emb021

"Is there a good book on the history of Boy Scouts? I have many SM handbooks. Even the first "Scouting for Boys" with the psycho-analytical sub book with it. I am looking for a what happened, why it happened and when it happened type book." Have you check out "Boy Scouts of America: A Centennial History", which came out last year?? Be aware that many times the 'why' of things isn't always given. The book isn't perfect, but pretty decent.

"If the BSA went co-ed it would mean the end to the GSA. My wife is a GSA leader (was a girl scout and earned the Gold award) and she cant wait till my daughter ages out, because of the many changes that have been made to that program." Don't agree that the BSA going co-ed will kill the GSUSA. Girl Guides STILL exist in many countries where Scouting is now co-ed. "I wasn't taking boy scouts being coed." Well, making Venturing a middle school/high school/college age program is impractical. You really can't have units with the whole range of youth. Most countries split up the program sections along age lines that usually aren't more then 4-5 years each. "Venturing is High adventure????? Posers is what most of the crews are. In our area it is mostly kids with no scouting experience being recruited. Their only draw is the ladies." Venturing is more then 'high adventure'. Venturing is open ended in its program. Outdoors is but one possible focus. There is also sports, arts/hobbies, religious life (think church youth groups) and Sea Scouts. In my area, Venturing crews are a mix of kids: former (sometimes current) boy scouts, disasstified girl scouts, kids who were never scouts.

I would have gone for requiring the Outdoor Bronze instead of Gold.

"Want to Save scouting?" "Make Cub Scouts Coed." May happen. "Lower the Venturing join age to 11." No. Bad idea. Venturing is a high school/college age program. You can't just add in middle school kids to the mix. Scout troops already see the issues with mixing middle school & high school kids. Better idea would be to reduce Boy Scout to 11-14, and take it co-ed. "Simple solution" Not really. there are a LOT of issue that will need to be worked out.

"If scouting is not known among Hispanics, then why are there scout associations all over Central and South America? Also Didn't Chile hold a WSJ? I think scouting works across the cultural divide, as evidenced by Scouting being a world wide movement. "In addiiton to BP's questiuon that we should ask what the Hispanic community wants, why don't we also look at some of the things done in Hispanic countries." Yes, there are scout associations in all central & south american countries. Chile was, in fact, the first non Commonwealth country to adopt Scouting (before the US did). HOWEVER, what I've heard is that scouting is more for the 'elites' then for everyone like we try to do here in the US. But even here in the US, we could look at scouting in our Hispanic communities (Puerto Rico, Cuban community in south florida, hispanic communities in various areas) in addition to C/S America.

Only those who hold a regional position, either youth or adults, may wear Regional insignia. Many thing that going to a jamboree somehow entitles them to wear the Jambo regional patches. Not so. If the Venturing holds a Regional or Area Position (and, yes, there are some who qualify) can wear the Regional patches.

The B-P Scout Association groups got started around 1967, after the "advanced party report" in the UK lead to their "modernization" effort that spread to the other commonwealth countries (Canada, Aus, NZ), which lead to B-PSA groups getting started there as well. Should be info on-line as to what the "advanced party report" was all about, but you could compare it to the BSA's own urban emphasis movement in the 70s or so. I would have to agree with BadenP's comment about National. I would add that it seems that his comments about professional also applies to volunteers who want to contribute and help out beyond the unit level. I sometimes wonder if there is some list of 'troublesome' volunteers, who don't get asked to help out. I find it strange that I can't seem to get any traction to help out in the BSA beyond the local level, but in other organizations I'm in, if you show yourself to be dedicated, knowledgeable, have ideas for improvement, etc, you will many times be SOUGHT out and recruited for positions. Other orgs seem to want such people, as they know they need them; the BSA seems to prefer to ignore or drive them away. Maybe they see them as a threat or something.

"Establish better communication between the lower levels of Scouting (where most of us are) and National." Agree. People need to look to how other non-profit member organizations operate. Are no one else here part of one? Most groups try to be more transparent in the organization. That is, the leadership at all levels are known to the members. Some orgs even provide ALL members with a members guide with all the contact information of all national leaders, and any national committees. Now, some members may be oblivious of things beyond their local level, but for those who want to get involved, its usually pretty easy to do so. More so then in the BSA. Also, in most such organizations, the leaders are willing to interact with the members, both on-line (email, listserves, FB, etc) and in person at events. Compare this with the BSA telling the Venturing youth leadership that they CAN'T interact with others on-line in forums and the like. By being more transparent, BSA National would know better how things are going. "Re-establish a training regime that better supports our programs." Agree. This mania for "program neutral" training is a mistake, as it doesn't help support the programs. NYLT being program neutral doesn't help either the Boy Scouts or the Venturers attending this, as it doesn't support the different programs of the youth, nor help prepare them in running their units by modeling for them the ideal troop or crew. Same for adult training. I would also say that in addition to what Twocubdad said about CORs, that the volunteer leaders of the BSA need to be the ones with the power, not the professionals. In most non-profit member orgs, the volunteer leadership run things, with the professionals assisting them and handling the business side. (the pros work for the members, not the other way around) The BSA professionals should have NO say in who the volunteer leaders are (ie, no say in who takes on roles at the National, Regional, Area, Council or District levels). Frankly, if the BSA did a better job of getting good, dedicated volunteers involved in various national committees, rather then use the positions be treated like some political goodies to dole out, that could help with communication and feedback.

