CalicoPenn

Sure - they can do staged camping at Jamborees instead.

I don't know Stosh, looked like the girls were having fun to me - and as a Boy Scout, I've camped in large fields in county forest preserves where there were no trees and no fires allowed and the separation between units might have been 5 feet, if that, and still had fun. I. for one, would have been thrilled to say, at the start of classes when the teacher asked what I did over summer vacation, that I had camped out overnight on the White House lawn and met the President and First Lady - even if that President would have been Richard Nixon.

Paul Poundstone has a great bit about requesting the list of naughty words her kindergarten son wasn't allowed to use at school and being told that there was no list but that at the school they use school words. That leads into imagining a child on the playground dropping something on their toe and yelling out "Protractor!"

Not unlike the pristine uniforms the youth representatives to the BSA wear when they deliver the annual report to the President/Congress. I'm just wondering, with all the Presidents we have had that have been involved in the Boy Scouts, why it took so long - and will Bob Gates contact the White House and ask for equal time for the Boy Scouts? What a great story to come out of the beltway. (as a side - why am I tempted to invoke the staged "mission accomplished" photo-op)

Welcome to the forum. On swearing - my suggestion is a Swear Jar. If the SPL or a PL catches anyone swearing (including each other), that person needs to drop money in the jar. That includes any adults they hear swearing as well. My suggested fines are youth pay 50 cents, adults pay $1. Only the SPL or a PL can impose the fine - and they must have heard it - no imposing the fine if someone comes up and says "Bobby swore". Adults cannot impose the fine, and the Scouts can't impose the fine. Funds get donated to the CO (why reward them with a pizza party or ice cream stop?) or the local food bank. Anyone, youth or adult, who refuses to pay the fine(s) sits the next event out. Camping trips - at this point it's time to draw the line in the sand - these are not family camping trips - you only need as many adults as you need drivers. If you need 4 cars to transport Scouts - that's how many adults can go on the trip. The SM and ASM's get first dibs - always. Only Scouts and Leaders (and non-leader drivers) are welcome on the camping trips. No discussion - no "committee vote" - this is a non-negotiable. Once or twice a year, invite the parents/families out for a campfire but make it a close in campout because after the cobbler is served, they go home. Any parent that is adamant that they be allowed to go takes the training and puts on the ASM patch and is expected to pull their own weight as a member of the staff, including attending weekly Troop meetings. Talk to the Committee Chair - let him/her know that you expect their full support - any wavering and all of you - emphasis ALL - will walk away and just be parents. BTW - at these campouts - the ONLY people giving directions to the Scouts are the SPL and the PL. Adults do NOT give direction to the Scouts. If a Scout comes up asking questions, they first words out of any adults mouth at that point should be "Have you talked to your Patrol Leader (SPL)"? If a Scout won't listen to the PL (provided of course that the PL isn't out of line) or the SPL, he has a little conference with the Scoutmaster. If he still won't listen, he goes home. Period. No discussion. You are volunteers - and your Scouts want to have a good time while learning (even if they aren't aware they are learning). If this Scout is ruining the experience for the rest, he's the one that needs to be sent home until he's ready to be part of the group.

All is forgiven - because that's the Boy Scout way.

Hmmm, if only there were some simple (2 signatures required) steps that a unit (no debit cards) could take (numbered duplicate receipts for cash) to help prevent (copy of bank statement mailed to CC) these kinds of things.

I worked at our council run cub day camp for a number of years and was on staff for the first council run day camp (prior to that, each district ran their own). Our first professional staff liason stuck around for a couple of years then took a job with a Council in Montana. One of the qualifications was that he had to be a pilot because of the distances involved. I seem to recall him telling us that there were only 2 councils in Montana at the time - and this was the early 1980's.

I consider questioning the timing to be the same as questioning the motivation. Why now is very much a direct question about someone's motivation. Why now and Why at all leads directly into Whats in it for him.

White Culture as defined by the program materials reviewed in the National Review article: Promoting independence, self expression, personal choise, individual thinking and achievement (vs. adherence to norms, respect for authority/elders, interdependence, and group consensus and success). Egalitarian relationships, flexible roles and upward mobility (vs stable, hierarchical roles - dependent on gender, background, age). Understanding the physical world apart from its meaning for human life (vs. in relation to human life) (Think of the way Aboriginal Australians map their physical world in relations to their lives versus the way we map the world). Private property and individual ownership (vs. shared) I think I would take it a little father and say those cultural norms not in parenthesis are not universally White Culture but are White American (including Canada), Scandinavian, English, French and German culture. The parenthitical cultural norms certainly better fit African, Asian and Hispanic and Latin cultures but also better fit some white cultures, especially in Eastern Europe and Russia.

