howarthe

Another quote from the new website (Mormons and Gays.org)

"Jim If you have not charity you are nothing, so I think we cant profess to be believers or disciples of Jesus Christ if we dont love all people. Regardless of what their lifestyle may be that shouldnt change the way we feel nor our response to them."

The chartered organization representative and the committee chairman sign off on all adult leaders in all packs and troops; however, in my pack they do so without actually meeting the volunteers. Our pack is chartered by the Kiwanis. I have worked in packs charted by the LDS church. In those packs, the chartered organization representative actually asks people to volunteer, so they are hand-picked from the congregation, (usually a parent of one of the scouts). The church preferred to have women serve as den leaders for wolves and bears and to have men serve as Webelos den leaders and Cubmasters. They didn't need the BSA to create a policy to enforce this preference on other packs throughout the country. I believe they hate the idea that their sons might meet gay scouts or scouters at jamborees. But they also hate camping over a Saturday night, so they end up having their own camporees anyway. The whole thing seems to me like it never should have been an issue. It was a solution looking for a problem from the very beginning, and I HOPE it can just go away.

I had a very positive experience last night. Because the calendar was pretty full and event space is quite rare, we combined our pack Christmas party with the troop Christmas party. It was awesome. The Boy Scouts had games set up all around the room, and there was a dessert table in the middle. The boys had a great time. Santa arrived and gave each cub a compass for his eight essentials and a pinewood derby kit.

I got the chance to meed the Scout master, and he offered me a den chief! I couldn't believe it. It was awesome. He said he didn't actually have a scout in mind, but the troop seems to run out of leadership positions for their scouts, so if he could send some boys over as den chiefs, it might help them progress toward their rank.

I'm very excited about this. I've read about den chiefs, but I never knew how to go about getting one. My first thought is to ask him to teach my second-graders (wolves) to tie square knots. It's a little amazing that they don't know how to tie, but my own son has been wearing velcro shoes since kindergarten, so its not really surprising that he doesn't know how to tie anything.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my news.

Huzza is absolutely 100% wrong. Disallowing avowed homosexuals to be members of the Boy Scouts of America does not reduce the opportunity for, nor the actual occurance of, inappropriate behavior in any way or at any time.

It has robbed several scouts of their very decent leaders. It is robbing the NESA of potential alumni volunteers. It sacrificing plenty of corporate donations, but most importantly it is contributing to an attitude among scouts that it's ok to exclude homosexual youth from their circle of friends, or the prom, or the homecoming court, or the football team, or any other group that they belong to.

Here is another quote from the new LDS website mormonsandgays.org "Love is not to say acceptance or endorsement, but it is to say inclusion and not ostracism. We want to be with you and work together." -Elder Christopherson, Quorum of the 12 Apostles

I believe he is primarily referring to celibate homosexual Mormons who wish to remain active in their wards and fulfill callings, but I believe it could also be applied to "avowed homosexuals" who want to fulfill leadership roles in their son's pack or troop.

I want this policy changed for two reasons. (1) I don't want anyone from Council telling me that I have to expel a leader that I just recruited because she is gay. I doubt very much that this will ever happen. I live in a rather conservative rural community, and I'm unaware of any gay couples living here, but even so, I don't like this hanging over me all the time.

(2) I want my son's best friend to join the pack. His father won't let him because he is liberal, and he hates this policy. This is about the dumbest reason I can think of to be missing out on building pinewood derby cars, but if he really thinks that we are going to teach his son bigotry, then I guess I can understand his position.

You can pick whoever you want to be your assistant scoutmaster, just leave me and my den leaders alone. Thanks.

"Love is not to say acceptance or endorsement, but it is to say inclusion and not ostracism. We want to be with you and work together."

This is the sentence on the new LDS site which gives me hope:

"There is no change in the Churchs position of what is morally right. But what is changing and what needs to change is to help Church members respond sensitively and thoughtfully when they encounter same-sex attraction in their own families, among other Church members, or elsewhere"

If we as Saints are to "respond sensitively and thoughtfully when [we] encounter same-sex attraction" in scouting, then I believe we should discourage policies which result in homosexuals being excluded from other scout troops. The Mormons never needed a corporate policy to exclude homosexuals from their own scout troops. The chartered organization (not the troop) makes all leadership assignments.

