silasm

Jtex1234... This is preventing you from planning for the Blue & Gold Banquet??? Do you have a line of gay parents just waiting for the decision so they can volunteer? (Willing volunteers? Send 'em my way!) Or are you worried that some of your more mature Webelos may have a surprise for you? We'll probably lose a few units over this (American Heritage Boys?) The units whose CO has no problem with gays will be happy, and the units chartered by the more conservative churches can still set their own membership policy. As it should be, IMHO. The only down side I see, is that chartered orgs can't point to the National policy any more and may have to defend their own policies, legally and otherwise. I'm curious to see where our CO is going to come down on this. It's a Christian church, but we have some Islamic and Jewish scouts, so they don't exactly have restrictive membership policies.

This made the agenda at the next Committee Meeting? I must say that if I were called on the carpet at a Committee Meeting, or in any conversation rather than (maybe) a one-on-one discussion with the CM or CC, I would apologize for being untrustworthy and ask that that be conveyed to you. And I would reassure those present that I would avoid the situation in the future by never offering transportation to Scouts other than my own children.

I stand corrected about BALOO being required for Webelos camping. I certainly agree with Scoutfish that it doesn't add any value to Webelos Den camping, but I thought it was required nonetheless. It certainly wouldn't be the only BSA-required training that didn't add any value... Our council hasn't even offer OWL in the six years I have been with the Pack. Our Pack is blessed with plenty of experienced outdoorsmen, but it would be nice to have confirmation that we are doing it "right".

You said about half the boys have gone to a neighboring Troop? Then it seems reasonable to camp with both Troop and let the boys decide what they like. Tell the parents "I will be attending the outing with the other Troop, but now with 'our' Troop because they do not allow women on campouts." You are wrong, though, that a parent needs to accompany a Webelos on overnights. Webelos are allowed to Den camp without their parents. HOWEVER, someone must have BALOO training. You might want to warn "your" Troop that someone there will need to take BALOO if you (or another BALOO-trained Scouter) are not welcome to attend.

When I am hiring, having Eagle Scout on your resume will get a marginal candidate an interview. I won't ask about it in the interview, and the person hired for the position will be the most qualified; he will have to convince me that he is the best candidate for the job based on relevant skills. But when I have a stack of 10 resumes and I have to pick 3-5 to interview, there are always one or two that are on the bubble. Eagle Scout will help get you in front of my desk to present your merits. Edit: "Merits". No pun intended. So far, that has only led to one hire who probably would not have been interviewed otherwise. This was before I was (re-)involved in Scouting myself. That has worked out well for him, me, the company and the customer.(This message has been edited by silasm)

That's a military standard, Woapalanne. The section of US Code that permits a flag to be worn by "patriotic organizations", 36 USC 176j, doesn't specify which way the flag should face. So BSA (and, I believe, some other civilian organizations) applied the rule from 175i-- that the union should be to the flags right/observers left. The military is entitled (by 178, at the direction of the Commander in Chief) to establish variances from 36 USC. The US Army does this in Army Regulation 670-1, and I assume the other services have similar regulations. But those do not apply to civilians. Essentially, the BSA flag direction is not wrong for a civilian, but the "blue forward" flag might also be correct. I cut and paste most of this from a discussion I had with a well-meaning parent in our Pack. I offered him the opportunity to discuss the difference with our Cubs and help with the color guard and everyone went away happy. (Edit: Pardon my citations. I'm no lawyer, but I did want to address this veteran parent's issue with authority.)(This message has been edited by silasm)

Their database is bad, bad, bad. If I search by my login, I find all of my records-- both offline and online-- except for my Woodbadge. If I do "advanced search" by my last name, town and state my WIFE'S records come up, but with my first and last names at the top. If I search by her full name, nothing comes up. So either their search is broken, or their are two sets of records linked to my name and none to hers. This is the sort of things that is going to cause real grief when training is required for recharter. Heck, it may even be a problem this year if the database doesn't have her down for YPT.

Thanks Eagle92 and Kudu for the links. From the video, National wants to recruit 100,000 new Scouts who a) don't want to camp and b) are going to be accompanied by their families on their activities. In other word, 100,000 new Scouts who don't want to be Scouts. Which is fine by me, I guess, as long as they don't mess with MY program.

Eagle92, I don't doubt your accuracy, but do you have a cite for the CSE's statements? I would like to read them in context. Thanks.

Note that this thread had been sleeping for a year and a half before Cyed's post. Then note that his post simply restates the subject, tacks on a few words of praise and a URL. This is just a spammer who is gaming Google's search engines by having as many links to their site as possible to make their search show up higher in the listings. I searched for that company name and found that they have been doing that quite a bit. My favorite is this one; read the last comment. http://www.qbn.com/topics/570998/ I suggest a moderator delete the post, or at least edit out the URL so we aren't helping these goons. Their business ethics are clearly Made in China.(This message has been edited by silasm)

Good point, that people might think they need the new one. Sneaky devils, them National Supply folks!

I've got both the good ol' Webelos Leaders's Guide and the new and shiny Den and Pack Meeting Resource Guide in front of me here. Although there are a few minor conflicts between them (for example, the "suggested schedule" in the WLG does not match the order in the D&PMRG), the new book does not obsolete the old one. They are nicely complementary. So the old book remains, as part of the new delivery model. This kinda makes sense since the Webelos program already focused on advancement in the Den Meetings and so doesn't change nearly as much as the Tiger, Wolf and Bear programs. Scoutfish, I'm not sure why you seem disappointed to find out that the version you bought is not, in fact, obsolete!

