Horizon

Sorry -this issue is NOT a dead horse - because the issue is not settled. Each time a corporation drops support, the horse keeps running. Each time a Charter Org accepts gays and lesbians (US Military, Presbyterians, Lutherans), the horse gets more energy.

Dead Horse means the debate is over and there is no reason to keep on discussing. Because our society is changing, this is NOT a dead horse. Instead, this is an issue that continues to have a cost in membership and support. Many have commented that money is what impacts Irving - so a loss of money might be another step in getting their attention.

Just remember after reading all of these - if you you feel you're nuts, see a therapist. If you feel your nuts though, please do it in the privacy of your own tent.

Dean:

The hypothetical posted was "were I to see anyone smack their kid across the face" not "is it ok to spank your child."

That isn't a spanking, and it sounds like a fast, anger driven reaction by a parent - not a planned and understood punishment.

Once a child is 7, they are old enough to get delayed punishment - instant physical starts dropping in effectiveness, and instead revocation of privileges start having a much greater impact. The simple withholding of parental approval is sufficient for most children in a good home.

By the time a boy is in Boy Scouts, he is too old to "smack across the face". When I was 15 my father started to lose his temper with me, and asked if I "wanted to be slugged" - my response was that I could not stop him, but it would have zero long-term effect on me. He listened. He had tried the same with my brother, and my brother distanced himself from him for 15 years.

A couple of states and a narrow popular vote does not a mandate make. Then again, "Elections have consequences."

The BSA should look at the results and consider how they reflect the society that we serve. If Washington State has legalized gay marriage (it appears to have passed based on the latest count of absentee ballots, etc.), then perhaps it is time to let the Councils in Washington State to make a decision on how to allow their Charter organizations to apply one line in one part of one bit of our spoken creed.

But we should not have a knee-jerk reaction due to just one election. We should be instead consulting with our Charter Orgs as well to determine the path forward to ensure that we keep the ideals of Scouting strong - even while we reflect a changing nation. We now have members of Congress who are Hindu, Buddhist and Lesbian - plus one state rep in Maine who is an Orc on World of Warcraft (yes - this was raised as an issue by her challenger).

We do not want to find ourselves irrelevant due to a misguided intransigence, but we also don't want to blow around like a burning leaf tossed into the campfire.

My son wore my old red beret to a lot of meetings - he loved it. Another Scout wears his father's garrison cap, and his patrol has worked on tracking down more of them over time for the Patrol members.

If the SPL wants to wear the beret - great. Tell him to get the PLC to adopt it as a symbol of their role as the PLC (fun way to ID the elected and selected leaders).

BSA24 - I filed a report on a parent in my unit when he chased his son through the camp with his belt, trying to pull his pants down and beat him. I also told him that his son was welcome to stay, but he was not. So I guess that makes me the 1% in your hypothetical. His sons are still involved in the units I work with, he only drops them off now.

Now the phone with questionable content concerns me - because I don't want to be in possession of child porn myself. If it was at a Troop campout, I would have the boy call his parents and I would ask them what they would like to do - come pick up the kid, or allow me to lock the phone in a separate container (I would do this with a witness, and do something else with key). I don't really know - I am thinking of the example from the current YPT online session where you see the kid go into the latrine / shower with his cell phone.

He captures why I am still involved. Good stuff here, and we will get it to change eventually.

The BSA stepped away from the media for many years after Dale, and we still have not done a good job of building a strong, outbound marketing team. Crisis management itself is its own specialty - and modern techniques recommend that you get in front of the media constantly with new information and conversations. Your goal is to bore the media and the public with too much information, so that you drop off of page 1.

We should have a media day at this event, or invite a few key members of the media to attend and report. Let them listen in during the discussions of how to make kids safe. They will get to know us, our peers in other youth organizations, and they will hear the various challenges that occur like with Timmy's mom is late picking him up, and you don't have a second adult to hang around, and you are short on extra kids. Or when a kid gets a tick on his testicles and you need to give him privacy plus two adults to help remove it. etc. etc. etc.

Letting them hear of the real challenges, the real issues, etc. would help us a lot in our PR fiasco we are in right now.

I was fingerprinted in my role at the University, and I was fingerprinted to be a coach in youth club soccer. AYSO runs background checks on everyone as part of their procedures - not sure which type though (it shows up as a credit check). I know that it uncovers criminal convictions - because I was in a role where I could see the convictions, and had to review them with the national organization if something came up. The only things I ever saw were DUI and drunk & disorderly.

Eamonn

A blog I follow posted a nightmare for those of us tired of the ads and campaign:

A Nightmare Scenario

by Michael R. Newman

Given that Ohio has become the state most likely to decide the presidential election, I was disheartened to see that there are more than 800,000 voters in the Buckeye State have received absentee ballots but have not returned them. Any voter who requested an absentee ballot but shows up at the polls on Election Day will be required to cast a provisional ballot, and the state will then have to check all the returns to make sure no one votes twice. All well and good, but if the race is close we might not know the winner of Ohio-and the election-until Thanksgiving. If you're like me and are less emotionally invested in the outcome of the election than in a deep desire to have the damn thing over with ASAP, this should send a chill up your spine.

My spouse is a university researcher, and is spending time today in a 4 hour meeting on how to ensure that children are protected in research settings. Their department works with kids in various settings with grad students and faculty and in response to everything that is going on - they will probably have to change their operations again. They already record all sessions, but I can see some variation of 2-deep being put into play in the university setting.

Another thing bothering me about the release of the files is the revelation of the identities of those abused. One article in the LA Times had a man who had never told his wife or children about this incident until a reporter called him.

The abuse of privacy of the victims in the release really bothers me.

