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Whoa. I didn't see anything here that said the old guard members in this instance did not allow in new blood. Perhaps I should have inferred that, but I didn't. Scouting experience is a wonderful thing. It provide continuity and experience to the leadership team. Our troop has a very rich mix of parents and experienced Scouters whose kids have long since left the program. I cannot begin to tell you how much we've benefited from having those 10+ year veterans in our leadership team. We have one leader who has been taking the Scouts to summer camp for over 20 years. That leader is fantastic with the Scouts. I shudder to think of the loss to our scouts if we asked every leader who's kids are done in Scouting is made to feel they need to move on. How awful. Of course a troop wants a balanced leadership team. Having just old guard with no current parents makes no sense. That's a way to get a stale leadership team. The flip side is equally wrong. Having just current parents in the troop limits your ability to draw on experience. End of the day, you want a mix. This is where Committee Chairs and Scoutmasters earn their stripes. The good ones know how to leverage different backgrounds to make things happen. This is exactly why we have these folks - to organize and guide our adult leaders. -
By Merlyn_LeRoy · Posted
What is moral/ethical? By whose example do you judge? Atheists are certainly prone to this. Sure, but trying to say something like "I get my morals from my god, therefor atheists, who don't have a god, don't have morals, either" isn't valid reasoning, and is shown to be false by the existence of moral atheists. with the possible exception of the Ba 'Hai ? and Buddhism? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence I think a good first pass to find violence by religious view X is to look for where they are in power -- I don't think Bahá'í have been numerous enough to be in charge anywhere, and I don't see much organized violence by them, either. Atheism points to Humanity as it's authority While that's common, atheism per se doesn't assign any particular authority. -
By Sentinel947 · Posted
Always the option of finding another Troop if you don't like the leadership of the current one. The other option is to talk directly to the Committee Chair about your concerns. They decide who sits on the committee, and in what capacity. A third option is talk to to a district commissioner if your unit has one, they may be able to help mediate. As for the boat, it's pretty straight cut and dry for me. Either it belongs to the Troop( actually the CO), and the Troop should fix it, then retain control of the boat after it's repaired. Or it's privately held, and the owner lets the Troop use it. If the Scouts didn't actually damage the boat, then the Troop isn't obligated to pay for repairs, but might contribute since the owner lets the Scouts borrow the boat and that put some wear and tear on the boat. "Contribute" doesn't mean pay for the whole repair. If there was a Scout who damaged the boat by being careless or reckless, I'd be more inclined to have the Troop cover a more substantial amount or all of it. I'm extremely uncomfortable with an arrangement where Troop (CO) owned property, is titled to somebody affiliated with the Troop, and not the Troop(CO) itself.
I'm in a similar spot to the "old guard" types. I'm an adult in the program without any kids in the Troop. Even at 25, I'm the 2nd longest active tenured member of the Troop. I've learned through the last Scoutmaster transition that my role needs to become less active and more advisory in a nature. Part of that is starting Graduate school, but part of that is also that I've had my shot to influence the Troop as an adult from 2011-2017, and it's time to make room for others to leave their mark on the Troop. The previous Scoutmaster feels similarly, we need to create room for the new Scoutmaster to create his own team, and chase his own vision of success for our Scouts. I think it's important for "Old Guard' members of a troop to be open minded to new ideas from newer parents and Scouts, and if they cannot tolerate the direction a new Scoutmaster or Committee Chair wants to go in, they should use their power of giving helpful advice, or maybe it's time to move on to other areas of Scouting (District, Council level volunteering.) It's important for new parents and leaders to respect and consider the advise of the "Old Guard." Many on this forum would qualify as "old Guard". Leaders with a decade or more in the Scouting program, without kids in the program. They've seen some things. They've been that optimistic and big dreaming new leader before. Some have been that parent with questions and concerns before. Long tenured leaders an important link to the history of a unit, and those who are truly ""Old" Guard" have an important link to the history of the district, council and development and changes of Scouting as a whole. Just my two cents. I've yet to have a problem infiltrating the old guard. -
When it became obvious that the Cub Pack that Scoutson had just crossed over out of was NOT going to be rechartered by the CO (a "paper" sponsor, a "courtesy" sponsor , a hospital "Foundation") , and no other parents wanted to take up the cause, we collectively decided to have one heckava BBQ picnic, and used up the remainder of the treasury. The last hundred or so dollars were signed off to the Hospital Foundation, a worthy cause none the less. Remaining Cubs transferred to other Packs. Salve our wounds, cherish our Cub Scout memories and move on. -
Merlyn ! Almost thought you had dropped off the face of the earth ! I knew this discussion on the erstwhile Faith and Chaplaincy forum couldn't go by without your erudition. The debate seems to be whether one can have an ethical and moral center to one's psyche without a spiritual belief in "something bigger" then one's self. It must be noted (I'm sure friend Merlyn would agree) that every noted, named faith, from Sophocles on up to the LDS folks (with the possible exception of the Ba 'Hai ? and Buddhism? ) can claim both a peace testimony and a violent, vengeful period. The Christian Crusades, the Muslim J'had, the various Hindu - Sikh disturbances, even the Shinto-Samurai events in Japan... Hurt or Help? It is hard to find a faith category that doesn't exhibit that dichotomy. What is moral/ethical? By whose example do you judge? Atheists are certainly prone to this. Was Hitler a "believer"? Pol Pot? Sadaam Hussein? Oh, wait, he was labeled Muslim, (Sufism? Ahmadiyya?) . The rationale, the REASON for the ethics (Jesus said...) is the need here. Everyone wants an "authority" to point to. Atheism points to Humanity as it's authority, the idea that ethical, moral behavior is endemically the right thing to do, as such, by definition, should help everyone somehow and hurt no one somehow. How'm I doin' ?
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