Er, that should read "Tiger Cub Scout", that was not intended as a slur on their size.

New, bigger Cub Scout Leader and Tiger Sub Scout Leader neckerchiefs are up on Scoutstuff now. The Webelos and Webelos Leader neckerchiefs are still conspicuously absent.

Double-stake each loop. That means, put two stakes in each loop, slanted in different directions. Plus, as you said, tie out each attachment point. It's probably not going to blow away, with your family weighting it down. A bigger concern is poles snapping, but our cheap Taj Mahal style family tent has survived 15-20mph winds with no problem. Come Sunday, you will be laughing at the adventure.

The paper version has also been up on scoutstuff.org for at least 3 days, because that is how long my order for it has been sitting in "picking" status. I'm not sure what that means, I guess they grow them on trees.

I agree! Video gaming is not scouting! Neither is Stamp Collecting, Dentistry, Golf or Plumbing-- yet each of those are merit badges. Scouting can acknowledge achievement and/or interest in areas other than Camping, Hiking, Citizenship and First Aid (etc.) without doing either the youth or the program a disservice. I guess the issue is that people don't want to see Scouting legitimize an activity that either they consider unhealthy or that kids don't need any encouragement to pursue. How do you feel about the Marbles belt loop? It makes about as much sense.

Any word on when the new Webelos neckers are coming out? Some of our parents will be heading out soon to buy them before summer camp.

I like the "salute the Cubmaster and then the Scoutmaster" thing. I will be adding that to our ceremony!

The ones in the Winter 2009 Catalog have "Colonial Prov.R.I. USA" stamped on them. I can live with cheap handles if they have good steel and, ideally, come from either Rhode Island or Alabama! Some things I am fine buying from China, knives are not among those things.(This message has been edited by silasm)

Must be old pictures in the catalog, then. You can see "USA" stamped on the blade. At least the lockback Cub Scout knife is made in the US, and is designed a lot like the aforementioned Buck 110. I think that is the one I will recommend to my Den parents. I'm trying to get my hands on a Camillus-era Boy Scout Whittler for myself...

Has the "official" Cub Scout knife changed? The old knife with the blue stocks and brass side locks for the tools no longer shows up under Camping/Knives on scoustuff.org. The Cub Scout Utility knife is also missing. Both show up when I do a search for "knife", but are "not available for purchase from Scoutstuff.org at this time" when I click on them. Is this an out-of-stock issue, or does this indicate a change? I DO see a new silver, single blade Cub Scout lockback knife. Personally, I prefer a lockback knife for safety, so I approve. (And let us not debate that here!) To muddy things a little more... the printed "Winter/Gift 2009" catalog shows all three of these knives (p.26). Better yet, if you look close you will see that all three models shown are made in the USA. Are these old pictures, or have they switched back from having these made in China? Has anyone got the true scoop? This is more than a hypothetical question for me; my Bears are going to start working on their Whittlin' Chip in January, so I an telling the parents that a pocket knife would be a good Christmas present. After looking at the build quality, I couldn't recommend the Chinese-made Official Cub Scout knife to them. So any changes for the better are welcome.

"Part of the lesson of the game was to try to get across that each 'patrol' (could be any subgroup in any organization) is just part of a larger organization. When the different groups within a larger org are competing with one another (or in-fighting) the WHOLE org loses." Yeah, I get that. To a anyone familiar with the concepts of a non-zero-sum game and the Prisoner's Dilemma, it was immediately obvious the outcome that was hoped for. I was expecting (and looking forward to) a discussion of how groups can establish trust in the absence of adequate communication or about optimizing group benefit by looking at the "bigger picture". The staffer leading the game had us recite the Scout Oath and Law before the last round. Is that meant to imply that playing to win for our patrol was inconsistent with Scouting ethics? Were we supposed to feel bad for assuming that this was another patrol competition, when they had been encouraging patrol competition all day? That seems like training a puppy to roll over and then punishing when he starts to obey! There could have been valid discussion about "trust" or "identifying what the 'you' in 'Win all you can' meant" or "the virtues of cooperation versus competition". Instead, we discussed how the game made us feel. Well... it made a lot of people feel like the above mentioned puppy. We were trying to please our leaders by doing what we had been trained to do... and then had our noses rubbed in it. Unlike John-in-KC, I don't necessarily think the game needs to be scrapped but I think the right lessons need to be derived from it. I'm not sure if it was a failure in leadership or a failure in the curriculum. Or, I guess it could be a failure on my part to "get it"; maybe the rest of the troop came away with a valuable lesson. I just came away from that session disappointed.

We did a debrief in my course, but I wasn't a fan of the direction it took. Rather then the lessons that REALLY WERE relevant to this type of game: "How do you establish trust and cooperation between competing groups?" "How is the Scouting organization or ANY non-profit organization different from for-profit business"? Instead, the discussion was focused on the Scout Oath and Law and how the competition made us feel. But it was an inter-patrol competition! Does this mean out patrol should throw the rest of the competitions in order to be "good scouts"? I'm not sure our staff got it. Or maybe they were religiously following the syllabus, I don't know. In my opinion, it should have been tied back to a real example where Scouting differs from competition and capitalism. For example: "A benefactor offers your troop $700 OR he will split $1000 between two troops. What do you do? How does that differ from what we do in the business world?"

Note the poster's name. I suspect that he google for "accident" and is posting something similar to any forum he find it on. I further suspect the culprit is whoever shows up on top for a google of his name, "accident-law". A cyber-ambulance-chaser, if you will.