Bob White

Wnen you say that parents are "running the show" in Boy Scouts or Venturing, do you mean patrol meetingn, Troop meetings. activities and outings? Do you see this as a feature of the Scouting program, or as a probelm of leadership in the unit?

To trust anyone whose skills, backgrounds, methods, personalities, and abilities are unknown is dangerous and naive. To trust them with your children is irresponsible. Trust has to have some foundation of credibility.

There is a significant and fairly obvious difference between the requirements of the Scout Badge and the requirements for achieving Scout Ranks. The first three Ranks of Scouting, Tenderfoot 1st and 2nd Class are based on basic outdoor skills, health skills, citizenship. The next three ranks are based on Merit badges, Leadership and Citizenship. Combined the ranks progress scouts through the three aims of Scouting Character, Citizenship, and Fitness. The requirements of the Scout Badge do none of those things. It is a quiz on some basic program knowledge, the salute, the emblem, the handshake, the stated vales of the Oath. Law, Motto, Slogan. It is an orientation on Boy Scouting and does not address any of the Aims of Scouting. That is why it is a membership badge only and not a Rank.

There are two levels to the recognition. Here is what they represent. Medal of Merit. The Medal of Merit may be awarded to a youth member or adult leader who has performed some outstanding act of service of a rare or exceptional character that reflects an uncommon degree of concern for the well-being of others. National Certificate of Merit. The National Certificate of Merit may be awarded to a youth member or adult leader who has performed a significant act of service that is deserving of special national recognition. Visit this website for information on how to apply, http://www.scouting.org/Media/FactSheets/02-521.aspx

I think "policy" is the wrong term. The BSA probably has few policies when it comes to office administration. It is probably more accurately called a practice or a procedure, rather than a policy.

Hi LisaBob, No it has not changed at all, the BSA is very clear about this in several advancement resources and in training. Tenderfoot is the first rank. The Scout Badge is not a rank, and it never has been, it is a membership badge. And yes once the Scout JOINS a troop the SCOUTMASTER can determine if he has earned the Badge. But two things have to happen that are not a part of the AOL requirements. One is, he first has to JOIN the troop, and the second is his parents must go through the "How to protect your children from child abuse." pull-out section of the Boy Scout Handbook. Neither of those is covered in the requirenments for Arrow of Light. If the Scout has completed the AOL and then joined the troop prior to the ceremony it would seem fine to present the Scout Badge, but it needs to be approved by the Scoutmnaster of the troop he joined before the pack can make it a part of their ceremony. Not presenting the Scout badge at the crossover does not make the trannsition any less "seamless". Think of the number of posters who seem perfectly comfortable taking a year to teach the tenderfoot skills, why worry about getting him the Scout Badge at the last pack meeting rather than the first Troop meeting?

Scout is not a rank, nor do the requirements for AoL cover All the requirements for the Scout Badge. They are close, but they are not complete.

How are you able to tell that a boy has not attended a Boy Scout activity or met with a Scoutmaster just by the way the crossover ceremnony is done???

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of so many untrained leaders, or ones that do not understand or follow the program,is that they take their lack of knowledge with them to other levels of scouting where they negatively affect multiple units rather than just one.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

It will be interesting to see if this has any positive effects but I tend to agree with OGE on this. It is unlikeley that these new positions will lead to many face to face contacts with Council Commissioners or Scout professionals to help enhance Commissioner responsibilities. At best this is just new names on e-mails. Regions are HUGE hunks of territory, and Areas are just really, really, really BIG hunks of territory. So there will be little hands-on help or personal contact to come from this change I would bet.

"Once you turn in your application and the Boy Scout unit accepts it, you are no longer a Cub Scout and are no longer eligible to earn AOL. Actually that is incorrect. The boy is not a Boy Scout until AFTER the application and money has been sent to the council office and processed. I would often accept an application from a Webelos family prior to the scout crossing over and would hold it until after the scout crossed. Think of it as a "letter of intent". Once the Scout received the AoL I would send the application to the office.

Duty to God should not just be a part of the Eagle board of review, it should be a part of EVERY board of review. A Scout's reverence and Duty to God does not begin when he is ready to earn Eagle. It begins when when he joins Scouting....or before.

