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How does one address this with your scouts? Tough question. I agree strongly with the approach that Mike Long has taken. It is less simple for us in the San Francisco bay area. We did discuss this in committee but have not taken any conrete steps. I don't know what if anything has come up between the boys and our scoutmaster. The parents have mixed attitudes on this subject. In this part of the country the youth interested and involved in scouting are getting seriously mixed messages. There are popular TV programs (e.g. Will and Grace) that depict open homosexuality as quite no

The resident summer camps that I have attended where BSA wall tents were used as housing for campers provided small buckets of water and sand for this purpose. These tents were on platforms, and wall tents are much easier to get out of quickly than any fully enclosed tent that I can think of. Since these sites were in arid country, the water buckets served mainly to drown mice that sought out drinking water at night. They would fall in and could not escape. Every morning there were fresh deceased to dispose of. Another lesson in life (of some sort) for young minds.

If I thought I knew where this was going I would be very prescient indeed. There is no question that the society as a whole is more tolerant of homosexuals. That is a good thing. Just to be clear, I think that homosexuals have the same rights to live in peace and earn a livelihood as any other ciitizen. This does not mean that non profit value and faith based organizatins cannot, in my mind, fairly discriminate in employment and membership matters. Further I see so called hate crime legislation as unnecessary and possibly unconstitutional. As far as BSA is concerned, I don't see the

Scouting has enjoyed strong relations over the years with a variety of societies dedicated to various sports, commerical activities, etc., in developing its merit badge program. If you look in the credits in the merit badge pamphlets you will often find some other organization identified as assisting scouting in developing the requirements for the badge, and contributing to the pamphlet. A close relative who is a ham radio operator was recently elected to the National Board of Directors of the American Radio Relay League, one of these cooperating organizations. He was immediately contac

As long as we are going off on tangents, I thought I might respond to the point about violence in the media and youth violence today. I am neither an advocate of gun control nor a hunter. I think that introducing youth to firearms in the controlled context of scouting at organized camps is a healthy thing to do. Having said that, it would not bother me personally one bit to see all guns disappear forever. However, that would take divine intervention which I personally am not expecting. But it is interesting and informative to note that one European country, namely Switzerland, has a d

I agree with Mike that it would be a mistake to expect powder to prevent blisters, and powder may make things worse. Foot powder is designed to prevent and/or treat certain types of fungus problems, not blisters.

I agree with both responses, and those practices reflect what we do in our troop. There are two additional points to be made. The boys need to also touch base with the advancement chair. We now have our records computerized using the "troopmaster" software package. When things are going well the advancement chair, who retains these electronic records, updates his files every meeting to capture those things that have been signed off. This provides the best possible backup for those boys who inevitably lose their books. There are also situations where a boy is not advancing. There

It is heartening to hear that some people are able to get good deals on tents. In the markets where I have shopped, I have never seen a good two person tent for under $100.00. Our local REI still extends a 10% discount to scout units. Of course that is 10% off of a fairly high price. I also concur that there is a quality difference associated with price.

In the units that I have been involved with, we always made tents a responsibility of the individual members. Tents are easily damaged, and people tend to take better care of their own stuff. Tents are a maintenance problem, and this needs to be considered in any decision about buying tents for the unit. Where will the tents be stored, and who will take care of them to see they are properly dried out and maintained after an outing? Be that as it may, there are at least three arguments for smaller tents rather than bigger tents. With bigger tents you are hampered in backpacking, as you

Question: Once a patrol attains this status, do they get to keep the star forever? Does the patrol have to "requalify" every year to retain the star?

The following story comes from Oak Park, Illinois. Apparently the chartered organizations last fall did not want to go along with BSA policy. Several renewals were rejected by the local council. Some of these cub scout packs will doubtless go out of business as a result. Originally published in local weekly paper called Oak Leaves. PTO stands for "parent teacher organization." Irving parents look at taking next step BY JONATHAN MESSINGER STAFF WRITER The Boy Scouts rejection of the Oak Park PTO Councils Cub Scout charter has parents struggling to determine their childr

On Saturday at our council service center I picked up a new publication that national has prepared on the controversy over BSA policy on membership of homosexuals. It is publication number 02-493-5. The publication is very brief and doesn't contain any information that is new to anybody who has been following this issue closely. Nevertheless, those who are interested ought to take a look at it. It is refreshing to see National BSA being a little bit proactive for a change.

