CalicoPenn

Make two calls. The first to the head of the chartering organization - before tonights meeting - tell that person what is going on with those ASM's and that the Troop Committee is meeting tonight to potentially kick your son out of scouts - make sure to use these words: "If the Troop kicks my son out, I will be left with no choice but to contact a lawyer about a discrimination lawsuit against the Troop and their Chartering Organization for discriminating against my son". The second to the Scout Executive where you will again explain what these two miscreant ASM's are up to and that you have told the chartering head that should the Troop kick your son out, you will be filing a very public lawsuit against the CO and the Troop and will be including the Council for allowing these two ASM's to damage your son's reputation and allowing the unit to discriminate against your son due to his disability. I know you have spoken of your Christian beliefs and your turn the other cheek, and try to get along attitude which is very commendable - but if defending your son and your family's reputation against these two people is not the time to wield the sword, then when is? It's really time to stop being nice and time to start being fierce.

The Death Knell for the BSA was sounded when the BSA created the Cub Scout program....still waiting The Death Knell for the BSA was sounded when the BSA created Den Mothers...still waiting The Death Knell for the BSA was sounded when the BSA allowed Girls into Exploring...still waiting The Death Knell for the BSA was sounded when the BSA changed the program in the early 1970's to attract more urban youth because the demographics of the country were changing...still waiting The Death Knell for the BSA was sounded when the BSA started selling the Red Beret...still waiting The Death Knell for the BSA was sounded when the BSA accepted Oscar de la Renta's French Air Force design for the BSA uniform...still waiting The Death Knell for the BSA was sounded when the skill award program was dismantled...still waiting The Death Knell for the BSA was sounded when the BSA eliminate the Red Beret...still waiting The Death Knell for the BSA was sounded when the BSA allowed women to be Cubmasters and Scoutmasters...still waiting The Death Knell for the BSA was sounded when the Order of the Arrow admitted women leaders as members...still waiting The Death Knell for the BSA was sounded when the BSA was granted protection to discriminate...still waiting The Death Knell for the BSA was sounded when the Mormons made their way to top leadership positions in Councils and at National...still waiting The Death Knell for the BSA was sounded when schools and governments stopped chartering BSA units because the BSA discriminates...still waiting The Death Knell for the BSA was sounded when the First Class First Year program was initiated...still waiting Doom and gloom predictions for the BSA have been bandied about almost from the beginning, and yet the BSA has perservered. Some day, the BSA won't exist anymore but then someday, the Sun won't exist anymore either. Neither disappearance are likely to take place anytime soon.

Speaking of picking nits - to defend the OP, he did say "nearly" at the half way point and I would accept 2/3rds of the way to the mid-point is nearly there, in the same manner that 100 miles into a 150 mile drive is nearly to the end, and much nearer to the end than to the beginning.

Cambridge can correct this but I don't believe the scouting association in the UK is run by the government - they just run the program differently from the US.

Fred, I have to disagree here - the IH does not need to go through anyone to remove a leader, or even a family/boy from the unit but most are going to tell the COR to make it happen because most of them just don't want to be all that involved. If the IH isn't signing the charter, it's because they have delegated that to their COR or to someone else in the organization, but make no mistake, the IH is the ultimate decider of who can and can't be leaders in their unit. Trust me when I tell you that you do not want to make the mistake that the CC or the COR can remove an SM that is a buddy of the IH - I've seen that tried once - and it was not pretty - neither that unit, nor the one that sprung up of supporters of the CC, survived the year.

I'd consider leaving the dishes in a mesh bag in boiling water for a minute to be a dip, and that would be the recommendation of the CDC for Giardia. They also recommend that the water be boiling for at least 3 minutes before doing so. Sounds to me like the problem wasn't poorly sanitized dishes, but poorly purified water - and I would find it hard to pinpoint a Giardia infection to poorly sanitized dishes in the backwoods - if folks took a dip in the stream or lake that had Giardia in it, that could do it - or using the water for cooking and not properly purifying it. Is there a risk with not sanitizing dishes? Sure, but it is a very small risk compared to other risks.

