scoutingagain

OneHour, Just curious. What support did the school give your Pack that you will not get if you change charter organizations? There should be no reason you shouldn't be able to continue to meet at the school, unless the school doesn't allow any other group to meet there, or has restrictions on what types of groups can use the facilities. SA

Just posting an observation I had during the boy scout recruiting day we had in town recently. The two cub packs and two boy scout troops in town set up displays in the town center and had advertised the event in local papers. We built an observation tower with logs & lashings, there was a pinewood derby track, mock campsites, etc. all layed out in the middle of town. We didn't get many direct signups for Boys Scouts, but I understand the packs did pretty well. The Boy Scout stuff helped attract attention to the event. We could have probably signed up about a half dozen girls under the age of 14 if allowed. They all expressed an interest in camping, hiking and outdoor adventure. They were referred to the Girl Scout program in town and given the local leaders name and phone number. They were all very interested in the Venture program that starts at age 14. Based on what I've read in this forum and talking to these young ladies and there parents, it seems to me the GSUSA are not serving that segment of the female population that really wants outdoor activities and adventure. Some young women really do want outdoor adventure and the perception is that the GSUSA has a very limited outdoor program and does not do the type of camping activities the boys do. Just my observations during the recruiting event. SA

"it was pushed to the brink by the ACLU, and given a choice between allowing a gay public figure to also be a Scout leader or removing that man it was forced to choose with what it viewed as the moral choice." Tordog, as I understand it, the ACLU was not involved in this case until after the BSA revoked Mr. Dale's membership. I agree, the BSA was pushed to the brink, but it wasn't by the ACLU. SA

As an adult scouter, my limited experience with wearing the uniform in public, is that it is a magnet for moms of boys between the ages 6-17 and you get all the helpful advice you could ever want. SA

I know I'm late to the discussion but I have enjoyed reading it. Welcome to the fray, Gawin. I had forgotten what this thread was started on. The discussion as to what God knows and when he knows it versus the idea of free will seems, well, to me stretched at best. I agree with those that say we cannot know how God percieves things, what He/She knows. God is omnipotent and we are not. I must disagree with the idea that if God knows what we will do there cannot be free will. This presumes there in only one future to be known. There may be a million or billion or infinite number of possible futures based on the choices we make and God, being all knowing, knows each and everyone of them. We cannot even know our own future. We get to choose our path, but there is not just one possible destination in our lives that only God knows. There are an infinite number of possibilites based on the choices we make and God knows them all. We can barely grasp the concept of the infinite. It is just not possible to define the concept of a Perfect God, with the imperfect logic and perceptions of us mere mortals. Just my 2 cents. Carry on. SA

Wow. I have often thought one of the most popular venues at a summer camp would be the "Scoutmaster's Pub" if one could open one. Now I know one can go to England to find one! SA

As others have said..Wow. I really have nothing to add that hasn't been said. I just wanted to thank all that posted to this thought provoking thread, however it meandered, and to compliment all on their decorum in discussing a sensitive topic. SA

Thanks for the input gang. It's helped. SA

Miki, I stand corrected. I was in Westminster Abbey about 6 years ago when I noticed a group of British Scouts taking photos of a marker. I was curious since photos were not supposed to be allowed. I wandered over to see what they were taking a picture of and it was a marker for Baden Powell. Apparently the Scouts had gotten special permission to take pictures of the marker. I just assumed it was the real deal. Still, nice to know he was so honored. SA

In another thread there is an ongoing discussion about how limiting parental participation may be a recruiting issue. In the course of discussion it has been noted that all activities are open to parental observation, however OGE noted that a class 5 whitewater trip might not be for everyone. It has also been noted on some outings, i.e. Philmont, National Jamboree, that adult participation is limited. How does one limit adult participation without restricting a parents ability to observe? How would a concerned parent observe a Philmont crew? I'm wondering because I may have to provide an explanation to a grandparent that has indicated he wants attend a high adventure trip. He's not a registered leader but wants to attend with his grandson and I frankly have concerns about his physical ability to do the trip. This scout(15 yrs old) has not attended an outing without his father or grandfather present and his father, who is a registered adult, cannot attend this outing. We have not limited adult(parent)participation in the past. Suggestions? Thanks in advance gang. Sa