The fear (as I understand it) was that Mormon scouts might encounter homosexual scoutmasters at campouts with other troops, but if we are supposed to "respond sensitively and thoughtfully when [we] encounter same-sex attraction" in scouting, then I don't think we should be avoiding such situations anymore.

This really isn't a new stance. Love the sinner, hate the sin has always been the directive; although, the message hasn't always gotten through. Many of the Mormons that I know are very prejudiced against homosexuals. The new web site http://www.mormonsandgays.org addresses this directly, and I, for one, am very, very excited about it. I really do hope it leads to an end to the BSAs ridiculous policy banning homosexuals.

I'm so sorry that happened to your son. If the individual made the comment as they continued to walk away, then I think the only response is: "thank you, have a nice day." It they stood still, then you might be able to have a thoughtful conversation.

pack committee chairman. She is wonderful. Her boys have all graduated from the pack. She does a lot of stuff with the boy scout troop, but we really needed a chairman, and she has a lot of experience. We are really lucky to have her.

We charge $30 to join. $12 for Boys Life. They have to buy their own uniforms and books. We don't charge weekly or annual dues.

Something terrible happened. It must be someone's fault. It couldn't have been an accident. Someone has to be blamed. Someone has to pay.

I just got a grant to coach a team!

FIRST and LEGO have created a league in which children ages 9-14 can compete in a robot game. They are given a challenge and several missions worth various points and then they work on programing a robot to complete as many missions as possible in the time allotted. Some robotics teams are comprised of scouts: Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts. Has anyone here formed up a robotics team? How did you finance it? It costs about $900 to start a team. It only costs about $500/year to maintain a team. Did you just ask parents to pay? Did you conduct fund raisers? Did you get corporate donations? Was it all worth the trouble?

Ooo... five days of hiking... There's a trail around here (Oregon) that some people hike all summer long. Pacific Something. I think goes all the way from Alaska to Mexico. I'll bet we could pick out a piece of it and hike it for five days. We would need all that light weight gear. I'll get on the list of things to do, but push it out to about sixth grade.

Of course I intend to ask the girls, and I will not be dragging anyone along who doesn't want to go. Too many other fun things to do to bother with that. But the girls have leaders for a reason, and I find your opinions very helpful. Thank you. And I promise not to forget to go to all my training meetings.

We have participated, as a troop, in the spring camp offered by the service unit every year since my daughter was a Daisy. This has always been two nights, sleeping in cabins, eating in cafeterias. I hope we continue to do that. This year my daughter and I are the only two participating in the fall camp offered by the service unit. This is also two nights cabin camping but we are cooking outdoors. I'm not sure why no one else is coming except that EVERYONE is on a soccer team this fall.

This year we added one night of tent camping at a state park with just our troop. I think the girls had fun, but I was surprised at how exhausted my daughter was when we got home. I realized that she (and the others) had spent a great deal of energy trying to be the star of the show. Are all girls just like that? I think I remember being like that. Anyway, we are committed to adding more troop campouts like this, but I think we should focus on more scout craft if we can. This year we "cooked a meal on a stick" for our cooking or our camping badge. Next year, I would like all the girls to lend their hand to building a fire because that is a skill I wish I had. Every time I've been on a campout, the women all step back while one man or another steps forward and builds the fire, even when its a girl scout campout. The program director always seems to invite a man along so that someone can build a fire. I hope I'm not coming off as sexist. It just seems to me that in a camp of 100 girls scouts, one of them ought to know how to build a fire.

This coming year we hope to add two nights at Gilbert Ranch. This is a BSA camp for Webelos, but it features real horses, so the girls should LOVE it. I think we will be in canvas tents and eating in a cafeteria, but the girls will get to shoot bb guns and practice archery. My daughter is always complaining that her little brother's camp is more fun because he gets to do that and she doesn't.

The council offers winter camping (in cabins) to Cadetts and above. Our girls are only Juniors, but I'm content to wait on that one.

A full week (five nights) of camp would be something very new, and I think I will keep my eyes open such an opportunity. Do you ever take your boy scout troops for five nights, just your troop? OR is it always a council camp?

I suspect "less urban setting" is code for "we could get fortune for this land." I can't imagine 2,000 acres feeling urban once you get to the middle of it.

