eagle77

  Same here. What I think makes this even worse is this guy is from his troop. So this could have happened whether they attended a MB University or not..

 Had to revise my comment forgot the "or not" after University.

If Mrs. X is the advancement Chair, she has no authority over the MB Counsilor.  If he is deferring to her, then the MBC is not doing his part correctly.  There is no reason this Scout should not be given the names of some alternative MBCs to finish up with.  This is part of the reason why I do not encourage participation in MB 'Universities'.  My son had a similar problem with followup after doing cooking.  After a year of chasing the MBC from the class he asked for a new one and was signed off right away.

  Same here. What I think makes this even worse is this guy is from his troop. So this could have happened whether they attended a MB University.

Just heard that the leadership of a unit in my cousin's district resigned en masse because of the BSA local option memo. Their CO held a pre-announcement vote and decided to allow gay adult leaders. The entire TC and scouter staff resigned, as did nearly all of the youth leaders.

 

I assume this will hit the press at some point.

  Do you believe the press will make this out as a positive move or as a negative? I could see a headline that would say "Bigots leave BSA after BSA allows some units to allow gay leaders".

   Just a few questions here. You say in previous posts that you've had some other problems when it comes to this leader and the scouts advancement. Would you not agree that adult leaders or scouters job is to work with the boys? Do you feel that this scouter has done well at this incident, as well as others? Would you recomend any of your scouts to see this guy for MBs? Just because he is an Eagle Scout and has all the "bling" does not make him any better. Just because he was a, shall we say stand out scout, does not mean he will be the same as a scouter. Do'nt know if you have ever heard this before or not but it may fit here. "Not every great SM is an Eagle Scout and not every Eagle Scout make a great SM". Now just replace MBC with SM. He still needs to be counseled on what is expected of your scouters.

 I agree. Did the boys have an ASM from their troop that was in camp with them?  Camps that I have been to would ask for a note from the troop SM, or in this case ASM that the scout in question had done or completed the other rquirements on other trips. In the info for this camps summer program these requirements may have been down as pre-requests.

 I saw this too late but.

 Who you gonna call....

Do you believe that all religions deserve equal respect? I don't.

 

The history and tradition of my religion is not one of according equal respect to all religions, historical or current.

 

Did we accord equal respect to the worshipers of Baal, designers of the golden calf, the practitioners of witchcraft, or the residents of Sodom? No. Certainly not.

 

In our Sunday School classes, we teach that the practitioners of these religious beliefs were evil. No equal respect. No mincing of words. No beating around the bush. They were evil.

 No, but since I'm a member of BSA I should at the very least respect my fellow members and at the very least get the same back from them.

I don't disagree with what you guys are saying.  One of my pet peeves which I'll add to the list of complaints is that the people in orange jumpsuits picking up trash on the roadside have been sentenced to "community service." 

 

Our troop does a huge food drive every winter.  We collect ballpark 15,000 pounds of food.  It is a huge undertaking which we spend months organizing.  Running it is considered a position of responsibility for the fellow who takes it on (as a SM-approved leadership project).

 

It sounds to me that you ran into a perfect storm of summer doldrums.  Folks out of town, a not-too interesting program, disorganized beneficiary, yadda, yadda, yadda.   I know it's frustrating.  It takes the same effort to plan a program whether 3 or 30 kids show up. On the other hand, folks are voting with their feet.  Families make a decision to do something else independently of the others.  It's not as if they all got together and decided to blow off Scouts that night.  But I think from time to time it's good for the SM to vent a little to the committee and parents and remind them you are volunteering your time regardless.  But they owe you the courtesy of letting you providing feedback so the troop can adjust accordingly. 

 

Oh, and a sign-up sheet would help.  

 Watch it there my troop does a roadside cleanup twice a year.

When our Troop does Scouting for Food, we make it a Patrol competition. Patrol with most food collected by weight gets to eat a meal with the Adults on the next camping trip. Additional bragging rights for individual with highest total weight collected. BTW, we do NOT count this as service hours towards rank advancement- just something that we do as service to the community.

  We have a CO who does a food drive for the poor every year for Thanksgiving. Well all they ask us to do is box the food and distribute them. It takes just a little over an hour. Well because its for our CO (who also pays our rechartering) and the needy in our community I told the boys that this will NOT count as service project time. They didn't seem to have a problem with that. Then the parents found out and suddenly I was a slave driver. At the next committee meeting a few of these parents showed up to voice their concerns. After I explained myself most of them seemed to at least understand, except one. He told me his son's time was valuable and he should get credit. I told him his son was to expensive. The scouts were not the problem its these darn parents. Whatever happened to that "warm and fuzzy feeling" of just doing something nice.

We had a few times when Scouts would not show up for service projects so we made them mandatory in order to attend certain events (e.g., shooting sports, go karts, etc.). After that we had much better turn out.