First we need to establish that decorated and qualified are unrelated. Yes there are many recoognitions that a cubmaster can receive or have bestowed on them, just few that take less than a year to earn or be considered for. While rare it is possible to earn the Wood Badge training recognition in less than a year. Should he make a sizable financial contribution to the council he could receive a reconition in the form of a knot, (your local counilc office can give yu more information on that. If he saves someone life he could be nominated for a Life Saving award that is a knot, if he organizes a new Scout unit he would be eligible for a knot, after two years as a Cubmaster there is an award he could earn that is represented by a knot, If he is active in his church there is an adult religious award he could earn and others that he could be selected for, etc. etc.. Tell your husband that to do a good job has it's own rewards and he does not require awards on his uniform to know that he is serving the scouts or the chartering organization.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

You ask one question in your title of the thread and an entirely different question in the body of the post. I will attem,pt to answer both. Do I trust that other scouters are trying to do their best? No. I hope they will do their best, I would expect them to do their best. But I cannot trust them to do their best until I have some knowledge of their abilities to base that trust on. Now in the body of the post you do not talk about this. You ask an entirley different question. Do I really believe that the Scouters who volunteer to give up their own time to be Scoutmasters, Assistant Scoutmasters, Various Committee members, various Commissioner posts are not trying to do their best? Sometimes yes. When a Scoutleader chooses to not follow the program they cannot lay claim to "doing their best". When a SCouter chooses to ingore the rules that protect the scout they cannot clain that they are "doing their best". When a leader knows the right thing to do but does what is personally expediant thay cannot say that they are "doing their best". People become Scout leaders for all kinds of reasons, many of the reasons are very good, many of the reasons as far as scouts and scoutihg are concerned, are very bad. It wpould be naive to think that every single person becomes a scout leader for all the right reasons. "And included in that are not wholly ignorant or grossly incompetent?" Are their wholly ignorant and incompetent leaders? Absolutely, because committees and CRs do not always "do their best" in selecting unit leaders. Let's be realistic here, there are 1.2 million adult scouters. You cannot possibly believe that there are no incompetent leaders among them. It is statistically impossible for there not to be. There are many, many, many scouters who do their best to deliver a quality scouting program. There are also many scouters who do their best to be able to do whatever they want dressed in Scout uniforms.

I had the pleasure of seeing 7 scouters receive the Silver Beaver recognition a few hours ago. I know 6 of them quite well. I served on Wood Badge with three of them. One served as Scoutmaster of the troop where I also had been the Scoutmaster, The other two I have served on committees with. All are probably very surprised they were selected and each was an excellent choice. All the ones I know have given 15 years or more to scouting. More than that are very active in communities outside of Scouting. Many were involved in, United Way, Red Cross, Sunday School teachers, Church board members, youth athletic coaches, Chamber of Commerce officers, as well as unit leaders, traininers, committee members, etc. All outstanding choices. It is a real pleasure to see these kinds of people involved in the Scouting program.

That says review board and not "board of review". That could be the content for a placard with the AOL requirements on it, and have nothing to do with putting the scout in front of members of the unit committee to discuss what he has learned so far, how he met the requirements and other elements of a "board of review". When you follow the link http://www.geocities.com/pack697den3/Scorpions.html You find that it is in fact a practice list for the scout. Notice the blue box at the left. The top line says "Arrow of Light practice" and when you click through it takes you to the link previously sited. This is a review list for the elements in requirement 2 of the AOL not a "board of review".

AOL and Scout Badge cannot be completed simultaneously because to complete the requirements for the Scout Badge you have to JOIN a Boy Scout troop. So you cannot complete Boy Scout requiremenmts as a Webelos. You can learn an identical skill as a Webelos, but you will still need to show that you have that knowledge when you join the troop. There is NOTHING in the BSA program that suggests you simply give the Scout Badge to a new scout who earned the Arrow of Light as a Webelos. This does not mean you have to reteach them information they may already know. Any experienced instructor should know that you need to learn what the learner already knows, and then support what is right, correct what is incorrect, and teach what is unknown. So as OGE offers, sit down with the new scout and find out what parts of the Scout Badge he knows and teach what is missing. A new Scout with the AOL should be able to breeze through it, if he really learned his AOL requirements. Besides the requirements are not that tough, and they can easily be taught in less than 90 minutes. The toughest part is getting the parents to have reviewed the pullout section and sign it. As a Troop leader we always gave that assignment out during the parents vist prior to the Webelos crossing over and asked them to complete it with the scout and send it back signed at their first meeting. But AOL and Scout are not passed together. The Webeolos leader does the AOl with the boy as a Cub Scout and the troop does it with the boy as a Boy Scout. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

There is no such thing as an AOL board of review, Scouts do not sit at a board until they go up for the Tenderfoot Rank.

