Bob White

Then it would seem the skill they have not learned yet is leadership. It needs to start with training the SPL on how to guide a meeting to the desired goal. The adults understand why these higher adventures offer more but the junior leadership doesn't, nor are they sufficiently motivated to encourage others to move beyond their comfort zone. And there is the next problem. If the scouts have been raised on car camping do not expect them to be comfortable to suddenly change from no adventure to high adventure. You do not keep a baby crawling and then suddenly decide its time for him to stand and run. Car camping was created by lazy leaders not healthy boys. At the very least drop scouts off a mile or so from camp. Give them a map and have them hike in. Have them hike out as well. Start this from their first caqmpout and don't stop. Younger scouts can carry personal gear minus sleeping bags, older scouts carry the personal gear and tents. After they get use to walking everywhere then offer them a chance to bike, or canoe, or horeback ride to camp and see how fast they grab on to the idea.

As a scout we would camp this way from time to time. We were taught to take 2) #10 coffee cans we stuffed one with food items and the other contained other cans that we had cut and punched to use as cooking utensils. Coat hangers were bent to serve as handles. We each usually had a buddy burner (made of a tuna or cat food can filled eith a roll of corrugated cardboard and saturated with paraffin) to act as a ready heat source. The cans were set at opposite ends of the bed roll, clothes were laid in the middle. The entire thing was rolled up like a tootsie roll with the cans acting as plugs in the end. The ends were tied with a short rope and the entire thing was slung over one shoulder and laid diagonally across your body. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

If you follow the program as it is designed, the TG joins the New Scout Patrol and stays with them until they either disband to join other patrols or are ready to elect a full term patrol leader. How involved he stays from momont to momnent will depend on the development of patrol and the needs and characteristics of the patrol members. The program also recommends that when there are high adventure activities for the older scouts that the TGs be included so that they can keep active with their peers as well.

I agree with Eamonn, and I will add another dimension to what he said. Do you see the scouts as ready to go the next step in the program level because they have reached a certain age, or because they have obtained the knowledge and skills needed to take the next step? their disinterest of the current program level doesn't really tell us if they know the information and have the skills or not. The answer to that question will determine the advice for the next step.

It's interesting that some assume the BSA is run soley by men.

"What's next? Participating in a popcorn or wreath sale?" Too late, those activities have counted toward advancement to First Class for quite some time already. FC3

I withdraw the question your Honors and return to the premise that the purpose of both roles are as described, and that regardless of the world you live in that is still the role that those two entities are supposed to fill. If that is not happening in a unit you serve then the unit leadership needs to make changes to make the resposnibilities a reality regardless of the condition of the rest of the world. The defense rests.

So A=B and B=C. Therefore A=C. Really? A Square is a Rectangle (A=B) (True) and a Rectangle is a Parallelogram with equal angles but adjacent sides of unequal length (B=C) (True) Then for A=C A square would be a parallelogram with equal angles but adjacent sides of unequal length. And that's False. Your premise does not hold true in all cases therfore it is not valid. Sorry, not my rules.

Does anyone actually believe that the only way to have an active CO and a UC is for the rest of the world to be perfect. Ed you ARE a unit commissioner, and part of your responsibility is to help those units with this very problem, are you saying that NOTHING you do will help because the rest of the world isn't perfect?

