christineka

I didn't ask my son. I just signed him and the older one up. The younger needs social interaction in his life, goals to work toward, and things to do. Also my brothers were eagle scouts and I think it's a good program. The sentiment I hear among the church members here is that bsa is bad and they've ruined it with letting in girls and others. (I have 5 daughters and am not afraid of girls or even differently gendered people.)

I need this in my life! I can't keep track of when I fill out forms that aren't online! I re-registered in bsa in early fall when the new troop became official. I'm sure the merit badge counselor paper I filled out was turned in over a year ago. No one told me I had to redo that on an annual basis. I have a new question, though. Since my son completed the merit badge in the middle of last year (and I have record of turning in the last requirement because it was emailed), can the man, who was merit badge counselor, sign the card and date it for last year? The badge was passed off.

As background, my son just celebrated his 13th birthday. We're LDS, we live in Utah. I'm sure you all know that the LDS church dropped the scouting program at the end of 2019. My son joined a new community troop in the fall. I have asked for my son's records. I was promised they'd get them to me. A couple months have passed and I've been doing some investigations of my own. (Looked on scoutbook, asked the scout leader, called council) and it appears that there aren't any records. My son does have a scout book, but was never instructed to bring it, nor was there ever any announcement of when they were doing advancement interviews (or whatever it's called). Council is really nice and has entered the date of the one and only non-Eagle Court of Honor as the date of achieving all ranks up to 1st class and the first aid merit badge. My son also earned personal management. Since he had to email the financial tracking sheet to the counselor, I still had that email handy. I emailed the counselor asking if he would sign a blue card for my son. He says that since the church didn't recharter, he's now expired and can't sign the card. Is it true that merit badge counselors expire? I am a merit badge counselor and haven't been sent any emails telling me that I have to re-register. I do keep up with youth protection. If this merit badge counselor is expired, what can we do (other than redo the badge) to get a current counselor to sign the card? I was told our troop would have a last court of honor (the previous one was held in May 2019), but I guess my family is the only one that cares about my boys being awarded the badges they earned. (I have an older son, too.)

Congrats! How in the world did they do a merit badge counselor training? Is there some set curriculum or something? I went to a training meeting, asked for merit badge counselor training and they insisted there was no such thing. The only boy I've ever counseled is my own. I keep trying to tell people I'm a counselor for various badges, but no one ever asks me

The LDS church has officially decided to continue with Boy Scouts. http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-to-go-forward-with-scouting-program?cid=social_20150826_51467126&adbid=10153389426257013&adbpl=fb&adbpr=53305042012

It seems that yet again, I've instigated opening a can of worms. There will now be discussions with higher up leadership to see if the boy scout troops can combine, so that ours can go camping on a monthly basis. I, honestly do not know why our troop does not camp very often. I do know that the one campout they had was a maybe until the night before, on account of the need for leadership. Our cub and 11 year old boy scout programs are combined with a neighboring church's program, in order to have enough boys and leaders. When that began, our most recent former scout master (he moved out of state) had been the cub master and had stated that it would also be good to combine the regular scout troop with another troop as well. I was the one to instigate the partnership with the 8-11 program. I hope I'm not known as a meddler or being a tattle tale. Camping for all the boys in my son's troop would be awesome. I know my son isn't the only one that desires to go camping or earn eagle.

It is a case, where we feel obligated to have our son in our church's boy scout troop. They have activities on a weekly basis, but only two of those nights are for scouts. One night is to work on Duty to God (which is both a church award and a scout award). i think the other night is for the boys and girls to have a combined fun activity. It would be really odd for my son to join a boy scout troop that meets in the same building at the same time, but isn't ours. Someone in here (or several someones) said the boy didn't actually have to belong to the troop to go camping with them. Is that not correct? It is now the end of August. So far, other than residential camp, the troop has camped once this year. I asked a scout leader about the camporee I had heard they would attend. Apparently, that has been nixed because they don't want to drive an hour. If the troop continues this practice of camping once a year, son will age out of scouts before earning the camping merit badge. So will all the other boys. I don't know what there plan is if they even have one. I worry that they'll fudge things, by counting multiple residential camps. Son really does want to go camping with boy scouts. It's not me (Okay, it's also nice to have him gone for a couple days.) P.S. Although not a scout position, there are leadership positions in the boys' organization at church. My son is an assistant to the president. It seems very important that he participate in our church's weekly activities. If ever the community troop in the works comes to fruition, he can attend that. It's supposed to be held on a day/time that actually works for us.

