CalicoPenn

We teach preparedness so that if you find youself in this situation you can spend the night safely if you have to. We don't teach self-rescue - and the number one reason why lost people get hurt on the trail is because they try to "self-rescue" and end up in a far worse situation instead of staying put. Anyone with any trail sense knows you don't keep blundering down a trail once you've figured out you're lost. And taking a beeline reading from a topographic map might be a great first step but topographic maps don't show actual ground conditions - that small trail that is marked on it can be blocked by blowdowns, and that moderate slope could end up being a scree filled boulder field. Anyone who relies on maps as their primary source is just plain foolish. "Also I don't think they stayed in one place, unless they kept the cell phone on and had the battery get eatten up by constant roaming.. They had reception and then lost reception, which might indicate they moved out of cell phone reach and were attempting to find their way out.." Yep - it could indicate that - or it could indicate that they sat down on a log. Heck, my cell phone stops working well when I move from one end of my couch to another. Were mistakes made? Yep. Was one of them calling to say they were lost? Nope - that is the smart thing to do. I don't think I'd trust anyone whose first instinct is to "self-rescue" in the mountains with any Scouts, ever. Go ahead and ask you local mountain rescue team how many people they've pulled out of places that they've gotten themselves into then tell me it's no big deal. JoeBob - with your experience you should know better than most that following a false trail can get you in a situation that will be hard to get out of. Heck, I've thru-hiked the AT from Maine to Georgia. Worked for Outward Bound. Worked for the BSA at Maine National High Adventure in the shadow of Mt. Katahdin. Climbed Katahdin many times. Worked at Acadia. Spent time in the Presidential Range, including Mt. Washington. Spents as much free time as I could climbing mountains all over Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont when I was in College. Spent time ice-climbing too. Heck, this is what I went to college for. Self-rescue, unless it becomes clear that no rescue is coming, is reckless for anyone - period. The people the mountains have taken over the years, even allegedly insignificant mountains, can attest to that.

I see we have a bunch of Scouters with little experience hiking in mountainous terrain. Get 200 yards off a main trail on a tree covered mountain (Straightback has an open summit, Mount Anna has a tree-covered summit) and you can easily get lost and not find the trail. Your map and compass are only good if you have an idea of where you are - but even if they had known in what general direction the trail might have been in, making a beeline for it in those types of mountains just might not be possible. Those who have hiked these kinds of trails, common in New England and the Appalachians, know how easy it can be to miss the trail blazes (which aren't nice, pretty signs but usually painted marks on a tree which fade or are rubbed off)and get off on an un-blazed side trail system that can turn you around in a heartbeat and drop you in a place where it's hard to get out of. Heck, you might even cross the trail you're supposed to be on and not even realize it - sometimes the main trails look like nothing more than side trails. By western standards, they're barely hills, but they can be very tricky to navigate at times. These folks did exactly what we're supposed to teach them - when you get lost, stay where you are, and try to contact help. Back in the 70's, it meant carrying a whistle. So what if it's a cell phone - think of it as a modern day whistle. What would have been embarrasing is if they called while lost in a corn maze. Imagine what you folks would be saying if these folks just soldiered on, trying to find their way off the mountain, and one of them plunged off a cliff.

Well what can I say, Pack. I'm eternally an optimist and a strong believer in hope. Ironically, I played Eeyore in a school production of Winnie the Pooh when I was a lad.

I think surplus is a more accurate term than profit. When it comes to reporting, there is no reporting on individual events to the IRS - it's all rolled up into one return so one event's surplus may help cover another event's shortfall. It's just the way of the non-profit. I do believe $10 is reasonable for a camporee, but also understand that for some, it can be difficult to come by - Troops can offer camperships for more than just summer camp to help out those that need it. I believe it's appropriate for the district to charge the same rate for the adults as they charge for the lads, even if the adults don't get to participate in events that might be paid for by the fee. In many districts, it's traditional to hold a Friday evening cracker barrel for the adult leaaders and SPL to go over the plans for the weekend - and often snack foods like cheese, sausage, apple slices, coffee, tea and hot cocoa are served - the rest of the Troop doesn't get that benefit and it's being paid for by everyone's fees. That being said, a lot of units will pay for the fees of the adults that are attending the camporee - and that seems fair to me as well. However, if it was explained that a certain portion of the fee was for ammo for the range, and that event was cancelled, then the units should be reimbursed for that portion of the fee. Even if the ammo was bought, the ammo could be stored until the next summer camp and that cost could be swallowed by Council out of the summer camp budget (they'd need to buy ammo anyway).