"She was screaming over how could BSA let a pervert be in charge of Youth Protection." An emotional response based on a shoratge of facts...not unlike your own response. As all the later reports show the BSA had no knowledge of Smith's behavior until after the results of the FBI investigation were completed. Do have evidence otherwise? Because no one else does. Baden-Powell developed the Scouting ideals and its methods including the boy lead program, he did not design or develop the American scouting movement. There are over two hundred scouting programs in the world and they are nearly all different. Even the UK program today does not look like the B-P program of 1910. Things change, get over it. "BS has already driven away a large part of its potential base with its stance on some issues" Total fantasy! You do not have so much as a single piece of data that shows that. "As far as Owasippe, most Scouters don't have a clue that is happening - unless their own Council is selling more property off....they start looking and stumble across that. BSA seems to forget that NOTHING is "local" anymore.... " HELLOOO! You aren't listening. The property is not owned by the volunteers..it never was...in any council. The property is owned by the local council corporation, and the unit volunteer except for the CR is not a voting member of that corporation. Your district and council are local. Your council is an independent non-profit organization that contracts with the BSA to supply scouting to its local community. (New Leader Essentials...it only takes a couple of hours) "Long time customers are walking away LONG TIME customers age out. Short term customers usually leave do to the quality of the local program delivery. "it is as if a number of burger stands following the same basic premise - coming from a shared "heritage" saw an advantage to sharing resources." While that might make a nice bed-time story it lacks any historical accuracy. Councils did not gather to form the BSA. The BSA was formed and designed the council system. No one says you have to follow the BSA program. No one says you had to be in the BSA program. No one forced anyone to join. But those of us who are members agreed to follow when we joined. Whether or not you fulfill that agreement is left to the character and integrity of the individual volunteer. You have lots of emotion and no actual knowledge of the program. I do not see how you will ever be happy with the BSA or the scouting program, if in fact you are really a member. Nor do I see how your distain for the product allows you to be of any value in delivery of service to a unit. So why do do you continue to rant on subjects you do not know about and do not want to learn about? good night.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

Reality is what you choose to make it. If the correct relationships are not in place in your unit, you need only to take action to change that. IF you keep doing what you have always done, THEN you will always get what you always had. The choice is yours.

McDonalds Corporation owns a restaurant business plan (A) The lease this plan to franchisees (B) The franchisees hire employees © DOES C=A? NOT EVEN A LITTLE! Is McDonalds in the business of pleasing the Cs? NOPE their job is to support the Bs and C's in serving the D's the customer...the scouts. Scouting does not exist to serve adult VOLUNTEERS. They are the program and system that the VOLUNTEERS agreed to follow in order to serve the boys. The adult leaders while vital to the delivery of scouting are of no use to Scouts if they are looking for Scouting to serve THEM rather than serve the scouts. McDonald employees understand that they are there to serve McDonald's customers...McDonald's product...McDonalds way. Why do some scouters have trouble grasping what is perfectly clear to a teenager?

"There is apparently a serious effort underway to assess the condition of Atlanta's inner city scouting program." That pretty much says it all.

Anyone remember our talk about anchors? The Scoutmaster is is an ego-trip feeling pretty powerful because he can show a child he is in charge. BIG DEAL I Hope he's proud of HIMSELF, no one else is. 1) The Scoutmaster conference is not a pass/fail requirement. It is a "happened or didn't happen" requirement. I'd have to say if it went on for 45 minutes...it happened. 2) the SM is disregarding a number of BSA controlled advancment policies and procedures that he has no right to do. Consider a new unit that does not have an idiot in a leadership position. OR find this idiot a village of his own to go to so that the troop can get a scoutmaster instead. I am very sorry that your son is going through this. Any boy deserves better than what you son has had happen. I hope your son will stay in scouting but he needs to get to a troop that actual has a scouting program. I hope he can do that. BW

If it will make you feel better do not think of it as agreeing with me...all I did was post what the Handbook says. Think of it as being in agreement with the BSA.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

What about the situation in a Venturing Crew where there is only one female Venturer on the trip?" Poor planning. You know the importance of the buddy system. The female venture should have been given time and motivation to invite a friend. Great recruitment tool as well.

The role of the charter organization (CO)is that they are the partners of the BSA. They contract to use the BSA program. That contract is made of shared responsibilities, things the council and the BSA are responsible for and the things the charter organization is responsible for. The CO OWNS the unit. Among the Charter organizations responsibility is to select and approve leaders, select a charter organization representative (CR) who is the voting representative for the CO, Select a committee chair (CC) who is responsible for committee administration, provide adequate meeting space for the unit, follow the policies, program and procedures of the BSA. THE Unit Commissioner (UC) is charged with seeing that every eligible youth has the opportunity to belong to a quality scouting program. They are a frontline resource for the CO and its leaders to help them know and use the resources of the comunity and program in order to deliver a quality program to the youth members. The UC Supports the unit program. Of course this requires two important elements. 1) that there are enough commissioners to serve the district (1 for every three units) and 2)that the UC actually knows the program (a element that I have always believed existed until recent experience here). All too often the few good commissioners a district has are focused on unit lifesaving, rather than unit program enhancement. Hope this answers your question.