 

Sadly, since the current rank advancement requirements only require 11 hours of service, many boys these days simply check the box and nothing more. We had this issue for about a year until we (the PLC) made service hours mandatory for certain events. That changed the mind set and lead to greater participation. Only had one adult bring up GTA. We (the PLC) noted that we were not adding to any rank or badge requirements, just putting a standard for participating in popular events.

  No what is actually sad is that for the most part today many boys and at times their parents (who may drive them to these) need to be bribed into doing something that we as scouts should want to do. I think many boys today miss out on learning the idea of the "Good Turm".  To some this might be holding a door open for somebody or the old helping an old lady across the street. As scouts we should be willing to help out whether there is something in it for us or not. The simple satisfaction of helping out just to help out is little by little disappearing. Although it may not be adding to the requirements it really isn't any different then the parent who offers a car to their son once he earns Eagle. The what's in it for me attitude or simply bribery.

"Scouting is going to change very little"?

 

Let's wait and see how many Scouts and Scouters we lose, shall we? 

 

We've been averaging 6+% losses since 2013. I am willing to bet that number doubles with this new change. The average person will not understand the BSA-speak of "local option". It is already being portrayed in the news that I have seen as "BSA allows gay leaders" and NOT as "Local units can elect to allow gay leaders or not".

  And we already know that the "news" always reports the entire story.

With all the posturing, the most interesting part of this is that scouting is going to change very little.  The arguments will be remembered way more than any noticeable change.

 

Maybe the biggest change will be that we'll eventually change to completely private and individual bathroom and shower facilities.  No more scout facilities, adult men facilities and female facilities.  It will just be all individual bathrooms.  And given society today, that might be the best thing that happens.

 Already has begun in my area. (eastern PA) Quite a few camps have added private bathroom and shower facilties (where they can) some of these camps refer to them as "comfort stations". Chances are the more remote camps this may take awhile or may not happen at all.

BadWolf, I take it your CO is not a religious organization? Without identifying it, what kind of organization is it?

 

I think we all need to remember that the BSA has said that the CO's usual discretion to appoint leaders is still in place. Does this hypothetical gay person just show up from out of the blue with no connection to the troop and unknown to any of the leaders or families? I think most troops would be very wary of such a person, regardless of this change and regardless of avowed orientation.

  This is a great point. I don't know about other units, but just because you walk into a meeting doesn't mean I am going to give you an application to join our troop. The only time that I have ever done this is when the adult is standing there with his son or step-son with a leaders uniform on. From the pack that he had just graduated from. Otherwise you will have to wait before any in our troop will offer you an application. It's just a no-brainer.

 

 

My male pal's GSUSA troop often needs him to come camping with their troop to make the trips happen, and when they arrive in camp he is promptly sent as far away as possible.  I don't mean his own tent like us libertine Boy Scouts, but that he is made to camp in an entirely different site hundreds of yards away, or in his own cabin hundreds of yards away.

  Yeah I had a friend who had two girls in the GSUSA, he went through that twice then both he and his daughters agreed to leave the program. One of his daughters said "What good is it to have my daddy there if he can't be around me". They go out and camp privately now 1 tent for dad and 1 for his daughters and they are in the same site too.

There are indeed two different sets of rules.

 

Both the Supreme Court decision and the recent BSA policy changes will draw distinctions between religious and secular, churches and businesses.

 

For some of us, it is very difficult to distinguish a church from its ministries, even if those ministries can be similar to existing businesses. Is a church owned school, hospital, or nursing home not a ministry just because other people operate similar institutions as a business? Does the existence of commercial wedding halls in a community mean that a church's sacramental wedding ceremony should be seen as a competing business activity, and regulated as such?

 

Some CO's are churches, some CO's are ministries of churches, and some CO's are made up of church going people. Which of these three groups are entitled to exercise their freedom of religion?

 

We live in an increasingly polarized society. These decisions only act to further polarize us. I suspect that this will be true in Scouting as well. We may well be seeing the start of a future in which there will be two groups of Scouting, religious Scouting and secular Scouting.

  David I agree, but the polarization already does exist in scouting. How many times on this forum have we seen some of the confusion that is out there concerning shall we say regular scouting and LDS scouting? Man has been fighting and dying over religious issues since the beginning of man (again according to which beginning you want to believe) and it still continues today.It is a "walking on eggshells" type of discussion. Where some here see this decision as one that is "right" or "wrong" it actually is neither, again in my opinion. It is a matter of you respecting my right to believe my way and me respecting your right to believe your way. Many of us have no problem with the latter, others on the other hand see any belief that doesn't agree with their's as being wrong. Man in all of its history still hasn't found the way to please everyone 100% concerning this and believe me BSA won't/hasn't either.

 I'm done. This is like trying to drive a screw the a hammer.

To answer Eagle 77, yes, a good Scoutmaster of a church owned unit does pass on his prejudice and bigotry, only we like to call it faith and morals.

  Now I can agree 100% on what you say there. I have never been a leader to a troop that was owned by a church. I chose the wrong words to use there, sorry.