Is it ironic that we spend our time teaching lads to become leaders only to reject them as leaders because they're in college and not married? Frankly, I believe Scouting would be better off without the sick, twisted and paranoiac mindset of the people who made the decision to reject the application of an Eagle Scout who thinks so much of the program that he has followed the BSA's long-standing suggestion that college students give back by volunteering for a Troop near the new home away from home.

I've been thinking about this from another angle. This might also be one of those learning moments for the leaders. You say this was during announcements? It occurs to me that nothing is more boring to 7 to 10 year olds than announcements. I'm wondering if "more normal" boys weren't tempted to do the same things, but were held back in a way that this lad was not. Just something to add to the campfire discussion.

Did you read Lincoln's words? Do you understand that his words indicate he's on the side of the people who labor and not the people who profit off of other people's labor that don't actually labor themselves? Of course, if you can't understand that Occupy is a movement opposed to people who profit off of other people's labor, then you won't get the reference at all.

For those still puzzled about Occupy, perhaps the following from someone far wiser than most of us will ever be can help: First: "I hold that if the Almighty had ever made a set of men that should do all the eating and none of the work, He would have made them with mouths only and no hands; and if He had ever made another class that He intended should do all he work and no eating, He would have made them with hands and no mouths." And then: "And, inasmuch as most good things are produced by labor, it follows that such things of right belong to those whose labor has produced them. But it has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have labored and others have, without labor, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government." This wise man that has so eloquently encapsulated what Occupy is all about? Abraham Lincoln.

Yep - getting that "practical" degree is a boon, until your field is either overwhelmed with people with the same degree or there are changes in your field. How many folks who earned computer sciences degrees 20 years ago have been pushed out of their jobs to be replaced by younger folks with newer and different skills because of changes in how programming is done (Not many people use Cobol or Fortran to program with anymore, and Java, the wonder programming language of 10 years ago is on a downward usage slide). There was great demand for teachers not that long ago, and now teachers throughout the country are being laid off. There is currently a great demand for nursing degrees - expected when a large population cohort starts to reach their 70's, but what happens 20 years from now when the boomers are no longer such a large group of people? Where is the need for degrees and technical school degrees for manufacturing when manufacturing is increasingly off-shored? This call for practiciality has existed for quite some time - and has been resisted because the American people used to be smart enough to realize that, at the end of the day, that although we needed engineers and other "practical" people, we (and they) also needed people with liberal arts degrees who learned to (to use the over-used phrase - my apologies in advance) "think outside the box". Engineers, scientists, accountants (to any engineer here, I hate to break it to you but a single CPA can out-retentive all of you combined - I'd rather argue a fine point with an engineer than try to convince a CPA that a difference of $0.01 in a $500,000,000 budget just doesn't matter) are great at what they do - they have a laser like focus on details that most of us envy - yet that laser like focus sometimes blinds them to alternative solutions that, once pointed out, lead to the self-inflicted slap on the head and a Homer-esque exclamation of "Dohh!" I've spent a lot of time listening to anecdotal stories of WWII vets about how "American Ingenuity" (read "practicality") amazed our allies and enemys alike. One of the things that our allies were most impressed with was our ability to "jury-rig" something up to make vehicles that stopped working, work anyway - without following some kind of manual on how to do it. Anecdotally, it was often said that if you needed to get your Humber (a British armored scout car) fixed, find an American soldier and hand him a screwdriver, hammer, baling wire and chewing gum, then don't bother getting a "permanent" repair because this jury-rigged repair will last longer. That kind of practicality is the fore-runner of the liberal arts programs - these were designed to give people a well rounded education that would allow the holders to be flexible enough to take on an assortment of projects or job opportunities. I think back to the Victorian and Edwardian era's and when I think of intellectuals of the time, I think of the doctors and lawyers and scientists and engineers. I think of the folks meeting to discuss the issues of the day and the scientific and technological advances of the day. I think of Darwin, and his detractors - all "intellectuals". I think of the various "royal societies" and "American societies" of scientific thought. I don't think of poets, and writers. I don't think of Edgar Allen Poe as an "intellectual" (though he was, I believe, quite intelligent). I'm not sure when we shifted our ideas from intellectuals being of the so-called "professional" class and becoming the so-called "liberal academic" class. When did poets, writers, journalists, historians, and the like supplant doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists as the "intellectual" class? I suspect, though can't prove, that there is a connection with the contemporary thinking among many, chiefly conservatives and neo-cons, that "liberal education" is somehow about liberal politics rather than broad-based education and the increasing success of those calling for "practicality" in education (as if it were the opposite of "liberal" in education) and the redefinition of 'intellectuals". Unfortunately, I do believe that there is also a broad hint that being anti-intellectual is the new goal of the people. Somehow, being a "high-information" (and therefore "intellectual") voter - one who gets information from a variety of sources (including the "dreaded" NPR) and who also has the skepticism and curiosity to check out what they're being told by their media sources, even those they trust) is being considered less desirable among the people themselves (not just the politicians and media pundits) than the "low-information" voter that tends to get their news information from just one source or from sources they already believe in, regardless of whether it's factual or not. It's come to the point that many of us will actually believe the revisionist rantings of people like Jonah Goldberg instead of saying "this guy is nuts".

"Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" which relates the political and philosophical underpinnings of fascism, communism, socialism and American progressivism." Speaking of anti-intellectualism.....

"If a gay man gets married to another man, then has a sex change operation and becomes a woman..is he still gay?" Since we now know so much more about gender identity these days, I would say that a "gay man" that has a sex change operation wasn't a gay man at all - she was a gender disordered straight female (if she has indeed married another man).

There could be a major problem with the way Oak Tree's unit handles things. If the Scout and his family are contributing personal funds to a "Scout Account" in addition to any allocation for fund raising (which - as I've said time and again but folks are too dang stubborn to learn and won't learn from it until it bites them in the butt - is illegal by tax code and state charity code but apparently Scout's really aren't all that Obedient) is that the unit is now acting essentially as an unlicensed savings bank and even though it's not a licensed bank, you could still be responsible for maintaining the privacy of such accounts just as a financial institution does. Keep the information private - if you can't figure out how to do that, then don't even set-up "Scout Accounts".

The very fact that we're talking about 8.1.0.0 and 8.1.1.0 and x.x.y.z should be raising a major red flag to every single volunteer out there on these new advancement guidelines. The only things I've ever seen that gets into that kind of detail are graduate theses, mil-specs and ISO 9000, 9001, 11000, 12000 etc. specs. In other words, wastes of space and time. (Gee, your company is ISO 12000? I don't really care, where's your dang rent!). It sounds to me like National is trying to answer all the questions it's gotten from people who apparently can't read plain English without thinking there are 20,000 ways to interpret it, so have created all these interpretations that make things even less clear and less cohesive. In Beavah's ideal world, a Scout who is weak on an MB requirement that's been signed off will get the opportunity to try again because it's better for the boy - but if held everyone to that kind of standard, most of us would still be in 6th grade. The fact - there is no "buts" involved - the fact, even under the new guidelines, is that when a MBC signs off on the requirement and the merit badge, the badge is earned, whether the requirement was strongly met or weakly met. The board making sure the lad has done what he's supposed to do is that the lad has gotten a merit badge application signed off by a merit badge counselor - if so, he's done what he's supposed to do. It doesn't matter if he remembers it or not - he earned the badge and has done what he supposed to do. I'll also say I have absolutely no sympathy for the EBOR members in Eagle92's example that resigned after the appeal. They clearly failed to follow policy and went off the reservation. It really doesn't matter if the lad couldn't remember anything about the Indian Lore merit badge work that he did. When I went through my Eagle BOR, I wouldn't have been able to tell you a thing about what I learned from Dog Care, or Stamp Collecting, or Swimming (mainly because I didn't learn anything from swimming - it was pretty much a pro-forma badge for me at that time having been a competitive swimmer from the age of 8). And I probably would have given the DE a deer in the headlights look too, wondering who this stranger is who is asking me these questions (of course I knew our DE's since my parents were active at the district level, but I think you get my point). I wonder if these new guidelines are just going to empower more tin pot dictators out there and lead to even more appeals to National.

