Gold Winger

"he kid did the job when he was able to" If you hire a guy to mow your lawn and he doesn't because he has other stuff to do, would you still pay him? "I have been reading about POR, and it says that a scout should at least do 2/3...... is that right, and what does that mean anyway?" Where'd you read that?

That's what one would think but I believe that the topic has been discussed here and the report was that it's like "active in troop," you just have to be signed up.

If anyone is to fight the decision, it should be your son, not you. Boy Scouting is about letting boys learn to do things for themselves. It sounds like the advancement is more important to you than it is to him.

" The few times I've completed conferences but not recommended the Scout for advancement the very first person I would talk with would be my advancement chairman." I'm really baffled by the rule or rules of advancement that all you to recommend or not recommend a Scout for advancement. "In all those cases, however, there was some other requirements in which the Scout was defficient, usually related to the satisfactory completion of a position of responsibility," Hmmmm . . . adding to the requirements again. Deciding if the Scout did a good job. Nothing in BSA advancement literature says anything about doing a good job, all the Scout has to do is hold the position. Talk about your rogue Scoutmasters.

BeeDubya, don't be so modest, it really has nothing to do with your parents. Come on, admit it, you're the most perfect human being ever born. When you went to confession, it only took about 30 seconds because you simply said, "bless me Father for I have never sinned and I never will." Nooooo . . . I got that wrong, you said, "Bless you Father for I am perfect. In the name of the Bob and the White and the BSA."

I like thread drift, it can be entertaining, it is much like a regular conversation. You can start off talking about the game on Sunday, mention a play which reminds someone of a game they saw with Denver five years ago, that brings in Denver and someone else recalls a bar in Denver, and so on and so on and scooby-dooby-dooby-do.

" when instead you should be removing their membership." Why? I guess that you never did anything stupid when you were young. Or maybe you were never young.

I've just gone to the Scout Shop (national operated) and said, "I need some knots).

600 Trillion or 1 Quadrillion or even a Google, what does it matter? The country will never be out of debt so we might as well go for broke.

My Scout Shop used to control the supply of rank cards but patches were freely avaialable. The idea was that the rank card was proof of promotion. Now, the Scout Shop is restricting the rank patches, so without an advancement form, you can't get rank patches. I'm glad I don't have to deal with that now.

"The one policy issue I had with Palin and I wish the moderator had followed up, was when she said she didn't believe mankind was responsible for global warming." I missed that question in the debate but I did see her answer it in an interview. She didn't say that she didn't believe that mankind was responsible, she said that we contributed to it but couldn't be sure if part of it wasn't just the cyclic nature of weather.

I don't believe that an SM can or should recommend advancement or non-advancement to a BOR. All you can do is say whether he met the requirements and the only one that has any level of objectivity is "Scout Spirit." If you don't sign for that, there's no BOR and no advancement. Once you sign for Scout Spirit, it's up to the BOR.

" Since there were time requirements, very few folks skipped wearing a rank. Plus COHs were every three months." If you read the old books, COHs were supposed to happen quickly. The books from the 60s said that when you were promoted that the SPL should arrange for a COH at the next troop meeting to recognize your advancement. That was in the days before parents had to be involved in everything.

I use Opera. I tried Firefox but it dragged my system to a standstill (XP, Athlon 64 X2 2 Ghz, 2 GB RAM) so I went back to Opera. It's free and versatile. www.opera.com

Scouter, if your unit is just taking all comers as leaders, you really need some better procedures in your unit. "Who's that guy?" "Oh, I don't know. He said that he was Bob's dad but Bob said that his father is in prison." "Shouldn't we find out who he is?" "Nah, the paperwork was filled out correctly."

Beaver, I'm sure that you were attempting to respond to me in your broken English but I can't see your posts now. Sorry. Nah, I'm not, I was just spoofing you. I will say that it is amusing that in one thread you advocate breaking the rules because they don't suit you and now you insist that we follow rules that you're making up. You really do need to get back on the other side of the looking glass. Gold Winger out.

If you're a boomer it is interesting to look at the expenses that we have for "necessities" today that our parents didn't have. We had one phone line with one extension in my parent's bedroom. No private lines for kids, no fax lines and no cell phones. One radio until my older brother got a transistor for Christmas. One TV for the whole family and we watched whatever Dad wanted to watch. One car for most of my young life. When we got a second car, my mother, brother and I vied for its use. I didn't have a car I could call my own until I was in college and making good money during the summers. Air conditioning? Open the windows. Dishwasher? That was me and my brother. Our refrigerator kept things cold or frozen. Now everyone "needs" water and ice on the door, special zones, internet control and message board with their fridges. If memory serves, our prom was in the high school gym. Now they make the royal wedding look like a small time affair. Pre-prom, post-prom, limos. High schoolers go on spring break trips that we would have thought extravagant back in college. Sports? Don't get me started. Sports have gone so far over the top that they're in danger of hitting another galaxy. Okay, I'd better stop ranting now.

I don't use Internet Exploder and to get around that login screen, I set a bookmark to the recent postings page and just go straight there. When I post, I click a button and my browser pastes name and PW in and does the submit in one step. Other forums keep your info in cookies.

"It still comes down to a Democrat who says Washington is broken and needs to be fixed and the guy who will help me fix it has 35 years working in a broken system" One could say that the "guy" has been part of the problem for 35 years.

The more I think about it, if you're insisting on doing something, I like the photo montage idea. Frame it nicely, put it into a plain package and hand it to him saying,"We thought that you'd like to have this" and walk away quickly.

"What I quoted is from the Handbook, perhaps one can explain to me which parts are blather and which is important as clearly I can not draw that distinction " It's pretty simple, the requirements are the part that you find listed in the requirements book or in the list of requirements, the rest is just blather.

"I did not say that this was the RIGHT and ONLY way." I never said that YOU did but there are many veterans out there whose only exposure to flag protocol was in the Army and they think that the Army way IS the only way.

My son's troop used to be one like yours, badges were only handed out at Courts of Honor. Until a new Sheriff came to town with Deputy GW. :-) The SM and I agreed that badges should be presented ASAP which meant the troop meeting following the BOR. Then at the COH, the Scout would be called up with his parents and recognized for his accomplishments.

Council Commisar is a volunteer job. Of course, he gets the perks of the BSA jet, the limo and free dutch oven dinners.

John, do you have a point? Is this about the "near the hear" thing?