Hunt

My son's troop does not sell popcorn. Their big fundraiser is to sell and deliver mulch one weekend a year. At this point, sales are primarily to people who have bought in the past who get fliers in the mail. (In fact, we made some changes in the program to make it smaller, because it was becoming too much work to staff, and it was generating more than enough money.) I don't know how, or if, the troop supports the Council. I know I wrote a check to FOS. I have to echo what a few people have said--I don't like having boys sell stuff. In our area, at least, nobody wants anyone coming door to door to sell anything. As a result, most stuff that is sold is sold to family and coworkers by parents, not by the kids. The schools sell a ton of stuff--wrapping paper, fruit, etc. The market is saturated, and I don't think it helps the image of any group that is making these kind of sales. The only thing people really seem to want is Girl Scout Cookies. This may be different in other parts of the country, I suppose.

Just to be contrary, I will point out that there are some situations in which the scout can't really choose. For example, if the summer camp offers riflery, the scout may not be able to choose muzzle-loading rifles if the camp doesn't offer that option (even though the requirements say do one of the following). In other words, if the requirement is one that the counselor provides the resources for, he or she may have some say over what options are done. Of course, the scout can always look for another counselor or another opportunity to work on the badge.

In another thread, several have expressed the idea that not every Scout is (or should be) a leader. I think this is worth discussing in its own thread. It seems to me that it's true that some people have more innate leadership talents than others. Some people are "natural" leaders, and others aren't. But that doesn't mean that even people who aren't natural leaders shouldn't strive to learn leadership skills--and I think this is what Scouting provides. I think a good Scouting program will build the kind of self-confidence and competence that will help anybody learn to lead, even if he isn't naturally inclined to do so. (In this way, I think being a "leader" is kind of like being a "swimmer." Some people will never be great at it, but they can learn to use it to improve their lives.) For the natural leaders, I think that Scouting can help them learn to use their natural powers for good, rather than for evil.

It seems to me that troop-level PR might be useful in recruiting--although I think word-of-mouth recruiting is much more effective. Will the district or council assist in unit recruiting, beyond providing tools? Also, I think that some PR is beneficial to the troop, because it's a morale-booster. Everybody in my son's troop was proud when they saw an article in the local paper about the latest Eagle's project. I also think it's likely that such articles do in fact contribute to positive feelings about Scouting in many communities. Indeed, those kinds of articles are probably more effective in creating positive feelings than any kind of national PR could be. Will the district or council publicize Eagle projects and similar unit-level activities?

Except for an Eagle BOR, I don't see what the scout has to plan for, other than to make sure he's wearing his uniform. Since a BOR is not supposed to retest the scout on his requirements, I don't see what he has to do other than look over his handbook and be able to explain when and how he completed the requirements. If you mean that the scout should be planning the pace of meeting his requirements, why would you want to penalize a scout who has completed all his requirements a month or more before the next BOR? Finally, doesn't your system end up causing boys to have a single BOR for Tenderfoot, 2nd Class, and maybe 1st Class too? You don't make them wait for six months between each of those ranks, do you?

John D--not a denunciation, I hope, but some thoughts--your system guarantees that advancement will be slow, because boys know they will have to wait many months for a BOR, so why bother getting the requirements done early? Second, facing strangers to explain yourself is appropriate for an Eagle Board, but is not how advancement is supposed to work for the lesser ranks. Remember, it's not a test or a retest--it's just a review of whether the boy has met his requirements--which have already been signed off by persons with the authority to do so. Non-scouters don't really have a role in that review. My son's troop often arranges them "on the fly" with committee members who are around at most meetings--before or after the meeting (or even during the meeting if there is a lull and the rank is fairly junior). Finally, if your unit is like other overseas units I'm familiar with, you already face big challenges in getting your boys through the ranks, because so many of them probably leave for several months a year, and probably bail out to boarding school in their mid-teens. You ought to be looking for ways to speed them up, not slow them down.

They go to camp at the very beginning of the summer, and don't do anything else until just before school starts. I agree that the best solution is to get the troop more active. The biggest obstacle to that here is that a large number of the boys go away for substantial chunks of the summer.

It seems to me that there are several different situations here: 1. A boy shows up to visit your troop and you learn he lives in a different district. Do you send him away? You might tell him about other troops (especially if they would be more convenient for him), but I don't think you turn him away if he decides to join. 2. A troop actively recruits at schools in another district. I can see how that would be a no-no--indeed, troops get bent out of shape if you try to recruit at "their" schools in the same district.

