eisely

We have had some disagreements within our unit about when a tour permit is required and when it is not required. My sense is that the tour permit concept was developed initially to cover situations where youth are being transported in automobiles by other than their parents to and from events. The language about tour permits in the Guide to Safe Scouting is found under the chapter dealing with Transportation. The tour permit now requires additional information and representations beyond just information about automobiles and drivers. What about events where the unit is providing no transportation? What about service projects within the community where no transportation is provided or coordinated by the unit? What about day hikes and cycling events where no transportation is provided? My own attitude is that I will default to getting a tour permit in the absence of clear rules that one is not needed. Bob White, what advice can you offer?

One of the more heartening outcomes of the collapse of the Soviet Union was the spontaneous rebirth of scouting in the various components of that empire, including the Russian Federation. It would be interesting to hear stories about that if anyone has any direct experience. Perhaps some of our brothers and sisters in those parts of world occasionally look at this forum and can tell us what is going on.

Mike is correct. Adults wear their OA insignia in the same place as youth.

"The fewer lies I tell, the less I have to remember." Mark Twain

Do you also provide the flags and poles? Interesting concept.

One other piece of gratuitous advice... Do not assume that siblings always want to be or should be in the same patrol. Ask the parents before making this decision.

We use troopmaster and treat it as our official record. Even if the software has the capability of being accessed from different remotes, I think it would be a mistake to do that. This would be like allowing all the students and parents in school to access the computer system where the grades are kept. Our advancement chair maintains the system and inputs everything. I think this is prudent because then he knows what he has done and what he has not done. This does require a bit of discipline on the part of all leaders to inform the advancement chair on a timely basis of what has happened.

It would seem to me that any bus used solely for scouting purposes would be a low mileage situation. That should hold the insurance costs down somewhat. Taking a policy with a high deductible is another way to hold the cost down. Assuming that most families have medical benefits of some kind available, those benefit programs would be primary for any required medical treatment resulting from an accident. Of course the companies operating those programs would seek to recover their costs, but at least the initial coverage is there. Some insurance companies also offer low cost all risk accident insurance to scout units. These policies don't offer high benefits, but are also a useful supplement to coverage families already have. Combining such a policy with a high deductible automotive policy might be a way to insure at a more reasonable cost.

I find Bob White's post interesting for several reasons. First of all the idea of a "new boy patrol" as promoted by National is about ten or eleven years old. I have not been a fan of this concept. It is very difficult to get the boys to transition into regular patrols. You can end up with the kind of situation Mike F described. On the other hand Bob White's unit seems to have found a way to make it work. Power to them. Bob also made a comment that is very telling. "The BSA has determined that New Scouts are often not physically, emotionally or socially ready to be incorporated fully with the older scouts." (hope I got that right) The push to bring boys in at younger ages contributes to this problem. I don't know why BSA has done this. I suppose it has been done to compete with other youth activities, but it makes troop management very difficult. In one unit that I was involved with in Southern California we did not have new boy patrols but we did have about four new boy events during the year. I thought that this was a pretty good compromise to achieve better integration and provide some appropriate new boy activities at the same time. Mike F, your troop sounds monstrously large. I am surprised that the local powers that be allowed that to happen.

While I may agree personally with OGE's sentiment about scouts vs sports in terms of lasting value, the fact remains that sports still probably has more appeal to boys at the age that they are thinking about joining scouts. Granted that by the time they hit high school, most of them will have dropped out or been cut out of sports, nevertheless there is still a lot of appeal at the critical time that scouting must compete with. Next to sex, sports enjoys the highest saturation in the general media in terms of entertainment broadcast time, news coverage, and advertising themes. How many scouters get multi million product endorsement deals?

good point

In our troop we try to have one or two "high adventure" events each summer in addition to doing summer camp. We try to make one of these other outings something that all the boys can do, and it often involves a multi day road trip. There is nothing wrong with road trips, but the program should not be limited to that sort of thing.

I hope that I never get to the point that I feel that I know everything there is to know about scouting or any given subject. This forum is a continuing education for me too. It is very interesting to see how people view the program from their different perspectives. Bob White is correct. However I think that when some participants in the forum say "but that's not scouting," they are trying to say that a particular idea or action is inconsistent with the ideals or methods of the movement as they understand it.

Much of this can be remedied by training. It also helps to have the adults who went on the outing to get together to critique the trek. I have done this with boys and adults together and it is interesting what comes up. A diplomatic means needs to be found to convey to those adults who exhibited some of these characteristics where they went astray and what they must do in the future.

