fred johnson

From what I see, I fully agree. Kids are dropping out of Cub Scouts because it's repetitive over the years. I'd rather see Cub Scouts go back to starting in 2nd grade. Market it as let kids try sports first. When they are mature enough to handle the outdoors, fire, knives and fishing, then they can try Cub Scouts.

Anecdotal stories are fine, but there is a real issue here. This whole discussion started because BSA is changing the CUB PROGRAM ... EXAMPLE ON PAGE 28 : http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pr...quirements.pdf As a Webelos, your Akela is your den leader. You either earn the religious emblem (#1) or you do #2A or #2D. #2B & #2C are moot because you can do those with family and family can say it's just not that important to them. Automatic get out of jail free card on #2B & #2C. But 2A and 2D are more than show respect. It's about active practicing. 2A is plan, support, participate. 2D is practice for a month. That moves Cub Scouts from "Faith Friendly" to "Faith Based", especially as the den leader now gets involved. This is an issue because we recruiting from schools. Faith friendly is fine and creates a nice well rounded program, but faith based is a bridge not to be crossed with schools. At that point, we need to recruit from churches and not schools. It was well meant, but it is bad bad change. Even worse, it's a bad marketing move as our nation moves to spiritual but most are not affiliated with a church. So now, you want them to practice even though they are not affiliated with a church.

ScoutTrack & such web solutions .... Though I can think of other solutions, I can accept what ShutterbugMom and Sidney Porter say. My experience is jaded by obsessive parents who's only goal seems to be to have their son get more awards than the next guy. And recording the individual requirements is way way too painful in ScoutTrack. I've also seen problems when the purchasing gets out of cycle with the awards and scouts get awarded the award multiple times. I'd rather keep it more simple

Sidney Porter and ShutterbugMom are right. Cubs want to be recognized. If they are not recognized, it is a negative and begins to separate them from Cub Scouting. We need to attract them to the advancement program and have it grow on them. As they mature from Tiger to Webelos to Eagle scout, we do a progression of responsibility until it is 100% on them. Plus, Cub Scouts (Tiger, Wolf and Bear) is way different. First of all, according to BSA and what BSA publishes in the Cub Scout handbooks, the parents sign off on alot. "Almost all electives and achievements are done by you and your Cub Scout at home, not in the den meeting." I've had some parents never respond and other parents that sign off on anything and everything. As such, Cub Scout awards are notorious for being imbalanced. IMHO, if the scout was active during the year (participating, attending, etc), I'm going to find a way to get him his rank patch (not individual advancements, belt loops, etc) by the end of the year. I'm probably going to try to find other awards for him too. I do hold Arrow of Light differently as it's now a Webelos rank (not Cub Scout) and it involves much more scout-driven advancement. ............................................. IMHO, ScoutTrack (and solutions like it) are bad. Period. It turns a fun activity based program into thousand checkoffs and those checkoffs get abused badly. I want the scouts to record their progress in their book and not on a web site that dies after they age out.

Attended a camporee recently.... The evening camp fire program was together with a Sunday service (on Saturday evening). It was okay, but it was clearly Christian with Apostles creed and several invocations / habits that are Lutheran or Catholic or evangelical in nature. And I admit I did cringe at a few of the evangelical items. But I'm sure evangelical families cringed at "the holy catholic church". .... I should admit that I did trip with the Apostles creed as I'm used to the Nicene creed and I had not said the Apostle's creed regularly since I was a kid. ... but I also still trip up on "consubstantial." At least there was no usage of "The great spirit in the sky" What surprised me even more was that there was no way to avoid the service part. There were many families that were not Catholic, Lutheran or evangelical. We had many Hindu, some Buddist and a few others. There was no way to avoid it as we didn't know when the camp fire would start except immediately following the service. I guess next year we have to volunteer to coordinate the camporee and we could bring in a deacon or priest to run the service at the district camporee.

I can sympathize with Karen. She asked a simple question and blew up in her face. Perhaps the hard part about Karen's question is there is no right or wrong answer. It really depends. I know our pack has a cost of about $140 to $155 per scout per year. But we also don't cater meals ever. Pizza yes, but not a catered meal. We rent out some pretty expensive facilities at times, but we try to keep events FREE to all scout family members ... unless it's a not a big open event. Such as, scouts have to pay per person for summer or winter camps. But, our pack also hosts some "cheaper" free camps. Also, blue and gold is free and for the whole family. And, all pack gatherings / meetings / activities (ALL) are free. It really depends on the personality and traditions of the pack. Many of us scouters get vary passionate about the program and I really think this is a big issue that hurts scouting. So many run the program so differently and are so invested that we get very aggressive in defending our practices. SUGGESTION TO MODERATORS - How about changing the "New To The Forum? Move it to the top. Rename it to "New to scouting" and describe it as a tame area for questions from new scouters that will avoid the intensity of many online bulletin boards"

Your being argumentative or just wrong. In BSA as also in my personal life, "reverent" starts with doing my Duty To God. Every time BSA explains the Scout Law "reverent", it starts with Duty To God. We've all heard it at virtually every Eagle Court Of Honor too. http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/BoyScouts/AdvancementandAwards/MeritBadges/relig.aspx In a scouting setting, we can discuss one without the other. And, asking a scout to sit through a religious service of another person's faith is more politeness than reverent or Duty To God. I've sat through Lutheran services which are very very close to my Catholic faith. I've also sat through evangelical services that it was polite of me to not walk out of or just laugh at.