I, too, am sorry for your lose. Tragic. Now, as to your question. I should address what someone else said: "As recently stated a Venturing crew defines itself, and it's uniforms. I am sure that your crew knowing the story, is in full support of you. Others shouldn't be questioning your uniform, as it is what the crew defines as proper." Not quite. If a Venturing crew decides on something OTHER then the forest green Venturing uniform, then what they want to do is up to them. IF they choose the forest green Venturing uniform, policy DOES state they must follow uniforming policies. Its not so 'anything goes' as some assume. I wrote a Venturing Uniform FAQ to address these sorts of confusion. And uniforming policies does NOT allow for things like wearing pins intended for civilian wear, or pins worn in memorial for someone else. I understand what you want to do, and the decision is up to you, but be prepared for people wondering what you are doing, and questioning it. They are going to assume you are wearing a pin you earned, and its really not appropriate for a Venturer or adult to be wearing Cub Scout pins on the uniform. Some may question you, and maybe not very friendly. So be prepared to be able to answer them and do so politely.

When I went from being a Cub Scout to being a Boy Scout, this was one of the big differences I got that the Troop met all year around. (another was we didn't get punch and cookies at the end of the meeting. ) Summer is when troops go to summer camp (week or 2), and usually their big summer trip (Philmont, a high adventure base or some other week long trip). Ok, so some scouts maybe gone for a meeting or two, but I've never understood these families who disappear for a couple of months in the summer (most parents only get a couple of weeks of vacation). So I've never understood a troop shutting down for a summer.

FWIW- Pretty much ALL scouting associations have their members wear the World Crest on their uniforms as a standard item (some probably even include it already on the uniform), as a symbol that all are members of the World Scout Movement. The BSA, for whatever reason, choice to instead put requirements on it that limited who could wear it. IMO, that was a mistake. If they wanted to create some kind of recognition item for those who participated in foreign scouting events, they should have created something else (the International Activity patch does that nicely, IMO).

While NJCubScouter is correct, everyone needs to keep in mind that we are judging the past with how things are viewed today. Actually, the BSA of early days was in many ways WAY more progressive then the rest of society. Yes, we may bemoan the fact that troops were segregated and there were separate camps for blacks. BUT we forget that the BSA *did* allow blacks to join!! Many other orgs would not. (The Lone Scouts of America was for whites only, tho I don't know how they could have enforced that) We also allowed for Catholics, Jews and other religious and ethnic minority to join, when that was also not the norm. (I know of a story of H. Roe Bartle being confronted with an angry mob in the 20s for appointing a Catholic to a Commissioner position in the mid-West). They had groups within the BSA national to help both negro and Indian youth be scouts (the forerunners to the later ScoutReach efforts?). Yes, we may wish the BSA had been a bit quicker to open up its adult positions to women. They were pretty forward thinking to open up Explorers to females when they did, IMO. While some may wish them to be quicker to resolve the various "3G" issues, I think some need to do some research into the issues before they pass judgement.

I earned skill awards and enjoyed them. I worn them until I went to Philmont and have been wearing a leather Philmont belt since. what was also neat was other belt loops made for things like NOACs, Jamborees, some high adventure bases, etc. when I was at the 81 jamboree, I met a group of scouts from Japan, who were impressed by my scout belt with skill awards on them.

(Let's try this again...) Check out Bass Pro Shop. There's one in my area, and that's been my source for charcoal gray shorts. I have gotten 3 different styles from their RedHead brand. Plus, buying locally, I can take advantage of their sales. There is the 8-pocket hiking short in charcoal. I have several of these and used these at the last 2 jamborees. I believe Cabelas has the same style, and one or the other has a 'pants version' and maybe a zipoff version of this. There is the Sportman's Cargo short in gravel, which is new. A little lighter gray, but so what? There is a pants version, which I got, which I plan on using when I need something a little more dressy. The third style they dropped, which is too bad because I really like it.