First, as Cambridge said, the EAG is not a non-partisan group - they are very partisan and I would even call them right wing. Look at their list of links and they all link to neocon or right wing organizations. That, to me, is a signal to read the one-sided reporting on it with a hefty dose of skepticism (just as you should read one-sided reporting on "liberal" blogs and organizations with a hefty dose of skepticism). I looked at those documents on "white culture" and no where can I find something that says white culture is inherently bad. What I do see is a perspective that our educational system is rooted in white culture ideas. The suggestion being made is that teaching using just a white culture centric model is failing minority students who come from different cultural styles. I make note that the article never shared any of the information on other cultural models. Remember the flak that Hillary Clinton got in the 90's about "It Takes a Village"? That flak came from white people, who, as the white cultural model suggests, are rooted in rugged individualism, competition and questioning of authority (including the authority of family and elders). The flak didn't come from minorities where the culture is geared more towards cooperation, family support, and community reliance. The suggestion seems to be that educators need to adapt their educational methods to both cultural styles - white students are very much more likely to succeed while black and hispanic students are more likely to fail if the only cultural model is white culture - but that can be changed so that all groups can succeed if both white and minority cultural models are attended to.

Why not come forward after the attack? Because a lot of victims of sexual molestation - especially boys - do not want to talk about it with anyone - and that was especially true in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's. Boys were (and often still are) raised to believe that they are weak if they are victimized by abusers. They fear(ed) being identified as a victim of sexual abuse, especially if their abuser was a male, because they believed (rightly, I'm sorry to say) that they will be bullied by their peers as being gay, or not believed by their own parents or the authorities. We'd like to think that Boy Scouts would be Brave and report their abusers, but its hard to be brave when the messages you get are that you won't be supported. Boys, especially, are known to test the waters first - they might complain to their parents about something that their abuser did (like yelling at them for something) just to find out their parent's reaction - if the parent's tell them to essentially suck it up, what do you think that boy is going to think his parent's reaction will be if he complains about molestation? It is highly likely that cases of sexual abuse of minors in the Boy Scouts of America, in the Catholic Chuch, and in other youth groups, are very underreported. Look at this case - the former leader is in the database yet this victim is not mentioned - if one victim did not come forward, chances are pretty good that there are other victims of this former leader that did not come forward. Look at the Hastert case - we knew of no victims because the victims did not report it to anyone - now we know of at least two - how many more might still be out there that are either still afraid to report it or have blocked it so thoroughly that they no longer ackowledge it themselves. Why wait to file that claim? As was stated, the victim had done a lot of work to block it out. It would have taken a lot to acknowledge that it did happen and even more to finally decide to admit it publicly - as much as we think we've advanced since the 1970's in encouraging youth to report, we still have a long way to go. Why are people, especially men and boys, so reluctant to report that they were sexually abused? Re-read this thread and check the attitudes of all the Scouters on here questioning the victim's motivation - THAT is one of the reasons men and boys don't report.

Boy - you just have to disagree with me on just about everything, don't you? However, we were discussing the Congressional Award which comes with a certificate and a medallion. You've linked to the President's Volunteer Service Award which is a completely different kettle of fish.

MrBob - welcome to the forums - and what a great analogy!

No - you can't wear a Congressional Award on your uniform - and not because of some kind of rule or regulations. You can't wear them on your uniform because they are not pinned medals like the Eagle Scout medal but are medals that hang from a ribbon worn around the neck. Now if the question is can you wear it with your uniform, I would say probably not officially, but if you earned it by using your service hours from Boy Scouts, then wear it at formal events and if some adult comes up to you to complain, point him in the direction of a wall and politely suggest he take up his complaints with the wall.

Welcome to the forum. Some thoughts. You should have one Scoutmaster - the rest would be assistants - if you have multiple Scoutmasters, contradicting each other, you have much bigger problems than you think. Hiking Groups? I call them Patrols - and Patrols should be working and sticking together to ensure the success of all the members of the Patrol. With patrols, the question of who sleeps in what tent is up to the members of the Patrol. I think it's admirable at age 15 that you want to stay and try to help out the Troop. Unfortunately, based on your description of this unit, I don't think you can affect any change at all. My suggestion is to vote with your feet. Use the summer to look at other Troops in your area - and when you find a good one, with a boy-led program, approach all of those Scouts who are not related to any of those "Scoutmasters" and invite them to go with you and join that Trrop. Will you be abandoning those boys whose fathers are ruining the Troop? Yes - but unless they can go to that new Troop without their parents coming along to infect the new Troop with their brand of lunacy, you'll be better off for it.