" his mother would have insisted that he be buried in Westminster Abbey with all of the other legends in British history." His mother must have insisted, because I do believe he is buried in "Westminster Abbey with all of the other legends in British history." Interesting discussion. SA

For the record, I would stay. I would not totally agree with everthing in the press release but on balance I would feel the program offers enough benefits to my son and other youth that I would stay involved at the local level. But that's the situation I'm in now. I don't totally agree with the National membership policy, but am willing to live with it for the sake of the overall benefits the program offers. SA

I tend to agree with OGE. You can't please everyone, and if no one else is willing to volunteer what can happen? If someone else wants to step up to the plate, you can split your den as you suggested. I would tell the Cubmaster your sorry to hear that feedback and if he could identify specific concerns you would be willing to review them to see if changes need to be made. If there's nothing specific, there's nothing you can do at this point. Keep up the good work and don't let those that would complain and not help out ruffle your feathers. SA

Acco and PackSaddle, If I read your posts correctly you would advocate that the BSA become a public institution teaching citizeship and the ideals of the constitution. What about the issues of faith and reverence as the BSA has historically included? ie. " Duty to God?" and " A Scout is Reverent" Where would these fit into a public scouting organization with membership open to a secular public? Are we willing to drop the religious aspects of scouting to be able to have special access to public facilities? Asking for the purposes of discussion. If scouting became a public insitution, how would it effect the current program? My own opinion is I would like to see units granted a local option rather than the whole organization be required to go one way or the other. Seems to me that would allow the government to sponsor some units and provide support to the overall organization while allowing other units their right of association with only those they wish to allow as members. For larger activities i.e. district, council and national events all units would be invited and some units with restricted membership requirements would have to decide if they wanted to partipate or not. This exists now with the issue of female leadership. Those units that do not allow women as leaders will have to participate with those units that do if they want to attend such events. Maybe some refuse to particpate because some units allow women to be leaders, I don't know. SA

Well welcome Dad Now, glad to have another Yankee onboard and I don't mean Yankee fan. I agree with DNET's post as well. No one is saying the BSA has done anything wrong here or is guilty. But the public image of the BSA has taken a pretty big hit and I believe it will effect fundraising at both the national level and the unit level, at least for the short term. It is also likely to effect near term recruting efforts. We had 9 Webelos cross over about a month ago. At our meeting this week we had 6 Moms show up to observe the meeting. Prior to this week, other than the adult leader that agreed to work with them as a New Scout Patrol, they seemed content to drop them off and pick them up. Our district has been gearing up for a spring recruiting event. Now imagine your the parent of a 5-8 year old boy, with no background in scouting. This week the only information your have on the BSA is headlines reading BSA OFFICIAL PLEADS GUILTY TO CHILD PORN CHARGE. Next week you see a poster that says COME SIGN UP FOR SCOUTS. Any one that doesn't think the events of the past week won't come back to that parent and they'll question whether or not this is an organization their son should be associated with is naive. Heck when I signed my own son up 9 years ago I had to convince my wife who had no background in scouting this was a safe thing to do. After multiple cases of registration misrepresenatation(fraud), other cases of child abuse, and now a national executive involved in child porn, some of us are beginning to wonder if there isn't just a little too much smoke to think we shouldn't check to see if there's a fire and I'll admit I don't know how one would do that. Like SNET said, the vast majority of Enron employees were good honest employees, the vast majority of Catholics are decent moral people however both institutions were significantly damaged by the actions of a few key leaders. I'd hate to see the same happen to the BSA. SA

Seems to me the parents have found a very good solution to address their concerns. If the policy has been explained to the parents correctly, seems to me you will end up with those scouts whose parents don't wish to be actively involved in the troop. This may make the short term logistics of outings easier, but long term it sounds like a plan for Troop extinction. I'd have to go along with the others and suggest this policy of limited participation be revisited. Challenge the parents with finding ways where all can be accomodated, or run more trips. Glad to hear the troop is so active, so there must be something going on to attract that kind of participation. I'm sorry to say the Troop I serve has not faced this problem. SA

