MommaScouter

Basementdweller: I'm sorry, I did not clarify well enough. We agreed to reconvene in a month, we did not agree to pass him through in a month. I do hope that the weekly SMC's will help him out with that though. I am also a bit curious as to where he is picking this up, perhaps I should suggest this to the SM for the SMC's. Click23: Thank you for pointing this out, I had actually found it before the BOR took place as well. I did not see a lack of appeal process for first class or lower however so thank you for that! As far as giving him a letter, I am not sure we will need to because he actually said that he did not feel he was ready, he made the decision (even if it is the same decision we would have made for him). Thanks again guys! Everytime I turn around, you guys are adding something new and interesting!

I wanted to let you guys know how we put the advise to work: 1. The SM had a SM conference prior to the BOR. Informed the scout that the BOR would address this with him, he decided to go through with it. 2. The scout was asked if he felt he was living the Oath and Law and immediately said no and did a good job of explaining why. We counseled a bit on how his actions effect others but informed him we were not trying to punish him, but wanted him to understand the importance of living the oath and law. 3. We asked the scout if he felt he was ready to advance in rank- scout said he WANTS to but probably not ready. 4. BOR agreed to reconvene in 1 mo. and he is going to meet with SM weekly until then to discuss how he is better living oath and law. Thanks again everyone for your advise... I think it worked out well. gsdad- just to inform you several scouts in our Troop have added the leaders to their facebook friends, none of which have went and decided they were going to start requesting the scouts, it is the other way around. Several even have our DE and OA advisor added to their friends list as well. It helps us get information out to them and has never caused even a minor problem until this event. If anything, it has kept the leaders behaving better on facebook because we know we are setting the example for the scouts who have requested us as fb friends. dedkad- the cubscouts on facebook is concerning yes but the decision to have a fb account is not up to the troop leaders- it is up to the parents. I do know that several of the parents of the webelos control their kids accounts and will add or accept friend requests as they see fit.

Our pack does rank advancements at Blue and Gold every year. The Blue and Gold Banquet is a celebration of the founding of the boy scouts and as such, we make it a REALLY BIG deal! We have a sit down dinner and do cake auctions and silent auctions, we even get a DJ for the scouts to have a good time dancing after blue and gold. We invite the families out for this and usually have the mayor, police chief and fire chief in attendance as well. If we have arrow of light and bridging ceremonies, we have to OA ceremonies team out to do these and it gives the younger scouts something to look forward to. Because we make such a big deal out of it, we invite the families out and we make it a celebration of "look at how hard your scouts have worked this year". We will give out only the special awards that night like rank advancements, we do plaques for scouts who sold over $1000 in popcorn and we also acknowledge any scouts who earned their religious emblems on Scout Sunday. Any knots leaders earned will be given out that night as well. Our pack makes such a significant event out of blue and gold that no one has ever questioned "why should we complete our ranks by this day?" If they did, my answer would probably be because that is why their families are coming, they want to see their children receive that rank, we are celebrating their kids hard work with a huge celebration and expect it to be done by then. I try to hold regular leader meetings quarterly with all of the den leaders (not to be confused with committee meetings) We start the year off with one and I tell them the date of all pack meetings including B&G. I also give them a target date toward the end of January (our B&G is held at the end of February) to have all rank advancements done. This is so if someone is struggling it gives us time to step in and help out in time for B&G. It's good if they start out the scout year knowing when rank advancements are expected to be completed. Edited: I wanted to put out there that we do not REQUIRE the scouts to advance this night, it is recommended but we will acknowledge them at our pack graduation later as well. If a scout does not have all of the work put in for advancement we still find a way to acknowledge them at B&G (usually a certificate for hard work, etc)

Thank you all, I really appreciate the input you have given me. I think you guys are thinking along the same line as I was, but I wanted to make sure that I wasn't over reacting. I will be taking this advice and will hit heavily on the BOR how he is living the scout oath and law... if he does not bite, then I will bring it up. I really liked the suggestion to meet monthly to see if he is improving on living the scout oath and law. I just do not feel that I can let this behavior slide by because first class is a very important rank and by the time a scout is first class they should fully understand the oath and law and be living it! Thanks again!!!

Hi everyone, I am new to these forums but will admit that I have trolled the site quite a bit in the past! I started an account today because I have come to a dilemma and would like some advise on how to proceed. I am the advancement chair in our troop and run most of the BORs. We have a fairly new troop which will be a year old next month and our highest rank in the troop is currently a life. We have a 12 year old scout in our troop who will be up for his first class BOR tomorrow. Problem is that he has been acting out significantly on facebook lately. We have received more than a few complaints from the adults he has added to his facebook page about the way he talks to the girls on his friends list. He has over 700 friends and most of these seem to be 12-14 year old girls but he has also included scouts, scouters and even several cubscouts from our Pack in his friends list. His facebook behavior has progressively been getting worse starting with things such as: "Like my status and I will post the top 5 hotties on the list" in which he gets an overwhelming amount of responses from these young girls and last night he started posting about the girls on his friends list in a very sexual nature. When one of the girls spoke out about it, he got really vulgar and sexually explicit with her. The scoutmaster and other leaders in our unit saw this and called his Grandparents immediately, a few minutes later his facebook page was removed completely. My big dilemma is this: I do not think that this scout is living the scout oath and law at all. It is one thing to show up to a meeting in uniform and wow everyone with how many merit badges you have earned recently and how well you have meet your rank requirements but when you take off that uniform you are not supposed to stop living the scout oath and law. I feel that this behavior is completely unacceptable and it got pushed too far with his posts on facebook last night. His Grandparents acted very quickly and I have to assume that he has been made well aware of how inappropriate this is by them. Now I just need to figure out how this effects scouts, if it all? Do we ask him about his recent behavior on facebook during the BOR... it is not uncommon for me or another member of the board of review to ask a scout to explain how they are living in the scout spirit at home, school, etc. Do I let it hold him back from receiving rank right away and ask him to come back in a couple weeks and tell us how he better living the oath and law? The scoutmaster actually told me that he would not have progressed him this far had this happened prior to his scoutmaster conference. I don't want to punish the kid, that is his families decision and I don't want to push him away from scouting. I also have a bunch of timid younger scouts who know he is up for a BOR and I don't want them to get discouraged about what will happen when they go to theirs. I also do want to see this be a learning lesson for him in the fact that he is expected to live the scout oath and law even when not in uniform and the way he has been treating these girls certainly does not seem to be very much in the scout spirit. Any advise on this would be appreciated as I am currently struggling with how to proceed. Thank you!