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If you committed to the trip at the meeting when menus and drivers were set, then you had to pay for food and any fees associated with the trip. The only way out is if you called the person buying food for the trip and let them know before they went to the store; the day the food buyer was going was communicated at the meeting. We're in the same camp (no pun intended). The only exceptions we've made for this are illness or family emergencies, and if nothing else, it introduces the concept of personal responsibility and consequences...

The existance of Joseph Smith (and Christ for that matter) are a matter of historical record beyond the various church's documents. The murder of Joseph Smith, and his being run out of Ohio and Missouri are detailed in newspapers of the time. What isn't historical fact is the gold plates and his revelations. Likewise, the crucifixion of Christ is detailed as fact in Roman historical records. Again, as I said a page or two ago, there's a lot more to the Mormon doctrines and convenants than people bother to read. Go read them for yourselves and watch the PBS documentary. It's

Dunno if I'd call it entertaining... Part of me feels a little voyeuristic for looking at some of this because some people who appeared to be dedicated to Scouting received a rude awakening. The rest of me is just plain mad that if this was the rogue unit that they're shaping up to be, the council and CO let them get away with it as long as they did. Where was the unit commish?... Oh, right. Nobody wants to serve in that position... I've got openings for four UC's, and have only managed to get two, and that's only because it was seen by someone as an easy ticket item at Woodbad

Your religion should only be important to yourself and no one else. ? ? ? ? No, that's your underwear. I knew it was just a matter of time before someone would mention that...

Again... The point is missed... Evans was abusing boys OUTSIDE of scouting events. It's no different than a case that happened with a co-worker of mine... He was a youth soccer coach, and was inviting his players to his apartment after practices and games, and then molesting them. It's not the soccer association's fault that the boys went with him... They had procedures in place to prevent one-on-one contact, too. But it didn't apply off the field... Same thing here. Evans lured boys away from the spotlight of two-deep. Maybe the boys didn't know they we

I live in an area where LDS is fairly significant (around 25% of the local), and I'm amazed at some of the sheer ignorance over the LDS that exists in the discussion so far. Go spend a couple hours watching "The Mormons" at http://PBS.Org/Mormons and then read thru the FAQs. One of them addresses the original question -- are Mormons Christians: Then there's the question of are Mormons Christian? It's a paradox; according to Mormons, perhaps the Christians aren't Christian! Part of the problem is insolvable because Mormons are using "Christians" in one sense; everybody el

From the sound of the first post, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were still having meetings even though they were unchartered. Nothing says they can't continue to meet as a group. They just shouldn't be using the BSA name and logo.

Yeah, TRUTH2's post was identical to one I saw at one of the newspaper's "comment on this story" section. There were also some posts over there that were downright cruel and hurtful. I don't see too much of that here unless it is an athiesm/gay related thread... To Scouter30 and Truth2, a Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal & Helpful, and sometimes that means telling another Scouter things they don't want to hear or accept. Perhaps the answer is to treat Ordeal as a Class 3 medical activity, since it's not your normal camping experience.... John, I don't believe EEOC has jurisdicti

I haven't had LisaBob's situation come up in Scouting, but we did have it come up at my company. We process financial related data, and do criminal background and credit checks prior to hiring, and a prospective employee came up as having a criminal record and outstanding warrants in Texas. Rather than pass on hiring him, we brought him in and asked him about it. After cross checking the dates/locations of the so-called crimes, we came to the conclusion that his identity had been stolen by an illegal alien (he has a Hispanic name). All of the crimes listed had been committed while he was in th

I'm split on the idea of having guidelines... Common sense should prevail, but parents more than the Scouts need to know how a unit functions, and parents new to Scouting need some spoon feeding. So that's where I see the guidelines being a benefit. I'm currently revising our troop guidelines (feel free to PM me and we can trade notes and ideas), and I'm finding that the current ones tend to regurgitate a lot of stuff that's already contained in BSA publications, so that is all coming out in our next revision. Same thing with by-laws... Seen far less often by parents, but as

The scouting museum is convenient to Dallas-Fort Worth airport (approx five miles, 20 minutes at most by taxi), so depending on which airline you fly on, so it is possible to visit the museum on a long connection. I fly on American Airlines a lot, and have managed to schedule 4 and 5 hour "connections" at both DFW and Chicago.

