Gold Winger

Maybe it is all a matter of perception. I don't recall any TV shows about three very hot nuns battling Satan. Maybe BSA is afraid that troop meetings would become battlegrounds with demons hurling fireballs at Alyssa Milano. I think that I've known about two handfuls of avowed Wiccans, all women. Nothing unusal about the group except that about half have been neo-hippies. Likewise, I've known a handful of avowed Pagans, not the type on motorcycles. They've been all men. Most had shaved heads and strange tattoos. I don't know if this is normal for the groups. No male Wiccans? Do most pagan men shave their heads and tattoo themselves with grotesque figures?

" These individuals should be giving their honest opinion on the qualifications of the Scout. Why should a EBOR member who doesn't know the Scout as well as the other folks above make a different deduction?" They should be but often they aren't. They don't want to deal with the grief that would come from an honest opinion. " When did we (parents) stop teaching shame and humility?" I think that it started in the 70s when we started letting daycare providers and the government tell us how to raise our kids because moms wanted to get out of the house and work.

Also coaches are far less tolerant of missed practices and games than Scouters. I coached basketball for a couple of years and one of my players would miss practice every other week because "he had more important things to do." Oddly, his mother was ticked because his time in the following game was reduced. Parents are convinced that their kids will get sports scholarships. More bragging rights. It's hard to brag about your son making Tenderfoot when no one in the office knows what's involved.

"How many troops are led by SM and ASM's that are parents of the boy's in the program, and then promptly leave after their boys get out of scouting." Sadly, far too many. "I am the CM now. But I am ALSO a member of the American Legion. . . . Do I meet the requirements as you say." Are you there because you are a member of the Legion or because you are a dad?

" God cannot create evil." Why not? God created everything. According to legend, God created Satan and Satan is evil, hence God created evil. " God cannot create evil." Paul is as irrelevant as Jim Jones, the only thing that should be considered are the words of the man who stilled the waters but even the records of those are tainted because there are no unbiased records of them.

IMHO, in a perfect world, if FBOLR (Federated Brotherhood of Large Rodents) Lodge 97 decides to charter a troop, the troop committee and most of the leadership should come from within the lodge. After all, the troop is part of their youth program, why on earth would they want a bunch of outsiders running part of their program. That would be like a Catholic church bringing in a Baptist minister to teach their CCD program.

I'm jealous. This is the first summer in about ten years that I won't be doing something with Scouting :-( Started with Cub Scout day camp and finished up with Philmont last year. Makes me kinda sad. Have fun.

No,I'm just stating the facts. If that is offensive to some . . .hmmmm. The truth is the truth and is immutable.

"Being "in charge" is a perfectly acceptable term used in servant leadership" Not according to some on this forum, especially those who say that no one is "in charge" of anything in Scouting.

"We used the PL method during Summer Camp and some of the boys learned that if they did not listen when some one else was in charge most often others didn't listen when it was their turn." Ohmigod! You used those horrible words "in charge." No one is ever in charge in a Scout unit, it is supposed to be "servant leadership" and the servant leader is a servant first, never in charge, and never ever tells people to do anything. If you keep very quiet, you may avoid being noticed by the grand guru of all Scouting knowledge.

"The funny thing is that many organizations continue to do fundraisers, but now discourage going door to door due to safety concerns." That's the party line but with a couple precautions, there's not much to worry about. Don't go into the house. Always go with a buddy. Don't go to any house if the people there frighten you.

" And as far as calling it "my troop", I did not mean that in the possessive form, I meant it as "being a part of". If anything, I consider it to be the boys troop." Acutally, it belongs to the CO but I refuse to use the pedantic construction of "the troop that I serve." Look around us, how many times do we say "my" without meaning actual possession? My company makes a good product. . . I don't own the company. Should I say, "the company that employs me makes a good product"? My doctor gave me a prescription . . .I don't own the doctor. Should I say, "the doctor who treats me gave me a prescription"? My bank? The bank in which I deposit my funds? The list is endless.

