to the cards and they still didn't quite fit. On my last trip to the council office they had 8x11 sheets of the cards with 8 cards on each sheet. I can print directly on the cards and if needed I can set up a template, I just thought someone out there may have already done that. Our council give the card free with the purchase of the MBs. I tell the boys to hang onto the cards because they are an official record of the award and can be used to confirm the award if they ever transfer or there is a conflict with their record at the council. This is especially important as our council is one of those that do not use the blue cards. SA(This message has been edited by scoutingagain)

"True, but at at least Republicans acknowledge that smaller government is a noble ideal(Though they often fail to achieve it). " So how is saying one thing and doing another considered noble? SA

Can someone direct me to link to a printer template in MSWord for the 8 card sheets of the white MB certificates, BSA form #33414? Thanks in advance. SA

I would talk to the District Advancement person, not to necessarily overturn your unit eagle advisor,(who I agree, is giving bad advice), but to re-calibrate him. Find out what other candidates are doing in your district that have been accepted and show how they compare in the level of effort and leadership required for your son's project. Your son's project would very likely fly in my district, provided as Beavah indicated, there's a bit more to it than putting together some pre-fabbed kits from the local big box hardware store. My son recently completed a project to repair storage shelves for the HS Band. Ran about 150 hours. Included efforts from band members, the HS shop teacher as well as scouts. Compared to other projects scouts in the town have done in terms of level of effort it fell in the middle, and probably in the lower half, but not by much. However, it was a highly visible project(Everyone in the HS new what it was for.) and turned virtually unusable space into needed storage space for the band. He got a lot of thanks from the band director, principal and bandmembers. I like projects for High Schools. It shows that your son is proud to be a scout and is willing to show his peers he will lead them in service to their school. It shows the schools scouts are out there and willing to help. Better than another trail to nowhere no one will ever hear about or use again. SA

"Not really talking out of both sides of his mouth. Rather pandering to both sides of the issue." Well he is running for President. I find it interesting that we have at least one Democratic candidate providing a relatively clear comment indicating they do not support the BSA's membership policies and I would hardly call Romney's statement as a ringing unequivical endorsement of BSA's policies. And this comming from one of the candidates that has staked out some of the more social conservative positions in the campaign. However keep in mind these statments were made when he was running for statewide office in Massachusetts. He has since changed his mind on a number of issues since he decided to run for President. Who knows what he would say if asked the same question in Iowa today. SA

I'm related to a former town councilman of a small town in upstate NY and some kind of village elder from a village in Slovakia. SA

We will eventually end up with some kind of government sponsored healthcare system. This is because big business wants out of the health insurance business. In the USA you have GM, GE and many other executives thinking about, how can we control health care costs to increase my bottom line to get our stock price up? In Japan and Europe the execs are thinking about what the next best car should look like or run on or what products to develop or how to make them better to increase sales to improve their bottom line to get their stock price up. At some point American businesses will go to the politicians they've paid for and say, " You need to help us out here. We can't compete against foriegn companies that don't provide health insurance." and they will. If a Republican is elected they just need to figure out a way to package it so it doesn't look like it was something Hillary Clinton thought up 10 years ago. If Hillary is elected they'll say, that was a great idea. Let the government be responsible for healthcare and we'll go back to making cars, or whatever. SA(This message has been edited by scoutingagain)

I agree with you Lisa. My point about the value of the study was more to support the conceptof the idea a study itself was of value, not necessarily this specific project, although I think it might. But as you say, we lack many of the specifics in this instance to know one way or the other. SA

I like Barry's answer. This sounds like an inquisitive scout experimenting a little. I'm sure he in no way considered his actions "arson". He's 11 maybe 12. Littering? I might talk to him about the outdoor code and leave no trace and take his belt just in case he might think of committing suicide for his crimes against humanity. There have been other cases... SA

Well, I'm with those that would like to see this as a potential project, provided the scout can demonstrate how the project will involve his leadership of others. But I confess I work for a consulting/engineering firm and we get paid to produce work "products" that consist of nothing but paper frequently. I think this project could qualify for Eagle provided it is framed the right way. Not all candidates need to build something for a project to be of service to the community. If the scout can get a $10,000 traffic study done for free, documenting either the need for a signal or a need for a part time crossing guard done, or no need at all, that's service and as others have noted there is opportunity for leadership here. I disagree with the notion a light has to be installed for the project to be completed. I regard the study itself as a product, but I've told you where I work. However, if I was advising this scout I might advise him that although his idea has merit and could be framed properly, he will need to be ready to explain to others, say at the District level, how this project meets the requirements for Eagle. As this thread has shown there is a good chance he could run into some resistance. Unless he's ready to fight that battle he might want to consider something less controversial and build a park bench. Especially if he's going to turn 18 within the next 12 months. SA