It's both money and politics. On the money side, notice the councils that are now "defying" National - New York City, Philadephia, Denver. I wouldn't be surprised to see LA, Chicago and San Francisco join that list. Think about the kind of people that wll be invited to sit on the Executive Board of those councils. Think about the kinds and sizes of the corporations these people will be working for, and think about the positions these folks are going to have with those corporations and compare that with the kind of folks that will be invited to serve on the Executive Board of a counsel in say, Iowa. That council might get the CEO of a regional chain of convenience stores but they really won't have as much pull with National as a guy serving on the Board of New York City's Council who is a Senior Vice President of a major media company. It's all about the Benjamins - except that it isn't. There is politics involved as well. Those major city Executive Board Members are far more likely to be working for a company that not only has a comprehensive non-discrimination policy, but is both actively recruiting from many different groups of people and is actively funding them as well. Maybe National's threats could work 10 years ago, but do you really think that National could get away with revoking the charter's of large city charters? Beyond those big dollar donors and the corporations now souring on the BSA, many States will likely intervene as well - when Chicago Council was embroiled in their fight over Owassippee and folks were challenging the official slate for the Board, National threatened to revoke the charter - that threat was quietly withdrawn when the Attorney General contacted them and told them that the Council was registered under Illinois law and if they proceeded to remove the charter, the law would require that all property of the Council, including it's cash reserves, would become the property of the State, which was under no obligation to hold that money or property until a new council was formed. Remember too that the presumptive successor for Gates is the CEO of AT&T, who was actually on deck for the current Presidency. AT&T is one of those big corporations with a comprehensive anti-discrimination policy and a comprehensive diversity program. Though he has stated he opposes the no gay leaders/scouts policy, had he stepped in to the Presidency when he was "supposed" to, he would have faced enormous pressure from his employees and his Board to change the policy immediately of to resign from the board and cease funding the BSA. It is quite likely that Gates was brought in because the BSA couldn't change that quickly and that when the policy did change under Gates' watch, no one could accuse AT&T of being the cause of the change.

There are far too many factors to try to explain why membership numbers are down - and I believe it may be too simplistic to even try to pinpoint any one or two or three things to blame. Membership levels from 2012 to 2013 down nearly 6% sounds an alarm in folks and the first reporting in the media is it must be linked to the change in policy towards gays, yet membership levels dropped by nearly the same percentage from 2011 to 2012 when the BSA announced it was keeping their former policy towards gays. Membership levels dropped from 2010 to 2011. They dropped from 2009 to 2010. Search enough and you'll find stories about how the scouts are holding on despite declining numbers going back to the mid-2000's. The Girls Scouts have tried to understand the reasons behind the decline in their membership, and the explanation that much it it is likely related to changing economic stability in individual households sure does make sense. I'm pretty sure the BSA has also studied it as well but just haven't released the information, perhaps believing it's better for the media and volunteers to speculate. I suspect that they may be seeing a lot changes in economic stability, in competition, in relevancy (they sure are making a big push for STEM - that is not just coming out of the blue, folks), and potentially competing forces within membership policy. Membership levels started booming from the mid 1950's on, though there were some years in the late 1960's and early 1970's when it dropped - at the time, a lot of reporting centered on it being related to anti-Vietnam war views. Membership really peaked about 1973, then started declining again all the way through the eighties, then started growing again in the 1990's, declining again the the 2000's. Maybe, just maybe, it's cyclical. Could it be the gay issue? Maybe that's part of it, but given that a nearly 6% drop in membership equates to about 160,000, and total membership of the "robust competitor" Trail Life is 21,000, there must be something more there. We've heard about a lot of CO's dropping units, but we've also heard of a lot of new CO's replacing those that dropped and lot of folks transferring to other units. Percentage wise, the biggest drop off was in Tiger Cubs so it's wuite possibile a lot of new folks that would have joined didn't because of the new policy, but keep in mind that there were a lot of people who said they wouldn't allow their sons to become Cub Scouts until the BSA opened up adult membership - I'm not sure we can quantify if either of those groups were in the majority or if it was a wash between them. The second largest reduction was in Venturing - now that's a bit less easy to explain. That still doesn't take into account earlier declines - remember that the BSA took a real bad publicity hit with the secret molestation files - could that have had a significant effect? Or maybe it's the "gay effect" in reverse and that the loss of public schools as chartering organizations and as recruiting points because the BSA discriminats hurt a lot more than we're being told. We really just don't know. There have been all kinds of stuff tossed out here. It's the BSA banning things that we used to be able to do (I suspect that's a reference to the water gun silliness - except that is nothing new - the BSA has said for at least 35 years that squirt gun fights weren't officially allowed - so why is it a big deal now?). I doubt anyone outside of Scouting knows anything about the height restrictions on monkey bridges and towers. I doubt anyone outside of Scouting knows anything about restricting the use of wheelbarrows to older ages. Frankly, I doubt there are many people at the unit level that know or actually care about either of those things. Seems to me it's become real easy to scapegoat National for the failure of local troop programs and its become real easy to scapegoat Council and District for recruiting failures. I firmly believe that the propensity that society has for finding anyone else to blame except for ourselves over the last 30 years has eaten away at Scouting as well. Problems with recruiting, with attracting and retaining Scouts? It surely can't be the unit's problem, it must be National's policies, or Council's failure to recruit. Sorry - I don't buy it. There have been plenty of examples and bragging over the years on this very forum about successful units, and what makes them successful. There have been plenty of questions asked and suggestions given on this very forum about how to make units more successful. Unfortunately, there have also been plenty of examples of units with problems that are self inflicted on this forum as well, with folks asking questions and then dismissing the suggestions out of hand (Den Chief for recruiting Webelos? Bahh - we've never used Den Chiefs and never will - the other unit supplying Den Chiefs and getting all the Webelos must be doing something sneaky), and examples of folks with more insular units feeding into that downward cycle with their own tales of woe and dismissal of District, Council and National as worthless entities they can do without, all the while bemoaning the fact that their own units are struggling. Has National made some blunders along the way? Sure they have - I would argue First Class, First Year; Tiger; Webelos 1 & 2; turning a blind eye, if not outright encouraging Merit Badge "Colleges"; and allowing Troop-only Merit Badge counselors were/are all blunders. But - if the unit isn't running a good program, that is not National's fault - it's the units. If National's lawyers saying you can't build a pioneering tower more than 5 feet off the ground has that big of a hit on "adventure" in your unit, then maybe you need to re-evaluate just where your unit stands.

