Tim in NJ

3 here... nothing to show for it.

My district and council both put on quite a few events throughout the year. At the district level, we offer a Cub Scout Family Camping weekend, various special belt loop events, a district-wide Pinewood Derby, an annual Boy Scout Camporee, the annual Klondike Derby (with an option for Webelos to attend), as well as a few other events I can't think of right now. At the council level, add in an annual Webelos Woods camping weekend, a Merit Badge workshop, overnight and day camps for both Boy Scouts and Cubs, High Adventure opportunities, Community Service events, an annual Cub Scout sleepover at the Liberty Science Center, and again more stuff that I'm forgetting. To tell the truth, almost all of these events break even from the entry fees or make a small profit. Luckily we have some dedicated volunteers at both the council and district levels who are very good with financial planning issues, so the money doesn't just disappear... it is budgeted very well and the events can happen year after year!

My local district committee has a tradition of taking up a collection every year to make a West donation in the name of a Scouter who has gone above and beyond in their dedication to Scouting. The planned recipient is not told of the honor, and all discussion happens via emails sent seperate from any meetings. This seems to me about as close to "earning" a James West knot as you can get. I'm one of the newest committee members, so I don't have any expectations of getting one, but if it did happen to me sometime in the future I would gladly accept the recognition and add the knot to my uniform. I haven't been around long enough to know what happens if they can't find a worthy recipient or if they fail to raise the funds needed.

Patriots' Path Council here in New Jersey has released a statement on the vote, which I happen to agree with: [url=http://signs-up.ppbsa.org/2013/04/30/executive-board-decision-on-membership-standards/]http://signs-up.ppbsa.org/2013/04/30/executive-board-decision-on-membership-standards/[/url=http://signs-up.ppbsa.org/2013/04/30/executive-board-decision-on-membership-standards/]

Based on every description I've heard so far, yes. The options to presented in May to the voters are adapt this new resolution as written or maintain all current policies without modification.

Cub and Webelos Supernova medals have been reduced in price to $23.99 each per http://www.scoutstuff.org, but I agree that it is still an outrageous amount. My local council's shop had plenty of both the Nova patches and the Pi pieces sitting in stock. I actually bought one of each, stuck the Pi pin to the Nova patch, and I carry it around with me to any event where I might talk about the STEM Nova program so that I can show the scouts/parents/scouters what the awards actually look like.

I specifically did not tell you that. If you want a policy that is SOLELY Christian, I can't give it to you. My emphasis is on the fact that BSA is and has been disregarding their own proclamation that they are a nonsectarian organization. BSA National has decided to pick and choose their interpretation of morality on this issue from a large, but still limited, subset of religious teachings. I find these two items to be contradictory and exclusive of each other. My personal belief is that National, in ignoring the "completely nonsectarian" policy, defaulted to the majority of Christian teachings. I seriously doubt that the views of other religions were ever highly considered. I might as well put this out there as well: I consider myself to be a Christian. Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod specifically. In the tradition of Martin Luther himself, however, I do not agree with all of the teachings and policies of my church. I just haven't nailed my thesis to the door yet!

Ok, I'll go for the low-hanging fruit: the very policy we have been debating has been pro-Christian. The exclusion of avowed homosexuals from the program certainly was created (and specifically affirmed just last summer) to align with the teachings of many larger Christian denominations. Is anyone really making the argument that this policy was created or continued to mesh with Muslim or Jewish teachings? mozartbrau: You state "...I would argue that BSA is more aligned with the major religions -- as much as anyone can align with everyone these days..." and I really don't disagree with that point very much. In my mind however, aligning with most major religions and disregarding other major religions does not meet the established claim of being "completely nonsectarian". As far as I am concerned, the BSA has to drop either this policy of excluding gays, or they have to drop the claim of being completely nonsectarian... the two principles are simply incompatible within the same membership framework.

Seems a simple question to me, and in my mind it certainly should mean interpretation A. Unfortunately, it seems to me that National has been following interpretation B for the last few decades, which doesn't seem to be logically correct in any way I can see. 300 million Buddhists worldwide don't constitute a major religion? Prior to the mid 1970's, there was no established ban on gays in the BSA, and I cannot see any justification for the policy outside of picking and choosing which religious beliefs that they want to follow as a "completely nonsectarian" organization.

Seems a simple question to me, and in my mind it certainly should mean interpretation A. Unfortunately, it seems to me that National has been following interpretation B for the last few decades, which doesn't seem to be logically correct in any way I can see.

I might have to steal this from you to use when I describe the Supernova awards around my council. I think that's the best short-form summary I've seen yet.

If the incoming snowstorm headed towards the northeast today doesn't turn out quite as bad as the local media seems to be gearing up for, then I should be able to tell you a bit about our first local project along these lines. I'm supposed to attend an Eagle Board of Review for a scout who performed some of these interviews with local vets. I'll bring up the Library of Congress if he doesn't.

Thanks for the welcome. As for Sandy, my area was bruised by the storm, but not devastated like some other areas. We "only" had an unbelievable amount of downed trees, wind damage, and long term power loss. Our council owns two camps locally, and each one lost roughly 400 trees. Hurricane Irene, a year earlier had a much larger impact on me personally, since my father's house was flooded and the entire interior needed to be rebuilt. As that was the house I grew up in, a lot of memories are still there and a lot of "stuff" was destroyed.

Hello all. I've been lurking on here for a couple of months now, and finally got signed up tonight. Before and after the forum changeover there seemed to be an issue with actually registering, but I've finally made it through! Anyway, I spent a good chunk of my youth in Scouting, 3 years in Cubs/Webelos followed by a little under 7 years as a Boy Scout. Once I headed off to college, my formal affiliation with the BSA ended for almost 14 years and my only connection back was my Eagle Scout card in my wallet and my on-again-off-again NESA membership. Last January I decided to become directly involved again and signed up as a merit badge counselor with my local district. When I attended a "district barbeque" just to see what was going on, I ended up recruited to join the District Advancement Committee back in October. I've also been helping get my local council's STEM-NOVA committee started up recently. I'm looking forward to using this site as a resource and contributing where I can.