sherminator505

Here's my feeling: At a roundtable? Of course! At a troop committee meeting? Yes. At a regular COH? Maybe, but don't get your hopes up for an overwhelming response. At a ECOH? No. It's the Eagle's night. As I said before, that would be crass.

Nice thought, but I'd be pleasantly shocked...

Nice thought, but I'd be pleasantly shocked...

Um, wasn't this thread about Bob and his dog-and-pony show?

Okay, I watched the speech. Mr. Mazzuca doesn't seem like the archenemy to Scouting that some in this forum would like to portray him as. That said, there were a couple of things that hit me as being a little odd. The first was his emphasis on how Scouting influenced communities while seemingly downplaying the influence Scouting had on the individual boys. That is the root of what we do, and he really didn't seem to have a grasp of the situation in those terms. The second was his emphasis on "embracing technology." While this is certainly relevant to Scouting today, it should not preclude teaching the boys about how to do without the technological doo-dads. Recently we had a real-life experience with this when we had a gas shortage. Parts of the state experienced rolling blackouts while others were without natural gas for up to a week. A few questions came to mind: Did we have water? Did we have a way of cooking food if we lost our gas service? Did we have firewood for that happenstance? I was able to come up with answers to those questions because as a Scout I was put into a situation where I had to think about those exact things. So it may be true that Scouts don't need to worry so much about chasing runaway horses or know how to build log cabins, just as it is true that they now know better than to ditch their tents because of the environmental damage that practice causes. But they do need to have some sense of self-reliance and some ability to think in changing conditions that the unprepared might regard as a crisis, and I think we do our Scouts a disservice if we fail to teach that.

?!

Crass.

In the interest of stopping another thread hijacking, I would like to pose a different question - Does your council have experience with supporting rural Scouting, and if so, how does the council support it?(This message has been edited by sherminator505)

It's possible that more representation would help, but in this case geography created (and continues to create) problems, as the council office was a three-hour drive away. The big council that the district merged with in the '70s had an office that was even farther away; however, they had a healthier attitude toward serving far-flung districts (with field offices and such), and I believe that is what made a difference.

bacchus, One of the things you have to realize about my neck of the woods is that the populations are sparse and the land areas large. In my experience, the "local" council has typically been a mass of well-populated districts in a single metropolitan hub, with a few other surrounding districts that encompass fairly large geographical areas with several counties and scarcely more than a handful of units in each district. It is in this context that problems with the "disliked" council originated, as it seemed to many in the district that the council became myopic in its local focus and scarcely acknowledged that Scouting was happening outside the metropolitan hub. The small council that was formed consisted of several rural districts that at the time were in mining country. When the mining economy fell off in the late 1970's, the council was no longer self-supporting, and so it merged with a larger council that dealt with rural districts more effectively. Then that council was merged with yet another council, and the district was effectively "spun off" back from whence it came, to the myopic council. I hope this helps your understanding. (This message has been edited by sherminator505)

Well, the District that I was a Scout in was in a Council it didn't like, so it seceded with a couple of other districts to form its own little council that was fed by mining money. That is, until the mining money dried up, and it was forced to merge into another council. This arrangement lasted another couple of decades until that council merged with yet another council and became too big, whereupon the district was "encouraged" to move back to the council they didn't like. Good luck!

I have a question. Since it appears that WB21C has become a de facto requirement in exercising leadership in today's BSA, what was it about the older Wood Badge that was deemed inadequate for exercising such leadership?

I can't argue with your sentiment. Most of the "newbies" that come to this forum are genuinely interested in getting their qiestion. Unfortunately, they sometimes do not like the answer that they get, regardless of how delicately or diplomatically it is put to them. So some of us tend to simply get to the point, and sometimes this comes across as abrupt and perhaps even a little rude. This is usually not intentional. I confess that I am guilty of taking occasional body shots at a few of the regular posters who get up on their high horses from time to time (y'all know who you are).(This message has been edited by sherminator505)

Some observations: * Five merit badges over the course of a weekend does seem a bit excessive. To do this, a Scout would have either had to do quite a bit of prep work beforehand, or would have had a lot of pencil-whipping done on his behalf. At summer camp, maybe. Over a weekend, no. * Interesting comments by Kudu on the Citizenship merit badges, considering that those merit badges and their precursor, Civics, have been on the required MB list for Eagle for many, many years. * I'm not philosophically opposed to the idea of a 14-year-old Eagle, but I wonder if a Scout who went through that quickly really got the full benefit of the program.

"At first I thought Cindy Lauper had come out of retirement to sing..." Hey, there! I think Cyndi Lauper would have done a much better job, thank you very much!

Sometimes the line between Boy Scouts and Venturing gets blurred. Then again, what do you expect when Boy Scouting has become what older Cubbing used to be, Venturing has become what Boy Scouting used to be, and a large number of Scouters are either running oversized Lions' Dens or Rovering?

Yes, I too am chagrined. I would have expected better from someone who is both an American and a professional singer. Still, I have a couple of questions: 1) What does this say about the awareness of American heritage in our youth? 2) As it is Tuesday morning and we're still hearing about this in the media, I have to ask - what are they expecting us to ignore?

Thanks for the responses, guys, but I really wanted to hear more from the nobleman on the shining white steed who is talking down to us...

Wisdom? Please, elaborate.

Whoops. Missed the athiest part (Wow, that touched off a firestorm...). My bad. Carry on.

The rest of y'all already know how I feel about this topic and why. Tuoc, I'm sorry you feel like you have to hide. Hopefully it won't be for too much longer.

"Does your council hand out pamphlets on every group BSA has some sort of agreement with?" On its face, I don't disagree with this sentiment. However, I think it points to a deeper problem. How does the BSA benefit from entering partnerships? How does the other group benefit? Are resources being shared, or is the extent of the partnership to lend each other moral support and encouragement? Truly, if these partnerships are meant to being mutually beneficial, then why haven't I heard about AHG anywhere outside this forum, and why is there no evidence that this partnership has had any effect on the BSA whatsoever even within this forum? In short, what's the point?

Well, it's apparent that this kid messed up! The upside to this is that it happened at a very teachable moment, and he didn't kill himself or anyone else. Still, he will face some legal consequences for this. The question is, should it cost him Eagle? Well, let's look at what this kid's consequences would be at school. If the kid was in sports, he'd probably get kicked off the team. And if NHS was a possibility for the boy, it probably wouldn't happen right now. That said, the kid would probably start off the next school year with a clean slate. I think that whether or not he makes Eagle should depend on what he does next. Does he face up to this and handle it right? More importantly, does he learn something from this? This question will undoubtedly come up at a potential EBOR, and I would expect his references to be thoroughly checked out. In my opinion, this Scout's chances of making Eagle are diminished, and he has a lot of work to do. But I think it's a bit too soon to say "no way, no how!"

Understanding Captain Kirk is easy. You just need to slow your brain down to keep from daydreaming!

If carry on a conversation using Yoda's voice and syntax you can, a Star Wars geek you may be, hmm?(This message has been edited by sherminator505)