Clearly religious belief systems and the strength with which those views are held influence how people approach the gay issue with regards to scouting. However, give some more credit to those of us who are not as strong in our religious views. Homosexuality is among other things, a behavior issue. Homosexuality can be viewed as a pattern of behavior and one can view that behavior as either good or bad, or merely self destructive. One does not have to base one's views of homosexuality in any level of understanding of anybody's scripture.

I don't know what pressures that particular executive may be feeling, but he needs to go back to school for some more training (our solution for everything).

Responding to some points made since my last post re minorities and scouting... It is not that non-caucasion youth cannot or will not enjoy scouting. I have known scouts of different backgrounds who have all enjoyed scouting. The program should not be changed. It needs better marketing. Face it, outdoor sports are generally perceived as something that white folks do. Just look at the ads on TV promoting outdoor related themes. How many black or latino faces do you see in that advertising. What might be effective would be to not sign boys up for scouting before anything else happens, but to get them on an outing in a recruitment mode. Show them the fun of being outdoors, and that scouting is not sissy stuff. Certainly parents of these boys would probably love to get their boys into the program, but it has to be conveniently available and presented in an appealing way.

I can't speak for the rest of the country, but our concil runs a pretty good high adventure training program. The curricula include "Basic Backpack Awareness", "Paddle Sports Awareness", and OKPIK (cold weather camping). Don't ask me what the acronymn OKPIK stands for. I went throught the classroom portion of the backpack training, and I would have to say it was the best single BSA training program I have gone through. I had the flu the weekend of the field portion. I also took the paddle sports training. Both of these were very good. The printed syllabus for the backpack training bore the imprimatur of the BSA Western Region, headquartered in San Diego, so there is some level of thinking about this problem at that level. If anyone is interested I would be willing to make copies and ship these syllabi to you at your cost. Send an email to drtaxes@aol.com

Not being an attorney, I will opine on the law. As other posts have pointed out, a troop is not a separate legal entity. That is why it cannot register a vehicle or own insurance. If your CO partner is willing to take title, that is the way to do it.

KoreaScouter is correct. Only one merit badge sash may be worn, and it is not to be hung from the belt. If the front is full, go to the back. Most scouts in our area use the back of the sash for various special awards or activity patches. These latter items are referred to as "temporary insignia" in the Insignia Guide. These are such things as summer camp patches, high adventure patches, etc. There is only one spot on the uniform short for temporary insignia and that is the right breast pocket. Putting such patches on the back of the sash is purely optional.

Numbers matter, but they are not the whole story, nor necessarily accurate. If I recall correctly there was a huge scandal in the 70's in the Chicago area where local leadership was pumping up membership numbers, that is, lying, to look good in national's eyes. I am less concerned about the gay issue than I am about the overall quality of the program and reaching out to non-caucasian youth. Current demographic projections indicate that California will be majority latino in a few years. Scouting should find a way to make itself more interesting and relevant to these people. The conservative values of scouting are quite compatible with the world view of latinos and immigrants in general.

The controversy over homosexuality has probably had some negative effect on membership. How serious this might become is anybody's guess. I have not looked at the census data, but I wonder how much the composition of the age cohort of "available youth" has shifted away from caucasian towards immigrants and other non caucasions. I tend to assume that non caucasian youth are growing more rapidly than caucasian. Maybe scouting should do a better job of reaching out to such youth.

Everybody else has said it well. Camp is an opportunity to get the boys into a fun learning environment away from home. Many (make that most or all) of us have had miserable camp experiences at one time or another, and we overcame, and we learned. Go for it.

sctmom, Am I missing something here? Did I understand that the leadership in the troop did not sign off on a requirement because of the negligence of the leadership? I don't think any of the other posts respond to this issue. Setting a process in place with the youth leadership and training the youth leadership to execute against that process is an adult responsibility. Monitoring the execution of the advancement process is an adult responsibility. As noted in numerous other threads, youth can sign off on requirements, but the unit as a whole has to have a coherent way of managing the process. If someone failed to check your son's pack and therefore he must wait another three months, it seems to me that your son is owed a separate session, however brief on this, if you desire it. It may be that the three months don't matter. It is all well and good to say that we want the boys to be responsible for themselves, but parents in particular still have a responsibility to make sure that their sons are not shortchanged. Two years ago my son and another scout were cheated out of First Aid Merit Badge by the combined negligence of unit leadership and summer camp staff. I had not told my son that he had to check to make sure the blue cards were properly gathered at the end of the camp session because the whole thing was in the hands of the adults. So nothing is foolproof.

It definitely sounds like time to part ways. Have you considered chartering a venture crew? Sounds like there might be enough boys of the right age to do that. As to your original question, the SM is way out of line in his grounds for removal of your son. Violations of rules, particularly safety rules, are reasons for removal.