Leaderboard

Erasing our past only makes it easier for us to forget it. The Order of the Arrow has stood for service and brotherhood for over a hundred years, and by eliminating all the defining elements of its composition and character, we are also losing many of the morals and symbolism which the OA used to teach young men how to improve themselves and their communities. Many of these were powerfulful words and symbols and garments of Native American cultures. Adaptation and progress are inevitable; we can't fool ourselves into thinking that the Order of the Past is what the boys of today need. But we ca

Well, the cold facts of this case are: 1. No unit leader nor committee may add, nor take away from, the requirements, as written exactly in the Boy Scout Handbook and the Eagle Scout application. 2. There are absolutely no prohibitions on multiple projects being conducted at the same place for the same beneficiary as long as each is managed entirely and only by each respective Scout (I know this for a fact because we just had two boys do their projects on opposite sides of the same street on the same day for our city, and I read through the requirements a dozen times to be sure it wa

I appreciate your opinions. For me, as long as we are absolutely committed and preaching respect, I have no issues with the ceremonies. I take more objection of using names like "redskins", which is a total racial slur, or "fighting Sioux" (both the implication that NA are merely savage warriors, and that the term Sioux was appropriated from another NA group and used to refer to the Dakota/Lakota/Nakota peoples as snakes). I've been fortunate to make connections to a number of NA peoples in my lifetime, many are like me that they have exceptionally mixed ancestry, but also quite a few that

Thanks for the reply. Over the past couple of years, there have been multiple instances of this SM using the phrase "our troop requires it" and I've always let it slide although I shouldn't have. I've requested that he show me in black and white where it is a BSA rule that 2 Scouts - from different troops mind you - cannot work on separate projects on the same day at the same facility. I'm going to let him hang himself, because I know he'll reply that "it's just a rule our troop made." I already have one email from him where he states "our Troop doesn't allow it" and I've just emailed hi

I agree its essential....what I DON'T agree with now that I know the rules is that the SM requires the Scouts to have him APPROVE the project plan.... On the project plan cover sheet, it states very clearly that plan is not "approved or signed." My oldest son, who just finished his Eagle project, went through a lengthy meeting with the SM and the previous SM where they demanded to see the Project Plan and grilled him about it for nearly 2 hours. They circled typos, and made him re-write it before they would "allow" him to start working. While I understand they are trying to be helpful..