ScoutNut

>>"I would be willing to participate in family therapy, but my son will not, so there is nothing I can do about that."

Lone Scouts have been around much longer than you, or your father. According to BSA's Lone Scout Fact Sheet, Lone Scouting was started in 1915 by William D. Boyce. **AS A SIDE NOTE** The Lone Scout program is just as susceptible to helicopter parents as is any other BSA program.

Given all that BSA has gone thru lately in the area of youth protection, they tend to now not mess around with these types of allegations. Unless an allegation can be PROVED false, BSA will likely err on the side of caution, and youth safety, and remove the member from it's ranks permanently. Good luck with the review by National, but I would not, realistically, expect to be reinstated.

>>"should scout leaders assist the child in obtaining the eagle without his parents' knowledge, or should they insist that the boy at least inform his parents of what he is doing?">"there is also a question of their legal right to assist someone else's child in an eagle project without his parent's knowledge and consent. It might have involved the use of potentially dangerous equipment; if harm had come to him or someone helping him on the project, we would have been liable."

It seems that this post is basically a means for you to vent, and/or get support that the SM and his wife wronged you. I am sorry about what you are going thru mbscoutmom. I can understand that you are upset. It is obvious that you and your oldest son have had issues for a while. You state he is adopted (legally, or a foster child?). This can add to the problems. Is he the son on medication for a mood disorder? This can also be a big stress on a family. Your son is now 18, and legally an adult. His Scouting career, and if he did, or did not, deserve Eagle is now water under the bridge as they say. I suggest that you back off from attacking the SM, his wife, and your oldest son. Give him the space he obviously needs. If your son was still a minor, I would suggest that you take him to counseling. I strongly suggest now that your family (you, husband, and other 3 kids) go to Family Counseling to work thru what is happening. Good luck.

>>"This was reported to CPS, but no action was taken because it supposedly happened three years ago.">"Since there was no investigation, I have not been able to get anything in writing from CPS."

Taserdoc - You keep bringing up that the main problem you have is that the Council never investigated the incidents at all, and that the Scouts, and their parents, were never interviewed. Yet you state that complaints were filed with the Council. How can complaints be filed without speaking to anyone at the Council? "Hypothetically" someone was "interviewed" at the initial complaint filing. Are you assuming "hypothetically" that the Council did not investigate the incidents at all? Because "hypothetically" (and actually) unless you are the SE, or another Council employee who would be in a position to be allowed access to confidential, sensitive, matters such as this, you would have no way of knowing what was, or was not, done by Council. This is not something that is typically announced to the public. "Hypothetically" whether the Scouts stretched the truth, the parents overreacted, or everything in all of the complaints against all of the SMs, in all of the different Troops, was completely accurate, it makes no difference. It was determined by the SE that the complaints were not of a type that required any of the SMs involved to lose their membership, or to pass the complaints along to the local authorities. That at one point you changed your "hypothetical" to include the "hypothetical fact" that the SMs all threatened to sue (Council? BSA? the families? all of the above?) says to me that there were, "hypothetically", some questions about the complaints. "Hypothetically", if I felt that the complaints had merit and there was evidence of actual child abuse, I would counsel the families to go to the local authorities.(This message has been edited by Scoutnut)