How exactly did this become about how you perceive my posts. I never said you or anyone couldn't discuss it. I said no one here has enough information to know what happened. How wouldenjoy having your personal business discussed on the internet with little more than gossip as the basis? To think that as unit volunteers we have any authority in the personell dept. of the national office, or that they have any reason to heed our opinion on the matter, is egocentric to say the least.

Hi Jerry, I understood that you were taking steps, but unless I misunderstood, the problem is not yet solved, or that these steps are even going to work. I would suggest that you need to SOLVE the retention problem before worrying about the growth problem. Or as learned early as a dad, you don't change the baby while he's still peeing. Once the program problem is solved then worry about unit size.

I cannot imagine how this could not be a training issue? As explained in the training and Cub Leader Handbook the CM and CCC work closely togetehr developing the annual plan and identifying and recruiting leaders. The the Cubmaster develops, motivates, and leads the Den leaders, leads Pavk activities and Pack meetings. The Committee Chairman makes assignments to the committee members to support the program decisions and they report their progress at the monthly meetings, and chairs that meeting. These are explained in even greater detail in the leader specific training.

"When I took YP training, it was also stressed that scouts should not even be paired with other youth if there is a 3 or more year age difference." Nowhere is that said in Youth Protection. What the video says is that while some inappropriate contact is not uncommon among juveniles in most states such contact is considered abuse if there is a three year or greater difference in the ages of the boys. It says nothing regarding pairing them together. I do not recall ever avoiding any questions on this topic as to what to do when the situation makes it impossible. I'm not sure that any suchsituation will exist if proper planning takes place. Using the buddy system in scouting in all situations is best, tenting is no different. Health, environment, imagination, can all make for situations where a buddy could be of assistance to a tent-mate. It could in many cases even save a life.

You both need to get training. New Leader Essentials and Leader Specific Training for your individaual jobs. It will take a total of about 5 hours but that coupled with a copy of the Cub Scout Leader Handbook and you should both be well prepared to do your jobs. Contact your local scout office for the name and phone # of your district training chair.

Your donations go to your council and your council had no involvement in St. Jeans dismissal. You belong to your council which belongs to the BSA National Council. You do not own, nor are you a part owner of, the BSA National Office. Those are two different entities. You do not have enough information to determine that the BSA was the one who violated the Oath or Law you have only an over-emotional post from jhnky as your sole source of information. That alone should tell you that you are geting a very subjective story. The fact that it is that your behavior reflects more on the BSA than the behavior of a few employees reflect on you. And since is the type of forum you suggest, do I have less right to disagree with you in my comments than you have to disagree with the BSA in yours? If the purpose here is to discuss things then why not welcome the opposite side of the coin than you offer?

Not wanting to put a damper on anyones fever to help, but consider finding out first what items are needed. Things like uniforms and camping equipmemnt may not be the priority you think they are. In addition, many of these items will soon be replaced by insurance with NEW items rather than used. While the intentions are certainly honorable the energy might be better spend on other more immediate needs these folks will have. Consider checking first with the Red Cross and Salvation Army before we begin to inundate the region with unneeded, though well intentioned, gifts.

For many people having a reason to leave does not always give them the ability to leave. Mnay of the people who stayed behind had little choice. Some did not have anywhere else to go, or a way to get there. Some I am sure had familiy members that could not be moved easily and they stayed with them rather than to abandon them. Others were being to ask to abandon evrything they owned without any idea of how they would ever replace it or begin anew and stayed out of pure desparation. There is an old proverb about not judging others until you have walked in their shoes. To know whether a not a person COULD have left takes far more knowledge than saying they SHOULD have left. As far as whether aid got there as soon as possible or not, I would like to hear comments from the posters here who are trained to respond to a massive disaster covering a geographic area larger than Great Britain where nearly all communications have been lost. Where are all the people in need located? Who gets help first? What resources are needed? What resouces are available? What can you do with what you have? Where will resources come from? What avenue of delivery is accessible? With no communications how do you find the people who need to do this and how do they get to the resources they need? Katrina did not create an inconvenience, or a problem, it created a disaster! The size of which most people living in America today have NEVER personally experienced. To sit back and observe it through the comparativley tiny window of a TV screen and criticize ANYONE is outrageous.