This is a major embarrasment to the organization. I agree with the statements orennoah made. As a scout you not only represent yourself, but the organization as well. Mr. Smith let us all down big time. He may not be convicted of a crime yet, but as BW indicates he's reportedly pleaded guilty, and the press has release some pretty convincing information. JackO has a better chance of being aquitted than this guy. I was hoping this would stay within the print media, and internet but it made the morning news shows this morning. My son saw this and and just uttered an expletive. He's a proud scout in High School. He's not ashamed of his involvement in scouting and most of his friends know it. At one point I thought scouts would lose him to high school sports. He made the wrestling team and missed several scouting events. I went to one of his early matches and as he took off his warmup jacket to get ready for his match, he had a T-Shirt on over his one-piece wrestling uniform. That T-shirt? His Troop activity shirt! Boldly emblazened with the BSA logo and his unit's number. I couldn't have been prouder. This morning I saw the look on my son's face when he saw this report on the news. Mr. Smith hurt my son. He may have done it as a private citizen, simply employed by the BSA, but he hurt my son, me and the rest of us. SA

As far as I know, no one is talking about requiring individual units to accept gay members. Individual units are allowed to discriminate based on gender and religion so there's no reason they shouldn't be allowed to discriminate based on sexual preference as well. All most are asking, is that sexual preference be put in the same category as gender and religion, i.e. allow for a local option. So as a parent, you could choose to join a unit that allowed gay leaders to be members or not. So the proper question to ask is what would parents do if a charter was granted to another unit that did allow gay leaders? Would they quit the current troop that didn't? For the record I tend to agree with Prarie Scouter on the gay issue, but I have wondered about the question put forth by Anarchist as well. So, for the sake of discusion: As of July 1, 2004 there were an estimated 220 million adults over the age of 18 in the US. (From the US Census website.) Of those 1.2 million are adult volunteers in the BSA, or 0.6% (From the posted 2004 State of the BSA article). If 10% of the 220 million adults are gay, that gives an estimated gay adult population of 22 million. Assuming that gay adults would volunteer to be adult leaders at the same proportion as the general adult population, 0.6% this means the current BSA policy on gay membership effects approximately 132,000 people. (0.006 x 22 million). I believe this is a high estimate, because 1. The 10% figure often used as the proportion of gay people in the country is disputed and 2. I don't believe gays would volunteer at the same proportion as the general population only because I don't believe they have children in the same proportion as the general population and a large percentage of the 1.2 million adult volunteers I believe are parents. So my guess is the current BSA policy on gay membership effects less than 100,000 adults, or < 0.045% of the adult population. Doesn't make it right, or wrong, it just doesn't effect a large percentage of the population. So, if some units within the BSA were to open it's doors to gay members as adult leaders, I'm not expecting a hugh rush of applicants. There would also be those units that would be allowed to continue to discriminate based on sexual preference, so I don't think it would effect the membership of the troop I serve or much of the BSA one way or the other. SA

