Horizon

Beavah:

A lad smoking weed: As I have told my son: It is illegal, which makes it a foolish thing to do. If caught and convicted, you can no longer get Federally subsidized student loans or Pell grants. That makes it a monetary risk. Next, it is an unregulated product, that could have many effects that are not predictable. Excess intake can also lead to loss of control, which is a risk factor. The ONLY part of this I personally find immoral is the potential subsidy of a criminal class.

A lad sleeping around: As I have told my son: It is disrespectful to the woman and to yourself to have intimate relations with more than one person at a time. It is also medically risky due to STDs. It can also be fiscally risky (18-21 years of support). From a morality perspective, Sleeping around in secret is immoral, as it is a form of lying and spreading risk to those unwilling to openly undertake that risk. Sleeping around with everyone in the know is simply low class.

evmori:

This is what is published in 10-A:

The integrity of the church demands that those who serve in ordained office meet high standardsalways seeking to live according to the life and teaching of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As we affirm in the words of the Theological

Declaration of Barmen: Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to trust and obey in life and in death (The Book of Confessions, 8.11).

And yet no person follows perfectly; each of us is entirely dependent for our salvation, and for our growth in faith and obedience, on the grace of Christ:

For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had

passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. (Rom. 3:22b26)

And:

The PC(USA) has no consensus in the interpretation of Scripture on issues of same-sex practice. When convictions about important issues are so different, and so firmly-held, our long-standing Presbyterian commitment to freedom of conscience and mutual forbearance is vital to maintaining our fellowship: That, while under the conviction of the above principle we think it necessary to make effectual provision that all

who are admitted as teachers be sound in the faith, we also believe that there are truths and forms with respect to which men of good characters and principles may differ. And in all these we think it the duty both of private Christians and societies to exercise mutual forbearance toward each other. (Book of Order, G-1.0305)

As a PCUSA Deacon, and a member of a Covenant Network Presbyterian Church - I am thrilled about this. We have been fighting for this for quite awhile, and I am happy that it happened. This does not mean that anyone has to accept a gay or lesbian Minister. The PCUSA does not appoint Ministers to congregations, congregations choose their Minister. This does not mean that a Presbytery has to ordain a gay or lesbian, it only means that gays and lesbians can openly apply to be ordained.

Simply put - local control.

Yes, it is true that many congregations have left. My congregation has grown in membership as people leave their old congregations that have swiched to other Presbyterian groups.

Funny, it took until the 1980s for the Southern congregations to come back (after justifying their pro-slavery bigotry through selective Biblical interpretation). I wonder if it will take another 120 years for the Presbyterians to come back together again, assuming this creates another split.

evmori:

I will freely admit to playing with others chosen semantics a bit. They HAVE a child. Period. They are part of the reality of over 100,000 children in the United States who are adopted annually. All of those parents chose to have an additional child, just to not have one biologically.

acco40:

It took my two gay male friends less than one year to have a child, once they decided to have one. They filed the paperwork with the appropriate groups, paid the attorneys, and have a beautiful baby boy that I hope to lead in Boy Scouts someday.

It took my wife and I over 6 years to have our second son, once we decided on the second due to 5 miscarriages and a 9 month pregnancy.

I counsel PM, and I would accept that in a flash. Too often the boys budget for a video game by doing some extra chores, etc. If his parents are willing to open up the books, then go for it.

As an aside, my older son enters all of the data into my spreadsheets for taxes each year - it lets him see how much everything costs.

Regarding Parent's Carrying, etc.

My Eagle candidates have to write a pretty comprehensive proposal, or the District won't sign off. The Scouts with parents who know how to write formal proposals make it in one pass. In other words, the Scout writes this:

I want to help the hikers in the San Bernardino Mountains by building a new trail switchback. The old one is bad and causes erosion. Lots of people hike the trail. Hikers will benefit. I will need a lot of older Scouts to do the work and shovels and rakes.

That gets rejected. Dad takes over (or guides, or edits, or however you want to characterize it).

My proposal is to rebuild a series of Switchbacks on the Baden Powell trail in the San Bernardino Mountains.

People Benefiting: Hikers, through better trails. The Forest Service, through lessened maintenance.

Workers needed: Please see attached spreadsheet with estimated hours and duties.

Tools needed: Please see attached table showing the number of rakes, shovels, picks and other sundry tools I will need to effectively complete this project.

Now - both proposals say the same. Once MBA mom or dad helps out, the proposal sails through. If the Scout does NOT have that level of assistance, it can take their proposal many more weeks to get it approved. Even worse, the Scouts with the high level of assistance then set the bar that much higher for the next Scout who comes along.

