Bob White

On another note I was contacted the other day by a local newspaper feature writer who heard about Sea Scouting from a mutual friend who happened to serve on Wood Badge Staff with me in 06. She had never heard pf Sea Scouting and thought it would make a good story and asked for an interview. I explained that she really should interview some Sea Scouts rather than an adult and I arranged for her to meet over lunch with a few Ship members. The interview went very well and lasted over 90 minutes. By the end of it she was asking for an application for her son to join, and wanted to get her 9 year old daughter in as soon as she was eligible because she was already geeting disinterested in her Girl Scout unit. We sent her some photos of the scouts in action aboard a few of our boats, nd we are anxiously waiting for the article to appear in the paper. It might run as early as this weekend. Spring isn't that far away, other Ship's might want to consider calling their local papers and asking for the feature editor. Chances are they haven't heard about Sea Scouts either. This would be a good time to start advertising.

Mark The Regional Commodore lives in yor aree, and I anm sure she can put you in tpouch with a local sea Scout Skipper to help mentor you to get you started. You can contact Commodore Nancy Peto at nancypeto@hotmail.com The boats can be owned in a number of different ways. Having the Co create a 501©3 Foundation is one way. If the council owns the boats as some do, then they are already a 501©3 so another one does not have to be formed. Remember that all the 3 designation does is allow the donation of the boat to be tax deductable for the donor. There are some rules that go with that. For instance you are required to use the boat for at least two years before you sell it or the donor gets to deduct only what you sold it for, and not the appraised value. This is not something you should enter into without a lawyer and a CPA. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

Assuming you have no other requirememnts completed other than the merit badges you have then you need a minimum of 16 months to complete the remaining requirements. Understand that once you reach Life there is no guarntee that you will elected of selected for any position which would bring your advancement to a halt. A lot of that will depend on their perception of your purpose in returning to the troop. It is said the the best way to achieve your goals is to help others achieve theirs. I would think that if in your return to the troop you howed that you were as intereted in helping other scouts learn and advannc hat they will want to see you advance as well. Good Luck and wlcome back. BW

I am unaware of any national patch of those three topics although it is possible they exist, most likely they are locally produced patches and not a national ones which is why you are not finding them in the Insignia Guide. In any case they would be treated as a temporary patch and worn centered on the right shirt pocket.

While it is true that masses are available any day of te week, only Saturday Viguil and Sunday masses fulfill a Catholics obligations for participation in Sunday Mass. Vatican II supported and encouraged ecumunism (spiritual dialogue and activity in which the Church engages with other Christians.) with non-Catholic Christians. This does not include ecuminism with non-Christians. Gold Winger, Please worship as you see fit, but everyone knows that your comments are not truly about your personal worship activities but are posts ridiculing others because of your own distrust of organized religions. It is insulting and it violates your oath to be reverent. Dislike religion as you wish privately, but it is immature and unscout-like for you to insult other people for their sincere efforts to be true to the religious beliefs and their Scout values.

You will need to take comfort in the fact that you are doing the right thing. If the Scoutmaster wants you son to take part in breaking the camp down then have him do his portion that night befre he leaves. He should drop his tent and put his troop or patrol gear that he is using away, and police his sight for litter. What more is there to breaking down a site?

Exactly Trevorum. As Pappy correctly pointed out as an example, the obligation for Catholics is to attend Mass not just a prayer service. For a worship service to be a Mass it must include certain specific elements, among those is the Eucharistic celebration, and that cannot be carried out as part of a "scouts own" or inter-faith service. But the Catholic Church is not the only one with these types of specific obligations.