Calico ... You are dead on right with "faith friendly". Faith friendly means we can find a common working ground with schools and others. "Faith based" means we need to silo off into our own little church based units. Heck "faith based" means no one will be satisfied except LDS units. Calico ... Also I'm sorry you did not receive your Eagle. It sounds like you earned it but were not recognized as such. You have my sympathies.

We're playing word games now. My point was I can show respect for other faiths, but I can't do my Duty To God by attending a faith service for a faith that I don't believe in. Perhaps it is my old school herritage, but reverence in a faith context has a deeper meaning than just "deep respect". There are dozens of articles on this. When you combine Duty To God and Reverent, there is much more to it than deep respect. Heck, I have deep deep respect to philosophers and writers who expose atheist views. But I in no way feel "reverent" when I show them respect. Nor do I feel like I am doing my Duty To God other than living a good life and being nice to others. Reverent in a faith setting means more.

... You can be respectful of others faith, but you can't be reverent toward others or reverent torward the faith of others. You can only be reverent toward your own faith. No. A "requirement" means judging. Did you complete the requirement? Someone judges. "If the boy is doing his duty towards hs religion" ... "if" ... that's judging. What "if" he is not doing his duty? Who makes that decision? Also ... are we only for youth in organized religion? Many families profess faith, but are not affiliated with a church. Their duty is effectively leading a good life (i.e. the scout law / scout spirit). It becomes a circular requirement ... which is a non-requirment. The smart scout leader is only going to dive shallow into these requirements.

Say's you. That's your faith. If your going to be accepting, then you need to accept that others are more strict. Other families are less understanding. Heck, I have a big time problem attending interdenominational services ... especially when they start refering to the "great scout spirit in the sky". I do not have my kids attend them. I find them worse than meaningless.

BSA has been repeatedly in the news for kicking out atheists. Now, it feels like BSA is kicking out non-practicing Christians. If this continues, who's going to be left in the end? How do we work with each other? Plus ... BSA is asking for more. It's more than just "okay to ask". BSA is emphasizing practicing faith. Webelos Duty To God requires the emblem or 3 of 4. Of those four, two are explicitly including a practicing element (planning / helping with church service, practicing faith for a month). So we either blow off and not take the requirement seriously or it becomes a new level of expectation. A large portion of the US population holds a belief in God, but are not affiliated with a church and do not feel driven toward organized religion. For that large portion of the population ... we're going to have to explain ... okay ... here's how you complete the requirement and it effectively means doing nothing. Just dancing around the requirement. I hate such requirements. they are worse than having no requirement.

Not often I agree with you, but I think you are dead right about this. I also fear those who have "new evangelical faith" and feel an obligation of their new found faith to use their scout leader position to share their faith. I've seen it happen. In their well meaning ignorant naivete, they try to teach lessons to my sons that is opposite of what my church teaches. Does this mean that I need to keep my children in a Catholic faith as LDS keeps their children in LDS units? ============================================ The issue is that packs and troops recruit from schools and have children of many faiths. Your average den leader and scoutmaster are not qualified to discuss faith. So either there will be boundaries crossed or it will be given short shrift as we do currently. So Duty To God will be given expanded visibility to be ignored yet again. Even worse, we will justify ourselves around it. I have a good friend who believes in God, but does not feel any "Duty" other than to lead a good life. So his son would only need to follow the Scout Law for a week or month or other to fulfill requirements. Others with stronger faith would have to do significantly more. I can count 20 nights of camping. I can record when a Webelos scout visited a Boy Scout troop. Service hours, no problem. But Duty To God is not something I can evaluate. I'd rather it be left as is than be made more visible and continue to be ignored.

There are no good options. You can ask, but my experience is there is no reliable way. And, you will get a 30% response rate. Parents are already dealing with too much homework from school and competing activities. I'd look for giving the scouts the best experience possible in the den and keep them active and getting new experiences. If a scout missed a meeting or two, maybe they don't get that specific advancement. But I'd look the other way when it comes to the rank badge. Effectively, if a scout was at all active in the den, I'd do my best to see they got their rank patch by the rank time period.

