eisely

Robinton, You asked if there were any further suggestions. Wear your flak jacket and steel pot to the meeting.

Like the other responders to your post, I was somewhat puzzled by the way you characterized your post. I agree with the others that you seem to be doing many things right. I also agree that getting the boys to JLT is an excellent idea. You don't say so, but there are probably a lot of reasons why you formed this new troop and the boys did not want to go with other established troops. Insist upon support from all the parents. Get these guys camping sooner rather than later. Good luck.

I want to respond further as to why I would reach out to the troop committee in this situation. First of all I agree that decisions about overturning elections are within the authority of the scoutmaster, and, based on the facts as I understand them, if the committee would not back me up on this the committee might find itself looking for a new scoutmaster. My recommendation is based on the idea that there may be kickback from the parents of the boy involved and they might start a campaign of their own with the troop committee. I would certainly advise the committee chair and be guided

Not to seem too jaded, but it is refreshing to see a scout candidate care enough about the position to bribe other scouts to vote for him! You are, as the saying goes, between a rock and a hard place. If you let this election stand, you send a very bad message to all the scouts. If you seek to overturn the election, you could have a different kind of uproar. As I see it, you as scoutmaster have the authority to overturn the election. This is not unlike some of the recent threads about elected positions, only it is worse. In this case dishonesty is involved. Having said that, I w

Like most large troops we maintain our own roster of merit badge counselors. The district also has a list. Not every parent in our troop who has signed up for this wants to be on the district list, and we honor this request and do not provide those names to the district. Occasionally we will do merit badge work during regular meetings, if we have a special guest available as part of the meeting program. Most merit badge work is done outside of regular meetings. I think we presently limit counselors to five merit badges.

Many troops allow youth leadership to sign off on requirements up through the rank of first class. It depends on local unit policy. The policy needs to be clear. Consult your scoutmaster before you sign anything for another scout.

The following story mentions the boy scouts towards the end. A small thing, but little things add up. I suspect we will be hearing more stories like this out of the tri state area. From the New York Post on line. ____________________ POST READERS OPEN HEARTS FOR WTC WIDOW By HANNELE RUBIN Six weeks after losing her husband in the World Trade Center, life is a little better this week for Tracy Woodall - thanks to The Post and its generous readers. Last week, we revealed how Woodall was battling under a mountain of bills because she had been unable to get any major assista

The story below deals with a ballot initiative in which the proponents of the initiative apparently used pictures of boys scouts in their mailings. There was a similar controversy in Florida earlier in the year. I think BSA is right in refusing to get involved in these campaigns and trying to limit the use of BSA imagery by others. I wonder why there is so much action in Michigan. ____________________________ Boy Scouts Can't Escape Debate Over Homosexual Rights By Matt Pyeatt CNSNews.com Staff Writer October 19, 2001 (CNSNews.com) - A ballot initiative in Traverse

It seems pretty easy to reach a consensus on this one. Certainly the board of review is absolutely the wrong time to inform a scout of his obligations. I am somewhat conflicted about boards of review. No scout should appear before a board who has not met the requirements of the rank sought. Adverse board actions should be rare. Nevertheless, the newest materials that I have seen out of national clearly envision that boards have this authority and are not expected to rubber stamp every scout that comes before it. Boards need to be consistent and fair. Our internal problem was a resul

I am not aware of any official guidelines on this subject. I also am completely sympathetic to your view that these youth should not get credit for filling a leadership position. We are going through such a controversy just now in our troop. I was on a board of review that recently turned down a scout seeking advancement to life scout. He should never have gotten past the scoutmaster conference. The action of the board has triggered a controversy and the troop will establish written guidelines for each position. We will not require 100% attendance or participation, but at least we will b

Figured I might as well chime in one more time. Concerning the distinction between the committee and unit leadership: It is clear to me that "the book" does make such a distinction, although, as is obvious from the previous posts, few units draw the distinction. One of the more effective policies I have seen used to make sure that the committee has at least an adequate number of adults on board, is require each family to register at least one adult in some capacity. "Committee member" was the usual default unless someone wanted to be an assistant scoutmaster. In that unit we recogized

I had not noticed that I was now a "senior member." I had noticed earlier that one seemed to advance based on the number of posts. The only other explanation is that the forum has spies about tabulating the number of senior moments that may occur.

