Bob White

In that case someone gave you wrong information. I have already sited three councils larger than the NCAC so they could not possibly be second or third in size in the nation. At 48,000 it would be one of the smaller Class 200 councils. In addition to the three class 200 councils already mentioned, the Orange County Council in CA. serves over 100,000 youth, the Atlanta Area Council serves over 100,000 youth, and the Greater St. Louis Area Council about 90,000 Youth. So while the NCAC is probably 2nd or 3rd in some way when it comes to size, it is not in the top three in the nation or in its class group. Perhaps in your Region?(This message has been edited by Bob White)(This message has been edited by Bob White)

If all the information in the articles provided here are accurate (and that is a big IF) then the project itself is not a problem. However the scout (if the facts of the article are correct) did not meet the requirements for the rank. The requirements are very clear. The scout must have ALL the signatures required for the project plan and have it approved by a representative of the District or Council Advancement committee BEFORE he begins work on the project. According to the scout leader in the article the written proposal was not done prior to beginning and so there is no way that the scout had the signatures prior to starting. He di not meet the requirements set by the BSA for ALL Eagle Scout projects. As wrong as the chairman of the commissioners board was, he id not the problem in this matter. It would appear that the Scout did not follow the requirements before he started the project. That is very unfortunate. If this is the case the council should hold the bor and explain to the scout in writing why he is not being advanced and provide him the steps to take should he wish to mount an appeal.

2nd or 3rd in what? Your cluster? Your area? Your Region? Certainly not in the nation as we have already sited more than three councils that are much larger than the NCAC. Perhaps (and most likely) the top second or third of the councils in your same size classification. The BSA places councils in one of 6 classifications based on the number of youth served. The classes are 200 the largest, 300,400,500,600,700, and 800 the smallest. At your size you are probably a class 300 council with Heart of America being a class 200. An example of 800 class council would be the Piedmont Council. At 10,000 youth the Yankee Clipper Council is probably a class 600 or 700.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

BP If you actually read the opening post you would see that what you posted is not what the topic of the thread is. but regarding your post, So you had two pompous leaders who disrupted a District event and you as a "trained" professional did not know how to deal with it so you want to blame WHO? I am sorry you could not handle two adults who waved a chest full of bogus knots at you but that is hardly a flaw with the BSA recognition programs. As for your complaint with the District Award of Merit, I am SHOCKED that a person who used to be a DE does not know the requirements for this recoignition. The recipient is not required to give service to the District asyou have stated. They are not even required to give service to Scouts. You should know by know that the requirements is that the recipient be a scouter who has given service to YOUTH within the geographic area of the District. You worry far too much about whether other people deserved the recognitions they recieve. If it doesn't mean anything to others then it probably doesn't mean anything to them either. Sounds to me like you just have a grudge against the SE. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

There are so few knot recognitions that are tied to donations that I do not understand the concern. If you do not wnat to make the donation don't make it. if you do not want to wear the recognistion then don't wear it. This new Philmont knot has nothing top do with big bucks. In case you have not had the opportunity to atend Philmont Training Center then you probably do not realize what an inexpensive activity is is. It's a great experience and I have yet to meet anyone who returned form PTC that did not have a great experience. So if a knot recognistion helps to promote the PTC training experience what is the downside? It's the BSA's uniform if they want to add a recognition for something that they feel has a positive effect on the program then why are people who have no interest in earning it complaining about it?

GW I think you misread your councils annual report or your FOS presenter may have misspoke. Your council has expenses of over 9 million dollars, making the cost of scouting about $180 per scout which just is a little below the national average. The $35 per scout is the average your council tries to obtain to reach their FOS goal which is just over $1.5 million annually.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

Just to be clear, the first thing you describe is a membership being revoked. There is only one kind of revocation. And while it is possible for a revocation decision to be reversed all revocations are considered permanent. The second situation you describe is not a revocation, it is a membership 'lapse' also called an 'expiration', and happens when a membership end date arrives and is not renewed in time to be considered uninterrupted. Lapsed or expired memberships can be renewed at any time unlike a revocation.

Not sure where you get your numbers from Gklose but the number of youth in the BSA is more than twice that of what you based your stats on, and I think the current count on councils at the moment is closer to 330. How big is your council? Well compare it to the Sam Houston Council in Houston, TX with 36 Districts serving over 98,000 youth. Or the Great Salt Lake Council with 29 Districts serving 80,000 youth. Or the Chicago Area Council with 9 Districts serving over 60,000 youth. You will find that size of the council is usually dependent on population. Your council will probably never be as large as the Sam Houston Council. More important thantotal membership is the percentage of penetration. What percentage of eligible youth are registered in scouting in your council? Comparing penetration gives you a more level playing field to compare your local program success with that of a larger population center.

"Ordinarily, if a unit removes an adult for sufficient cause, da SE will follow the CO's lead and similarly revoke BSA membership. And vice versa." This is rarely the case. A unit usually removes an adult for reasons such as personality conflicts or simply not getting their job done. Those are not grounds for the BSA to revoke membership. In most the cases I have seen these sorts of volunteers do not have their membership revoked, instead the DE makes them a Unit Commissioner. For membership recovation a person would usually need to violate a BSA policy or in some way be a hazard to youth.

