fred8033

Yea. So true.

About basementdweller's situation ... a few comments Talk with the parents BEFORE the scout is involved in a formal meetings or discipline. ---- Zero surprises. ---- Early and up front communications You need to remove the scout from the troop ---- if the scout won't own the issues ---- if the parents won't agree on a solution ---- if the troop leaders don't believe the situation is fixable Make sure the troop leaders are being honest with themselves. ---- Red flag phrases. --------- "If any kid needs scouting, ..." --------- "It's our duty to ....

I agree with Krampus ... to a degree. The term "disability" is too loosely used. I've had excellent experience with scouts that have some level of asbergers, autism or a disability. They are excellent scouts. I've also had scouts that come from broken homes or with parents in jail. We can work with them too. To be honest, I'm confounded when people talk of the category of asbergers as some type of really bad diagnosis. From what I see, they function fine in families and in society. The category I have had little success integrating into the troop is "EBD"... i.e. significant

Ya know ... I'm not an expert but there is a way to make scout accounts work. You need to be careful though. BUT FIRST DISCLAIMER. ***** TALK TO A TAX ATTORNEY ***** SECOND DISCLAIMER . ***** TALK TO A TAX ATTORNEY ***** - If you are not chartered by a non-profit, it is not an issue. BUT YOU PROBABLY HAVE A BIGGER TAX ISSUE FOR THE SALES So if you are a non-profit .... The IRS issue I see is the conferring private benefit. - If you hold a "troop" fundraiser (jointly selling popcorn, car washes, etc), it is troop/non-profit money. You can't benefit individuals

A nearby troop has a large fishing tackle box of patches kept in their scout closet. They restock after advancements. They immediately give the patch (rank or MB) and at the COH give the card. I like this appoach. Wish we were organized to do it too. The big challenge I always saw was how to initially create the supply. I was thinking if I did it, I'd get one of those small portable plastic tool boxes. Keep everything in it. Forms, advancements, MB cards, etc. Any of the "paperwork" type of items.

Units give out unofficial awards all the time. Unit leaders just need to get creative and do something meaningful that the youth / "scout" can look back and take pride in as he should because he's achived something special. Yes, it's mucked up by the unit leaders and the mother. But he has still achived something special.

Yeah, I must disent though. While Krampus may have successfully wiped himself for 30+ years, it is cold hearted bad advice that adds more damage to an already bad situation. Of course the unit on it's own can't give the "scout" official advancement. The council/BSA needs to fix that. But that's only part of the problem. The problem is that the "scout" is many years down a scouting path and has effectively completed it. AND the problem is only partially the mom's fault. Even more at fault are the unit leaders who are supposed to know the program, know the rules and know what will happen w

Work with the parents to understand what is going on. If they don't want to work with you, fine. That ends the situation. Two keys though are that #1 scouting is a group activity and that #2 scouting is a volunteer activity (both youth and adults). You can only go so far "forcing" youth to include someone who doesn't want to function as a part of their group. It's one thing if they exclude someone who wants to be involved. It's another if the kid won't socialize with them. QUESTION - Have you lost other scouts because of him? Or, have others said they'd rather not go on event

Yeah .... I tend to agree it's not the best idea, but it's in line with what has happened so far and it works to smoothly close the door. It's unofficial and everyone knows it. Perhaps instead of calling it "Eagle Scout", call it the "Spirit of the Eagle" award. Doesn't really matter what it is called as it's unofficial and such. The end all is that there is nothing that can be done to fix the situation. What can be done is to find a way to recognize the youth and make him proud and glad for the time he has been in scouts. It sounds like he has learned and benefitted from scout

Eagle92 - No offense taken. I fully understand where you are coming from and I know the requirements very well. You are right. I'm just answering this from the drastically broken situation that it is. Both the unit leaders and the mom screwed up on this. I really think that many adults newly introduced to the BSA program don't realize how formal and detailed the requirements, process and record keeping can be. Heck, it can take many years to get up to speed on BSA requirements. So unit leaders focus on running and doing the best they can. So here is a case where we have a youth bei

Duplicate. Whoops.

You are asking a huge question and you will NOT get a consistent answer. People have different opinions. And, the details of each situation greatly affect the comments. http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/GuideToAdvancement/BoardsofReview.aspx Does a BOR have discretion? Yes. Can a BOR prevent (deny or delay) advancement? Definitely. But if this were taken up the chain to district or council through a protest, it would be overturned. The vague part is that BSA doesn't clearly enumerate the boundaries of the discretion. The BOR is supposed to be more a celebration of the journey

I can have sympathy for the leaders with this one. The family wanted their son involved in scouting but did want to be registered. They tried to be flexible to help the scout. Now though, their supportive attitude is coming back to haunt everyone. I could easily see this happen ... depending on how helpful the leaders want to be. BUT ... every step in advancement require being registered in the troop. Heck, this case-in-point is the very reason that the "active" definition starts with "registered in his unit". Heck, I know several home schooling groups that use some of the BSA merit badg

Having a darn hard time using the site. Doesn't work in IE. In firefox, click on a topic and page number is not right (sometimes 1, sometimes 2 and then sometimes you can get the real number of pages). Some articles are not visible. The hardest part is that I really miss the page that was the last 24 hours of activity. Before it was a short summary. Now I need to page thru everyone's origianl message which I just don't want to see again. The new improvements have alot of promise, but the site is no where near as easy to use and read as it was before. The "efficiency" aspect was lost.

