Bob White

embo1 I do have a current Sea Scout Handbook handy and the uniforms are as I listed. Tne Handbook sys there is a Youth Dress White, A youth dress blue, A youth work uniform (blue), an adult and officer Dress Blue, Dress white, and Work Tan. but the Book is copyright 2002 and has not yet been updated to include the changes that were made in 2003 by the national Sea Scout Committee with dropped the youth dress blues and removed the "bugs" from the the navy cover. BackPacker Your minimalist directions simply lead to a statement that I have already said is true that Venturing and Sea Scouting are both served by the Venturing Division of the BSA. That was never in dispute. What I explained was that in the by-laws that the Sea Scouting Commodore sits in the National executive committee and thet the Venturing representative is in a subordinate position. Also that there is Badge of office for a Venturing program representative at any level in scouting other than District roundtable commissioner for venturing on the District Commissioners staff. You can verify this in the Insignia Guide. Have Councils created a Venturing Coordinator or similar position? Absolutely, even my own council has, but when looking at the Council structure in the by-laws only the Sea Scout Committee head is listed as an exofficio member of the executive committee. I can only imagine with 300 plus councils that all sorts of creative things happen at the council level with titles, I am only commenting on the official structure of the program. It was more a "here is an interesting bit of BSA trivia I have learned and researched recently" and was in no way a mandate as to what councils need to do. By the way I am not in Texas altho I have vacationed there twice. This is not the first time you have insinuated that I am a professional with the BSA which I am not. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

Just as you have Varsity Scouts in the Varsity program, you have Venturing Scouts in the Venturing Program. The term Venturers is also correct. I am not convinced that this merits debate. You are not the only person with old handbooks, and rest assured there are ample websites that have misinformation on them. Explorers began in 1949(prior to that it was officially the Senior Scout Program) and was part of the Boy Scout Division, but EXPLORING began in the BSA in 1959 and at that time became a separate division of the BSA, 47 years after Sea Scouting began. When initially begun around 1915 and PRIOR to it being incorporated officially by the BSA, the OA as an independent program did allow Sea Scouts. However after incorporation into the BSA as a fully endorsed Boy Scout Program in 1948 it required dual registration. I'm sorry I think of the OA was a youth program and so I was focused on the youth Sea Scouts uniform and it's ability to wear a flap patch when there was no flap. I was not the least concerned about an adult being able to wear it. While you are correct that the adult whites have a flap it also is the official Navy uniform as mandated by the National Commodore in 2003, and as such has minimal award displays. I hope this helps to clarify things. BW

OK Merlyn so where am I off here. I say that the BSA in some resources identify God as having created the world and heavens around us. In Phillip Johnson's definition of creationism what force does he say creationaism recognizes as having created everything? Is it someone or something other than a supreme being?

The current event uses about 9 square miles of area excluding parking. Again its easy to say how about a chunk of land in Puff Bluff, heck we could name big areas of ground all day but unless you know that there is actually the needed superstructure, facilities, utilities, resources, available for use, your just spinning your wheels. The BSA Jamboree committees have been doing this for decades, you have to figure they know what basic elements need to exist for a jambo site, and AP Hill wasn't chosen by throwin a dart at a road atlas. At this point in time why do you see a need to move? Why do you not see AP Hill as a viable location? The SOS Bill passed both the Senate and the House of Reps, the Circuit court case will be set aside or taken to appeal, the next jamboree is years away. Why the sudden urge to go somewhere else? If you are really bothered by it being on federal property then don't go. But All the Places it was before was on State or federal property. At this point in time the BSA doesn't mind it being at AP Hill and it's their event, and the federal government must not mind because they allow the Army's cooperation. And the Army doesn't mind because they get a lot of good experience and a lot of good PR. So if as a participant you don't like it who is making you go?(This message has been edited by Bob White)

Eamonn sees the point I was raising as well, That PRAY authorized an article to be posted on the PRAY booth has nothing to do with the BSA a totally separate organization as far as administration. That they wore the BSA uniform as BSA members at a BSA function does not make them spokespersons for the BSA. There were tens of thousands of people in a BSA uniform there none of whom are spokespersons or policy makers for the BSA. I do not see how you connect an news article that an independent group displays with the opinion or policies of the BSA.