Do not confuse revoking membership with removing a person from a position of from a unit. The unit has no authority to revoke BSA membership. They can however remove a person from a position or from the unit roster. The SE has no authority to remove someone from a unit but can revoke their BSA membership. The unit has no authority in this action. These are two separate actions. If a unit chooses to remove a person from the unit the individual is still registered with the BSA until his or her membership year is over. Removing them from the unit does not revoke BSA membership. The person is free to continue in other volunteer roles in the BSA at any level including in another unit, and is still eleigible to continue as a BSA member in the future. BSA membership revocation is a different matter. Once the membership is revoked the individual may no longer be affiliated with the BSA at any level. The unit is directed to notify the SE if they remove a person from the unit, just as the SE is directed to notify the unit if a volunteer's membership in the BSA is revoked. Since the Committee Chair, and either the CR or the IH, are required to sign every adult application then the authority to remove an adult unit member resides with them.

Kudu you run various elements together as if they all meant the same thing. The patrol method, is a separate issue from Leadership Development Method. Not all junior leaders are part of a patrol, and not all junior leaders are patrol leaders. The Patrol Method is not the same as the leadership development method yet you constantly intermix them. The BSA, as you continue to point out in your page references, supports the practice of patrols doing activities on theior own and then in another breath you say that the BSA no longer follows the that idea. The BSA does, its just that not all leaders follow the BSA program. There is very little about the Patrol Method in the training or resources of the BSA program that has changed over the decades. Not all scoutmasters followed the program in the past and not all follow it today. But the BSA still teaches and supports it. Perhaps you live in a part of the country where campgrounds are always large enough to allow Patrols to be 300 feet apart. But you need to come to the realization that that is not always the case. not all camping areas will have that features available. Perhaps in your area State and county parks allow youth to be in a campsite without an adult . Not all states allow that. For you to state that you have to be 300 feet away from another patrol in order to use the Patrol Method effectively is just silly. There IS NO Wood badge approach that patrols be 300 ft apart. I have no idea where you get such things. After having been in several Wood Badge courses I don't even know what you mean by a "Wood Badge approach". Which Wood Badge? Which actiuvity? Which Skill? The BSA approach is that Patrols are separate entities that come together to form a troop. And that managing small groups is easier than managing one large group.So that is what WB does. That is nothing new. We break particiupants in basic leader tarining in small groups. We break participants in New Leader Essentials into small groups. That is not something unique to Wood Badge. A lot of what you post is contrived to fit your opinion has no little relationship to scout past or present. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

"To say that distance is not an element of the Patrol Method is like saying that the Five Mile Hike is measured only by the adults' abilities to train and trust the junior hikers." That statement makes no sense whatsoever. You cannot compare an organizational element to a physical activity. There is nothing magical about the distance of 300 ft that makes it a reuired elemt in order to be able to group into clusters that can be lead by another youth. To suggest that a youth cannot lead a group of 8 scouts unless they camp 300 feet from another group is just silly. "I was there as a Scout" No you weren't. In fact I would be willing to bet that you and B-P nver trod the earth at the same time. The scouting you remember you recall through the eyes and experiences of a child. You never took the adult leader training then and you have no way of being able to accurately compare the training of the past to the training of today because you never took the former and you do not know the latter. The patrol structure you wax poetic about from the past is still taught today, you just don't acknowledge that it is or do not realize that it is. I agree it would be beneficial to the program if more adult s used the Patrol Method, but you cannot say that it is not taught, that simply is not true. You were fortunate to be in a troop that at that time had a leader that understood used the patrol method. So did I, until the leadership changed and with it the benefit of having a scoutmaster that followed the program. The problem is not in the methods of the program, it is simply that not all leaders follow the program. That is as true of yesteryear as it is today. This forum is proof that some leaders know and use the patrol method and some do not. Your bemoaning is misdirected. The problem is not today's program it is the way today's leaders are selected.

Because my parents taught my brothers and me that we are each responsible for the quality of our community.

For anyone who has yet to attend Wood Badge it is important to note that Kudu's description is tremendously inaccurate. Whether it is caused by lack of current program knowledge or purposely misleading is hard to tell. For one thing patrols do not camp together on the parade field. Gilwell Field, as it is referred to, is used only for troop assembly in the morning and at the end of the last day. The patrols camp in separate campsites on the second weekend. How they camp on the first weekend depends largely on the available resources, but it is not on the parade field. There are only two weekends to the current Wood Badge not the three mentioned by Kudu. Situational management is just one element of leadership taught during Wood Badge, to only refer to it and no other element gives an incorrect and misleading image of the course contents. I have been involved in several Wood Badge courses and in each one the patrols camped out of sight, and usually out of earshot, from the other patrols. More inportantly scout leaders need to understand that distance from another unit is not an element of either the Patrol Method or the Den Method. The effectiveness of the Patrol Method hinges on the adult leaders abilities to train and trust the junior leaders. So to suggest as Kudu does that it is dependent on any specific distance is untrue and simply a personal preference of Kudu's and unrelated in any way to the Methods of scouting or their effectiveness in achieving the Aims of scouting. Kudu's biggest weakness in knowing and using the scouting program is that he supports a program of the past that he never actually experienced, because he was not there, and he tries to belittle a current program that he also has never experienced and has little actual knowledge of. So before you buy into his version it would benefit you to to learn about scouting from the current training and resources available through the BSA. Because as a volunteer leader with the BSA you are not being asked to lead what you think the program used to be, but rather what the program actually is today. Happy Scouting! (This message has been edited by Bob White)