I'm really confused - you say you have frustrations with your CO without expounding on the frustrations other than to say you want a CO that really owns and helps the pack, then you say your pack is doing really well with the program and membership and want a CO that won't interfere with that success. It seems to me you have a CO that isn't interefering with your pack and that you've got a successful pack raising it's own money. If you're running a good program, presumably you have a place to meet. So what, pray tell, are the issues with the CO? The only hint we have is they don't do well with the paperwork. What does that mean? There is only one piece of paper they have to sign every year, the Charter - are they late with it? If so, that's an issue the DE can help you with. I'm not a fan of "Friends Of" charters - they tend to last only long enough for the founder's kids to earn Eagle, and most aren't properly organized (The BSA is very good at explaining their requirments - what they are very bad at is explaining government legal requirements - some of which were touched on already - you will need to register with the IRS, likely as a 501c3, you will need to file incorporation paperwork with the State to register as a charity so you can raise funds, you will need to file annual tax returns with the IRS and your state and you will need to file annual incorporation reports with your State's Secretary of State. All that administrative work you do for the Pack now? Double the time - and that's what you'll be doing for a "Friends of" organization. Based on everything you've mentioned so far, though, I just don't see any reason to be hopping charters again this year. You've got the autonomy you're wanting, you've got a chartering organization to sign the paperwork - what more are you looking for? Unless they're making nosies like they want to drop you, I just wouldn't take the time to either create a "Friends of" organization or find a new CO which you may end up not liking. The grass is always greener, and on the surface, it seems you may have the green grass a lot of other units would love to have.

Was the date you had to turn it in to Council the same day, or the day after your deadline to the members of the Pack to turn in their orders? It's too late for this year but in the future, I'd make the Pack deadline at least 5 days before the Council deadline. That allows you time to put the orders together while stll giving you time to add in any stragglers that might come through. Just don't tell anyone about the Council deadline - tell them the Pack deadline is firm.

Just because the folks in the BSA at the time thought it was the best way to handle the situation doesn't mean it was the best way to handle the situation at the time. I have no problem with reviewing it with a 2011 lens because I don't think the lens is truly different from a 1985 lens. I seem to recall back in the 80's, there was a great deal of societal interest in cases such as these. Witness the McMartin preschool trials as just one example. Frankly, the cover-up is as much of a crime as the original crimes - and was as much of a crime even back then. Murder has no statute of limitations, presumably because it doesn't matter if the murder was committed in the 1930's or in 2011 and murder is just as wrong now as it was then. I don't see any compelling evidence to suggest that the crime of rape or or molestation is any more or less wrong then as it is now. Society in general did not call for the cover-up of molestation cases, ala the Catholic Church or the BSA. Had you asked society back then if they would approve of such methods, the answer would come back with as strong a no as it does now. We can't blame society in general for the missteps, mistakes and outright arrogant negligence of the powers that be in the BSA at the time. All that this has accomplished is yet another public relations black eye for the BSA. Until Packsaddle's post, I would have suggested it was limited to the Seattle area, but now it's getting wider play. People aren't going to care that this took place 25+ years ago - they're going to wonder why it took so long for the BSA to do the right thing in the first place, and they're going to wonder why it took a court of law to force the BSA to do the right thing. New parents, as they start reading about this case, are going to be wondering if the BSA is still operating in this manner and wondering if they can really trust the BSA when they say they handle things much differently now. The BSA needs to get in front of this now - not use the "it happened 25 years ago excuse" and dig in the way the Catholic Church did for a time. They need to learn from the battering the Catholic Church took, and state that mistakes were made, it was the wrong thing to do, trust was violated, and apologize profusely while promising that it will never happen again and put in to place transparancy to ensure that it never does. If they're smart, they'll investigate on a nationwide level, as the Catholic Church did, to uncover and identify any other coverups that may have occured elsewhere.