Here's a spin-off question from the "hiatus" thread. What if it isn't the scout who takes a hiatus, but the troop? Historically, my son's troop has been almost completely inactive for about two months during the summer--no outings, no troop meetings, zilch. I hope this will change, but I still have some advancement issues relating to past practice. What do you think if a scout's 4 or 6 months of "active" or "actively serve" include the two months the troop isn't doing anything? On the one hand, it's not the boy's fault, but on the other hand, he hasn't really done the quantity of activity envisioned by the 4 or 6 month requirement. My inclination would be to count the two months--if the boy is ready and willing to blow his bugle when called upon to do so, I say he's the bugler, even if there's no opportunity to blow it. Other thoughts?

I'd just like to make a distinction here that I think isn't entirely clear. I see two situations: 1. A boy has a POR, and although he attends meetings and outings, rarely if ever performs duties related to his POR. Imagine, as an example, a bugler who never brings his bugle and never plays any bugle calls. In such a case, I do tend to agree with those who say that his advancement shouldn't be denied if it was never made clear to him what his duties were, and if he was never counseled that he needed to do more to meet them. On the other hand, if he was told initially and reminded periodically that his POR calls for him to bring his bugle and to blow it, and he fails to do so, I don't see how he can be approved for the next rank without fixing the problem. 2. A boy has a POR, and simply stops coming to meetings and outings for several months. I see no basis at all for counting those months toward his POR service time (or toward "active"), even if nobody has admonished him.

If you take a look at www.pollingreport.com, you can see the results of a bunch of different opinion polls taken over the last few years. There are a lot of surprises to be found. For example, a strong majority of Americans (about two thirds) support Roe v. Wade--although probably most Americans would like to see some restrictions on abortion. Only a small minority of Americans want to see all abortions banned. On gay marriage, a strong majority opposes gay marriage (and a majority would even support a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman), but a majority also supports civil arrangements giving many of the rights of marriage. Most people are against further tax cuts, and, by a large majority, think the rich are not paying their fair share of taxes. Most Americans favor the death penalty. The breakdown of these numbers hasn't changed all that much in recent years. What does this mean? I think it means that there is a large chunk of the population that has mixed emotions on many issues--i.e., they don't like abortion, but they don't want it to be banned, either. They don't like gay "marriage," but they don't like discrimination against gays either. Thus, to win the presidency, you must do one of two things: 1. You must put up a moderate candidate who will appeal to that middle group, but still get most of your "base." or 2. You must mobilize your "base" better than the other candidate--and the other candidate must not be too moderate. Thus, Clinton won easily--twice. He managed to appear moderate despite efforts of his opponents to paint him as an extreme liberal. In 2000 and 2004, there was no moderate candidate, really, so mobilization of the base is what counted. Thus, I predict that at least one of the parties will field a moderate (or apparently moderate) candidate next time. If there is only one such candidate, he will win.

It seems to me that another lesson learned from this election is the increased power of the "wedge issue." That's an issue that will mobilize people to vote one way without thinking too hard about a lot of other issues, and even against their own economic self-interest. In this election, the Democrats thought they had the ideal wedge issue--the Iraq war--but the Republicans trumped them with the unlikely issue of gay marriage (and secondarily, abortion). I think abortion alone will not do it--it hasn't in any prior election, and I don't think the national split on the issue has changed all that much. Reagan also used these moral/social issues to get reelected, but he never really did much about them while President, leaving a lot of the religious right feeling betrayed--and Bush I cared about them even less, which may help explain why he didn't get reelected. It will be interesting to see if Bush really does all that much on those issues or if (as I predict) he will focus on issues near and dear to the old-line Republicans, like taxes.

"The closer you stay to the program the better it works." Bob, you've made it clear that you think this is true. In a discussion like this, however, I'd like to hear a little more about why you think it's true, other than simply being told that BSA is run by people who know best. Tell us how you've seen the program elements that you are defending work well. In addition, I take what everybody says on a message board like this with a grain of salt. If they say they heard it at Philmont, OK, maybe, but I'm still going to make my own judgment about whether it makes sense or not. I'm not going to investigate whether the guy was really at Philmont when he said he was so I can out him as a liar. If that's not what you're trying to do, I can't grasp the purpose of the "questions" you keep asking some of the people who are discussing this issue. I wish you'd knock it off, and debate the issues on the merits.

What I noticed this election--and you can see it right here in this thread--was that I heard many people on both sides saying, "I don't see how anybody could possibly be fooled by that guy." I've never seen this to such an extent before. I know people who seem to believe Bush is both evil and an idiot. I know people who seem to believe Kerry is both evil and a lying coward. I see people ready to believe anything bad about the other guy, no matter what the source is or how credible it is.

I think one factor is that members of a team feel an obligation to the other members of the team: if I don't play, my team may lose or even forfeit. Depending on the particular scouting activity, there may be less of such a feeling of obligation. In It's Me's example, the cub scout will miss lots of fun activities--but you can't let your team down to go have fun activities. I think it becomes a different story when you become a Patrol Leader or other leader, or when your patrol is counting on you to be able to do the activity. My son is on a rec-level baseball team, and he has missed a few games because of scout activities--however, if his absence would make the team forfeit the game, he'd be at the game. Also, if you're going to be very serious about an activity--whether it's a sport or Scouting--you have to decide that it comes first.

