Eagle1993

Actually there is something called global dimming. It is the impact of aerosols in the air reflecting our the sun’s energy back into space. It actually can help offset global warming impacts but the trend is reversing as countries get more strict about particulate pollution. There is is even some belief that contrails actually help lower earth temp. Some limited studies of this occurred during the days post 911 when commercial aircraft were grounded. I’m not sure if that is what the 70’s scientists were talking about.

I would add... if possible... to perform this outdoors with a bond fire. You captured the key parts, especially the symbolism of leaving the parents to a patrol.

Correct. German and Irish decendants are part of those parades and support them. I’m of Irish decent and my wife is primarily German. If NAs are part of the ceremony or if the OA works with them on a ceremony then no issue. The issue is when a population that was nearly killed off by another race has their customs taken and performed without their permission and against their will. Just think if Germany scouts danced around dressed like Hasidic Jews. Sure, it has been generations since that genocide and the German scouts could be doing that in honor, but if the Hasidic Jews stated it was disrespectful then there should be no argument. I would also argue that I would never tell the Hasidic Jews that their offense is simply “their choice”. Given that we (non NAs) have taken nearly everything from NAs I do feel they get to own their cultural representations. I’m not sure it would qualify or even be achievable, but I think it could be an awesome Eagle Scout project for a local OA member to work with a local tribe to develop a ceremony accurate to local NA culture that could be passed down for generations.

Over the past 20+ years I’ve come to the belief that NA culturally representation is owned by NAs. If an OA lodge works with a local tribe and comes to some sort of agreement to honor them through ceremony I’m all in favor. If NA tribes in the area are not in favor then it starts to feel like a blackface play... even if well intentioned. I will say my experience in OA and with any NA cultural experience within BSA was done with respect and we discussed NA history in full context. I would certainly hate to lose this as it is a great opportunity to keep NA history, culture and customs alive. At the same time, if NA groups see this as insulting then it cannot continue. Perhaps National OA can discuss this with various tribes with the goal of finding a way to use ceremonies for eduction and honoring NA traditions. I would look at what Florida State did with the Seminoles as a good example.

The same reporter broke the news of the Girl Scout letter back to the BSA. She has a source. What I learned is that BSa leadership are clearly struggling with how to create a Boy Scout level parallel program and read scouter.com. *whistles quietly* *opens profile* *changes location to Alaska*

None at this point, but will watch for this. Our attrition rate has been fairly low so increases should be apparent. That said, no family has complained. I think the separate dens help during the transition plus girls have unofficial been tagging along for years so seeing them around won’t be a big change. Having them attend overnights and participate in meetings will be new and will watch for friction.

Week 1 We are up to 9 girls now, 4 Lions, 1 Tiger and 4 Bears. The Troop has caused some issues with the charter renewal so we haven’t been able to sign up online yet... should be fixed by next week. We expect a few more Tigers to join as well. A couple of the parents are interested in becoming den leaders. One is a current GSUSA leader and the other an Eagle Scout and former scout leader. We have den meetings set up and several of the girls will be part of our upcoming PWD. We haven’t figured out the Be A scout flag and our DE told us not to worry about it. In our case, I definitely see a bit of pull front GSUSA. In particular the 3rd grade girls. There is a split in that Troop where some would like to do outdoor activities and others the fashion and mall stuff. The girls interested in the outdoors are now joining our Pack. I was on he fence of creating Girl dens next year but the interest shown so far makes me think we can create separate dens and have enough volunteers to cover. Several of the parents of the girls are interested in keeping it separate as well. Our current pack of Boys is 71 but is growing to 73 as new boys are coming in as well. With these new girls we will be t 82. We have not advertised at all... this is from parents discussing during drop off and pickup. Rough estimates based o word of mouth is that we could see 25-30 girls join next year. The new parents have been great so far. The fathers for the most part are the ones interested in this opportunity. Several have stated they aren’t interested in causing trouble they just want their daughters to have the same opportunity they had (or their sons had). Next up.. fixing the Troop charter and PWD with some girls.