I think the public expects scout (or former scouts) to do the right thing even when it is very inconvenient or impractical, such as every time a character in the movies or on television complains that so-and-so is SUCH a boy scout.

Our troop leader is forming a troop committee this year to help her out. She has asked me to be the camping person. We have six 4th graders. I think we ought to go camping about four times a year. I asked my daughter and she said that we ought to only go about once. What do you think? The Cub Scouts seem to really only go just once a year, but here are opportunities to go more often. But, I think the Boy Scouts have camping goals. I hear someone say they had to have a certain number of nights camping in a year in order to join the order of the arrow. Do they have similar requirements for rank advancement?

yes, we do a flag ceremony every meeting, and we rotate positions, but I'm always the caller.

Wolf Requirement 2b states: "lead a flag ceremony in your den." Who is the leader of the ceremony? Is it the member of the color guard holding the U.S. flag? Is it the caller? How do you decide which of your cubs have met this requirement and which still need to do something more?

What is the difference between playing a game of kickball and playing in a pack kickball tournament?

Our pack purchases all the awards for the boys. Years ago, when I was in an LDS pack, that pack also purchased all the awards for the boys, but we had a tiny budget and they didn't want to buy belt loops, so we weren't supposed to use the academic and sports program. That annoyed me a great deal.

I was really impressed by what kudos wrote about lightweight camping. Unfortunately, I read it right after our family bought a five-pound, two burner cooking stove and the REI "camp kitchen." It all worked out very nicely. Maybe lightweight camping isn't the best way to go family camping or cub camping. Maybe it is. I don't know, but today, I just got the packing list for our Girl Scout fall camp, and they list a wash station: "3 wash tubs, dry rack, dish towels, dish soap, bleach."

When we went out to buy the camp stove, we thought about getting a wash station, but I decided against it because it seemed like just too much to haul around, and I made due during our family camp out by just wiping all the dishes with baby wipes, but when I read "bleach" on the list, I thought that maybe there is a hygiene issue that I had not considered.

So I'm writing my fellow scouters to ask what you do about a washing station when you are camping with your scouts. Do you bother with three tubs and bleach?

Yes, as I understand it, councils actually have more authority than national in many areas. It's an unbalanced hierarchy rather than a strict hierarchy, and I think its very clever actually. Our council, the Pacific Northwest Council, has adopted a program of awarding segmented patches for all manner of activities which might be part of a local pack's calendar; for example, there is a segment for pinewood derby and space derby and rain gutter regatta and visiting the zoo or the science museum or an air museum or an historic fort. The list goes on and on and on. I know other councils have similar programs. The segments go on the left pocket which is reserved for "temporary insignia." The segments are shaped into little arches so about eight segments will fit around a council patch. Technically, you are only supposed to go around once, maybe twice, depending on how large your pocket is, but I've seen plenty of scouts who just keep adding more and more segments until it fills up one whole side of their shirt. It looks very impressive, but since I'm a den leader, and I want to set a good example, I have not done that to my son's shirt. Instead, I bought him a patch vest, and we are trying to create one of those giant circles on the back.

For adults, our district has a bunch of beads that they award to adults at roundtable meetings, but the beads are worn on a name tag that is only worn during the roundtable meeting. The name tags are returned and posted on a bulletin board at the end of the meeting each month. My dad's Kiwanis club did the same thing with their name tags.

Oh, and at the three Cub Scout resident camps in our council, all the parents can do a list of activities to earn points and if they earn enough points, then they receive a triangular patch. Three patches together (one from each camp) will form a circle. I've seen some female cub leaders wearing these awards above the left pocket, which I understand is an acceptable position for temporary patches as well as jamboree patches. Personally, I like my uniform uncluttered, so I put my patch on my backpack (This message has been edited by howarthe)

I read somewhere (probably this forum) that assistant scout masters make excellent webelos leaders. I also read somewhere that tiger cub den leaders should be recruited to serve for three years. That might work if a parent has two boys in the pack. I don't know anyone in our troop, so I don't know what its like, but I suspect they have as few volunteer leaders as we do. If that is true then I am not surprised that they don't send leaders our way, but we did get a committee chairman from them, and for that I am very grateful. She's wonderful. Lots of experience. Eager to lend a had hauling stuff all over for us and connected with the school leaders, too.