Gee, you people get all the good ads. I get ads for yacht charters, suit makers and cooking classes.

Look those parents right in the eye and tell them their kids don't seem to have a problem with the lad, so why should they? Then tell them he's a great kid, you're glad he's in the pack, and their sons seem to like him in the pack too.

Lesbian nurse? C'mon - everyone knows that Lesbians are truck-drivers, lumberjacks, steelworkers, police officers and fire fighters. Gay nurses are men. That's how I know this lady is about 10 ants short of a pic-a-nic. Scoutfish - you're buying right into the plan the Dolphins have had - to take over the world and blame the Monkeys.(This message has been edited by calicopenn)

The child dresses like a girl in school, identifies as a girl, acts as a girl. Mom may call the child a boy but still allows the child to present as a girl. Seems to me the child falls well within the statement of the Girl Scouts - a statement that doesn't mention transgenderism, sexual orientation or cross-dressing. It's a statement on gender identity which isn't about actual gender.

Let's answer Fred's actual question instead of obfuscating it with all the other stuff because the question is quite simple - a lad has been active for four months and has served as quartermaster during those 4 months as a First Class Scout. Does he advance in rank? The whole 6 months away thing is a red herring and has nothing to do with the qualifications for advancement. Read the requirements: Be active in your Troop and Patrol for a minimum of four months Serve actively for four months in a listed POR Assuming Fred agrees that the Scout met the Troops definition of Active during those four months, the lad advances - even if he disappears for 6 months and comes back. Why? Because he met the requirements to be active a minimum of four months and served actively as quartermaster during this 4 month period. Of course, there might be some knuckleheaded Scouters out there who decide to read "minimum" as meaning they (the knuckleheaded Scouter) can make it 6 months or 8 months or 12 months. The only thing to do with those tin pot dictators is to pointedly tell them to go sit in a corner and leave the Scouting to the people who want to see the lads succeed and aren't going to placing artifical barriers in the way of a Scout. In this case, minimum means you have to serve no less than 4 months. 3 months isn't enough. 3 1/2 months isn't enough. You need 4 months, you serve 4 months. So in this case, the lad has met the requirements, he gets the rank. All that being said, addressing the obfuscation, Beavah is on point. The advancement is a different issue - the issue of the 6 month absence needs to be addressed as well. If the SM hasn't engaged the Scout during that 6 months to find out the reason for the absence, that's an issue for the SM to deal with - don't hold back the lad because the SM may have dropped the ball. There could be some perfectly valid reasons for the 6 month absence. You'll never know unless you ask. So you have two things to do: One - he's met the requirements to advance, he gets the SM Conference and BOR (the SM Conference is a good place to find out where he's been the last 6 months - the BOR shouldn't touch it, unless the Scout has indicated something in the unit changed for the worse during those 6 months, in which case this is the BOR's opportunity to learn how to improve the Troop). Two: Find out the interest level of the Scout to continue. Now - after all that, I'd like to point out that I already notice some discussion on what people think is reasonable and what is not. I know Beavah doesn't like it when I make this comparison, but I still believe it's a valid comparison - the BSA program is as much a franchise as a McDonalds. An Eagle Scout in North Carolina and an Eagle Scout in California should be held to the same standards. They're both reading the same BSA Handbook. They're both getting the same required merit badges (the couple minor variations notwithstanding). They both fill out the same Eagle Project Workbook. Why on earth should there be any difference in participation requirements? It's like going to a McDonalds in California and getting a Big Mac with Pepperjack Cheese and a McDonalds in North Carolina and getting a Big Mac with BBQ Sauce instead of Secret Sauce. They may look like Big Macs, but they aren't Big Macs