Page 4 of the Current BSA Adult Application, available online, or at your local Council offices - "Disclosure/Authorization Form NOTICE TO APPLICANT REGARDING BACKGROUND CHECK In order to safeguard the youth in our care, the Boy Scouts of America will procure consumer reports on you in connection with your application to serve as a volunteer, and the Boy Scouts of America may procure additional consumer reports at any time during your service as a volunteer in order to evaluate your continued suitability for volunteer service. The Boy Scouts of America has contracted with ChoicePoint, a consumer reporting agency, to provide the consumer reports. ChoicePoint may be contacted by mail at ChoicePoint, 1000 Alderman Drive, Alpharetta, GA 30005 or by telephone at 800-845-6004. The consumer reports may contain information bearing on your character, general reputation, personal characteristics, and mode of living. The types of information that may be obtained include but are not limited to Social Security number verification, sex offender registry checks, criminal records checks, inmate records searches, and court records checks. The information contained in these consumer reports may be obtained by ChoicePoint from public record sources. The consumer reports will not include credit record checks or motor vehicle record checks. The nature and scope of the consumer reports are described above. Nonetheless, you are entitled to request a complete and accurate disclosure of the nature and scope of such reports by submitting a written request to ChoicePoint at the address listed above. Additional notices for applicants in California, New York, Minnesota, and Oklahoma are provided. APPLICANTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND AUTHORIZATION I have carefully read this notice and authorization form and I hereby authorize the Boy Scouts of America and ChoicePoint to procure a consumer report, which as described above will include information relating to my criminal history as received from reporting agencies. I understand that this information will be used to determine my eligibility for a volunteer position with the Boy Scouts of America. I also understand that as long as I remain a volunteer, additional consumer reports may be procured at any time. I understand that if the Boy Scouts of America chooses not to accept my application or to revoke my membership based on information contained in a consumer report, I will receive a summary of my rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and contact information for the reporting agency, ChoicePoint. My signature below indicates that I have read, understand, and accept the accompanying disclosures and acknowledgments." The above information has been on the applications for a number of years now. For quite a while after National started the background checks they were only doing NEW applicants, with current members being "grandfathered" in. This can be why some have noted they knew members who were felons. A few years back BSA sent out a notice to ALL members stating that they were required to give their SSN, and approval for a background check to be run, or their membership would be dropped. All "grandfathered" members were either background checked, or dropped at that time.

It seems that your Charter Org(CO) has decided to keep the CC on. Are you sure that it was not the CO that requested that the BSA's Pack meeting plans be followed?

This should have been taken up with his parents long ago, not the Troop Committee. Talk to his parents immediately.

Based on the lack of more explicit "hypothetical" information, Beavah's summary sounds about right to me. If you want more helpful answers you need to drop the "hypothetical" and give us the actual facts.

Having a Scout wait 1 month to receive an award is WAY different from having them wait 3-6 months or longer. Instant recognition is a good motivator for all levels in life. When you do something good at work, don't you like to get a recognition of that from your boss? Doesn't a bit of recognition of your work make you work harder?

Get to know the folks in your Scout Shop so that they will know that you follow thru. When you call, don't just ask "how many". Ask if they can hold the specific number of badges that you need on the side for Mrs Engineer from Troop 1234 for the next two hours until you can get there. I never had a problem when doing this with either a council, or National, owned Scout Shop.

"Actual rank "awards" for rank and MB's are given out only at the CoH's. This keeps the number of trips to the Scoutshop down to a minimum...my wife's other job. A lot of times, the local Scoutshop will only stock the fringe badges one the need is shown in the system." If no one wants to go to the Scout Shop more than two to four times per year (for COHs) stock up on the recognition cards. These can be given out to the Scouts at the meeting directly after they are earned. Your wife should be entering all information on completed requirements/awards/merit badges/etc in Troopmaster on an ongoing basis (weekly). Then when COH time rolls around there is no question about what who is getting what badges. "Fringe" merit badges can be ordered with a simple phone call to your Scout Shop, or a visit to a National owned Shop which will usually stock some of all of the merit badges. As for BOR information. Only turning in Advancement forms to your council for completed BOR rank advancement 2-4 times per year is just asking for complications in council record keeping. Not to mention that it is really unfair to the boys who might actually like to wear one rank badge before it is replaced by the next.

LDS churches use BSA as a part of their Aaronic Priesthood Young Men's program. Girls go into the LDS Young Women's program. They do not use Scouting in any way in this program. Is it fun? For LDS Young Women, I suppose it might be. At least as much fun as any religious instruction program is.

As I said - silly stuff. Catholic parishes can't "oust" Girl Scout Troops because they do not own them, and have no control over them. Unlike BSA, GSUSA does not utilize Charter Organizations. GSUSA Troops/Groups are "owned" by their local councils. If the girls meet on parish property (many GSUSA Troops meet in leaders homes), they CAN tell them that they are no longer welcome to use their facilities. However - if the Troops consist of girls registered in the parish school they are taking a big chance that they will be shooting themselves in their own foot when it came to parental (and youth) support for the school/parish in both money and service. LDS churches do not utilize GSUSA as they do BSA. They separate their boys and girls programs (Venturing Crews are boys only), and have have their own youth program for their girl members.