The SM is a Servant Leader - he "leads" by mentoring, training and supporting the SPL and the boys in the Troop. He also leads the ASM's which may include mentoring and training them, or making sure they get trained. They are also servant leaders with the same responsibilities as the SM to the boys. They "report" to the SM but in successful units, the SM/ASM relationship is collaborative with the SM being the "face" of the Adult leader's of the Troop. The CM (I'm guessing you mean Cubmaster) "leads" the Den Leaders in the same way that the Scoutmaster leads his ASM's. Mentoring, training and supporting them. He is also the public face of the Pack. He may not have much mentoring and training of the Boys, but his main responsibility to the boys is to make sure they have a fun program. Neither the SM or the CM, or the ASM's or the Den Leaders, "report" to the Committee and Committee Chair in the way that we commonly think of - if I were to put together an Org Chart - the CC and the SM/CM would be on the same level, with a line running between them. Units that work best are units were the SM and the CC work together in collaboration to make sure the work of running the unit, whether from a program perspective or administrative perspective, is getting done. When the SM or CM is "reporting" to the Committee, he is letting them know what the boys (Troop) or Den Leaders (Pack program staff) have come up with for the next few months of programs so that the Committee, which is essentially administrative support for the unit, can ramp up to help make sure those plans are a success. They aren't reporting to the CC and Committee to get approval - the only role in "approval" the CC and Committee has is to make sure that what is being proposed doesn't conflict with BSA policies. The COR will likely take a role in making sure that the unit has trained and responsible CC's, CM's and SM's but their main role is not to support the boys or the unit beyond the charter requirements. Their main role is to act as a liason between the unit and the institutional head (the person that signs the charter). They are there to make sure that the unit is following the Chartered Organizations policies and requirements, and that they are also following BSA policies. They represent the Chartering Organization to the unit and report information about the unit to the Chartering Organization. Ultimately, though - the person in charge is the Institutional Head - this is the person that appoints the COR - this is the person that can remove the COR. The IH can remove the CC, the SM, any adult leader they wish from the unit. This is the person that can decide whether the unit will even remain chartered from year to year. They have no responsibilities to the unit other than what is in the charter and their main role is always going to be doing what is best for the chartering organization, not for the unit.

A dip in boiling water serves as sanitization and will kill all those viruses and germs that washing hasn't done - no need for sanitizing pills or bleach unless you're using a cool/warm water method. Of course, once it's been sanitized, and is being air dried because that's another step in the process to help prevent germs from being spread by towels, there is nothing to prevent new airborne viruses from attaching themselves to your air-drying plates - sanitization kills what may already be on the plate - it's doesn't provide a layer that prevents new germs from settling in. Regardless of whether you choose to sanitize or not at the end of the dishwashing cycle, the real key is to make sure there is no leftover food stuffs (including grease) on the dishes - no amount of dunking a plate with a crusty bit of food stuck to it in bleach, even undiluted bleach, will prevent the little nasties from growing in that food - most germs, bacteria and viruses, airborne or water borne, require a medium to grow on - and it will be crusty food bits or grease that will provide the best medium, not clean, bare metal or plastic.

Our elementary schools were too far away from the Junior High School to have Jr. High patrol boys and girls so the 6th graders would be tapped - I was a member of the safety patrol but didn't get assigned a street crossing - I was assiged to lunchtime recess duty - our belts were orange. In the summer, from age 11 up, my parents didn't see me from 6 am to about 9 pm unless swim team practice was cancelled, it was troop meeting night, or we had a swimming meet. - I had practice from 6:30 to 8:30 am, then stuck around either taking or helping with swimming lessons, then practice from 12-1, then stayed around for open swim, then practice again from 5:30 to 7, then open swim to 8:30. The only reason they saw me at 9 was the pool kicked us out for adult swim. - when I was 14, I got to stay for adult swim so then I wasn't home until 10. Today's parents would freak at a schedule like that.

I'm a bit of a heretic when it comes to camp dishwashing at camp, mainly because I don't believe that following food service rules for dishwashing is neccessary so I leave the 3rd pot (sanitizing) out of the equation - the only time I might sanitize dishes on a campout is if I knew a member of my unit was ill and the illness could conceivable be passed on - and that would be a pretty rare case. I prefer to wash in hot water, rinse off as much in the wash water as you can (in other words, the dishes shouldn't be too soapy coming out of the wash water) then put the dishes into a dunk bag - when the bag is full, the dishes are dunked into boiling rinse water which both rinses and "sanitizes" the dishes. If you think you have to do stages, do plates, bowls, cups and utensils for the first dunk and cooking gear in the second dunk - heating up the cooking gear for the next meal will kill any germs that might have survived the boiling water treatment. The dishes should be run through the dishwasher at then end of the trip - that will take care of any lingering sanitation issues - if any. I'm truly much more worried about whether there is any food residue left on cooking and eating gear between meals - that's where you're going to have issues, and no amount of dunking plates or cook pots with food residue in to water with bleach in it will prevent issues of a gastro-intestinal nature in those cases. These discussions always bring to mind a cartoon I've seen with a wife hand washing dishes at a sink complaining to a companion how her husband (seen in the background in a Scout uniform) keeps trying to teach her the "Three Sink" method. How many people at home without a dishwasher uses a two-sink method, let alone a three-sink method.