A new Where’s Waldo game! 10 up arrows to the first post who finds a Girl or Coed Pack!

That is true; however, early adopters should be updating them. We haven’t been able to update ours (my understanding is COR has to setup first). I haven’t found any Packs showing up as anything but boys.

One quick update that I’m not sure if anyone else noticed. The Be A Scout search now shows if packs are Boy only, Girl Only or mixed. I haven’t found any that are listed as anything but Boy Only but something to watch for as this ramps up...

Expand the Morenci mine in Arizona. I also have problems with environmentalists who seem to believe food, products and electricity can just magically appear. There are definitely trade offs that must be made and risk/benefit analysis should be considered. That said, I believe protecting water is especially critical as no mine or drill site can be 100% clean or operate without error. My grandma had an oil well on her land in southern Illinois. There were spills (relatively small). The good news is that it wasn’t near a water way so to clean them up you dig out the containment and haul it to a landfill. My wife has worked for a power company to remediate oil gasification sites. Again, clean up is expensive but simple. Dig, dig, dig up that muck and replace with clean soil. 100% on board with the comment that we have to allow drilling and mining ... but we should also have limits where the risk is simply too great. I have fished multiple waterways (Milwaukee river, Illinois river, etc) that suffered from industrial pollution. It has taken a generation for them to start to recover from one generation’s mistake. I would not want to see that mistake repeated.

I don’t believe the copper market is at a shortage crisis to the point that we should risk the BWCA. Damage to waterways is long lasting and extremely difficult to repair.

Thanks. I figure I would post weekly updates on progress/findings/etc.

Signed. There are some decisions and changes that can have lasting damage and cannot easily been undone. BWCA is one of the few purely wild areas we have left in the Great Lakes.

I think reporting in this case could be more about protecting the leader vs really a concern that something nefarious occurred. As the leaders of this Troop created separate sleeping areas and s leader left the area to sleep with the youth he did open himself up to possible accusations. What if one of the youth accuses him of crawling in his bunk during that night six months from now? Now you have a situation where an adult has clearly been the only adult sleeping in an area with youth. That would be bit of a mess. Hell, if I did this I would send a report to my COR and DE. I’d explain what and why it happened and ask them to fully investigate. They should follow up with the other leaders and youth, see nothing else occurred, have me retrained in YPT, let the parents know and move on. I’d apologize to the scouts and explain YPT and how it protects both l leaders and youth. If I were a scout and the leader was a good guy, I’d be impressed with his sense of accountability and feel YPT is way overly sensitive. It should not be a black mark against his record (unless he repeatedly violates it) and it should show that he treats protecting youth seriously. All of this assumes nothing else happened. Almost no one on this forum know the guy or if he is a pedophile. Pedophiles exist, they aren’t always apparent and the only way to truly protect youth is to strictly enforce YPT. Yes, YPT can be a burden and our society jumps from accusations to guilt immediately; however, too long has BSA and leaders ignored situations that but youth at risk of perverts. If reporting a borderline YPT violation helps ensure consistent and rigorous enforcement and thus Scouts from being assaulted then I’m all for it and any volunteer of youth should be as well.

I wasn’t there when it occurred (it was prior to my time there). Pizza guy came... started talking... ended up discussing jet fuel. He volunteered his car (and only source of income) up for the experiment. Needless to say it had a good short run before car death. As was explained to me, he may have been smoking something that is legal in a few states. My short stint at a refinery gave me more stories than nearly twenty years at my current employer.

I will add that the oil change places that recommend changing oil every 3,000 miles is a scam. Your owners manual is sufficient and even then probably a bit conservative. I worked at a refinery for a short time and with a few engineers who were responsible for blending and delivery of motor oil. They had measured oil out of engines after various mileage’s and indicated there was no noticeable degradation in performance until starting at 10,000 miles. They said one could probably simply top off oil and replace the oil filter until 20,000+ miles. No one had the guts to actually implement that plan. They did fill a pizza delivery guy’s car with jet fuel. It ran a few hundred yards. Best time I had there was when the old timers sat around and discussed worst case scenarios at the refinery, many that would result in large craters and mass carnage.