So it appears the BSA has answered the clarion call of those who wanted to be able to apply their own standards for Active to their own units. I'm not sure I'm ok with that. It's not that I disagree that there should be standards for active, I just don't believe there should be hundreds (thousands?) of definitions of active. Instead of leaving it open-ended like this, the BSA should have established the standards - that way if an Eagle Scout in California is required to attend 50% of all campouts and 75% of all meetings, then an Eagle Scout in North Carolina should meet the exact same requirements. Instead, an Eagle Scout in one Springfield, Illinois troop could be required to attend 50% of outings and 75% of meetings and an Eagle Scout in another Springfield, Illinois troop could be required to attend 20% of all outings and 50% of all meetings. The fact that the standard isn't standard is a major strike for me. Beyond that, we have many threads talking about retaining members, especially as they get older. Right now, when a Scout reaches High School and starts to play in sports, or in the band, or theater, he doesn't have to make a hard choice between that and Scouting because, unlike those activities, Scouts didin't have participation requirements. Now, those lads may have to make a choice (and it really depends on how tough a unit wants to be, I suppose). A 16 year old Star Scout has plenty of time left to earn Eagle, even if he joins Band, Basketball and the Spring Play or takes on a part time job to help save up for College which has more stringent attendance requirements - but under the new "standards", he might no longer have the time if his attendance will drop below a certain percentage for meetings and outings. Let me ask folks what they think the lad will choose if forced to make the choice between Scouts and Soccer? I believe this new "standard" will only make more Scouts focus on earning Eagle before 14 so they can leave Scouting. I think we'll see more and more troops where the oldest lads in the troop are 13 or 14 maximum. But time will tell - let's see how it works out.

Define "reasonable"

You keep saying this: "the percentage of homosexuals in the population is 2% according to the CDC" but according to a fact sheet put out by the CDC just last month (September, 2011), the estimate of homosexual men (and just men) is 4%. http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/docs/fastfacts-msm-final508comp.pdf This doesn't even include homosexual women - so the percentage will go up. The 2% number being claimed comes from a WND article that uses this number - and WND not only has it's own agenda (an impartial news source it's not) it often is intellectually dishonest about the meaning of statistics. So where does that 2% come from? The basis of it is the 2000 US Census which counted, for the first time, unmarried same sex couples. That number was approximately 1.7% of the population. The problem with the census is it has never asked for the sexual orientation of single people and in the gay community, single gay men and women outnumber same sex coupled people by a wide margin. The figures I've seen (admittedly not in peer reviewed papers) are that same sex couples account for only 25 to 30% of gay people - and if that's the case, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, then the percentage of gays an lesbians run from about 5.1% to 6.8% - well within range of the common estimates of 5 to 7% of the population. (Math check - if 1.7% of gays are in same sex couples, and they're 25% of the number of gays and lesbians, then 1.7 x 4 = 6.8%). But then, of course, you can point to all kinds of other polling data that will bolster some numbers over others, but anyone with even a modicum of statistics analysis training understands that a poll of of 12,500 people will never truly reflect a population of 3.5 million people, no matter how much the math is jiggered. If I were to ask 12,500 people in Utah and 12,500 people in San Francisco if they were gay, the percentages would be incredibly different - and which poll would I use to reflect the nation as a whole. Until we actually ask the question in the census, we'll never have a solid handle on the numbers of gay people in the US. And frankly, the percentage doesn't matter anyway - not to this discussion. This issue is one of the issues that is affecting membership and fundraising. My suburb has dropped to 2 packs and 1 troop, from 6 packs and 5 troops - and our population hasn't decreased. I wll not claim that it is because of the three G's, but that certainly hasn't helped.

I've got a different take. None of the members of the EBOR should be in uniform. The only person in the room that should be in uniform is the Scout. The members of the EBOR should not consider themselves there as part of their scouting role. They should think of themselves as part of the Scout's community. They should be dressed in regular business dress, business casual at the minimum (collared shirts, khaki pants or better - no jeans). This is the time for the Scout to impress - and part of that is to be wearing that full uniform. He shouldn't be facing people who may have uniforms that have more clutter than his. When I went through my EBOR, none of the members wore their uniforms, but I knew all of them were Scouters. Back in those days, the illustrations in the literature suggested that the members of the BOR were folks from the community that wore suits - it wasn't a requirement, but I believe people got the hint. BTW - I turn 50 this year - my Scoutmaster is 83 - I still call him Mr. S and will never call him by his first name.