Twocub - I think one of my problems with this is that it's really a coversation that should have been had SM to SM after the lad visited the unit and only if the visited SM asked for information. What happens now if the current SM contacts the potential new SM and says that the Scout is a great kid and the Scout and Parents have worked really hard and well through the issues - the ASM's have essentially undercut that conversation. I think the other problem I have with this is that this ASM is also the Unit Commissioner and I just have a problem with a Unit Commissioner or any other District Level person actively working to sabotage a Scouts ability to succeed in Scouting.

Not everything that occurs at Scouting events is, or should be, a Scouting issue. I feel this is one of those things. This is an interpersonal issue between two adults who both happen to be Scouters and it just happened to have taken place at the end of a Scout event. If she had come up to him with complaints about how he was doing his job as an ASM, I would say that's a Scouting issue since it's going to affect the Unit. In this case, she isn't talking about anything to do with Scouting or the Unit so why should the Unit even get involved? Would it be a Scouting issue that the Unit needed to take action on if an estranged couple got into an argument at the end of a Scout meeting over who's turn it is to take Johnny Scout home that night? The only thing a Unit should do in that case is to tell both parties to stop arguing in front of the Scouts - and that's it - it's not a Scouting issue. If it were two Scouts? My attitude is the same - it's an interpersonal issue, not a Scouting issue - the most I would do would be to act as mediation if the Scouts requested it - otherwise, when Bob Scout comes complaining to me that John Scout said he had a vision from God that Bob Scout was going to die in a year, I would first ask if Bob really thinks John hears voices from God, and, unless it was part of a pattern of harrassment or bullying, or their was a huge age difference (maybe Bob is 11 and John is 16), I'd ask Bob to either laugh it off and ignore it or try to work it out with John. Isn't part of what we're supposed to be doing is giving Scouts the skills to make their way through life?

To be frank, this isn't a Scouting issue - him being an ASM and her being a member of the committee are just incidental to this whole thing. I suspect that she would have done the same thing if she was just a parent of a Scout and not in the committee at all. This is really just an issue between them - there is really no need to get between them on this and in my opinion, I think you need to explain to the ASM that this is something he needs to deal with himself. You could, as a friend, suggest that he have a quiet word with her about how she came across to his two sons and that in the future, if she has something like that to say, speak to him in private about it, but I would also make it clear that the Troop isn't going to get involved. What, exactly, does he want? Removing her from the committee doesn't prevent her from approaching anyone with her predictions and unless she's a horrible committee member, why would you want to do so. At committee meetings, if she tries making announcements about her predictions, you can certainly speak up, but if she's approaching someone at the end of meetings for a "private" chat, there is nothing that you can really do about it. Presumably, these are both adults and can take care of their own issues instead of treating the Troop like an eighth grade classroom with you as a middleman in the note passing.

There is no violation of HIPAA here (and Moosetracker - ask whoever it was that told you that announcing you still need health forms from certain individuals is a violation of HIPAA to show that in writing, including that nurse that confirmed it - they won't be able to because it is nonsense (and that nurse obviously needs a refresher course in HIPAA and who it covers). As usual, the always insightful and knowledgeable Pack has the right of it. The HIPAA laws do not apply to most individuals (not part of a health care organization? The laws do not apply to you). They apply ONLY to Health Plans, Health Care Providers, Health Care Clearninghouses and Business Associates of those other three groups (for instance, it would apply to a business (and their employees) contracted to store the records of a doctor's office but it only applies to the records that are being stored). It generally does NOT apply to: Most individuals (it is not a violation of HIPAA to talk amongst neighbors about another neighbors cancer (unless, of course, you are involved in that patient's health care). Schools, Colleges and Universities (Most people are surpised by this - but that's because most people have let people tell them otherwise and haven't done the research themselves to verify it) Most government agencies on the federal, state and municipal level Life Insurance providers Employers (unless they are an employer that self-insures for health care) Law Enforcement Worker's Compensation Carriers Boy Scout Units, Districts and Councils (there is nothing in HIPAA that would prevent the Council from disclosing to anyone that Scoutmaster John has a serious lung condition - instead, we trust that Council will follow the Scout Law and be courteous enough not to do so. It does NOT apply to "everyone" So forget about HIPAA - what we're dealing with is a couple of Scouters that just can't seem to understand why their way doesn't always work. It's a shame you think moving to another Troop is the easiest answer - it seems to me the easiest answer is to stay with the Troop your in (where your son knows people, and people know your sons - is change really the best idea for your son to deal with?) and just make it clear that that these two leaders are to have nothing to do with your son - I suspect that the SM can make that happen.