The rules changed a few years back... Too many inconsistencies in how things were being produced. Protecting the "brand" is important. Our troop shirts & neckers now sport the troop's logo and a solid FDL. The solid FDL isn't trademarked. If we wanted to use the BSA version of the fleur-de-lis, it would need to be approved by the logo police and produced by an approved provider. For some, this will be a significant change in the way products, like T-shirts or patches, are purchased. In the past, you may have simply given a BSA trademark to a third party for reproduction, and w

Well, here's the verification, guys & gals... Disabled Scout leader, council battle in court Charter revoked, troop disbanded after Titusville woman claims bias BY JEFF SCHWEERS FLORIDA TODAY A leader no longer. Palma Rasmussen, shown here with her companion dog, filed a lawsuit against Boy Scouts of America in June. Soon afterward, the BSA revoked her membership and that of her husband, Keith, an Eagle Scout. They then revoked the charter of her Troop 700 in Titusville for children with disabilities. For years, life in the Rasmussen household has revolv

The world was a much nicer place during the Cold War... Personally, I'm OK with letting California and Texas secede from the US, since they were both nation-states. IIRC, the current Texas Constitution still has languague which would permit it to secede.

Perhaps it's a foreign concept, since about the only way to get fired in Germany, France, and a few other EU countries is to commit a crime -and- be convicted, but in the rest of the world, senior executives frequently get sacked by the boards who chose them over others. Typically, it's done when bad news isn't disclosed in due time. My guess is that after a series of questionable decisions (or indecisions in the case of the operating budgets), the news on Picarquin came to light, and that was the final straw for the NSO's who signed the open letter. Nobody is questioning the former

Technically, they really don't even need to find another home -- COL had two service centers -- they also have one in Valley Forge. There's probably no reason admin functions couldn't be run out of the remaining center, with the rest of the professional staff being home based. I'm fairly certain BSA won't give up on its people quite as easily as the City has given up on BSA. They'll find a way to keep servicing the units in PHL.

We sent two crews out there this past summer, and will probably plan to send at least one crew in 2009. As far as I know, there was a resupply, but it is definitely desertscape.

Government property used for government purposes is typically not taxed, but if city property becomes revenue generating, it is possible that another entity can tax it (i.e. a public health district, school district, county, fire district, etc). It does become an expense for the city in terms of maintenance that doesn't exist today, and that expense will be passed along to the next tenant or the taxpayers.

Records are sealed for the protection of those who had to give testimony over what happened to them. And rightfully so. Victims deserve privacy.

When I see someone wearing beads and a tartan necker, I could really care less which version of the course they took. The fact is that they worked a ticket and earned their necker and beads, and that's the bond that ties us together.

"There is a board which decides how the money is spent and the SG is an executive who does as the board tells him. Maybe the board needs to wake up if the SG didn't act as he was told to? " Well, it sounds like that's exactly what happened. My understanding is that the BSA has been voicing these concerns for over two years. I think you'd better go back to the content of the original letter from BSA: This decision was made after a very careful review of numerous issues that have evolved since early 2004. .... Clearly, the BSA is by far the largest single financial co

You can always volunteer to be a unit commissioner...

So far, the only things I've even seen regarding the SG's side are that this was an unethical and unprecedented abuse by BSA. But that's it. Nothing else to substantiate or even defend any of the criticisms in the original letter from any of the national organizations who signed the original open letter. Sorry, I'm not going to just get caught up in the "Blame America" mentality that seems to prevailing here. But I also don't think it is at all unreasonable for BSA to be questioning how its donations to WOSM are used. I've spent a lot of time in Geneva, and seen the facilities paid

That's my understanding of the crisis as well -- too much money was being spent on elaborate real estate to benefit the leadership side of scouting, and not enough being spent to promote scouting in developing countries. If the outcome here is that WOSM's focus shifts back towards expanding the Scouting universe, I'm not sure how you can construe that as damage. To borrow from the ultra-religious, "What would B-P do?"? I'm pretty certain from my readings that he would not have approved spending money on a conference center and hotel in Geneva. Something like this can be built an

I don't get the need for some folks to slam the new course, either, especially from those who haven't gone thru it. Someone mentioned WB being like Eagle, and they're right. The cornerstone of earning the Eagle rank is the project. Ideally, if they've planned it right, the candidate should be able to hand the project plan off to any Life Scout and have the project executed. But that's not how it works. They're also expected to show leadership. WB gives adults that same challenge. Scoutcraft isn't the biggest challenge for most Scoutmasters. The bigger challenge is making sur