Backpacker, I invite you to share the specific page link at the national site that supports anything you said or rebuffs anything I said. The only thing you will find is what I have already said that both Sea Scouting and Venturing are served by the Venturing division of the BSA. However if you looked in the Insignia Guide on pages 43,44, and 45 where the official badges of office for district council regional and national are listed you will find no Venturing positions other than the roundtable commissioner, HOWEVER the Sea Scout Committee representatives are shown at EVERY level. And I am confident you have never looked at the Council By-laws based on you past posts. While it is easy for you to say that I have given misinformation but can give specific BSA references to support your positions as I have, or you are simply going to continue your personal vindictiveness and offer no real information that helps other posters to better understand the program. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

According to the Sea Scout Manual, Trail Pounder is correct regarding the uniforming. In fact in 2003 the National Sea Scout Commodore and her executive committee MANDATED the wearing of the official navy uniforms for Sea Scouting. That would be the work blues and dress whites for youth. Work tans, dress whites, and dress blues for adults. No other uniform wear is approved by the BSA. Sea Scouting is not the same as Venturing in any way, they merely are served by the same support division at the national level. Sea Scouting existed decades before Exploring or Venturing. While the national service division is called Venturing, it serves both Venturing and Sea Scouting and if you look at the the council by-laws it is Sea Scout Coordinator or Commodore who is an executive board member and the the Venturing coordinator is not. While some councils may have created a general committee position of Venturing coordinator there is no position for it on the executive board in the by-laws unless the council has specifically done so, and if they had investigated the national structure they would see it was a subordinate position to the Sea Scout Committee. There is no badge of office for a Venture coordinator according to the current Insignia Guide, at the council, regional or national level but there are Sea Scout Offices in all those levels. National shows Venturing as a subcommittee under the National Sea Scout Committee. While your opinion may differ, if you were to investigate the BSA resources I think you will would find this information to be correct. Backpacker, when you say a "National Representative", who or what exactly is that since there is no such position in scouting either in the volunteer or the professional ranks. As Far as were I get my information I got it from The Insignia Guide, The Council By-Laws, A member of the Western Region Sea Scout Committee, and the Sea Scout Manual. The Only Venturing position even mentioned is on the District level and that is the Venturing Roundtable Commissioner who is a part of the District Commissioners staff. No Venturing office appears at the council region or National levels. Where did you get your information from? If infact your misidentified "Nat. Rep." were familiar with the National Executive Committee they would be extremely familiar with the staus of Sea Scouting since the National Commodore is a long time and hugely influential member of the BSA Executive Committee. And by the way Backpacker... most Sea Scout Ships are sail boats and any motors are only used to manuever in and out of the dock so fuel costs are not prohibitive. And there is no more cost to equipment than a troop has since we simply have swapped the costs of maintaining the boats with the costs of tents cook kits, etc. There is little budget difference. And the cost of licensing and insurance is little different than costs incurred by troops with their own vehicles and trailers. Ands as far as their health as a program, there are more national and regional activities for Sea Scouting than for Venturing, and Sea Scouting has a huge national trust fund that insures its continuation well into the future, Venturing does not. So your pretty much off the mark on every point you made. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

1. Venturing Scouts is also correct 2. Sea Scouting was around for 47 years BEFORE Exploring. Here is something I recently learned Venturing is technically under Sea Scouting (as was Exploring) not the other way around. While the entire division is called Venturing, the Sea Scouting coordinator is a member of the executive board in your council and at National and the Venturing coordinator is a sub committee position under Sea Scouting. If you check out your council By-laws as well as the list of council officers in the insignis guide you will see that Venturing is not there but Sea Scouting is. 3. Don't know where you are getting your whites but the navy issue as well as the the version from the Sea Scout Store is a slit pocket on the youth White uniform not a flapped one. Program strips have always gone ABOVE the pocket not on the flap so I am unsure as to why you even brought that up. 4. Even in the past decades, according to the history of the OA, an Explorer or Sea Scout had to hold dual membership in a scout troop in order to become an OA member.

Packsaddle you are right, it was you who made the peculiar comment about spreading wings, with all the misinformation that was flying throughout this thread it was tough remebering who said what wrong. Madkins, I apologize, you are off the hook on the 501c3 but you still have a major misconception of how things are done at the national level. Mmost program decisions are made by volunteer committees of scout leaders gathered from across the country. Each committee has a professional or professional team who are responsible for implementing the decisions and programs developed by the volunteers. Just as in your council and district, the majority of program at the national level is done by volunteers. Packsaddle. You were given misleading information by NJ scouter. While all Charities are 501c3's not all 501c3's are charities per se (it's one of those...all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares kind of thing). The BSA being an example. Is not a charity per se, it is a not-for-profit corporation. The 501 classification identifies it as not for profit. The c3 identifies it as an organiztion to which donations are tax deductable for the donor. There are many types of 501 corporations. The BSA happens to be a 501c3 classification. So how would dropping its not-for profit status be a benifit to the program? How would removing the ability of donors from claiming tax deductions be a benefit to the BSR or the donor? To say that doing these things would allow the BSA to "spread its wings and fly freely" just doesn't make any sense. As far as the original topic as usually some posters try to make this far more difficult than it is. The BSA refers to "God" as the "creator" of the world around us. That's creationism. If you give a supernatural power the credit over random or evolved events of science then that is creationaism at its core. The BSA allows for both. So the original query offered by Merlyn in the first post is flawed to begin with. As I said the misinformation was so thick throughout this thread that it was hard to keep up with any of the myriad of topics that wandered about.