I'm really sorry that you have to go though this. I would, as Ken first suggested, contact the SM of the potential new Troop to see if it is still worth while to visit the Troop. A good SM will not have let what the ASM's have reported to them color their enthusiasm for a potential new Scout - if you hear any hesitation in the SM's answers, then you need to ask directly if a visit is even welcome. I'd be making a few other calls as well. Contact the District Executive and explain what has happened - the ASM's should never have contacted that SM on their own, even if he is the unit commissioner. Ask the DE for the number of the District Commissioner - and then call the DC and tell him/her what happened. A god DC will not want to have someone like that serving as a unit commissioner. I'd also be contacting your current COR and let them know how this pair of ASM's is sabotaging your son's BSA career. Does that sound vindictive? It's not meant to be - it's meant to protect the next Scout and then the next Scout and the next Scout from these people.

First: Bring a good pair of boots with ankle supports that you have broken in, and bring a pair of water shoes. Use the boots for portaging and for camp wear, use the water shoes for canoeing. Yes, it means you will need to take a few extra minutes changing into and out of the boots when portaging, but it's worth it (besides, you're not in a race and those few extra minutes could be the key to seeing some amazing things). Besides the aforementioned mud, portages are also often strewn with rocks or abounding with tree roots - and you don't want to be wearing water shoes over that kind of terrain. If one of those adult leaders insist you don't need boots, then call his bluff by asking if he's going to pull out his credit card if they do enforce the rules and make you buy a pair at their store. Second: Kneeling? In a canoe? Almost every canoe I have ever seen has seats in them - use them - they aren't just there for decoration - they are a lot more comfortable, and you can see what's ahead of you much better. Not used to it? Practice now. Not only should you sit in the seat, it's also a good place to put a floating seat cushion. If the outfitter is fitting you for a canoe paddle correctly, it should be the perfect size for you to use while seated - in fact, it should be too long for you to use comfortably while kneeling. The only time you should need to kneel in a canoe is if you're traveling down a river and are using yourself as ballast to add stability to the canoe, or if you're in rough water on the lake. Otherwise, you'll be mostly on lakes with equipment packs in your canoe that will provide plenty of ballast and stability. Third: HAVE FUN!!!!!

If your district is poor, there is no one to blame but yourself, and all of the other people in the units with the same negative attitude that you have. Camporees suck the wind from your sails? What are YOU doing to help them improve? Nothing? Then stop whining. Never seeing a Unit Commissioner? When was the last time YOU helped recruit a Unit Commissioner from your unit (of course you're not seeing any unit commissioners, no one in your district is willing to step up to help anyone other than their own unit). Never? Then stop whining. District is an "old-boys club"? Then what are YOU doing to change that? Nothing? Then stop whining. Roundtables are boring? Then what are YOU doing to help make them more informative? Nothing? Then stop whining. Don't know what your DE does? When was the last time YOU sat down and chatted with him/her? Never? Then stop whining. All these folks on here talking about all the great things there district does have something in common - they are in districts where the people aren't whining about how bad or how valueless the district is. They're in districts where people are volunteering at the district level to make a difference, not to just park it somewhere. They're in districts where the units are involved and don't have an attitude of being lone cowboys in the middle of the desert. Want to make camporees better? Get involved! Want to make roundtables more informative? Volunteer to teach some skills, or lead a discussion, and encourage others to do the same. Want to end the "old boys club"? Get involved with like-minded people and force the change. Want better training? Then get trained as a trainer and do it better. Sitting on the sideline whining and moaning about how bad the district is like complaining about the policies of the President if you didn't bother to vote. Whine all you want, no one will take you seriously. If it's as bad as you claim it is, then it's not going to happen overnight - do what you can. Maybe you start by helping out at Roundtable (or are we really just expecting one person to hand us everything on a platter at roundtable?), and recruiting more people to come. Maybe you start out becoming a trainer and leading training sessions. Eammon is absolutely correct with his title - YOU are the District.