 First off, please tell me what tells you that these boys are scouts? All they look like are young men at a gay pride parade. There is not one single thing in those pictures that says they are scouts. Besides that who am I or any other leader to tell them what they can or can not do on their free time. Are they doing anything against the law?  Are you saying that a good SM also passes on his prejudice and bigotry? Why stop there and let's also pass on our politics too.

Who is in charge of advancement within the troop?  What are the requirements for first class?  Who is responsible for signing off on those requirements?  What is the purpose of a board of review?   Think hard about these questions and you'll find your answer.

 

If you are lazy, read further.

 

1) The Scoutmaster is in charge of advancement in the troop.

2) First Class requirements 1-13 should have already been completed and signed off, including #12 for demonstrating Scout spirit before the BOR.  The board can't negate these sign-offs.

3) The Scoutmaster has the authority to sign-off on requirements and he may also delegate/assign that authority to others (ASMs, PLs, SPL, etc.).

4) Some of the purposes of a BOR are to evaluate the effectiveness of the Scouting program in the troop and evaluate the experience the Scout is having in the troop.  It is not a time for retesting (requirements should have already been signed off) so the BOR is not to determine if the Scout Spirit requirement has been passed.  However, they may, let me rephrase it, they should discuss the Scout Oath & Law during the review to make sure the Scout recognized and understands those concepts and how it applies in his everyday life (home, unit, school, etc.).  The BOR may do a quick scan of the Scout's Handbook to make sure all requirements have been met by reviewing the sign-offs.

 

As a Scoutmaster, one of my beefs about BORs was the absence of any feedback I got from them.  Many troops fall into the trap of having troop leaders (SM, ASMs) attend outing but not committee members.  So there was a lack of communication about what went on during outings.  We happened to hold our committee meetings concurrently with troop meetings so there wasn't much time to meet face to face - unit leaders and committee members.   

 

In the case shown, to me the Scout has completed all of the requirements

  Well I'm lazy, and you couldn't have explained it better. I have had to continue to tell MC that the Board of Review is not a retest or a redo. To some people these words are interchangeable. Out of all the changes that came down in 1972 one of the few I totally agreed with was the changing of the SMC and BOR to a "Personal Growth Agreement" Nothing to confuse there.

Kaisan is basically the Japanese version of Servant Leadership and isn't management at all. Management is not the impetus to make things happen, it is the result of the effort.

 Than BSA should take a look at it because I came out of that training with a whole lot more then I did WB, and not just things that pertained to work. In fact I brought more of that back to my troop then I did with WB and it didn't cost me a dime either.

 A few years back I had to take this training for work, I think it was called Kaizan Training, it comes from Japan. Anyway it was very similar to WB in fact my groups mentor compared this course to WB. I hope I'm quotong him right here. "When you leave WB you were taught how the operation works, but you still don't know what work needs to be done to make it operate".

The problem with WB is that the trainers don't understand why the teach the material. The reason tickets loose sight of the objective of running a more boy run program is because the staff approves those tickets. If the staff doesn't get it, how can the participants? You think that would change on a more ground level approach to scouting?

 

I had the responsibility of approving tickets once and I was able to control ticket goals, but very few adults really do get it. In fact, very very few adults understand a ground level boy run program. Some of us here on this forum are legends in our own mind when it comes to a boy run and we don't agree on some specific aspects. So, I don't think you will ever see or get the WB of your dreams.

 

Personally I like the management style of WB because it focuses on setting goals and team building, which I believe are the main causes of broken programs at the three cub, troop and Venture levels. Especially at the Cub and venture levels. If you want to teach more specific basics, then create training that gets more specific.

 

As for what to expect from National in the next couple of years, I shudder to think. I've been very disappointed a lot lately because their changes don't seem to appeal to the heart of ground level scouting. 

 

Barry

 I couldn't agree with you more. I was on my councils first 21st Century course and like you said was impressed with the management and goal areas. Had one of the staff members sitting and talking with us for a little bit one of my patrol members asked him what was the difference between managing and boy led. He looked at him and sad nothing really. I just sat and shook my head he asked me what was the matter and before I could answer another member of my patrol said if that's what you think you should be sitting with us instead of leading us. I laughed but he didn't get it.

  The other thing I kind of noticed, and I may be wrong here, is that it seemed like the council and district training chairs, with the ticket items, would be able to have a whole new crop of volunteers willing to run the different programs until the next course would be run. I was a SM when I took it and my ticket items keyed on the troop, I had one that would help the district but the rest keyed around the troop. Ticket counselor didn't like it and I wound of getting a new counselor. 

Or imagine a very hot lesbian SM.  How would the boys react to that challenge?

  The same as any other female SM. What challenge?

BSA didn't already have 80 years' worth of files on women who had sex with Scouts when they made that decision. 

 It also didn't have the Guide to Safe Scouting and background checks either. Listen I understand where and what you are saying. I just don't agree with it. Even if this new rule doesn't pass it will happen too.

No, I'm upset because they're going to be having sex with the Scouts.

  Same thing they said when women were allowed to become SM and ASM.