It would be impossible for any of us to know that without talking with them. However it is certainly one possible reason as to their behaviour. Perhaps you should ask, and then see what could be done to accommodate the worship responsibilities of the scouts.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

For a number of faiths a worship service is required to contain specific elements of worship in order for it to fulfill their religious obligations. The religions I mentioned are a few among them and represent a large percentage of scouts and Scouters. I do not feel that an Internet forum is the best place to discuss something as personal and as import to many of us as our religion, especially if posters such as Gold Winger will use them to violate his Oath to be reverent. His post was meant to ridicule religions with specific rites of worship. One does not need to have a personal commitment to God in order to be respectful of others beliefs whether a member of the BSA or not. Pappy, Your lengthy reposts of internet articles would almost be bearable if they were at least related to the topic of the thread. Which was dealing with religious obligations on outings. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

A non-denominational or interfaith worship service does not meet the religious obligations of Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Islamics, and many other faiths. And while it is nice that many troops and crews do this it is important to know that is is not considered a church service and does not release many practicing faithful from their obligations. Another reminder while were on the topic a unit cannot make a scout participate in a religios activity that is not of their own religios practice. So for example a troop sponsored by a Catholic Church that has one scout that is not Catholic, cannot require the non-Catholic scout to take part in any religious activity with troop that is not of his own faith. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

I think by and large most leaders are good people. In fact I think many of them are good leaders. Over the years I have met hundreds of excellent scout leaders. But there are over 1 million scout leaders in the BSA if the statistics were reversed an 70% of them were trained then that would still leave 300,000 untrained leaders in the program. Think about that number and the amount of damage to local and programs by THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND untrained Leaders. On this forum alone you can see numerous examples of people in positions that are not only untrained by have not read resources for their jobs. Heck we have had threads where people who have been Scoutmasters for YEARS never read anything other than the requirement pages in the Boy Scout Handbook. If you read a handbook and say you follow it you are berated by some members of this forum. The problem of untrained leaders is big enough that national has a division director crisscrossing the country meeting with groups of counsil professionals telling them that they need to address this issue through the relationships with Charter organizations to stress selection of quality individuals and get them to training. I understand that the National wants to keep a smiley face on this issue from a marketing perspective. Even on my worst day if someone asked my how things were going my response is a smiling "Unbelievable". Did you really expect someoine at the national office to say to a caller or volunteer that there was a problem? They are trained better than that.

A friend had one made out of a a squirrel's skull he found in the woods. He bleached it and clear coated it. It was pretty fearsome looking.

Just like Councils and Scout executives have a certain amount of local control and authority so do the local Catholic Diocese and Parishes. Scouts and Scouters who are practicing Catholics should discuss this matter with their local pastor as far as fulfillment of their obligations while on Scouting activities. Ecuminism is supported by the Catholic church but be careful not to confuse it with inter-faith worship. There is a big difference, and one that Catholics should be aware of. When possible we make it possible for scouts of any faith that want to be able to attend the worship service of their faith to do so when possible. Often times however we were limited by distance or transportation resources to meet these obligations every outing. In our current program our scouts have no problem attending services before or after our activities.

I always find it amusing, and very presumptuous, when persons of one one religion or no religion trying telling us what persons of another faith believe in. I think OGE was on the money. When it comes to driving do you ingore the Rules of the Road or the owners manual for your car? When you need to know how to program a remote control to you ignore the instructions? When you are given a food dish to make do you ignore the recipe before you learn how to make the dish? Before you played a board game did you not take time to learn how it is played? There are instructions for many of the the things we do in order to insure the correct results. Scouting is no different. How do you know when its all together if you never learn what "all together" is? If you put as much energy as some evidently do to NOT follow the program, then how can they ever expect to get the results that the program can get?

Wow, I posted that last one way too quickly. For my own piece of mind here it is without the typos. "He says this is the only time left for him to be SPL." If a goal of his was to serve as SPL then perhaps he needed to make other choices regarding his other activities. If the roles were reversed and he missed many of the Speech and Debate competitions and club meetings because of his participation in Scouting should the Speech and Debate team consider him for President for a semester because it is convenient for him at that moment? Or should they elect someone who has been present and supporting the team? He is was busy because of choosing to do other things, but since this is a convenient time for him personally he wants the troop to alter their election process to suit him? I really do not see why this is under consideration? We should not be teaching scouts to elect people based on it being a convenient time for the candidate or because this is their last opportunity. And I do not see how being the son of the former Scoutmaster plays into this in any way .

