Bob White

John congratulations on continuong your training. Wood Badge however will not cover the basic information on scouting such as uniforming that is covered during your basic training "(a perfectly acceptable term when refering to the group of courses that make up the various basic training requiremnments rather than to a specifc course)". Reviewing this information that was either forgotten or missed could help you to better understand other aspects of your role in scouting. Ed Knowing and understanding the uniform policies does not make one a cop. Knowledge of the program and its structure is a good thing to have for commissioners. By the way two of my brothers are Law Enforcement Officers, it is unfortunate that a Scout leader would use the term 'cop' in such a derogatory way.

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Ed (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

The quote is from a BSA training manual. It goes on to quote BP saying "The Scoutmaster teaches boys to play the game by doing so himself." Hope this helps

Ed If the BSA did not discriminate the ACLU would not care who owned the unit.

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A consensus of whom? You want the BSA to finance a failing camp not because it is a financially responsible thing to do but because it's an old camp? Do you see the problem with that kind of action?

Aaron, sorry for the digression. Baden-Powell many years ago said something that directly relates to your situation. He said "Show me a poorly uniformed troop and I will show you a poorly uniformed leader. Until the Scoutmaster and all other leadewrs begin to wear the correct uniform nobody else will. I commend you for wanting to do the right thing, My suggestion would be to sit with the scoutmaster and talk about the inportance of the uniform and see where he intends to go with that information. It's tough for some leaders to change their stripes unfortunately. A common attitude seems to be if you do things wrong long enough you convince yourself you are right regardless of what the BSA program teaches you. You have a difficult challenge ahead. I wish you luck. BW

jkhny writes "Is THAT what you're trying to say? " Not at all, in fact there is nothing in what I wrote that comes anywhaere near that, which is another testament to the tripe you post. What I said was (and as you already understand I am sure) is that scouters like you (if you actually are one) are what cause camps to have to be sold. You resolute position that all is evil beyond the unit is what weakens a councils resources and brings about the very actions that you protest. You are your own worst enemy and proof that leader selection is one of the most imposrtant roles of a charter organization.

John lots of clothing is licensed to the BSA. That makes it licensed apparel, it does not make it a uniform piece. Do not confuse the two categories. The uniforms of the BSA consist of specific pieces of apparel. You can learn more by attending basic leader training.

Ed Hunt, PLEASE return to basic trainingg, or pick up the Charter Organization Representative pamphlet, or even talk to a professional, but yes the agreement with congress is that the BSA deliver the program through community organizationsa just as every resource I mentioned explains, your constant refusal to accept that the BSA resources communicate the BSA program, and not your personal opinion, continues to awe me. This is not new information, this has been in basic training for at least the 30 years that I know of and I am sure probably all the way back to 1916 when it was instituted.(This message has been edited by Bob White) (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

"Billy Graham employed a guy whose main function was to regularly shout "Bull..." at meetings to make sure that things never fell into groupthink mode. Since he is not here I will voluntarily fill his position. Every time time you, or jkhny, or prairie scouter, or Ed, toss out any more wild eyed claims about what the BSA should or should not be doing or supposedly is doing that they shouldn't do I will happily say Bull and insist you show evidence. If I cannot support the BSA without being criticized why should you be allowed to make baseless accusations and not face the same scrutiny? All I seek is a level playing field.

"Scouting is a game with a purpose" Lord Baden-Powell quoted from "Lessons from the Varsity of Life", 1933, and his "Aids to Scoutmastership", 1920.

Many thanks Backpacker that (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

As you point out this is a issues board. Do not expect it to be simply a rant forum. Be prepared to be challenged with some facts. How can you want to fix things when you don't really know what's broken. If you want to fix things then why do you never ask how things actually work? Who is actually responsible for a specific problem? What is the actual procedure? You never ask, you only complain.s jkhny and a few other are cut of the same cloth. How do you see fact-free ranting as an avenue to fix anything? As a small example you were given 7 BSA resources explaining the responsibilities of the CO and you STILL question it's evidence. How will that kind of approach put you in any position to instigate change? The volunteers who serve beyond the unit level are not complainers, First they are people who have done their job successfully, then they learn about other areas, they investigate, they talk to people who have more knowledge or greater successes. They don't complain they learn. They they get invited to take what they learned and try to improve on them. Its a process, not a whine, that creates change. No one in the BSA or even at the council level takes complainers seriously. You are background noise to the people who actual do things. If you sincerely want to make change then you have to understand the program and you need to change yourself before you will ever get the opportunity to change scouting.

Sentimentality will not pay bills or make an unprofitable camps profitable. The only consensus needed is a majority vote of the council executive committee which the Chicago Area Council had. Unit volunteers are not responsible for managing the council. You want to keep your camps, use them, pay the usage fees, support FOS, attend your concils Summer Camp, Sell Popcorn. Operating and owning properties is expensive. If you are not helping your council to grow financially then you are giving away your camps, the council is only doing the paperwork that you created. Stop blaming other people and become personally responsible for your role in scouting. jhkny, I do not question your loyalty, you have already displayed what little you have for all of us to see. I question your purpose in posting the tripe that you do, I question the extremely limited and often flawed knowledge of scouting you show. But I have no doubts as to the limits of your loyalty.

