Leaderboard

"Advisor" is the better term and more accurate toward the intention. I've always thought the term scout"master" caused misinterpretation. And long term, adults forget their role because they keep hearing "master". I was once thinking "coach", but I've seen too many coaches with a military general command-n-control complex too. Language meaning changes over time. Acceptable words from 100 years ago now mean very different things. IMHO, it's fully acceptable to update words to reflect the desired intention. Changing to "Advisor" fixes both a politically-correct issue and a mi

Until they go home.

Law Enforcement Exploring is a specific program name like Sea Scouts, Cub Scouts, Venturing, and Scouts BSA. Hence the capitalization.

Sorry I couldn't resist.

Perhaps the mothers would like to give us the title Unich. Short for Unit Chief.

If a down vote is mean spirited, why is it on a scouting forum? I thought we all agreed to disagree agreeably. Barry

How about Kemosabe?

Don't get upset. Learn from it. I know you don't want to hear me say it, but if your son can't recruit a few friends to help him with his eagle project, then he is not ready. He hasn't developed the necessary people skills. I don't know why he asked the scoutmasters to contact scouts to work on the project. The scoutmasters aren't supposed to recruit volunteers. Your son is. Most of all, don't blame it on other people. They don't owe it to your son. They don't have to help your son if they don't want to. If you are seeing a pattern (that people don't seem to be willing to hel

June 25, 2020 To our Law Enforcement Exploring community, national and local agencies, adult advisors, Explorers, and their families: As you know, for over 60 years, Law Enforcement Exploring is a proven, successful program that offers youth career opportunities in law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Perhaps the most diverse career field in Exploring, Law Enforcement Exploring serves a community made up of young men and women from many cultural, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. This is one of the many reasons why Law Enforcement Exploring serves as a positiv

When Camp Powhattan closed for the summer, we took advantage of the opportunity to transfer to Summit's merit badge camp at the same price. During the pandemic, I started with a new company (doing the same job), so even though I'm the scoutmaster, I don't have enough PTO to do both this and Northern Tier (fingers crossed). Summit had multiple Zoom presentations and I have to say I am very impressed with the people who are running the program. We've never been there, but they certainly give one confidence. I'm of course hoping that all the evidence that outdoor activities are safe and

I don't. But I suspect a critical mass of girls having fun doing scoutish things would really help. Campfire, s'mores, girl scout songs along with cheerful, friendly and kind. All new scouts are looking for the same thing: will I be welcome here? The worst thing I've seen is a program for new scouts that the old scouts don't care for. The new scouts get some lip service about how great the troop is and then the new scouts are mostly ignored for the rest of the night. The new scouts read right through it. But that.doesn't answer the question of how to get them in the door.

I support you. Beyond the long standing tradition of the terms, the terms can be creepy and easily misinterpreted.

I just want to be able to down vote some of the ads!

There are actually two different restrictions that come into the issue of scout accounts. The first is "private benefit" and the second is "private inurement. Private benefit is when organizational assets benefit an individual as opposed to being used for the group purpose. While private benefit isn't generally permitted, it is allowable if the amount is "incidental". By contrast, "private inurement" is entirely prohibited. With scout troops, "Private Inurement" isn't usually going to be an issue (as opposed to the sports club letters where much of this originates). The private inur

I've changed my opinion. Your son is learning how to put up obstacles for scouts. This sounds like the ideal training for future council/district executives.

Thanks, it is pretty cool to see the transformation that has already happened. In my son's words to the committee when reviewing his project "I want to build a park, not a park bench"

It doesn’t matter, if we don’t have the maturity to take a down as disagreeing, no words that will work either. For some here, All comments that disagree are “hate”. An arrow is just shorthand I guess. Barry

This EXACTLY makes the point. Sisyphus had more success rolling his rock than we should expect to have attempting to justify 'master' because the audience is not our leadership trainees but rather all the others we wish to attract. Among ourselves questioning "Scoutmaster" sounds silly, I completely agree. But to expect showing others "how the term 'master' has been used as titles" is preposterous. I'm on board with scoutldr's suggestion to appropriate "Advisor".

I vote to borrow the term "Advisor" from the old Exploring and now Venturing program.. With new emphasis that the adult Scouters are there to "advise" the "Leaders" who are the SPL and PLC. The do not decide, they do not dictate, they facilitate. The advise the program that the YOUTH decide on, and ensure safety and adherence to the GTA and GTSS. In the decades that I have been associated with the program, I have seen the gradual "helicopterism" taking over such that the youth merely sit there and wait for instructions from the adults. You don't sign me up for a MB University, I don't earn

You would do well to familiarize yourself with the article referenced in the OP. References such as those smack exactly of the kind of "tyrants and tin gods, renegades and recalcitrants, bullies and belligerents, dictators, martinets, and “world’s oldest Patrol Leaders” masquerading as Scoutmasters" we need to eschew. And no, I'm not so mean-spirited as to downvote your post.

One man's hype to panic weak minded Chicken Littles is another man's Being Prepared, which we do teach the youth. I'm keeping my powder dry as I lean toward Nonsense, but I'm also contemplating alternatives just in case. #1 on my list: "Scoutguider".

That's funny because I've never liked Scoutmaster or Cubmaster. I always thought the titles were weird. For an organization trying to distance itself from youth abuse issues, it always made my skin crawl. So maybe one good thing to come out of this. Although before people immolate me with flaming brands of scout horror, I completely respect that others have a different opinion.

This is exactly how my wife handled our troop account. One word of warning, we learned to explain to the families that the money had to stay with the troop if the scout transferred to another unit. Barry

it simply isn't true that the law is clear on this, and that use of these accounts within reason is a clear violation of the law or IRS regulations, or is contingent simply on the idea that one won't get caught. I hold a law license, I asked a friend who is a tax practitioner to take a hard look at this, and their conclusion was that individual accounts, at least as we use them and as most troops do, are not a violation of either the letter or the spirit of the federal statutes and IRS regulations. As Fred8033 said, ask a different tax lawyer and you can get a different answer, I would bet

69RoadRunner, I really hope your scouts have a great time. Even though I've never liked "merit badge" themed programs, I've had to learn to get over it. There sounds like lots of opportunity for fun at this camp as well. You mention Camp Powhatan. I have many memories of that camp, as well as Camp Ottari. I'm from elsewhere in Virginia, but as a long time scoutmaster (now former), these programs always excelled way beyond our local camp, and we considered them our home camps.. That, and the fact that my parents are from that area and I got to visit a bit during the camp week.

Well, since you asked, I don't think it should be on the forum. There's a reason it's not an option on Facebook, for example. A downvote is aggressive, IMHO, and has no place except perhaps in outrageous posts; and even then the better option is to "report". Ditch the downvote. Now back to the topic at hand ...

@qwazse referenced a thread of mine from a few years ago when I was a moderator. At the time I was concerned that the new software here would act like Reddit (Probably the most popular forum/subforum website on the planet). On Reddit, if a post receives too many down votes, it's automatically hidden. We ran a unscientific experiment, and I had a post with -12 down votes. It DID NOT hide my post. So while that's not conclusive if too many negative reacts will censor a post, it does mean that given the smaller forum numbers we have here, that practically speaking is not an issue. If that