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I you decide to hold a committee meeting, invite only those who absolutely have to be involved. The more people involved, the more complex the discussion becomes. I don't agree with not inviting anyone outside the unit. If this situation was easy, you wouldn't be asking faceless keyboard jockeys for advice. My experience is that folks in general will make a wrong decision simply because they don't want to face conflict. District and council have monitored and dealt with many of these situations. How many has your unit handled? Things may have changed or you area is different, but my exper

Concur. The chartered partner has every right to protect its good name. Pin addition, I’m certain in a lot of states, this is an outright violation of the law, AND a reportable youth protection event.

Because the scout is accused of possessing and using marijuana on the Chartered Organization's property, I think it is absolutely necessary to inform the COR (even if this means that the investigation and decision making process might be taken out of the hands of the unit leadership).

I reread your post a couple times to make sure I understood the facts as you're reporting them. I definitely think you should hold a committee meeting, and you're within your rights to suspend the scout if that's what you as CC want and/or if that's what your committee reaches a consensus about. I would add some cautionary notes for you. First, I would be leery about involving anyone outside the unit until you have decided as a unit what you want to do. Because if you do involve outsiders than you may lose control over the situation and end up being forced to do something th

That's an ad hominem attack. Unless you think that the typical journalist is a specialist of all knowledge or never make mistakes. I'd expect most forum members here to be more knowledgeable about Scouting than the average Journalist. Good on the post for writing about Scouts, but details matter. If a journalist makes a claim and get it wrong, it does cast some doubt on the quality of their journalism. Especially in today's mad scramble to be first to publish, issue retractions or corrections later... maybe. I don't have time to listen to the whole podcast right now while at work, but th

Sure. The 24/7 thing applies for some things, but not for others. Exactly where it applies is a source of constant disagreement between scouters both on this forum and in the real world. As a practical matter, most unit leaders don't want to take on the roles of police/lawyers/courts. We don't want our committee meetings to turn into a courtroom drama. We leave that sort of thing to the professionals. I would not penalize the family for volunteering information about the drug testing. While it is not a privileged conversation, penalizing the family would discourage others from engag

I was a Rifle Instructor at a Council camp. We had a scout who was autistic. He had a leader from his troop that came with him and helped him shoot. He didn't get the badge because his accuracy wasn't enough to complete the badge, but his leader and I made sure he had fun and the other Scouts were safe.

Sea Scouts, BSA was established in 1912 as the second program of the Boy Scouts of America to offer new adventures for older Scouts. The 1912 logbook of the Boy Scout Ship Pioneer, recognized as the first Sea Scout Ship, has the first documented evidence of the birthday of Sea Scouts. The Logbook states that the first cruise was on July 9, 1912. The Pioneer took on crew, set sail, anchored, and immediately conducted small boat drills. This easily could have a been a Sea Scout cruise in the 21st Century, demonstrating our core activities are timeless. We’ve come a long way since that fi

A few other key points ... Involving others can trigger things beyond your control. You may or may not need to do this, but be warned. Things can take a life of their own. Does the kid want to be a scout? Parents often push scouts to try to offset other behavior issues. Sometimes youth are interested in exploring the darker side of life (drugs, alcohol, theft, etc). If so, their interests are not compatible with scouting. Period. Suspending does not have to have a time limit. In this case, a time limit serves no purpose. The real need is for the youth to los

We count that. Our pack organizes our attendance at Day camp. Collecting registration information, payments, ensures we have adequate adult:youth ratios, sends in registration.

This isn't something you are going to get answered from a web forum. You'll want to engage your District Executive and a Unit Commissioner if you have one. I'm not sure what you were told when you took on your role as Committee Chair, but here is the job description from the BSA. https://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/Troop_Committee_Chair. While not a BSA publication, it cites the Troop Committee Guidebook, which is an official publication of the BSA. My own thoughts: I'm a big proponent of Scouts being in charge and leading themselves. Still, the role of adults is to establish wha

Without delving into details ... The boy needs to be suspended from the troop. It sounds like he does not want to be a scout (a scout is trustworthy, ... obedient, ... clean). Give him three to six months of not being one. Then he can call if he wants back in. That is how you offer a second chance. Note, I have learned from this forum that some councils want their DE's to be informed of suspended scouts. So, let your DE know what you're planning to do. They may be able to provide the mom with some helpful resources.

I think the more scary issue for me is the Judge basically let the whole thing off cause this kid was from a "good family" about to go to a "good school" and also being an Eagle Scout. Here you have the victim having to deal with this and the kid is given a slap on the wrist. This is a stain on our justice system in this county. The character of the individual should not be a reason to get a person off, it should be the facts of the case (in this case a video that was sent around and also langue of the texts from the individual) I am glad to see the judge is no longer on the bench and the

I know some counselors have rubber stamps with their name, address, phone on them. Some counselors also print info on stickers. Avery makes labels in dozens of sizes and styles. There are templates that can be downloaded for many of these, and they're easy to modify in Word or other apps to handle specific things (like list of requirements done, appropriately spaced for the lines on a blue card). I do like perdidochas' suggestion to let scouts fill in most of it....that works well for me most of the time. The only really bad solution I've experienced is Scoutbook sending me (

I'm all for safety, and anytime a range safety officer (RSO) feels they aren't equipped to meet necessary safety standards, they should indeed cease operations or limit a Scout's participation. However, this sentence in particular is especially troubling. "And he said that, 'Well he's not going to shoot on my range. We've had problems in the past with kids like that,'" James said. The RSO's concern was not based on anything this particular Scout did, but on the Scouter's prior experience with "those type of kids". That's a problem.

Give the Scouts the Blue cards and have them fill them out before summer camp--in this process you can have the older boys teach them about what needs to be filled out--we had a handwritten template on a bulletin board in our scout hut for the scouts to follow. Never do what a Scout can do for himself. Give out the blue cards before summer camp. Have them fill out the information about themselves.

Transportation and trees have recently been topics of discussion here and affected the Scouting family. Before your next trip or outing, take a few minutes and review these with your peers and youth leadership. Hazard Trees: https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/safety-moments/hazard-trees/ Transportation Safety Shorts: https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/safety-moments/transportation-safety-shorts/ RichardB

Eagle Scout Ross Perot, businessman, and two time presidential candidate has passed away. He was 89 https://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/billionaire-ross-perot-dead-at-89 Perot joined the Boy Scouts of America and made Eagle Scout in 1942, after 13 months in the program. He was a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award