Nothing new here. This kind of silly stuff has been going around for years. Folks believe, what they want, and invent stuff to back it up.

From the BSA Insignia Guide - "The Boy Scouts of America recognizes the religious emblems program, which belongs to each faith group. Anyone (youth or adult) who, as a member of another youth agency (e.g., Girl Scouts of the USA, Campfire Boys and Girls, a Sunday School class, etc.), has earned the religious emblem of their faith is eligible to wear the approved religious emblem on their respective uniform." Note that this would include female leaders, and Venturers in the anyone(youth or adult).

Tiger Elective #21 - Make a puppet All kinds of ways to make puppets. The Tigers have fun and let their creative juices flow! For those that are not so creative there are fun puppet templates online. Simply print, and copy, a bunch of different ones. The boys color them in, cut them out, and paste them on.

GP1971 states - >>"I bought the Light of Christ book for my boy and it's bilingual. Why does it have to be this way?"

The silver square knot on purple background may be worn by ANY youth OR adult who earned the religious emblem of their faith as a youth, in ANY youth organization. Only ONE square knot is worn no matter how many religious emblems were earned. A BSA square knot device (teeny, tiny, pin) is worn on the knot to designate the level(s) a religious emblem was earned in. So, to answer the OP - YES, a Boy Scout can transfer his religious emblem square knot from his Cub Scout to his Boy Scout uniform even if he never earns a religious emblem as a Boy Scout.

We do not use a single, all district EBOR. We also do not have EBOR's do both BOR's and project approval. Council/district approval is done by ONE member of the District Advancement Committee. This is often the same person who is the Scout's Eagle Coach. EBOR's only have to have ONE member of the District Advancement Committee on them. The rest can be members of the unit Committee, and members of the community. Having only one, single, set of individuals who do all project approvals and BOR's would slow the entire process down to a crawl.

In my opinion, if Billy is working at a personal job, then the money earned is his to do with as he wishes. If he wishes to donate all/part of it to his (or someone else's) Eagle project, that is his personal call. Any money he donates to an Eagle project becomes the property of the organization benefiting from the Eagle project. Any time Billy does a fundraising project, that is expressly for funding his Eagle project (noted on a sign or by word of mouth), that money then belongs to the ESLP benefiting organization, and not to Billy. Scout account money is a lot fuzzier. The Troop carwash was advertised to benefit the Troop. That money is not Billy's. It belongs to the Troop, and the Troop's Charter Organization. If the Troop decides to allow some of the Troop money to be used for Billy's Eagle project, fine. However it is the Troop's decision, not Billy's. Edited to add that if Billy is funding all of the cost himself, and has a cost of $500 in his budget, then he is donating $500 to the benefiting organization. If he stipulates in his paperwork that he is donating only the ACTUAL cost, and the $500 is only an estimate, than I would have no problem if he donated only the actual cost of $450.(This message has been edited by Scoutnut)

I am a bit confused. Did the Scout complete his project (and all other Eagle requirements), and then get shot down by the EBOR for the project not having enough hours? Or Did the Scout only do research for his project, and get his plan approved, but not actually finish the project itself? If the first, this is not an extension issue. This is an appeal issue based on the council changing requirements. If the second, how did the Scout get to an EBOR without having a completed project? If there was no completed project, and he is now over 18, I doubt that the excuse of not being able to get council project approval in time to complete the project before his 18 b-day would be enough to get an extension. However, if he really wants to try he should go for it. Extensions are granted by National, not the local council.

rhol, I do not understand why you feel that you are being personally persecuted because you were not chosen as one of the leaders to go to Jambo. Yes, you are highly trained, and volunteer a lot of your time (which I am sure your council/district appreciates), but you DO understand that you are NOT the only Scouter in your entire council that can be said of, don't you? You do understand that your council most likely had a LOT (could be hundreds) of applications for just ONE Jambo slot? The fact that you have a son who you will not allow to go to Jambo without you has no bearing at all on your qualifications for the ONE open Jambo position. The fact that you will not allow your son to go to Jambo is YOUR decision, NOT the council's.