Re: National Website
(no name) ((no email))
Tue, 23 Jul 1996 13:58:27 -0500
Dave Rogers sure is silly (said in a good way, not in a
negative way at all!!!)
He wrote:
>First, let me apologize for disappearing. Actually, I've been here, but I let
>my mail pile up to the point I'm just now discovering your note to me ...
>Working from the bottom, I found a reference to it by someone else several
>hours ago.
That's okay...I'm now answering mail sent to me from the first part of this
month (a personal acheivement seeing how two weeks ago, I've been backlogged
about two months' worth and the email crash didn't help things...)
>OK, so you didn't really flame me. I guess it was just that your four-page
>opinion was as strong (and as hard to take) as the funk around our
>campsite after we went a week between showers at Philmont. I understand
>many of your points, but am feeling some glee that others are taking you
>to task for flacking for BSA.
When I first posted to this list back in October of 1990, I stated that I would
try as hard as I could to separate my own PERSONAL emotions, feelings, and
thoughts from that of what *would* a BSA official would write if he or she
had daily access to this forum. I've been running "cover" for the BSA
since then, mainly due to the background that I've had within and outside
the BSA's national and regional operation. Sometimes it's VERY HARD to do
so, Dave; the BSA and I disagree on a lot of issues and how those issues are
handled. However, I have a higher obligation to not only those folks here
but elsewhere, and that obligation starts with "providing all sides of the
issue, to include the BSA's", as I wrote back then. It has to do with
that silly Scout Executive's Code that I've first subscribed to back in 1979.
*Nobody* asked me to "defend", "support" or even "explain" the BSA's
point-of-view, and if you can see some of the personal mail I've received
over the years, Dave, you will immediately see that the BSA (as stated by
some professionals and some senior volunteers with "ins into the national
organization") clearly doesn't like me serving as the "BSA explainer". I do
it out of simple faith and pride in the organization, beliving that the more
information you have, the better YOU would be able to decide and choose for
yourself how to go about doing whatever it is we are discussing.
I am supplemented by other volunteers and professionals here on this forum
and others that either have different "slants" on the policy or issue or
have additional information that I don't have here. In all cases, I tip my hat
to them, because they are doing all of us a great service by "adding to" or
"correcting" information here.
You'd better believe that I DO NOT GET "IT" RIGHT everytime, and there's a
lot of people out there that can tell you this firsthand. However, I try as
hard as a "former everything" can to express the program's feeling or
opinion (and supported by BSA materials when and if I can do so) to the
folks here (and elsewhere when I have additional time, a precious commodity
around these parts)!!
>Interesting to see that as this conversation has dragged on for days, your
>tone seems to have changed ... you're not quite the apologist you seemed
>back in June.
I can't apologize for what the BSA thinks or have explained to me and other
pre-pros and pros over the years. They have their reasoning why they do
things, and some of them don't mesh with a lot of our personal feelings on
the matter. This in a small but important reason why many professionals
leave the profession of Scouting: they get tired of having to do things "the
only way, the BSA way" and have stifled their creativity and ability to
think for themselves. However, if you look at things the way the BSA sees
them, you would agree with me that they do things because "it's the most
prudent, cost-effective, and least-ligatous" way (not in that order and not
all of the time; sometimes, it's simply done because of "tradition" or "written
procedure", neither of which explains when things could be done BETTER,
they continue to be done the "old, tried-and-true" way.
I can and do apologize if my comments are read or come across to you or
others as arrogance (those that have met me can tell you that that's not a
word to describe me at all!) or "pushy" (I can be a bit crabby, but that's
only because sometimes I let my heart answer instead of my head...and when I
start in, sometimes I too forget that you're disagreeing with my WORDS, not
with ME). I don't intend on doing anything but positive works through this
medium, and hope that others will do so likewise (and they have, including
you!!)
> I enjoy reading your comments, but when do you find time to work? You
>were right when you said if the Scouts played Answer Man, you'd be out >of
business. Then what would you do??
Work comes each day between 8 and 10am and again from 3-midnight daily.
I take a laptop to work on most days (I have a client that throws things, to
include knives, chairs and his television set and I don't take the computing
machine with me there....which explains sometimes the delay in responding to
mail). In two weeks, I'll be at a standstill until I get settled in and
start receiving email through an account overseas. I am not sure of my work
scheldule, but if it's like the work scheldule I had in either D.C., Virginia,
or over in Saudi Arabia, I'll be cooking coffee and spending late nights
reading and answering mail.