I have an MBA, and I have written in-depth business proposals. When I sit on a BOR, I am seeing more and more Eagle Projects that could be submitted for a graduate level course. This is the Eagle equivalence of the pinewood derby - the kids whose dad has the woodworking or machine shop wins, while the kids without that level of support struggle.

The projects are great.

The benefit is great.

We should make sure that we have not make the proposal and write-up process too complex.

We have uniform and campsite inspections at our District Camporee, but it typically is a pair of easy grades. This year they just went and let it be self reported by the units, rather than sending inspectors through. This let the boys go through the entire day just focusing on the events.

We tend to have brand new Scouts at Camporee. This year we bridged them on Thursday and they left on Friday for Camporee. Of COURSE some of those boys were not in full, correct uniform yet. They had received their new neckers, patrol patches and unit numbers the night before. To nail the patrol because a just bridged Webelos is not quite ready is wrong, in my opinion. Yes, a great patrol leader might take care of it all that night after tents are up - but I think we would also run the risk of boys glaring at a new Scout for killing the Patrol's chances of earning honors at Camporee.

I have been known to ask my boys, "Sooo, how many points of the Scout Law do you think you just violated?"

We picked up a new trailer:

Big enough for 6 patrol boxes to fit when car camping (9/12 of our annual outings). Those boxes cover 5 patrols and the adults. The tents are stacked on top. The milk crates of tarps and ropes go behind them. 2 canopies, 5 dutch ovens, bags of charcoal, firewood (no gathering where we camp), and all other sundry items are added. Patrol coolers can fit too.

On top of the trailer is a cage / box system to haul wooden poles for pioneering projects.

In front of the trailer is a cage rack system that holds 6 full zied propane tanks.

This is a single axle rig with surge brakes only. This leaves us open to having the trailer towed by anyone with a decent V8 truck (Suburban and its clones).

Pack: Officially COR (Friends of Pack ###), unofficially Den Leader (with my wife holding the title) and Assistant Cub Master.

Troop: Scoutmaster. Nothing More. Nope. Not Gonna Do It.

Crew: Adviser.

Council: Merit Badge Counselor (I assume this is a Council position).

Now - can we find a way to have separate background check documents from the position documents? I had to re-fill out all 4 this year, each time handwriting the same stuff. I really wish Scouting would get with the times and put the background check and approvals online, allowing me to update and re-sign annually like AYSO does.

skeptic - my son did the hour plus mile swim at Camp Chawanakee, then 30 minutes at the fire to get his body temp back up. That lake is COOOOOOLLLLDDD.

I find them useful to hold up a merit badge sash. Stitched an old loop on the inside of my son's sash, then he is able to button it to his shirt. No sagging sash during a long Scout activity.

SeattlePioneer: The G2SS is pretty clear on this one - unauthorized.

Now some of us have wondered how this would apply to squirt guns, flour bombs, and other wide area games we used to play as Scouts. However, the G2SS specifically lists paintball and lazertag, and I expect a future re-write to add in the airsoft guns as well - no wiggle room there.

"I think you would be surprised at how many Eagles cannot build a campfire, describe the symptoms associated with dehydration, identify poison ivy, use a map & compass or sharpen a knife). Heck, I'm amazed at how many don't know the Scout Oath."

Campfire - they are OK in my troop, but far from the skill I had as a youth when we had ZERO stoves. When you are only allowed to build a campfire at best 2-3 months out of the year, IF we are camping at a drive-in place with fire rings, it is a challenge to fit it into the program. Please also note that the gathering of fuel is illegal in most of our campgrounds, so they are building fires with pre-cut and split wood from the grocery store. Finally, there is at best one or two pits for the entire Troop to share.

Dehydration - that one we have covered in Southern California, and we get to observe it in action regularly.

Poison ivy - they MIGHT know it, but they ALL know poison oak. We don'g get much ivy or sumac out here. Again, regional differences come into play.

Map and compass - covered easily at Camporee. We also have our entire Church mapped out with distance and direction for off-the-cuff compass challenges.

Sharpen a stick - sadly, some of my Scouts know this one TOO well. Had to confinscate several on a recent campout after they were turned into shivs and a younger Scout was being chased with them. This really has nothing to do with sharpening, but rather to do with issues of appropriate Scout behavior.

Rats. Not that my Troop has done Patrol overnights yet, this is more of a lost opportunity for my Troop.

I was already planning on making one month this summer to be "Patrol Camping" weekend, and NOT have a Troop campout, but rather have Patrols choose a location and go camping instead. It was my plan to introduce this concept to everyone and train them how to handle it on their own.

Back to the drawing board.