I never said "ignore" posters, I said "trust" your training and the BSA resources. And while I agree that the latter may often lead to the former, I did not say to ingore posters.

"Troops and Packs are all very different, and reflect the geniuses and talents and personalities of the locale. Except for the word "geniuses" I do not disagree. "Emphasizing one method over another (or even a variation on a method) may be the wisest course in some situations. All situations are not alike. I also agree with that statement, although I also believe that some volunteers do not understand the diffrence between a variation and a corruption. You see the problem Pappy is that because of your inexperience and unfamiliarity with the actual Scouting program, you seem to misunderstand and misrepresent my posts. I welcome you to find anywhere where I have said that all unit programs must be identical, or where I have stated that the methods are not be used based need and situation. It's not that you dislike what I write, it's that you dilike the things you fabricate about what I think. In a very early post to you I wrote about some of the adventures that the units I have served have been on. You said you liked those activities and hoped to do those kinds of things. Well Pappy you have a unit that is either 3 or 5 years old (depending on which post we read) so...what are you waiting for? I have posted very little about the unit I serve compared to what you have posted about the one you say you serve. But here are things we have both shared... You admit that you do not follow the program, I admit I do. You say you don't like a lot of things about the BSA, I say I do. You admit your program is losing members, I admit our membership grows continually. We go on adventures, you want to go someday. See the difference. (This message has been edited by Bob White)

"He says this is the only time left for him to be SPL." If a goal of his was to serve as SPL then perhaps he need to make other choices regarding his other activities. If the roles were reversed and he missed many of the Speach and debate competions and club meetings becasue of his participation in Scouting should the Speach and Teabar=te team consider him for president for a semester because it is convenient for hi at thet moment? Or should they elect someone who has been present and supporting the team? He is was busy because of choosing to do other things, but since this is a convenient time for him personally he wants the troop to alter their election process to suit him? I really do not see why this is under consideration? We should not be teaching scouts to elect people based on it being a convenient time for the candidate or because this is their last opportunity. And I do not see how being the son of the former Scoutmaster plays into this in any way.

2/21 aond 6:30 PM Just wanted to say hello. Im a scout from ye old Sunshine State. I'm currently a patrol leader and working on Star. Thanks. 2/22 Around 7 AM As a response to BW, i am a former PL. Not sure what happened, but it sure happened fast.

Okay, new approach. I just read your intro padilan and you say thqat you are a Patrol Leadr. Are you saying that the patrol leader of amother patrol wants you to be responsible for your own patrol and his patrol for the campout?

(This message has been edited by Bob White)

Other than setting a good example in the way you lead your Den and being positive in your interactions with the Cubmaster and other leaders, there is probably nothing you can do about this issue. The biggest problem the unit has is lack of administative help. Without a trained committee chair and an active charter organization representative this issue will either end badly, or drone on for a prolonged period of time. Someone needs to be selected to become the committee chair and bring leadership and direction to the unit. I hope that someone is found soon, for the sake of the boys.

Padilan The patrol chose who they wanted to be their leader. The Patrol leader chose who he wanted to to fill in for him if he was not there. Who do you feel should be there to lead the patrol?

But that does not mean that even a Lone Scout cannot have a profound difference made in his life from the presence of an adult that listens to him, encourages him and taking a sincere interest in him. Does it?

How are you so sure of the Papy. By your own admission you have never lead a program that used the scouting methods. You say what you have done is not working, so how do you know that followingthe program wouldn't. The BSA has almost a 100 years of experience that says it does, and you have between 3 and 5 years of experience NOT using the program that says it doesn't work. Which do you feel has the greater credibility on this issue? Me, I pick the folks with the 100 years of experience.