Checking weather apps a couple of days before a trip is a fine idea, but if the weather patterns are unstable, it still might not be an accurate picture of what the weather might be. How do you know if the weather patterns are unstable? Here's a rule of thumb that a local weather forecaster (and not just a reader - Tom Skilling is considered by many to be one of the best in the business) suggests - watch those weather apps every day for 5 to 10 days before you leave and note the predictions - if they are consistent from day to day in their predictions, then the pattern is generally stable. For consistency, say your looking at Thursday's forecast starting Sunday - and every day it says the same thing - Sunny, 75. then you've got stability. But if it isn't consistent - it says that Thursday will be sunny and 75 degrees on Sunday, then cloudy, 65 on Monday, then cloudy, warm, rainy on Tuesday, you're got an unstable weather pattern and predicting what Thursday is really going to be is flipping a coin. If the weather pattern is unstable, notch up the alertness. I have a weather alert app on my smart phone - it sounds my alarm feature if there is sever weather headed my way. Of course, it doesn't work where there is no cell phone service, usually at places like national wildlife refuges. In that case, I tend to rely on campground staff to be my alert - I have yet to camp at a national lands campgrounds or a state run campground where someone on staff isn't making the rounds to warn of very severe weather headed our way when warnings come up. That's not to rely on them 100% but it's one of the things you should expect - I'd even say that in this story, the system worked just the way it is supposed to work. Weather radios and weather spotting aren't a bad idea - but experience helps a lot too. Sitting in a dark campsite, you may not notice a line of storm clouds a few miles away, especially if you're in a wooded site - but you might notice that the trees and shrubs are starting to make a lot more noise - it's generally experience that tells you that there is a weather event happening or imminent and to be more alert. Here's something a lot of folks don't really know - if a forecaster says your area has a 50% chance of getting rain, it doesn't mean that your area has an equal chance of getting rain or not getting rain - what it means is that 50% of your area will get rain and 50% won't. I usually hope that I'm in the 50% that won't.

Joe Bob, Audubon Birds has a good app for bird identification that includes bird songs. Sibley has a good app as well though it's pricier.

So you're ok with forcing the beliefs of CO's that do not want a local option on the CO's that want a local option, is that it?

At the Cub Scout level, I think being able to identify an animal as a deer, squirrel, bird, snake, turtle, etc. is perfectly fine. I've got to say I'm really surprised that Stosh, who typically demands high standards from his Scouts when it comes to leadership and organization, is also ok with that at the Boy Scout level. Seems to me we should be expecting a little better from our Boy Scouts than from Cub Scouts. An 11-17 year old should be able to know that the deer they are seeing is a White-tailed Deer, as opposed to a Mule Deer or a Black-tailed Deer, even if the only deer in the neighborhood are White-tailed Deer. An 11-17 year old should be able to tell the differece between a Gray Squirrel, a Red Squirrel and a Fox Squirrel. By 11 years old, most Scouts should be able to identify 10 animals as deer, squirrel, rabbit, frog, turtle, snake with ease. Why bother even making it a 2nd Class requirement if they aren't taking it to the next level - to identify those squirrels in the neighborhood not just as squirrels but as Gray Squirrels. Maybe it takes a little bit of work to figure that out, but isn't that part of the point? ps - if a Scout identifies a squirrel to me as a Black Squirrel, I'm going to be asking him if he looked it up to help him identify it since black is merely a color variant of the Gray or Fox squirrels.

I would really like someone, anyone at all, to answer one question - How does a CO and Unit accepting gay and athiest scouts and leaders (local option) affect their own unit without going in to some kind of side rant about "tradition" and "family values" and "moral values", or some irrelevant discussion about whether membership numbers as a whole drops or rises. I want to know precisely how one thinks a unit in the next campsite over, or in the next town over, that allows gay and athiests in negatively affects their own unit. I have yet to find anyone that has ever been able to answer that questions, just like I have yet to find anyone that can explain just how the gay couple down the street's marriage affects their own, or how the Jewish couple moving in next door affects their own home. So far, the gist of every argument I've ever seen boils down to "But then I can't ignore them".