There are a lot of things here that posters simply are not considering. The reason the Jamboree stopped moving around is that the cost of setting up and taking down the needed infrastructure is simply no longer economically feasible. Laws have changed. Environmental impact was not the concern in the 60s and 70s in our state and national parklands that it is today. Many of the parks that might have enough space no longer want or are allowed to have 70,000 people on its grounds for a day let alone 10 days. Multiple locations is not the answer. It takes pretty much the same staffing and program costs to run a jamboree for 17,000 as it does for 32,000. It was difiicult enough trying to get a full staffing for one location, it would take twice the workforce to staff two locations and it is just not that easy to do. The BSA has invested millions of dollars in permanent facilities at A.P. Hill to support and enhance the quadrennial Jamboree event. It would not be reasonable to simply abandon an investment of that magnitude. Any one who attended the 81 or 85 jambo and then went to this last one understand how well spent the money was. You are not going to find a private property that has the needed open space to host the 32,000 participants, 4,900 staff, as well as nearly 10,000 daily visitors that a jamboree has. Even if you find a place with the camping space, you need huge amounts of parking, and a network of roadways to accomodate support vehicles. No BSA property has the parking and roads needed to host a Jamboree. So you can't just say "oh look there's a big hunk of land, let's do a Jamboree there". There is far more that has to be considered than most posters are not stopping to think about. In closing a personal request. PLEASE! Quit complaining about the distance. Anywhere you put any event it will be close to some and far from others. I spoke with scouts from Sweden and they didn't complain about the distance, but scouters from our own midwest did. Everything has to be someplace, if you don't want to travel there then go someplace closer, but stop expecting any national event to move because it is inconvenient for you personally to travel there.

The 2100 figure is closest to the actual number of affected individuals BUT, that number reflects ALL heat related cases, most of which happened outside the arena and many before the event...or involving people who did not even travel to the arena show. While I agree the show should have been canceled sooner let's remember that the weather conditions existed everywhere at AP Hill not just at or around the arena. I can also tell you, as someone working crowd control at the arena that day, that many people (scouters, scouts, and guests) came woefully unprepared. Grossly overweight adults, elderly, and the very young had no business coming to an open field event with temperatures over 100 degrees (many without water and many who walked past the free water bottles). Those were precisely the people who were the vast majority of heat related casualties. The instructions given were quite clear, If you had a transparent water bottle then entering the arena would not be a problem, only opaque containers had to be empty and ready for inspection and could then be refilled once inside the arena. There was ample water available, numerous warnings were given to hydrate, remove clothing, avoid physical activities, and yet many ignored those instructions. I asked a number of people to go sit in the limited shade near the edge of the field until the program was about to begin, only a few took that advice to heart. This is by no means approval of the decisions made earlier in the day by the Jamboree administration and the Army brass, but ill preparation, and poor decision making was as common among the audience that entered the arena as among the decision makers who allowed the event to continue.

While I have not seen the article or talked with the representative I do have a couple questions about your post. What does it mean to "authorize" a newspaper article and how does one do it? Since PRAY Publishing is not a division of BSA, or controlled by the BSA, how is it that you connect PRAY posting an article with the BSA attacking someone?

Madkins, I still cannot figure out what the heck you are talking about. Before I explain how national committees function, could you please clear up your unusual comment about "terminating thier 501c3 status, spreading their wings and and flying freely". In what way is the BSA restricted in their responsibilities or function by being a registered 501c3 corporation? What would the BSA, its members, and its supporters gain by a change in corporation status. Answer those questions please, and then we can discuss national committees (and by the way it seems you have a lot of bad info on them as well). BW

Elizabeth worked right next to my program area. While I did not get to meet her, we were all impressed by the quantity and quality of activities in the disAbility Awareness area. It was amazing the number of participants they served each day. I was hoping to get over there to try the blind baseball but never got the chance. I glad to hear she had a good time. BW