You and/or your club and any individual in your club can make donations to any organization you would like, including your cub pack. If the organization was creating a run to raise funds for the pack, it might have to donate through the chartering organization if the Pack isn't registered as a 501c3 itself

One more thing - Welcome to the Forum

Yes, No, Unlikely and Maybe. On the Yes side, if you have the people and the energy to take on such an ambitious undertaking, then yes, you could start a 5K run to fund the pack. On the Maybe side, the codicil is you can start a 5K to fund your Pack IF the Council approves of this as a fundraiser. My suggestion before going any farther would be to contact the DE and/or Scout office to see if the Council would even consider such an application. On the Unlikely side, it is unlikely that Council would allow you to solicit for sponsorships since you would be, on paper at least, competing with the Council who might be approaching the same companies for FOS donations. On the No side, units are not allowed to raise funds for other charities so it would have to be for your own Pack. Now, on the let's figure out a way side, there is one charity other than the Pack that the Pack can raise funds for - the BSA (aka National and/or Council). So, if you really have the energy to start one up (and it isn't as simple as saying "Let's run a race"), then consider approaching Council with the idea of doing a 50/50 split with the Council as your charity and a list of potential sponsors that they can go through to make sure you're not going after someone they already have a relationship with - you might be bringing in companies (like perhaps a local running store) that they've never approached or never had success with in the past.

Wait - one of the ASM's is also the IH? If's he's ok with the former Scout becoming an ASM in the unit (and if I were an IH who has a unit that is growing and just got an infusion of boys AND equipment from that former Scout's unit, I suspect I would be), the he can sign the application instead of the COR. The application states it can be signed by the Chartered Organization Head or Representative. At that point, the COR can decide to do whatever he wants.

Seems to me, unless she was forging signatures, that she wouldn't have been able to make her cable and utility payments from the Pack's checkbook if a second signature was required.

That phrasing hit me for some reason and caused the little gray cells to try to formulate an answer but then it hit me - from what point and by what metric? Membership numbers? Even with the latest decrease, which can be attributed to a lot of different things, still leaves us with well over 2 million Scouts served - there aren't many youth organizations that are comparable, and those that are, are the same that have always been comparable. Reputation? Yeah - the BSA has taken some hits but according to one poll, 80% of the American people still think that Boy Scouts is important for boys. I don't think we can adequately answer the question without knowing what folks think may have been lost, and without trying to find out if it was truly lost or just a perception of being lost. But if I were to answer on the basis of reputation - where do we go from here to regain the reputation, I'd say we need to start bombarding the media with positive stories about the BSA and start really taking them to task for what they do say in their news stories - for instance, USA Today published a story earlier this year saying that the BSA has, for the first time in their history, a viable alternative in Trail Life. I'd really like to know what that reporter's definition of "viable" is given that Trail Life has a membership of about 20,000 youth and adults and the BSA has a membership of youth and adults of around 3 million.

Pack - If I'm not mistaken, it was mentioned in the postings that the two ASMs that are causing the problem don't want to follow the reasonable accomodations that have been worked out and are working when they aren't in charge.