I recently bought the regular cotton-poly long uniform pants (only had shorts before that). Man, do I hate the fabric! It feels awful. The local Scout Store doesn't carry the cotton uniform pants--and the sales clerk advised me not to order them, saying they don't hold up. I shelled out for cotton shirts, and like them much better than the cotton-poly ones. Does anybody have the cotton pants, and how do you like them? Is the "action fit" the same as the "action fit" in the regular pants (the catalog says the pockets are different)? Thanks.

I was looking at the latest Boys Life yesterday, and I noticed a big ad on the back cover for a new Teen-rated "shooter" video game. I was somewhat surprised to see that. When I flipped through the magazine, I saw an ad for a laser-tag gizmo. I'm sure BL reviews its ads (because there are plenty of things that are not advertised there), but I wish they wouldn't accept these ads either. If BSA really believes that it's against the ideals of Scouting to point weapons at others for fun, why would it provide the opportunity for others to advertise such activities?

I think silver-shark makes a good point that some of the deviations from the prescribed BSA program are not tweaks, but rather troops continuing to do things the "old way." Of course, there are two sides to this--on the one hand, I do believe that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." If the purpose of NSP and FCFY is retention, I can understand why a troop that has never had any problems with retention might be reluctant to adopt it, unless other advantages can be demonstrated. On the other hand, troops often cling to old ways of doing things for the wrong reasons (such as restricting female leaders, retesting at BORs, etc.). And again, I think you have to make a distinction between changes that BSA requires you to make, and those it doesn't. A troop can't require scouts to earn the Cooking merit badge to make Eagle no matter how much they might want to.

I think to equate using mixed-aged patrols to dropping the Scout Law or dropping camping is pretty inane. Do we all have to sell popcorn to be delivering the scouting program the boys were promised? Sheesh. Obviously, there is a continuum here, and the further away from the prescribed program you get, the more subject to criticism you will be--and righfully so. But modifying specific program elements to deal with the real life circumstances are far from abandoning the ideals or methods of scouting. Furthermore, I personally don't find it all that persuasive that "top men" have decided what works best--they've changed over time, and they aren't infallible. If you think the prescribed program is better than the tweaks, tell us why. And Dan, the person who keeps track of advancement for your troop should certainly have a copy of the Advancement Committee Policies and Procedures.

I think to equate using mixed-aged patrols to dropping the Scout Law or dropping camping is pretty inane. Do we all have to sell popcorn to be delivering the scouting program the boys were promised? Sheesh. Obviously, there is a continuum here, and the further away from the prescribed program you get, the more subject to criticism you will be--and righfully so. But modifying specific program elements to deal with the real life circumstances are far from a

I think it's actually the statutory language that makes the distinction. I don't feel strongly about it, because I believe the scouts should have equal access--the complaint will come from some other organization that doesn't get access.

I see a big difference between a tweak to program elements (ie., mixed-aged patrols, which BSA rules do not prohibit), and adding to advancement requirements, which violates BSA rules.

I took a look at the proposed rules, and I was somewhat surprised to see that they aren't really "equal access for all" rules. They simply say that access can't be denied to certain patriotic groups (including BSA) based on their views. Presumably, the schools could exclude other groups with the same or different views without violating the rules. It's an odd rule, and I'm not sure that the rule is itself constitutional, since it requires public forums to favor particular g

I would be interested in hearing whether it in fact works to have a NSP with only 2 or 3 boys in it. Has anybody actually done this? Did it work? For many of us with smaller troops, the reality is that we may only get a few new scouts each year--from what I understand, troops with 15-20 members are pretty common. I have no doubt that the NSP program can work very well in a large troop with a large number of new scouts--but how well does it work in the smaller troop setting?

I just want to say that I appreciate Rooster's last comment--it's logical, although I don't fully agree with it. The idea he puts forward is that sexual sin is a slippery slope that is likely to lead to more serious sexual sin. I think one problem with this is that we have a strong image of homosexuals in this society as sexually promiscuous--and many of them are. But I would argue that it's more the promiscuity that one should worry about rather than the sexual orientation. Thus, I would feel safer sending my son with two gay men who were in long-term committed relationships with men of roughly their own age, than I would in sending my daughter with two heterosexual men that I knew to be sexually promiscuous, especially if they dated a lot of younger women. (Just as an aside, most of us expose our children to much higher risks of injury or death by letting them ride in cars driven by people we don't know all that well, than the risk they would be sexually molested in a two-deep Scouting situation.)