Even when I was in the hospital, Dave, I still either had my laptop or my
wife would read and "take shorthand" my responses for me to post here. When
I'm away on military exercises or whatever, Jessica (who also reads and
posts things to this list and three others, including the recipe exchange
list that she co-manages) will talk with me by phone and ask me "what do you
want me to say to him for you?"
I can't imagine not having her around to help me the way she does!
What would I do if the BSA *really had someone officially for us all*??
Go back to the other reason why I'm here....to provide my OWN PERSONAL
thoughts and background on many of the topics here, just like I'm doing
presently. Not much would change, except that I'll be saying a lot of "I'll
leave it to John Doe with National to give the official BSA answer".
I would be freer to post more of my personal backdrop on Scouting. My
"in box" would certainly be a lot smaller (today's peg count was 224,
109 of which was listmail) and my downloads faster. I would be able to
concentrate on the Cardinal Council project instead of doing two pages a
day. I would be sad, but I'll still be right alongside all of you, sharing
and getting and giving information around the "Roundtable Meeting that NEVER
ends"!!
>P.S. I'm still looking for instrux on how to put together a signature block
>and store it to lay down with one or few keystrokes... Can you help? ...
Not with a couple of keystrokes, but if you have the 3.0 version of America
Online (tm), you can go into the Personal Preferences and set up your own
signature file to be appended into each message sent. AOL has a limit I
believe of four lines.
>And how about the correct way to copy others' letters to refer to?
What I do on AOL is to highlight the entire posting, go to Edit, copy and
then hit the reply button. When I enter the new box, most times the entire
message will be copied there; if not, I go back up to Edit, paste, and the
message will be copied into the box, ready for me to take out everything
except the lines that I wanted to reply or followup with.
>... And why, when I choose Reply (and not Reply to All), it still posts it
to >the SCOUTS-L list? How can I get it to be just regular E-mail to you only?
Each message through AOL is "routed" to only the sender. The best way
I've been able to get around this (other than hitting the Forward button) is
to open a new message box, cut and paste the contents from the box to you
to the new message box, and then sending this new message with your
edited comments, to me or whomever you wish.
"Routed to the sender" I'm terming as a two-way conversation between
the sender (in this case, Scouts-L) and you. When you reply, you are
replying to the sender (and the posting comes back to the Scouts-L list).
You can use the Forward button to forward your comments and the posting
to a particular individual or do as I've explained above to send a "new
posting" to me (in which the "conversation" has been re-routed by you to
go between you and me only).
Looking things up is GREAT, Dave. I *strongly recommend* it for anyone in
any youth program. It's a great way to see what is (if anything) is written
as to how that organization wants the "game to be played". However, nothing
is better than finding some people that have "played the game" and not only
know "how the rules are supposed to work", "how the referees are
interpreting the rules" and "which rules will throw you out of the game for
a while (or permanently)".
And which "version of the game" is being played and "information the
participants of the game need to know and be aware of", which is, in
part, where I see many of us here at Scouts-L providing for you and others.
We all may not like the way the game is being played, and we do have avenues
to ask the "game organizers" to change or modify the game, although they
also have ways of telling us that "this is how we want it played".
I try as hard as I can without getting into too much trouble to explain all
of that in the absence of an "official representative". Our listowner and
some others of us, including myself, have been asking a lot of folks at the BSA
(only because the vast majority of us here are associated in some way with
the BSA, not because of some preconcieved notion that this is ONLY a BSA
mailing list, which it is NOT) to take a seat around our "virtual fire" and
talk straight with us all. The BSA and those people have refused, and it
boils down to the reasons explained in the WELCOME letter as to why they
chose not to come and spend time with us: the idea that there's already a
way for those questions to be answered, through a local Council; the idea
that somehow they (as an official spokesperson) will come between a local
Council's authority to "interprete the rules" for their particular territory and
the BSA's overall authority; and because there's simply not one person there
that can spend the time or willing to "go on the record" and answer those
questions for us all here. I thank those, including Jon Eidson, that have
went out of their way in providing key National and Regional staff members
and their volunteer counterparts with extracts from this forum and asking
them to please contribute. I know of their efforts because those extracts
DO get circulated, and it's funny to hear something from our
collective past being talked about as "the usefulness of that Internet stuff"!!
Whew!!
Sorry for the lenght!
Settummanque!
(MAJ) Mike L. Walton (Settummanque, the blackeagle) (
co-Owner, Blackeagle Services of Kentucky (502.826.7046) __)_
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