We pay a guy to run our derby. He shows up and runs the entire event, and it has 3 tracks:

1) Standard speed track with electronic timers, and every car races 3 times on different lanes and the middle time is recorded.

2) A shuffleboard type track where the scout pushes their car and gets more points if they stop in the middle.

3) A jump track, where most cars lose a wheel or 3 - distance is the prime measurement.

Tracks 2 & 3 help other Scouts catch up in the "best of show" rankings. Awards are given for speed, for distance, for preciseness, for best SCOUT decorated car, for coolest car, etc. The event takes too long, but it is broken into enough brackets along with a drawing for random prizes that everyone tends to get something.

On the competition side - I hate that we have competition like this in Scouting. Cub Scouts is about Do Your Best, NOT Who Is Best. For rankings, I have my son in Soccer and Swimming (his Eagle brother is in Soccer and Lacrosse). Music has first chair. Class rankings with top percentages are published and announced. Scouting is the one place where a boy could feel good about doing His Best without being compared to others. When I coach sports, I fight to win the tourney at the expense of other teams. When I lead Scouts, I try to find the victory for every youth.

In my Troop, we have several different levels of income:

1) Wealthy family, nice allowance, plenty of family cash gifts. Scout saves, sometimes invests, and purchases games for his personal computer.

2) Wealthy family, no allowance. All needs are directly covered by the parents.

3) Poor family, minimal allowance.

3) Poor family, no allowance.

Each one forces a different discussion. Now let us talk of jobs. There is a fair amount of academic research on working while in school. There is a strong correlation between working and having worse grades, though some argue that this is just correlation, and that the grades were pre-determined due to other factors. Telling a Scout that they MUST get a job can run into conflict with the parents who want their Scout focusing on academics, not working for minimum wage. My own son has an hour bus each way, 2 hours of homework, 2 hours of athletic practice, and Scouting (Sea and Dirt). He does not have time for a job if he is to keep his grades up.

Requirement 2 is one of the requirements that needs a review under local circumstances and current environment. Do we follow the letter, the intent, both?

Refresher:

2.Do the following:

a. Prepare a budget reflecting your expected income (allowance, gifts, wages), expenses, and savings. Track your actual income, expenses, and savings for 13 consecutive weeks. (You may use the forms provided in this pamphlet, devise your own, or use a computer generated version.) When complete, present the results to your merit badge counselor.

b. Compare expected income with expected expenses.

1. If expenses exceed income, determine steps to balance your budget.

2. If income exceeds expenses, state how you would use the excess money (new goal, savings).

Now, a Scout could say that they expect zero income, and zero direct expenses. They might follow the letter, but would miss out on the intent. This is when the spreadsheet exercise comes into play perhaps.

A Scout might also have minimal income, or just enough to pay for lunch. If their lunch is a fixed plan (same amount every day), they won't have much to track either. Again, they follow the letter of the requirement, but without good input from their Counselor they won't learn the critical lessons.

Telling a Scout they can't take the badge until they are older or have a job is adding the requirements. It is our job as Scouters to work with each Scout based on their personal situation.

I would agree that we give the boys as much room as the adults have time to give. This does mean that I don't always let the boys take complete control, because I do not have sufficient adult mentoring time to help.

For example, many of the campsites here in Southern California fill up months in advance. They require a credit card, and other types of documentation to reserve. There are times that we have left it to the boys, and then had no campout for that particular month. In response, we are adult led when it comes to scheduleing and booking campouts. We DO still have the boys make some choices on where to go (if at least generally), and we have them run the activities and activity planning on the campout - but booking the site and weekend? That has become an adult run activity.

I would love to make it a youth run activity, but I do not have the time to provide sufficient supervision to make that happen without making other sacrifices in the program that would impact all Scouts in the Troop.

When my older son was working on his Eagle project, I let him experience significant delays in execution due to his own struggles with long-term planning. That did not bother me at all - it only impacted him. When my SPL is struggling, I don't want a 3-month period without a campout. IMHO the "learning" of the youth leader would come at the expense of the rest of the Troop.

I remember holding my hand over my heart in high school football. However, I didn't think about the song, or anything else like that. I was focused on my position, the other team, where in the stands / sideline my girfriend was, how BIG that guy over there looks, do I REALLY need to pee again, did I remember my cup (can't check now), etc.

So I cut the pros a little slack, though someone should point out to them that their attention will be broadcast in full HD, and their endorsement contracts could be impacted.

We have 5 Patrols in a Troop that had around 60 boys at re-charter, and will pick up 10+ here as bridging over begins. New Scouts are adopted by patrols that feel up to the challenge. My current patrols seem to be oriented based on the Packs that they came from (yes - we draw from 4-6 different packs, plus we pick up 1-2 older boys each year as well).