@blw2 I’m a member of several Reddit groups and keeping on point is most critical (at least for me) on non political threads. For example, if you start a thread on ideal process to change brake pads on a 1997 Porsche 911 Turbo and someone starts discussing why you can run 13,000 miles between oil changes on a 2015 VW Passat it is not helpful. First, those who are interested in VW Passat’s oil change interval will almost never find that interesting discussion buried in the original topic and second those interested in brake pads on a 911 Turbo now have to read through ramblings on VW. I would agrue the same applies for many threads here. If someone starts a thread for SPL on smaller Troops it would be best to keep it focused for both short term and long term (those that search threads in future). I think our mods do a pretty good job of balancing flow of conversation and keeping on topic

Thread hijacking is not good internet decorum. IT IS SIMILAR TO NOT TYPING IN ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME. It is a consistent and common rule across nearly all forums. I know I violate it from time to time and have no problem when called out. It is simple enough to create a new topic.

The tent vs other (bunk house, sub, cave) has been discussed by our leadership regarding YPT. In many cases (outside tent) you have no choice but to have youth and adults sleep in the same area. However, our focus was no one on one, female leaders separate as much as possible, two deep leadership when near youth, arrange sleeping arrangements as close to YPT tent policy as possible. The violation is this case is the two deep leadership and the fact the Troop has found a way to keep leaders and scouts separate. I can completely see a leader, at 1am, groggy thinking to hell with this and pulling his bed into another room. It doesn’t make him evil or bad but it does still seem to be a violation. If he did it, he should even report it himself. Let the DE investigate. Inform the parents of the findings (probably nothing) and move on. All of this is to protect both youth and leaders. What happens if in 6 months one of those youth accuse him of jumping in his bed? That is why he should have not done this in the first place and it should be reported and investigated.

There is always a cost for training for any organization. The question is who should pay. Natonal, council, unit or individual. If training is a priority I would expect the expense to be covered by someone other than the volunteer. Clearly training is not a priority for nationals or council so it is coming down to the unit or volunteer. How many non profits charge you to volunteer and to be trained? BSA is the only one I have been part of who charges a fee. The training charges are minimal in our council and our Pack covers them for any volunteer willing to take the time to be trained. We cover the expense as part of our dues and fundraising budget as we see this as a priority.

My council only charges minimal fees for training, to cover basic costs. $5 for position specific... and you get the Trained patch. $12 for BALOO to cover some handouts and lunch. I don’t hear complaints about cost only content and time (frequency and length).

There are also A LOT of chatter at my council that Venturing will change as well. As I was told, it was already seen as a program in decline (lowest number of members and highest attrition rate over last few years). So, until announced officially, I am not sure that Venturing will remain unchanged. I agree with @Eagle94-A1. Our council has also discussed paper dens and Troops. It will happen. There are already Troops with girls now with blue cards tracking MB progress. They will find a way to comply on paper but create a coed Troop (theirs leaders, scouts and parents want it). As part of the Pack early adopter program my DE specifically told me that they will be strict with separate dens and meetings now (no paper dens); however, that will probably change when full roll out occurs. They won’t be able to police everyone. So... you are correct regarding the video. What really will happen remains to be seen.

I’ve had a couple of discussions with my DE but to mention of this webinar yet. I know there is a multi page FAQ that he was referencing. That is how I know we need new leaders for the Girl den(s) and there is no minimum number of girls per grade.

Week T-1 Update We now have 5 girls interested in joining our Pack. 4 are current GSUSA members and 3 have brothers in the Pack. We have not pushed recruiting at all and do not plan to so I expect our early adopter numbers to be low. So far, 2 Lions, 1 Wolf and 2 Bears. Two of the girls would bring a new family to the Pack. Their father is an Eagle Scout and former scout leader (he doesn’t have sons so he hasn’t been involved with our Pack). Next week... committee meeting, meeting with DE.