National's responsibilities are to Train Scouting professionals: Have the professionals in your area attended their training? Train Adult and Youth members: Have you attended any of the over 70 training courses available through the BSA? Develop resources to support the program: Are there handbooks and manuals produced to support the unit program? Develop and regulate the Advancement Program, do you have a structured advancement program with recognitions? Develop and regulate the BSA program: Have you been given a program to follow? Develop the rules ad regulations to safeguard the program and its participants: Guide to =Safe Scouting, youth Protection, Advancement rules, Insignia Guide, Climb on Safely, etc. Maintain and operate high adventure bases for use by BSA members: Are you aware of Philmont, Northern Tier, Sea Base? Manage the growth of the BSA movement: Remember all those membership and financial goals some people whine about. The problem is not that the BSA isn't doing their job, the problem is some scouters never bother to ask what their job is. The problem isn't that the BSA is a secret...its not, some people just never bother to ask for answers. You don't need a secret password to learn about scouting beyond the unit level. Why is lack of knowledge the other guys fault? Who told you that you could not go out and learn about things you do not know about?

There is no District Membership Committee badge of office that I have ever seen or that is listed in the Insignia Guide. With the positions you claim to have your district uniform would display either the Unit Commissioner patch or the District Committee patch.

I agree with TP, if you read the Sea Scout manual you will see that the uniform is far more specific than that of a Venturing crew.

Just for Clarification to a privious posters comment...The reason the insignia Guide says that Sea Scouts cannot Wear the OA pocket Flap patch is that 1) Sea Scouts are not eligible for OA mebership (just like other Venturing scouts). and 2) Sea Scout uniforms don't have pocket flaps!!!

The article is one of social satire, the quotes are not genuine, even some of the people named are more likely staffers at the web site or those of friends who they promised to get their name in an article. They do not even have the location of the event correct. Laugh at it weakly then move on with your life.

Seatlle Pioneer writes "While I'm not Catholic, it also reminds me of the Catholic view that everyone is sinful, and yet everyone deserves the opportunity to be forgiven." That is not accurate. Catholicism teaches that every person who sins has the opportunity to repent and do pennance, for which their sins are forgiven. To commit a sin and have no remorse is not a free ticket to expect forgiveness simply because the person you wronged was Catholic. Perhaps rather than sharing what you think another religion believes you would share YOUR religions view on the topic. We would gain greater knowledge from you sharing the belief of the faith you practice, rather than from what you think is believed by a faith you do not practice.

Note that at no time have I mentioned the religious aspect. I am addressing only the logical, measurable, evidence of the existence of a living person. This has nothing to do with the quality of life or the depth of personality of that life...simply life. Hunt, to your knowledge has anyone ever knowingly taken a brain dead individual and buried or cremated them while they still had a heartbeat? Why is that? Why is it that even when brain-dead they do not pronounce the person as dead until...what happens....the heart stops beating. You cannot rationally deny the existense of a heartbeat as a sign of life. Yet how often do arbortions take place even after a beating heart exists? How can you stop a heart and not accept the fact that you have stopped a life? While I do not disagree that the matter of abortion is between people and God, the State has decided otherwise, and made it a public matter. To say that abortion only affects the woman is myopic. There are in fact others deeply effected by this action and to ignore their involvement is an unfortunate manuever to remove their needs and values in order to simplify the approval process so that it can be done in a more time efficient manner.

The comment on the use of the bible had nothing to do with one of your posts but was in response to another poster. Nowhere do I find either of us saying that a heartbeat was the 'beginning of life" my post posed the question, 'does the existence of a heartbeat establish the existence of life'? To which you replied (and I quote)"No, I don't think that the indication of a heartbeat is indicative of life." So I repeat my unanswered questions. How many live people do you know without a heartbeat? In an emergency situation when you encounter an unresponsive person, what are the first things you are taught to check to determine their condition? How can you answer these truthfully and not accept that a heartbeat is indicative of the existence of life.

Actually Michael... Trail Ponder is right in many ways. If you look at your councils By-Laws as well as National's you will find that the Commodore of Sea Scouting in your council has a seat on the council executive committee, the Venturing coordinator does not. In fact Venturing is shown as a sub-committee under the Sea Scout Commodore. Venturing is an infant in the BSA as compared to Sea Scouting which began just two years after the founding of the BSA.

Believing in God is a requirement for membership, the BoR is not responsible for establishing membership. Showing reverence to God and performing Duty to God are advancement requirements and are directlly related to personal growth, and as such fall under the purposes of the BoR.

What purpose does the Patrol Method serve if it is not used? The troop elects leaders to represent their interests in the PLC just as we elect the representatives in our government to represent us. By allowing the PLC to excercise their representative responsibilities the entire "troop" has voted on the issue. What you want to avoid is having the decision made by adults. The decision should be made by the youth members. That is the role of the PLC.