The Patrols are mixed age. When I became Scoutmaster, I noticed that the Troop was ALWAYS ending up with provisional patrols for campouts, and that the younger Scouts were not getting any supervision from the older ones. I held a Troop meeting where I asked all of the older boys to decide if they wanted to be leaders, and to then recruit up their patrols. It worked pretty well, and the patrols continue to thrive several years later. I have told boys that they are welcome to change patrols IF they new patrol will take them. I ASK older boys not to abandon others without thinking about it.

I do allow patrols to have as many as 15 or so. With other activities, this gets me closer to at least 4 on a given campout - minimizing the desire for provisionals.

Part of the BSA Troop Meeting Guide includes skills instruction - I have no problem if, during that portion of the meeting, MB Counselors want to meet. We also let Scouts meet with the MB Counselors during pre-meeting time as well.

An entire meeting - no. But, to get some of the volunteers to fit us in, they ASK that they have time during a Monday night meeting. The Scouts also ask for more opportunities on Monday nights as well. I would argue it is Counselor led AND Scout led driving the offering.

I am going through Wolves for the second time right now. My only concern is that the majority of the Advancement requirements are effectively all done at home, and are not geared to the outdoors either (the game with a purpose). I would love to take the requirements and wrap them in a package focused on the outdoors a bit more, even when at the Cub Level.

My son attends a private Catholic school. I think that their policy regarding pregnancy is a good model to review.

"Pregnancy

A primary purpose of Catholic education is to guide students growth in Christian values and moral conduct. Catholic teaching stresses that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and that the sanctity of family life is enhanced through a fulfillment of Gods plan expressed by a loving and permanent commitment. Premarital sexual activity is contrary to these values; however, when a pregnancy occurs outside of marriage, the total school community must offer support to the pregnant student and/or the student father so that the pregnancy can be brought to term. The reality of the situation, in all its dimensions, is to be treated in a Christian and humane manner.

Students involved with a pregnancy have new obligations and priorities. They have accepted the responsibility of bringing a new human life into the world. Such responsibility necessitates a change in status, especially in terms of activities and priorities in the school. The pregnant student should care for herself as a mother-to-be, and the father-to-be should respond with care and support for the mother and child. To ensure the best interests of the student(s), parents and the school community, the school administrators will implement certain procedures in such cases. When school personnel learn of a student pregnancy, the Principal and Rector will meet with the pregnant student and her parents and/or guardians to determine such procedures. The student will be required by the school to receive appropriate professional counseling consistent with Catholic teaching to assist with the circumstances of the pregnancy and with making choices for the future of both parents and the newborn child. Additionally, the student will be referred to her pastor for advice and counseling.

If the father-to-be is identified and if he is a student at [school], the Principal and Rector will meet with him and his parents and/or guardians and require that he be involved in a counseling program similar to that provided for the mother-to-be. He also will be referred to his pastor for advice and counseling.

The school will assist the pregnant student to complete her high school education, either by allowing her to continue attendance or by referring her to an alternate program recommended by Catholic Social Services.

If the pregnant student chooses to remain at [school], she will be allowed to participate in all activities to the extent that her condition and the good of the school may permit. The student must provide the school with a statement from her physician approving her participation in all school or extra-curricular activities. The Principal and Rector in consultation with the school board will review all aspects of each case and make a determination based upon its unique circumstances.

If the student desires to return to [school] after the birth of the child, the school will facilitate her re-enrollment. The condition of pregnancy will not exclude the student from participating in the public graduation ceremony; however, the Principal and Rector in consultation with the school board will determine whether or not special circumstances may necessitate pursuing alternative action.

The school retains the right and the responsibility to promulgate and enforce disciplinary measures, including expulsion, for public and overt breaches of Catholic moral teaching."

Tenderfoot - the first Rank they truly earn. That huge grin when we recognize them.

2nd Class - shows that they are still trying, still going, still moving. An in-between rank, much like Life in my opinion.

First Class - they are now the source of answers, instead of questions (that is what I tell them during the First Class Scoutmaster Conference). I love Scouts with this rank, they are the ones that I get to respond with "Shouldn't you already know the answer to that question?"

Star - They have completed their first POR, and are starting to give back to the Troop in an official capacity.

Life - Oh so close...Like 2nd Class, it feels like an in-between Rank that only serves to be the rank before Eagle.

Eagle - the Rank that the world knows and usually respects. The two-edged rank, as more will be expected of you while at the same time anything you do wrong will be seen as "oh, so THAT is what your Troop calls an Eagle."

Palms - shows that Eagle was not enough! Wahoo!