Leaderboard

My son's troop is not in any of those counties, and they are heading to a Circle Ten summer camp, so even if you interpret "local" to mean a council, they are not trying to accomplish that. I think the CDC left "local" vague so that it could appropriately be defined for every situation. That unfortunately assumed that a person working towards the same goals was doing the interpretation. In some areas, local = city is too large. Consider the area and population of Houston. In other places, you could put several counties together and you wouldn't reach the population in one neighborho

Yes, it would be nice if there was some transparency with the BSA. Who made the "InstaPalm" decision when 94% of those polled were either against (18%) or strongly against (76%) enacting that policy? What were the poll results of the membership policy change? And who decided on the most inconvenient time for the poll, i.e. announcing it right before a National Scout Jambore and shutting down polling about a week after the NSJ? And whose idea was it to mortgage Philmont without telling the Philmont committee about it? Why do 18 to 20 year old ASMs and MBCs no longer count t

What is your most-important recommendation to members of national BSA committees, who will gather next week to consider changes in response to the bankruptcy and COVID-19 virus? Make a one-sentence proposal, and support it with a 5-6 sentence paragraph. Please keep it to a single subject. Here is mine: Proposal: Spin-off the BSA National Foundation into an independent organization that supports local and national BSA organizations. Support: Donors want to support the BSA but fear new contributions will be used to pay post-bankruptcy claims against the local councils or the natio

These National committees, and many at council level, operate in a vacuum. As stated earlier, there are no organizational charts, no rosters, no contact info. The committee members solicit minimal input from the field at large (but perhaps from select like-minded sources), and when a poll is conducted, it is almost always ignored. Yet these committees make recommendations and decisions that impact the entire BSA, publish no minutes, and offer no explanation for their actions. And I'd go so far as to say that until recently, said committee members experience no accountability for their acti

Amend Charter and Bylaws of BSA such that quorums are the same for any group - a majority of serving (not attending) members will constitute a quorum. In these days of email, txting, virtual meeting there is no need to limit number to only those attending in person. And yes, we do this with our own Troop Committee! All voting requires a quorum and any meeting where voting takes place requires a published meeting report describing date, measures votes and attendees present. So for example, page 8 of Charter and Bylaws of BSA Clause 4. Five percent of the members of the National

Cburkhardt - Thank you so much for the time you took to type this all up. It is very helpful. I believe that transparency would help so much. Transparency doesn't mean giving "control" to the masses, but it would help explain direction and choices. They could always use a open / closed session concept and only take "public comment" when they choose to. I think it would help with buy in and even allow those that can, to help. It boggles my mind that committees such as the one you list aren't on a webpage, nor are all of the other committees (advancement, what ever camping is called, etc). If on

J-stroke, Draw, Pry, Bow-Rudder and Brace can probably be mastered in 15 minutes, right? Does it matter if the scouts can't get the boat to go straight enough to get back to the dock? Deep water self-rescue, assisted rescue, and re-entry might take half an hour. To demonstrate. But wait! Looks at the bottom of the schedule: *Must be present at the beginning of each scheduled program to complete badge * * Must be present during all blocks of program or badge to complete it * Dang fuddy-duddies interfering with our water fun.

Looks like on the schedule from the Summit, Canoeing is Thursday morning 9-12 and Thursday afternoon 1-4. Maybe you have to do both sessions.

The Greater St. Louis Area Council cancelled all summer camps this week and included this comment regarding scout property usage: Due to the ever-changing situation surrounding COVID-19, we have made the difficult decision to cancel our traditional camp operations this summer. (Please see the footnote below regarding refunds.) Instead, we will open many of our summer camp facilities to individual families to enjoy the great outdoors safely with self-guided family camping and day trip activities. Reservations will be limited to support proper social distancing and available on a first-

Ah gotcha, sorry I misunderstood you 🙂 Carry on scouting!

Gradually, our culture has begun to value Eagle Scout (or just "Scout" in general) less and less. Someone previously mentioned, a Scout's rank was supposed to reflect what he can DO. Those days seem gone. I absolutely hate this "one and done" program. It fosters an extremely poor attitude towards learning and retaining skills, and encourages taking "the path of least resistance". They follow the lead of adults, because that is what their parents and our current culture have conditioned them to do. They (and parents) just want to have you teach the skill, let the Scout demo it once, get t

Perhaps a structural decision will be increasing transparency on these types of meetings- why can there not be a link for the "general public" to view some sessions with microphone/chat turned off?

Scout leaders friends and family- We are Just Leaders . We are not experts. We're your next door neighbours. We're not perfect; we are just parents like you. We don't have anymore spare time or energy than you do, we all work full time and juggle our families and our schedules and try to keep it all together as best we can. The only difference between us is that we believe in what Scouting has to offer. So much so, that we contribute our time, our miles, and our talents to help our children and your children grow in Scouting. We complete authorization forms, budgets, and reg

Aha... this changes things. The mom submitted the pics, not the Scouts? I am not familiar with some of the technology involved, admittedly. If you can say for certain the pics were taken in a certain way, perhaps you, not your Scout should approach the MBC.

Can you talk to the Scouts directly before their MB is completed and they turn in the card? How do you know that these Scouts didn't set up the photos using a tripod and a remote shutter?

All, FYI and action VA has announced there will not be “flags in” events at the National Cemeteries this year before Memorial Day. VA has further announced there will not be public ceremonies on Memorial Day this year. Only families of deceased veterans will be granted admittance, as I understand the message. If you’re a Commish or program officer (CM/SM/Advisor), here is the National Cemetery Administration website. This is not open for discussion on Scouter. If you take umbrage with the VA decision, contact your Senators and Representatives. http

*sigh* another candidate for the Darwin award ; https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/12/us/woman-burned-fell-yellowstone-trnd/index.html