A common mistake with color guards is that the boy holding the flag often will try to hold the staff with one hand and salute with the other. The member of the color guard holding the US flag does nothing but hold the flag. A scout carrying a troop or state flag should dip that flag during the national anthem. I don't know what the rule is for "subordinate" flags during a pledge of allegiance. I would probably have such flag bearing scouts not salute, but dip their flag. If the color guard includes scouts not carrying the flag they, in my mind, should certainly salute and partipate in the

Our troop bought two of the heaviest BSA dining flies with poles last spring. They served us well on two occasions, one in a drenching rain and other in very hot sunny dry environment. These are not easy to carry around, but they have served us very well so far.

Here we go again. _____________________ Vassar College drops United Way fund Cites Boy Scouts' policy on gays By Anthony Farmer Poughkeepsie Journal Vassar College has decided it will not participate in the United Way's fund-raising campaign, which raises millions of dollars annually to support health and human service programs in Dutchess County. A controversial decision by United Way of Dutchess County to continue to fund the Boy Scouts of America -- despite the group's policy regarding homosexuals -- is the reason for Vassar's withdrawal. Vassar College Preside

In reading through these posts, I have concluded that we are trying to be over precise about something. We want to be consistent with the flag code and teach our youth proper respect for the symbols of the USA, but I think we need to keep the principle in mind and not worry too much about the details. The language cited from the flag code about uniformed personnel not reciting the pledge of allegiance while saluting is probably correct. I have no recollection of any instance when I was in sam's army of ever reciting the pledge of allegiance at all. But then I never participated in any

As one reads the other posts, it is obvious that units run their committees in different ways. I did not go into the details of the various committee positions. Essentially there is no limit to these positions, depending upon the ability of the committee chair to supervise subdivided labor. For example, we have finally created a transportation chair. This person makes sure that the troop has current information for tour permit purposes, and assists trek leaders in arranging transportation to and from events. OGE, I was not aware that boards of review were specifically a committee

There is a pamphlet on unit committees, and unit committees are mentioned in all the training materials. I don't really know what the current spin is, but my personal view is that the committee is primarily responsible for several things: recruiting adult volunteers, seeing to it that adult leaders are trained and are aware of and comply with scout policies (particularly as regards safety issues), maintaining relations with the chartered unit sponsor, dealing with fund raising issues, establishing broad policies on matters such as unit size where policies are needed, among other things. The

The piece posted below goes back to July 25. On September 25 the House of Representatives approved an amendment to the District funding bill prohibiting government funds being used to enforce the District's Human Rights Commission from enforcing its order against the scouts. Apparently the controversy involves volunteeer leaders, not paid professionals. It is bizarre that the District would ignore the Supreme Court of the United States, but then anyone who has followed the statehood controversy would not be too surprised. These guys almost make Berkeley look good. _____________________

Concur. An answer to a question that you did not ask: Those still flying flags at half staff are "out of compliance." No disrespect to the fallen or the families of the fallen, but the officially designated period of mourning is over, even though most remains have not been recovered.

I take it you are speaking of what used to be called a "garrison cap?" Have you tried national supply? They probably got stuck with hundreds of these in inventory when they changed hats many years ago and could easily still have some?

Rarely do I disagree with Mike, and I could be wrong, but I have no recollection of any circumstance when the flag would not be displayed on the speaker's right.

I almost posted this under "unit fund raising", but it really has to do with fund raising for national. In a news piece about patriotic songs, and how everybody is singing these songs since September 11, there was a comment about "God Bless America." This was originally written by Irving Berlin in 1918, but did not become popular until much later. When it started earning royalties, Berlin donated those to the boy scouts and the girl scouts. I don't know if this song is in the public domain yet, but if you are in an environment (night club, radio music request show, etc.) where royalties wo

I have pasted in below an op ed piece from today's Wall Street Journal about the Falwell fiasco. It is not just political liberals who were upset with Falwell's remarks. __________ Falwell and Folly America's sins didn't bring down the World Trade Center. BY TIMOTHY GEORGE Friday, September 21, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT In ordinary times, it would be unthinkable for a sitting president to criticize a theological statement made by a religious leader. We don't expect politicians to fault preachers for interpreting the oracles of faith. Yet that's just what happened last Frida

Stacy, As OGE points out, the Order of the Arrow is the most explicitly native american component of scouting. It is an honor society within scouting that incorporate native american costuming into its ceremonies, and bases its traditions on a legend of the Delaware Indians. Members of the OA often organize indian dance teams and compete with one another. The OA has had some interesting interaction at high levels with native americans that have led to changes in the OA. When I was a boy scout far too many years ago, when the OA would suit up in indian regalia, we would use face pa