We had planned for him to join a community troop, but we've proven weekly for the last month that the day/time of a second boy scout meeting is not going to work for our family. It's a very bad day and time. There is another community troop in the works, but it's been in the works for 8 months now, so not sure if it'll ever come to fruition. I was going to advise my son to contact the other scoutmasters in our church area. (We have 8 or so of what are called wards in our stake area.) It would seem most reasonable to just ask them about joining up for camping. I do not know if they camp on a monthly basis or not, but I suspect at least one of them does.

I'm trying to get my son to take care of communication that is appropriate for him. When he finishes a merit badge requirement, I have him contact the merit badge counselor. (Totally reasonable, I think.) We've found out that the community troop isn't going to work with our schedule. He wants to go camping more often with boy scouts, however. Should I have him contact the various boy scout troops in the area to ask if he can go on campouts with them? Or is that the sort of thing I, as parent should do? On the one hand, it's an odd request, on the other, he's the one that wants to earn the camping merit badge.

Good news- We were told today at a meeting with a "high ranking authority" in the church that the LDS church will continue their sponsorship of BSA. The gay leader thing is not a problem, since sex is not a part of Boy Scouting. I do sincerely hope, however, that LDS scout leaders will get the training they need and the desire to run the program as it should be, so that it is a positive experience for our boys.

Most of the kids also attend public school, too. The kids see all kinds of things there. I've heard and read complaints from lds about lds scouting for years before now. There are even blog posts about it. Many lds wanted out of scouting before this ruling.

This came across my facebook feed today. It's not just me, saying LDS parents want to ditch the scouting program. http://utahpolicy.com/index.php/features/today-at-utah-policy/6694-poll-majority-of-utah-mormons-want-lds-church-to-leave-the-boy-scouts My question is: If we ditch bsa on account of the flaky way it's being implemented at the local level, will anything change if the church comes up with some other program? It will be the same leaders! The LDS church embraced boy scouts shortly after it came to America- way back in the early 1900s. I understand things were less regulated back then. It was a different time. The ideals of boy scouts do match up with what we want for our young men. I think problems come with boys and leaders being expected to join, rather than volunteering/joining of their own desire.

As far as I understand it, the LDS church is re-evaluating their participation in bsa regarding the way the vote was taken (when bsa knew they'd be out on vacation), rather than the outcome of the vote. The LDS members in general can't wait till the church pulls out of BSA and I think it has nothing to do with bsa allowing gay leaders and everything to do with the way the program is being run on the local church level in addition to the inequality between programs for boys and girls in the church. The girls from 8-18 get a wholly spiritual program, while the boys are told to do religious stuff at home. The girls are given almost no recognition and very few awards, while the boys are lavished with awards for everything they do. The boys get 5 times the budget the girls get, since scouting is so much more expensive than running a church program. Many lds parents would welcome the boys having a spiritual church-only program, rather than having to participate in Boy scouts. The ultra conservative lds homeschoolers, however, are concerned about their boys being in the vicinity of openly gay leaders while at scout camp. I have a hunch that all the parents of boys, who attend public school and participate in sports and other activities, realize their kids have probably already been exposed to openly gay people, as well as what's even worse- drugs, drinking, and open sexual acts.

In my son's case it's that he's "supposed" to be a member of the church troop, but it sucks, so he is going to be in a traditional community troop as well.

Are you sure? I've been told several times that a boy can be in two troops at the same time. Do you have a link to an official statement on this?