Unless you have other evidence regarding the Philmont shorts the tag you mention only shows themn as a BSA inventory item. Nowhere are they listed as official uniform and they are not available through BSA supply but only from the Philmont Tooth of Time Traders. While at Philmont we were told specifically when we asked about the shorts that they were not official uniform. The official uniform for Boy Scouts only includes the green pants and the green shorts at this time as evidenced on the new BSA supply web-site. Many items are official Scout apparel but not official uniform pieces.

"An update on the CLASS A" debate can be found at http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=102347#id_108721

Ed wrote "Even says Class A Uniform on the pants pages! Oh no! Does this mean .....? Dare I say .....? There really is a "Class A Uniform"? (shuddering) And (oh my) on the Insignia pages, the site states "For wear on a Class A uniform! Oh the humanity! " UPDATE I dropped an email at 8PM this evening to the distribution center mentioning how nice the new site was. I also pointing out that there is no Class A or Class B in the BSA uniforming. I got a very nice reply within a few minutes thanking me for catching the ERROR and was told that the information would be passed to the webmaster to have the corrections made. The folks at national do not live in ivory towers they are very accessable and work hard to do the job right. BW PS, there were only two clothing pieces I could find that said Class A, everything else including the insignias say "official uniform".(This message has been edited by Bob White)

The fact remains that none beside syou attributed it to too many leaders. And it simply is not true. It has nothing to do with the number of people because when the charter concept it was first instituted over 80 years ago there weren't as many leaders in the program as there are today. It is done precisely to protect the parent organization from any liability caused by the local council, unit, or volunteer. It was a very smart decision. If a local unit is not going to select good leadership why should the program be placed at risk for the rest of us? Prairie you and a few others take endless opportunities to berate and criticize a program that many of us, tens of thousands of us, have enjoyed for years. If 6 or 8 of you can take cheap shots at the BSA as often as you like then I can defend it with equal glee that you use to rake it over the coals. You and a few others want to keep making up phantom problems I am more than happy to share some actual information. We can let the readers do some rerearch if they are interested and find who was accurate and who wasn't.

Hunt, Yep Prairie, you would be amazed by the number of people who think if they don't SEE the rule then the rule doesn't exist. My point was it is not the paper that makes it a rule it is the authority of the BSA that makes it a rule.

Hunt, You didn't even take the time to read the first parageraph in the link I posted did you? The federal charter requires that the BSA work through local community organizations. Everybody who wants to take part in this discussion should really have taken basic training first. There is some important information that is shared there that you need to understand. As the video tells you the BSA cannot own units they are required to distribute the program through community organizations as explained in the fact sheet in the link I posted. There are three charters. There is the federal one granted by congress to the BSA that is not ours it is the U.S Congress'. We can't change it because we didn't create it. Then there is the one granted to Councils By the BSA and ones granted to the Charter organizations. Just as the federal one has reponsibilities for both parties so do the BSA charters. There is just no getting around the fact that the BSA program is franchised to units and that units have among their responsibilities the selection of all unit volunteers. Semper, Have you taken Youth Protection Training? They spend quite a bit of time on this. They emphasize that one of the most important things to do is that the Charter Organizations must CAREFULLY select their leaders. They talk about the adult application and following up on references and the kinds of questions to ask. Does any of that sound familiar? So now it's in New Leader Essentials training, Youth Protection training, the adult application, The Troop Committee Handbook, Troop Committee Challenge, The Cub Scout Leader Handbook, and in the Fact Sheet I have shown you from the BSA explaining charters, AND YET you still do not get it. How is that possible? 7 BSA resources that explain it! Isn't that enough?

"Ummm, if you go to http://www.scoutstuff.org/ you will find the term "Class A" quite a bit! " Really? Are you sure about that? If you look through the site you will find only 2 pieces of clothing labeled that way. The Cub Scout Leader yellow blouse and the Ladies green slacks. Other uniform pieces say 'official uniform'. I even used the search engine provided and those were the only two pieces of clothing that came up. Two pieces of clothing is "used quite a bit"?

So if he did not make it up, then where did jkhny get the 10%-20% figure from?

If the DE had a strong relationship with the pack then perhaps he would be able to select committee members. But if that were the case he would have known in greater detail what the problems were and he didn't, and it does not sound like adding an outside member was the solution. In addition the role of selecting leaders, as we have discussed on other threads, is the units responsibility and not the DE's. He crossed the lines of his authority. His job is to get a commissioner (a trained commissioner) in there to help and not to add committee members. As a new volunteer one job is plenty and your DE should know that. Just because you are willing does not mean he should you use to solve all his problems. His one stopping shopping will cause greater damage than he realizes. I appreaciate your openeness to accept outside people to your committee but in practice that is rarely what the mood is, especially with a committee in trouble. Being asked to step in and help with a problem with no authority was unfair of your DE to do to you. This is band-aid problem solving and I believe the DE has used you as the temporary fix. Your are not in a situation where success is likely.