Yes - the mandated reporter laws are another thing that has changed, much like the laws are molestation in general.

But who needs a law to know that they should bring in the police? Penn State is the perfect example of a place where someone should have called the cops, and there are some examples in the files where the police should have been called as well.

As the State of Washington site says - anyone who observes abuse SHOULD report, but there are some people who are REQUIRED to report. We SHOULDN'T need to spell it out, but the Bystander Effect requires it.

SeattlePioneer - in terms of legal requirement to report, it depends on your state. In California, the list of Mandated Reporters is long:

http://www.cdss.ca.gov/cdssweb/entres/forms/English/PUB132.pdf

(Page 2 of the .pdf has the list). For Scouting, I would assume that this is the section that covers it:

"an administrator of a public or private day camp; an administrator or employee of a public or private youth center, youth recreation program, or youth organization; an administrator or employee of a public or private organization whose duties require direct contact and supervision of children;"

So any Council employee would qualify as a mandated reporter. One could also question whether the administrator of a private organization whose duties require direct contact and supervision of children would include any registered adult leader of a Scout organization.

The State of Washington has a much shorter list, and does not appear to include youth organization leaders:

http://www.dshs.wa.gov/ca/safety/abuseReq.asp?2

In 30 seconds I could find similar information on many Scouts. Those who have not learned to make their Facebook pages private have similar posts, though pointed towards the opposite sex admittedly.

I have brought this up in Scoutmaster's minutes and in individual Scoutmaster Conferences.

I have never sent out a link to one of my Scout's pages in a public forum, however.

So the Duty to God part was a lie from the Council.

I wonder if the boys who bullied him, who wrote "fag" on his chest at summer camp, will be allowed to pass THEIR Eagle BOR?

I feel sorry for the Scoutmaster - it sounds like he tried to do the right thing, but in the end had to succumb. I can see that happening to me.

CalicoPenn - was it a PC USA Church? That adds another layer, in that PCUSA now ordains Gays and Lesbians.

I would also like to know what the boy said about Duty to God - whether that was his words, or how the Council interpreted his coming out.

To me, in regards to this topic, local option is an extension of the already existing local option. Right now, a unit can decide if it wishes to discriminate based on faith or gender in regards to unit leadership. A unit can also decide if it wishes to discriminate based on faith in regards to youth membership.

None of this has triggered a lawsuit to my knowledge, nor has it caused Charter Orgs to drop for fear of a lawsuit from a Jewish group wanting in a Catholic Troop, or a women's group suing for the right to be an ASM. My unit did not get an attorney when we had our Council Summer Camp registration cancelled so that LDS units could have an all LDS summer camp.

There are plenty of units who will not allow a woman as a Scoutmaster. I haven't seen the lawsuits against the CORs on that subject.

Anybody have a link about the Duty to God part of this? I saw the BSA statement, but I didn't see anything explaining the Scout's attitude. Did he declare himself an atheist?

I was approached by one father at our recruiting event this year for the Pack. He wanted to know the Pack's policy - I told him the pack has no policy, but that BSA national does not allow registration of gays and lesbians as official adult volunteers. I also told him that if the parent of a Scout wants to participate - the pack welcomes them.

Based on that response - he was willing to join.

My Pack recruiting is down 30% from last year. I have no idea how much that is correlated with ALL of the negative press the BSA has had in recent weeks.

[double post](This message has been edited by Horizon)

Heh. Read between the lines for Rome:

1) No tents or awnings = licensed, tax paying vendors only. More accurately = Gypsies go away. If you shut down the flea market style sales under temporary tents, you start to get rid of the Gypsies that some would argue plague Rome's tourist sites.

2) No snacking. Look at the picture in the shot. See all of those bistro tables? Guess who hates is when you walk around snacking on something sold by a cart vendor? The Bistro! The bistro also pays rent and taxes. I wonder how much the bistro owners supported the snack tax. "No sir, you need to finish that here, and would you like something else?"

As for the hotel taxes - those are everywhere in the US. Clipping the visitors is always better than clipping the locals. Laguna Beach added a tax after a couple of hillsides slid down during the rains a few years ago, and they did everything they could to structure it to hit the tourists and not directly the locals.

Glad you moved some popcorn, and glad the boys had a good time selling it.

This is an issue that will play out differently depending on where you are, and the class of people you interact with.

My church ordains gays and lesbians, has many gay and lesbian members, and had cub scouts selling popcorn after services for the past couple of weeks. Even the most left-wing members of my congregation (and we have a lot of them) were lining up to buy some popcorn to support members of the congregation.

At the same time, I have now received another call from a parent about our Pack's policy on gays and lesbians. I talked to the parent, told them BSA national's position, told them that it is completely irrelevant to providing a quality program for the kids, and told them that I while I personally object - I still support Scouting and its ideals.

So I think push back and support is going to depend on where you live, and who walks by you. I have had heavily tatted bikers buy from us, and I have had Girl Scout moms refuse. You just can't tell who will support, and who won't.

But again - glad you moved some boxes to support your unit.

My local soccer league has recently partnered up with a non-profit that helps those in need. If you ask for help with the fees to play soccer, you have to apply through the non-profit. I am looking into using the same non-profit at the Troop, so that we can avoid some of these personal issues.

If the non-profit finds them in need, then they can get Troop scholarship assistance. If not, then no. But it won't be me saying "no," it will be a third party organization.

I feel your pain. My unit is fortunate to have most parents with pretty high incomes, but we have a few low income families as well that we scholarship quietly. Sometimes, however, a borderline case comes in and I hate having a discussion around their "worthiness."

My attitude - the Scout is worth it, but some parents are worthless. I try to help when I can.