Way to go! Congradulations to you and your son. SA

"A few unit commanders after the fact said they wanted more troops, but the top brass who are the professionals had everything they asked for prior to the military action. " Sorry Torveaux, with all due respect, you'll need verifiable sources to support that statement as well. I recall a certain high ranking General being asked to resign shortly after testifying to Congress BEFORE the war that we would need several hundred thousand troops and likely be Iraq for several years. Other high ranking military leaders have expressed concerns regarding the level of planning and resources allocated for the war. Sorry I don't have time to search for quotes. There was clear dissagreement. in my mind, among military leadership as to what it would take to prosecute the war. Even the current administration has admitted they underestimated the strength of the current insurgency. Is Iraq a success? Militarily you'd have to say yes, at least with respect to the initial invasion. As far as the occupation goes, it appears it's getting there. Yes our military is doing great things in Iraq and there seems to be some credence to the concept that the invasion and overthrow of Saddam is having an effect on other regimes in the area i.e. Lebanon, elections in Saudia Arabia. That's all good and hopefully Iraq will eventually have a peaceful democratice government and I'm happy for the people of Iraq. But, it's not the reason we were told we should enter into a pre-emptive war. THERE WERE NO WMD! Period. I will provide documentation for that statement. Please read the following statements from the President's Iraq Survey Group (not a liberal op ed piece.) "Key Findings from the Iraq Survey Group Final Report Iraq Survey Group (ISG) discovered further evidence of the maturity and significance of the pre-1991 Iraqi Nuclear Program but found that Iraqs ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after that date. Saddam Husayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG FOUND NO EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST CONCERTED EFFORTS TO RESTART THE PROGRAM. Although Saddam clearly assigned a high value to the nuclear progress and talent that had been developed up to the 1991 war, the program ended and the intellectual capital decayed in the succeeding years. While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. THERE ARE NO CREDIBLE INDICATIONS THAT BAGHDAD RESUMED PRODUCTION OF CHEMICAL MUNITIONS THEREAFTER, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdads desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered IN PRACTICAL TERMS, WITH THE DESTRUCTION OF THE AL HAKAM FACILITY, IRAQ ABANDONED ITS AMBITION TO OBTAIN ADVANCED BW WEAPONS QUICKLY. ISG FOUND NO DIRECT EVIDENCE THAT IRAQ, AFTER 1996, HAD PLANS FOR A NEW BW PROGRAM or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes. Indeed, from the mid-1990s, despite evidence of continuing interest in nuclear and chemical weapons, there appears to be a complete absence of discussion or even interest in BW at the Presidential level" What else would it take to convince folks there were no WMD? There was no emminent threat to the US from Iraq. At best we were mis-lead, either deliberately or through incompetence, at worst we were lied to. I don't know which. The question is under what circumstance are we as a nation willing to sacrifice sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fellow citizens? Because when we choose to go to war that's what we're asking folks to do. So far over 1,500. So if there were no WMD, was freeing the Iraqi people worth it? If so, what's the next country to we want to liberate and how many American lives should be sacrificed for their freedom, and the country after that? Syria, North Korea? Is the purpose of our military and their lives to free the world from inhuman dictators or protect the American people? I only agree with the author of the original article on one point and one point only. Our military deserves an apology. Other than that, I have no respect for the author's actions. Our military personnel are too good, too noble to be used they way they have been in Iraq. And I do thank them for doing what they do. Volunteering to defend us. Unfortunately we are now committed to keeping them in Iraq until that country can take care of itself. We can't just pick up and leave. SA

"...it certainly creates fresh new ground for lawsuits, if nothing else. " If that's the case, perhaps the bill should be renamed the Save our Scouts and Employ Our Constitutional Lawyers Act. SA

I've mentioned this before but I guess this thread allows me to make the observation again. Now I'm all for a full uniform and do what I can to encourage it. However, based on observation, it appears to be the uniform pants are not widely accepted. I don't know if that is a truth or a fact, it is my observation. We may whine and complain uselessly on this forum but many others have made their opinion known by not buying or wearing the pants. I was recently at a District MBU. Over 300 scouts and probably 50 - 75 adult leaders. While almost all were wearing an official uniform shirt, less than half, including adult leaders, were wearing uniform pants. How many times to you see pictures of scouts & scouters in either Boy's Life or Scouter magazine not wearing uniform pants? Now if those that have anything to do with the uniform don't read this forum, perhaps they might observe a large gathering of scouts and scouters and take a look at all the potential lost revenue from those scouts and scouters that have made a choice not to buy the pants. Now to tie this to another thread. This just isn't a big enough issue for me to spend much more time or effort on other than to at least wear my pants. SA

PrairieScouter, The BSA doesn't say that those who don't believe in God can't be good citizens. I believe the wording is more like to be the "best" kind of citizen requires a belief in God and doing one's best is fully consistent with the scout oath. I think you will see a change on the issue of gay leadership long before there is a change, if ever, on the issue of religion. SA

"I do plan on stepping back and letting my son find his place. But I also plan on knowing as much as I can to encourage and protect him. I do not want to do it for him, I get more satisfaction when he does things for himself. " " I'm not part of the program, just a parent who is willing to do whatever is needed. " kittle, Good to hear from you. So far you've gotten good advice so I won't add to it. But based on the two statements above, it seems to me you have the makings of a great scout parent. Good luck to you and your son. SA

As advancement chair, MB counselor and DAD I basically take the same approach. I will act as counselor for my own son, only when the MB involves a small group of scouts, and whenever possible hand him off to another adult for the purposes of confirming requirements, as indicated, demonstrate, show, discuss, explain, etc. The other counselors involved with the Troop with sons, accept this approach as well. I've never had a parent ask if they can act as a counselor for their own son. I have, on occasion, asked for documentation from a parent that their son has done a specific requirement, such as visit a government facitliy, or talk to a lawyer, visit an airport or some other activity the an individual scout has missed with a group and has had to make up on their own. SA