My kids did most of their own selling. I'd tag along and stand back on the curb while they banged on the door and did the pitch. My wife and I would sell a little bit at work because people would ask but for the most part it was the kids knocking on doors. How much? Usually about 400 boxes of GS cookies and abour $2,000 in popcorn. Like you, I had to do my own selling. My mother said, "if you want the prize, get out there." You learn a lot about life when you're knocking on door. "No" is always an acceptable answer. People will chew your ear to tell you why they don't want your product. Back in those days, ladies would invite me in for a glass of milk and some cookies (ah, good old and safe days). I did the knocking on the door bit into high school. A cousin was commissioner for a baseball league whose parents would lag behind in fund raising so I'd hit the streets and sell more raffle tickets than any individual team. Back to the future. Nowadays, parents hear what my kids have sold and they whine "I can't sell that much at work." I point out that it wasn't sold at work, it was sold door to door. The response is "my kid won't do that because it's too much work." Tought noogies, you want the prize, you gotta sell. You're right, it is a teaching moment. A great way to prepare for adulthood situations like when you go for a job interview and they say, "Sorry. . . " Or when you do get that job and find out that your boss expects you to solve your own problems. I'll buy just about anything that I can use from a kid who knocks on my door, if he has a decent presentation. If all he says is "You wanna buy this?" and he's willing to listen, I'll give him a five minute lesson in salesmanship. If I'm out and I see band kids or Scouts or cheerleaders selling at a store and they're doing the selling and not the moms, I'll buy.

Have you priced good popcorn at a store recently? Sure you can get your giant cans of Chinese made popcorn at Wallyworld for $5 but find some of quality similar to Trail's End. The price isn't that different. Grandparents? I'm pretty confident that not one of my kids' grandparents bought anything from my kids, mostly because they are all hundreds of miles away. Kids are lazy today because we let them be lazy. If the troop had ratty old tents because the funds weren't there to buy new ones what would happen? Would the boys get out and raise money? The ones that really wanted to be Scouts would, the others would quit. There's the fundamental problem today. Most kids are in activities not because they really want to be there but because their parents want them to be there. Baseball, karate, etc.. Look around at where you see kids doing their own fund raising. Cheerleaders, debate teams, bands . . . those are the kids who are working to accomplish what it is that they want to do.

Bravo! Bravo!

Evil? Don't know about that but they usually don't carry the entire message of the book, if they even follow the book.

Don't know about that Beaver. New International Version, Exedos 21:20-21 "If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property. Leviticus talks of buying and selling of slaves and how they are your property (Lev 25).

One of the problems in the software world is that once people have something that works, they don't want to change even if a superior application comes along. Word Perfect was widely entrenched but missed the march when Windows hit big. MS was there firstest with the mostest and even though WP for Windows is now a superior product, they are lagging behind. The same thing happened with Lotus 123. If you are intent on doing this, you'll have to almost give it away for a while and also provide a mechanism to convert their data to your format.

Rent "Lord of the Flies"? Shessh! Go to the library, get the book and read it. Why watch a movie when you can read the book?

No. What if you tell the boy,"Go ahead sew your patch on" and then national kicks it back for some reason?

Deleted by Hops_Scout (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

Just like a lower rank isn't official until the advancement report is turned in, Eagle isn't official until approved by National. However, in both cases the date of rank is the date of the BOR.

Might mean a loss of some income to the units and councils but the program wouldn't change much. I know that the CO for my son's troop is psycho when it comes to dealing with the troop (and pack and crew). On one hand they like to trumpet that they have Boy Scouts and they proudly proclaim the new Eagles. On the other hand, they've threatened to kick us out of the meeting hall because the Scouts didn't do a good job of sweeping one week and we have to fight to get the hall for any day other than our usual Monday troop meetings. In fact, they've been known to let the hall out for other purposes on Monday evenings and then tell us to lump it. I wanted to change COs years ago to the church that lets us use their facilities free of charge for committee meetings, dinners, PWD, BORs, etc.. If the system worked the way that it was supposed to, it would be great. Then again, how many units are doing stuff for their COs?

Next it will be dish TV and a bus to run you around the campgrounds.

Electricity? What's next? Flush toilets? A chlorinated lake?