That scares and saddens me. Scouting has always been the safe ground between a religious program and a secular program. It's the same as the pledge of Allegiance. Kids all over the U.S. say it in a secular environment. That's scouting. It has been the safe middle ground where faith can be expressed without shoving it down someone's throat. ... and ... one thing that I like is that some kids actually feel safe to start thinking about faith because they are in scouts. But if we shove it down their throats, they are just going to leave or never join..

The opposite of what you call hiding under a rock, I call shoving it in another person's face to piss them off. Except LDS/Mormon, effectively all cub scouts are recruited through organized recruiting structured around their elementary school. Other than a passing comment or statement, I've never seen structured recruitment at a church. I have my faith and I love my Church. But this will only hurt membership in the long run. =================================== Scouting has always lived in the space between secular and organized religion. And, that's the place scouting needs to be. Many scouts through the subtle scouting program rediscover their faith. Many families don't want to emphasize the faith component or join a church youth group and schools can't support church groups. ... But they will join scouts. That's what we want !! =================================== When it comes up, I'll advise my packs and our district Cub Scout leaders to let the Duty To God requirements be wholely at the discretion of the parents. Only deal with it if they feel think they can do something meaningful in a comfortable way. And no matter what NEVER NEVER NEVER make it a do-or-die advancement issue. If everything else is done, cubs earn their ranks. Boy Scouts advance.

My oldest son joined Cub Scouts three months after Dale vs BSA and I've dealt with the ramifications of that for the last 14+ years. Kicked out of schools. Teachers throwing away flyers. Scouting became the bad guy. It has not been fun being the on-the-scene representative of a politically unpopular organization. Finally though, it has been changing. This fall's recruitment brought a smile to my face. 20 new cubs. It was exciting. Principal let us put posters up in the school again. Had someone in the cafeteria with pinewood derby cars to talk with cubs. I think the big change is that BSA has been out-of-the-press. No recent abuse or discrimination stories. "I FEAR" though that like Dale v BSA, the 2015 program changes will drive us out of the schools again. BSA is picking a fight with the new in-your-face approach to Duty To God in the cub scout program. I just don't see we can promote in public schools with the expanded Duty To God requirements. As it is now, it's a gray line that we can smile at. I find it useful because I want my kids in a program with a faith component. But, expanding the faith component is going to drive us out of the schools AGAIN. I really fear this is going to re-open the debate.

The first thing I would do is talk with another parent or two in your den who SAW what happened. Make sure your view of what happened is the same as theirs. Odds are they will have suggestions on how to deal with it too. I am hesitant to say wait it out as these types of situations always have side effects. Please note ... as a den leader ... you have every right to say you are not comfortable with a specific scout or a specific parent. If they will not act with appropriate conduct, you can ask them to leave. Peter

Actually ... It's not 100% that clear cut. Often scouters don't know their actual registration because a membership person takes care of that. I've seen it happen. A WDL was registered as a DL or even still a TDL or a committee member. Just no one ever switched their registration. "IF" you were the recognized leader by your pack for that position then I've seen the council give people credit for that. The decision was made by the council director of advancement. Plus, you still had to do the time and get the training and meet the other criteria. The only big big no-no that I've seen is trying to get the credit for two knots for the same time served or cheat on the duration served. I know people who have done that too. That's the one that irks me.

MattR ... Also note, you only update advancement reports from TroopMaster. You don't upload a complete scout advancement history for the scout. As such, the official record is in ScoutNet. My fear is after seven years of updating TroopMaster will the data be correct.

MattR ... If your group finds it useful, go for it. I get the scout's advancement record for ScoutNet (aka the council resource). I get the training report from either our council custom site or now the new http://my.scouting.org. Service hours are easy to compute as we know who attended through the SOAR attendee list for each event. I just want to minimize the data entry. Years ago, we used to keep TroopMaster records up to date religiously. We'd print out a stack of paper before each meeting. Now, we can quickly get into the official systems and it is less work in the long run. .... I tried to attach images of what BSA and SOAR gives you but I can't. This web site won't allow it.

Okay. Calmer day now ... I find SOAR extremely useful for calendar, roster and managing events and communication. I agree though with blw2. I don't see much use for web based advancement tools. Only exception is to help the advancement person coordinate purchases. But then, web based solutions only move the problem from getting emails to entering data. Not a big difference. I see no value for troops. Official records are the merit badge cards, the Boy Scout Handbook and BSA ScoutNet. Troopmaster ... packmaster ... and other electronic systems are just redundant and at best match the official records. At worst, they are inaccurate and out of date. Especially now that troops can sign into BSA ScoutNet and get nice reports out of it.

It's the only model that I've seen work locally. All the other crews pop-up and then die after three to five years. In a sad way ... it's almost like ... "an explorer post"