"Never do anything for the scout that the scout can do for himself" That is a great phrase to keep in mind at all times in order to make the patrol method permeate the unit program. Here is how that relates to this topic. We used to test this requirement in pairs. Two patrols set out in different directions and each person create a map that was a mile in length. The map had to include included bearings, distances and landmarks. The then they exchanged maps with the other patrol and each person had to follow their map to see where it lead them. This not only told us who could follow a map but who understood how to make one as well. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

Remember that the skills from Tenderfoot to First Class are BASIC skills. Basic compass skills are going to seem "old fashioned" because comapasses have changed very little in a long, long, time. And the basic skills way back when are still the basic skills today. Now as far as the requirements, what other units do is of no concern. You need to focus on what the requirements are in the handbook, and you need to read the referenced pages in the Handbook that explian to the scout how to meet the requirements. They are pretty clear. I would bet that you have a county, or state park, or even a scout camp nearby with trails and maps where the scouts could paractice and test their basic compass skills according to the Boy Scout Handbook. BW

Most councils buy the BSA accident insurance for the units. It is a secondary coverage that takes care of expenses after the families primary insurance runs out or covers expenses not covered by the primary insurer. For example the deductable that the family paid can be recovered through the BSA accident insurance. All registered adults and the charter organization have liability protection through the BSA (there are conditions), if you want additional liability protection you can certainly do that on an individual basis through your personal insurance company. (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

Here is my understanding and application of the methods orf the program. We would start leadership training right away with the scouts so that by the time they were elected or selected to a position they had an idea of how to lead. Withing 30 Days they recieved formal training in their riole and given the tools and resources to succeed including being given an experienced ytouth ofr adult coach/mentor who was therir to guide thenm at the beginning and be available to them as needed. If the scout was not getting the job done even after being trained and coached then they were given the choice to either show the needed improvement, choose to resign and not recieve any credit for the time in office, or they could choose to continue as things were and risk not being passed by the BOR and not getting credit for the time in office. We have had patrols fire their patrol leader , but they picked them, and it is their patrol. But we only allowed that to happen when the patrol leader was severely neglegent in their duties. And in those few cases the scout was usually happy top be relieved of the responsibility. Yes we have had BoRs not advance scouts for not completing that requirement. It was never appealled, because the scout knew they were right.

To the credit of the scouts and SCouters in the camp, they responded extrememly well after the devistation according to the Governor...While in the midst of the wind, strong rains, and lightning storm following the tornado, and while emergency crews were trying to cut their way through a lot of fallen trees blocking their way in, the scouts set up a triage shelter and began caring for the wounded and peparingthem for transport. He said the injuries could have been much worse if it were not for the actions of the scouts during the emergency. I agree with others that when out in a camp you just do the best you can do. Our Tent platforms are ony 4" high sso i do not see them as a viable protection. Also if a tornado can reduce a hoiuse to toothpicks I wouldn't cont to much on a tent platform. Most camps you throw on a rain suit or poncho and lay as fat as you can on the side of a ravine and make as small a target of yourself as you can. One year at a summer camp when we had severe storms and tornado warnings they tried to pack everyone into a dining hall that was way too small and had 8ft high windows all the way around us. I refused to go in choosing instead the relative comfort and safety of the ravine. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

AcidTest wrote..."With the continual decline or stagnet enrollment in scouting since the 1970's,... In 1970 the membership in the BSA was 6,287,284. In 1982 it was 4,542,449. In 1999 it was 6,247,743 What does this tell you? Not much, except that the membership has been anything but stagnant. It certainly does not tell you that requesting the Soc. Sec. number was involved since it was not a requirement in 1982. Membership tends to go in waves. Your statement that it has been decreasing since 1970 is incorrect. It has been declining since 2000 but the Soc Sec was not required until 2003. So again the actual history does not match your revision of it. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

A news bulletin just came on that a tornado has hit a scout camp just outside Omaha. There are fatalities and several injuries reported.

Actually your history is not real accurate. There were changes in the patches, the socks, the hats, the neckerchiefs, the fabric of the **** s and pants. Even the pockest changed. So to say that there were no noticeable changes in 60 years is not correct. BW

Sorry Calico except for Bugler I would have to disagree that the positions you listed do not employ leadership methods. I do agree that the specific title is "Position of Responsibility"

"I think our business in da BSA is providin' training and service for the hardworkin' folks in the units. Fair enough...you go write individual training and program manuals for EVERY POSSIBLE health condition that a scout might have. Call us when you are done.

When did any volunteer program have consistency in leadership or program quality levels???