I have been a scout leader in two councils near where active service personnel were also active scout leaders. In both councils they wore Scout uniforms when scouting and their service uniform when at work. I never saw a single one show up at a scouting event wearing their service uniform. And I am willing to bet they never showed up for duty in their Scout uniform.

There is no such thing as a self-chartered unit. Troop 2 cannot charter Troop 2. At some point there must be a legitimately recorded organization that holds the charter. If it is "The Friends of Troop 2" then they should be registered as some type of 501 organization and they would be responsible for whatever annual filing was required by the State or Federal government. Most units however are a youth service within an established organization. As such they would not need to file. Think of a Scout uit as a choir in church. They findraise for supplies and program activities such as workshops, but they do not exist as a legal entity, they are a function of the church. Such is the normal relationship between a scout unit and their charter organization.

This has nothing to do with the BSA's support of Diversity. This is about the Charter Organizations constitution right to free association. The Co contracts with the BSa to use the scouting program. That contaract does not give the BSA the authority to tell the CO who they have to accept into their own organization. As long as the youth meets the BSA requirememnts then the CO can choose whether or not to accept them into THEIR program.

First congratulations on being selected and recognized by your council. I hope you enjoyed the moment. It is certainly a different feeling than the recognition you recieve for completing a set of requirements. I'm sure that not everyone feels that they do not deserve it, but I think that is the feeling most of us have who have been selected for recognitions such as the Award of Merit, it is very humbling to be selected by your peers for the same work that many others in the community do as well. In my case I just figured that everyone who really deserved it had already gotten it.

So the person is arrested, in jail, and awaiting a trail. She has been removed from the unit, has no contact with the unit, is not currently a member of any BSA unit or the council. Isn't that what you wanted? Until she tries to join again you have no idea if she will be able to or not, do you? Her parole violation was not the BSA's responsibility or fault, she broke the law not the BSA. It is likely that the counil has taken steps to block her from ever registering in the BSA again. But that will probably not be shared with you since it is going to handled confidentially in all likelyhood. As I said before I hope this situation improves for your scouts, and I hope the charter organization will find a way to better screen their leader applicants. And yes, I am a unit leader as well. Happy Scouting, BW

Barry, Stop, please. Thank you. There is nothing about discussing the BSA advancement policies and procedures that is inconsistent with this forum. I have yet to demand others to stop simply for having a difference of opinion. Nor have I called anyone names. And I have always provided evidence to support my positions. If this was not a topic LisaBob expected there to be discussion on then why in the world post it on an Internet discussion forum? Other topics are discussed with much more 'enthusiasm' and with far greater difference of opinion than this one. Yet I do not see you posting to stop them. There are posts in a thread where truly rude and misogynistic things are being said and yet I do not see you there demanding that poster to stop, only me for my observations here. Again, if you feel what I have posted is innacuarate, then counter it with discussion to support your opinion, show your evidence. I said my opinion cpould be changed if there was someone who could show cause. Can you?

Well within scouting from a leadership subject standpoint, Wood Badge is the only Boy Scout, Cub Scout. or Venturing course categorized as an advanced course (and Seabadge for Sea Scout leaders). Do not confuse that as being the end of training, or learning, it's not. It's just a category title to separate the difference between the types of training offered by the BSA. There are 4 main categories; Introductory, Basic, Advanced, and Supplementary. Only Wood Badge falls in the Advanced category for Boy Scouts. But there are numerous supplementary avenues of training that allow a person to refresh skills, expand on current skills, or learn new ones. Supplementary courses include; University of Scouting, Roundtable, College of Commissioner Sciences, Show and Do, Philmont Training Center Conferences, and a huge variety of other learning opportuinities as well as locally designed programs. But again do not think that because a course is categorized as "advanced" that is is the end of the learning opportunity. I am not sure what you would expect the "debate" to be about.