I have never heard of or seen anybody wearing anything other than street clothes to an ordinary meeting with a merit badge counselor. If you know that a particular merit badge counselor expects something different, you should adhere to his or her preferences. I presume that you are not thinking about merit badges with specific apparel requirements.

One of the new products on the market in recent years for camping in bear country is a plastic bear canister. Use of this system for securing food is highly recommended for LNT camping since trees are not damaged by bear bags. The bears in some parts of the Sierras have figured out bear bags and bear bags can no longer be considered safe. The canisters seem to be effective, but some backpackers object to the extra weight. Anybody have any experience with these things with real bears?

I've been to Gettysburg once, but never with Boy Scouts. The suggestion to see the electric map is a good one. This is a private display put on for profit. When I first saw the advertisements for the electric map I thought, "Oh great - a further degradation of hallowed ground, etc. etc. ..." But the map show gives the best overall perspective, particularly for those who may know very little about this event. Gettysburg was the bloodiest single battle ever to take place in North America, and probably the Americas.

The idea of the ribbons with the pins is one of the nicest things that scouts can do for mothers of scouts. I have not seen this done any other way. There is no requirement to use any ribbon out of the catalogue. You can design your own if you wish.

I don't know about recordings, but all these songs are published in songbooks.

Dear OldGreyEagle, We do indeed live in interesting times. The results of the last general election do reflect the cultural divides within our country. Neither economic policy nor matters of war or preace were on the agenda. The entire subtext was morality and its place in the public square. In your earlier contribution to this dialogue you allude to the impact of the entertainment industry on morality today. The same people who argue that exposure to entertainment has no impact on human behavior are the same people who sell hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising time on

We just went through a big excercise of selecting cook kits for the patrols in our troop. I have no experience with CampMor products. Most of the cook kits offered in retail stores such as REI, where I do most of my shopping, are designed for smaller groups. If your patrols have more than four scouts in them and you expect more than four to show up for outings, you need pots of greater capacity. We ended up with one of the products out of the scout catalogue, not the Trail Chef. The exact name escapes me at this moment. One problem with most cook kits available in the market is t

Hmm. I just noticed that I mispelled vindictive. Dear Old Greyeagle. I would take the moral decline back to the sixties. It started with Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara lying to the american public about their intentions in Southeast Asia. That, coupled with the explosion of a drug culture and so called sexual revolution has set the tone for public discourse on morality. Nixon also acted despicably, but Clinton has set a whole new standard for debasing the presidency. This is why scouting is more important than ever. I hate to sound corny, but we all need to stand tall a

This has been an interesting thread with a civil discussion, as Mike Long points out. There was never any doubt in my mind that agnostics should not be excluded. As I implied earlier, I would not expel, or be part of any attempt to expel, any boy who declared himself to be an atheist. I also agree with the interpretation of the eagle requirement that may prevent some declared atheists from receiving their eagle. At that point I think a personal choice has been made by any such scout. I am also somewhat bemused to learn that there is an organization of agnostics. I would think an agno

Since I chose the headline, it is obvious that I have little use for the ACLU either. Many years ago I was a contributor to the ACLU. Be that as it may, I also prefer to focus on the more positive things we can do. It has become increasingly clear to me that there is not a unanimous view within scouts on the advisability or correctness of the scouts' policies on homosexuals. The scouts' policy is one that I happen to agree with rather strongly. My purpose in posting these news stories is to raise awareness of this particular threat to the scouting movement. BSA will continue to d

I have to correct my previous statement. The total fee for our crew's twelve days at Philmont, including ten days on the trail, will also be $395. The smaller amount I cited earlier is just what we have already paid. The balance will be due in April. We still anticipate a total cost for everything of about $1000 per participant.

The following article describes yet another attempt to destroy the boys scouts as an effective organization because some people disagree with its policies. This comes from the local paper in San Luis Obispo. Fortunately I stopped supporting ACLU years ago. You'd thing we were talking about the Hitler Youth here. ACLU wants Scouts out of public building, Lopez campground Richard Jackoway The Tribune The Boy Scouts should pay up or abandon its traditional campgrounds of Camp French near Lopez Lake, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Calling the Scouts pol

At every crossover I have seen, more than one troop was represented. You should tell the affected troops your date and who else you expect to be there. You may not always get the scoutmaster, but you likely will get somebody from every unit.