Apparently, per the BSA list, frogs don't count either. The list includes reptiles but leaves off amphibians. The requirement states Identify or Show Evidence. My thinking is that if a Scout is with his patrol/troop and hears a goldfinch and identifies it as a goldfinch, it's good. If he shows me a picture of a goldfinch he took on his phone or camera, it's good. If he's just telling us what a goldfinch sounds like or flys like, that's great but that's not actually showing evidence or identifying a goldfinch - that could be repeating something he learned in a book without ever having seen the bird. My opinion is that to "pass" the identify portion, it has to be done in person with witnesses from the Patrol or Troop. For show evidence, I think photos, or a physical specimen (feather, antler, etc.) is needed. I accept photos of the animal or evidence of the animal (a nest, a burrow hole, scat, feather, etc.) Kinds? I read that as species - identifying 10 cardinals doesn't do it - Identifying 10 different species (kinds) or birds meet the requirement. I'm with Packsaddle - I read the parenthetical listing as examples of animals, not as a limiting list. I'm not about to tell a Scout he can't count the eastern chorus frog or the crayfish he's identified because they aren't on the list. I do insist, however, that they can't just say ant or butterfly or dragonfly or snake or frog or crayfish - he has to tell me the common species name - deer doesn't do it - White-tailed Deer does. If you're going to include a butterfly, you can take some time to get it down to it's common name, or at the very least, a likely common name (there are a lot of sulphers and skippers in the butterfly world, and Yellow Sulpher may be as close as one can get to some of these butterflies if you don't have them in hand and have experience telling the difference between the different species of yellow sulphers. There is one other part of the requirement that is often overlooked but I think is important to follow. The requirement says to identify or show evidence of the wild animals in your COMMUNITY (and I don't count feral dogs and cats as wild animals - they're feral domestic animals, they aren't wild animals. Invasives? They're still wild animals, they're just not where they "belong" - and Starlings and House Sparrows are technically invasives but they've been in the US since the 1800's - that genies out of the bag). If your community has a forest in it, that's great but if you have to drive to another community to get to a forest, I wouldn't count it - fine for practice but not for the requirement. It really shouldn't be that hard to come up with 10 kinds of animals in one's neighborhood, let alone community, without having to travel.

I'm not saying it's not a silly policy (I did grow up in the 60's and early 70's where we still had neighborhood cap gun battles - though 1/2 the time we pretended they were Phasers), I'm just relaying how it was explained to us at National Camp School and the rationale behind it. Back then, folks were probably a bit more sympathetic towards the policy because squirt guns, even though they were translucent plastic, still had the shape of real guns - lugars and 45's were a popular style - I'm not even sure you can find a lugar shaped squirt gun these days, seems everyone uses some kind of super soaker or "Men in Black" style water gun. Perhaps it was a good policy that has become silly with the advent of the goofy water guns people use now.

This is not a new policy - when I went to National Camp School for day camps back about :::mumble mumble::: years ago in the early 1980's, we were told about this policy - and this was mostly aimed at regular old water pistols, super soakers were just starting to be sold in stores, though it applied to them as well. It had nothing to do with liability, nothing to do with super soakers being more powerful, nothing to do with the fear someone would get hurt. It had, and still has, everything to do with being consistent with the BSA's (and NRA's) teachings about gun safety. What was the number one rule of gun safety from Cub Scouts to Explorers? Never Point A Gun At Someone. Argue all you want about whether a super soaker is a gun or not - it doesn't matter - to the BSA, it is a facsimile of a gun and for that reason, it should not be pointed at a person. It's the same reason why the BSA doesn't authorize paint ball (except to shoot at targets). It's the same reason the BSA does not allow targets to be human shaped. I heard all the same arguments about how ridiculous the rule is back in the early 1980's - what I found fascinating was how many people making that argument were also arguing that movies and television shows were desensitizing kids to violence and never making the connection that pointing a water pistol or super soaker at someone could be desensitizing kids to pointing guns at people. In reality, at pack and troop events, supersoaker fights are probably common - lots of people ignore the rule. Council and district day and summer camps aren't likely to break that rule. I know, though, that some packs in our area will not allow super soaker water fights, and not because of the BSA rule but because they got tired of dealing with irate parents demanding that the pack replace the super soaker toy that got broken, and inevitably, someone breaks their super soaker toy. At our day camp, we didn't do water gun fights - we didn't do water balloon fights but we still had water fights - we used sponges instead which the cubs had a blast with - they got wet much faster - and clean up was much easier since each Cub had to return his sponge to his Den Chief at the end. We filled big wading pools full of water so that the Cubs could reload. The only other water "weapon" allowed was limited to staff - a couple of 5-gallon backpack water extinguishers (commonly called an Indian pump because of the picture of an Indian on it) and the staff members had to be wearing it and could not refill it. Guess which staff members got the wettest.