While I don't necessarily see it as a big thing between equals, it really is not a good character trait with anyone. Keeping a relationship / conversation / interaction / friendship going based on boorish, uncultured negative comments is not worthy of leaders who's ultimate goal is to teach character. Again, I don't think it's a big big deal. It's just not a good example to set and it doesn't help anyone. So why do it ???

I like the new interface ... generally. While I'll miss the t-shirt lady that was selling things, etc., the new look is very promising. I like the authoring window. What I really really miss that was a huge feature for me was ... the ability to reverse list recently activity and just show the forum, thread name, original thread author, last poster and date of the last post. In the "brief" list there was no need to post any of the discussion because if you are interested in the topic, you will open it and read. I used to scan that list to find interesting discussions. That's how I'd l

The real problem is the belief that "Eagle Scouts" are "better than thou". Eagle Scout is no guarantee. People are people. Some are angels and some are hell raisers. And today's angels can be next month's hell raisers. ANd today's hell raisers might be tomorrow's leaders, ministers and life savers. My favorite story is from two local scout leaders than have been in scouts their whole life. If you get to know them, you will hear stories of the 1960s when they were Eagle Scouts driving to OA events. They'd arrive at conclaves with the back of their car covered in mud after sp

Actually, moving the decision to the COR is the right decision. Each COR (mostly churches) have their own twist on morality / sin / etc. That is their specialty and what they bring to the table. BSA brings the program and program materials and resources to the table. Each should do what they do well and not step on the other. BSA national was wrong to push their morality onto the CORs when the CORs don't have a consistent consensus on the topic. If BSA wants to push morality, they need to drop CORs that are not in the same camp. If they don't want to drop CORs, then they should ado

eagle90 said what I was going to say. Leaders like this give scouting a bad name. I was going to easily cut the SM slack if the scout was often sloppy in uniform and attribute it to the SM using creativity to solve a recurring problem ... BUT ONLY IF it was the scout rank patch or unit numbers or maybe the patrol patch or similar ... AND ALSO ONLY IF the SM had rarely seen the scout uniformed to the best of the scout's ability ... AND ONLY IF the scout knew this was expected and it had been requested. I'm okay giving the SM a little flexibility thru his helping create healthy scout sp

Sharing a tent? The situation would be VERY DIFFERENT than body odor. It's entirely 100% reasonable that if a girl can justifiably feel uncomfortable sharing a tent with a straight boy, a straight boy is entirely justified feeling uncomfortable sharing a tent with a non-straight boy. Why would you think otherwise? And it's not a matter of being a bigot any more than girls are bigoted against boys. Similarly, if we don't let non-married male/female adults share tents, why would we let two non-straight adult men share tents? It's the same thing.

Venividi ... I don't think that tide has changed. Just alot of us have taken this discussion to the parents and units instead of wasting time discussing a topic with people that don't want to learn and then be accused of being the once-and-done crowd or the anti-proficiency advocates. That's just offensive and the sign of scouters that should not be scouters. When people talk of "proficiency", they are just manipulating the words to fulfill their own purpose. The written requirements speak for themselves. Trying to make them more than they are is just a dis-service to the boys and t

Merlyn ... you're are just an ugly hate monger.

twocubdad wrote: "If approved, prepare for a flood of media stories everytime some local CO exercises it's local option to exclude gays" What story? Catholic church refuses to recharter Boy Scout troop led by the The Village People? Readers can be reasonable. It's the same reasonableness that allows people to comprehend that it's okay to not require churches to marry homosexual couples. If you don't like the policies of the charter org, join a unit chartered by city hall.

I think it's the right hing to do. Let the charter organizations choose. BSA provides the program structure. The charter orgs vouch for the character of the unit leaders. At the same time though, if I learned that my son's scoutmaster practiced an alternative life style, I'd move my son to another troop. No hate. Not worried about abuse. Just the example it sets and I have to look out for my own sons.

Yes. But the unit executive officer / institutional head is not really a "scouting" position. You are more "listed" as the EO/IH and "registered" as the COR. You can be "registered" concurrently as the COR and CC. I've been in this position when the pastor last left our charter org church. At that time, I was on the charter as EO/IH, COR and CC.