The Merit badge midway is but ONE of MANY activities the scouts can do. So I think you're getting bent out of shape over nothing. What is great about the MBM, is that for many of these merit badges, you get some really great top notch people running them. In many cases, a lot better then what you have might get at home. If your scouts want to try things out let them. You don't need to worry about blue cards. The MBM used its own system. For a lot of scouts, they will get particuals (keep in mind that some requirements just can't be completed at Jambo), especially if they don't do everything. The Jamboree SM are supposed to get a report at the end of completions and partuals.

"Why are you describing the uniform when all the boys only need to do is look at their Boy Scout Handbook. Why rewrite what the BSA has already stated. I think you will find it to be about the same and it is a lot easier for the Scoutmaster to justify using the BSA policies instead of his own." well, yeah, that's the problem with many 'troop guidelines': they go from putting do sensible procedures in writting to trying to re-write BSA policies (which leads to many threads here). keep in mind that many of your parents DON'T know what BSA policies are, and probably AREN'T going to be interested in find those policies, so putting them all together in a conventient form sounds nice. Its when it gets out of control where the problem lies. And you'd like to think that you just need to make sure the boys understand things and you'll be ok, but you forget that many times it must go from the adult leader to the scout to the parent, and often it gets altered along that path. I'll always remember the problem with I was counseling some scouts for the Citizenship in the World Merit badge, and I told them for one requirement, they need to get a passport application, fill it out, and bring it to me, and this got garbled to 'get a passport', which upset some parents because of the cost of getting a passport. You know, maybe the BSA should develop their own booklet for parents with a lot of this info, negating the need for units to do this themselves...

BadenP- sounds like you've seen the actual new shirt. Does it have the World Crest on it? What does the shirt strip ("Venturing BSA") look it? An sewn embroidered strip? Are there pocket flaps, and what is the configuration? From the picture its not too clear, but looks like more of a squared off flap, with no indication of either buttons or snaps, so maybe velcro.

Actually, I bought another of the 'old shirts' a month or two ago, and decided to buy one last weekend. Good thing I did, as the shop I visited only had 3 males shirts, thankfully my size. I basically have 8 shirts, one for each of the Jamborees I've been to. Should work fine for me for some time, as I don't plan on going to another after 2010...

"Early scouts wore their advancement on their hats, not uniform. I'm thinking pre-1920 BSA with the evidence showing." AFAIK, they wore their advancement on their uniform. they could also wear it on their hats, but they also had hat pins for SPL and maybe PL. Mitch Reis' book on dating scouting uniforms would have a more definiative answer.

"Are we going to have a Scouter.com reunion somewhere or what?" be nice. back in 89, my first jambo on staff, there was a scouts-l reunion of sorts. Nice to put faces to names we had interacted with on-line. I don't recall if there was any attempt at this at other jambos. National, for whatever reason, seems to frown on most of these reunions. Was disappointed by the lack of an official WB reunion in 89 (because I knew of past ones that WERE official, and I had just been beaded), so there was an unofficial one. 93 we had another unofficial WB reunion, but this was mared by the recent death of GBB. There used to be OA gatherings at Jambo, but not at the last few. Funny that there will be an official Hornaday reunion. We've had semi-official sea scout gatherings. APO always has a reunion/gathering.

Yeah, that's the classic "Boss of the Plains" hat that's been a boy scout hat from day one. Now a days, people know it as the 'smoky the bear' hat or 'drill instructor' hat. You almost never see scouts wearing it, but a lot of old-time scouters, especially WBers.

"What the boy wears really doesn't matter, and National has said so. If a boy shows up and a suit and tie he can't be penalized for that." No one disagrees with that, but when you have a EBOR, mostly made up of 'old guard' scout leaders, good luck trying to get them to understand/accept that.

"However, this also begs the question of whether or not, if the Venturing boy needs to accomplish all the requirements for Eagle, does he wear the TF, SC, FC, Star, Life, ranks on his Venturing uniform as he completes the requirements?" A venturer IS allowed to wear his Boy Scout rank (and AOL patch) on his Venturer uniform. And may do so until he's 21 (as he's still a youth in Venturing). Personally, I prefer they not, but its allowed. And this shouldn't be surprising. This dates back to the 1930s when older scouts could be active in Boy Scouts, Sea Scouts, Explorer Scouts, and Air Scouts, earn ranks in all of these programs AND wear ALL these ranks on their uniform. (This message has been edited by emb021)

"That being said, if a young man is applying for the highest rank in boy scouts, isn't he subject to the methods of boy scouts?" No. The methods of Boy Scouting applies only to troops. He is not a member of a troop, but of a crew.

"Also is 2015 our 100th year for OA?" Uh, yes. The OA was established in 1915.