johnponz

Darn email (message board etc.), it always makes you seem more harsh than intended. LOL

I did not mean offense. It was more of a statement about our current membership policy than personal. If you allow those who do not meet the "ideals" (and believe me I am included here) in some categories such as physically strong why don't you allow those that you believe do not meet the ideals in other categories such as "morally straight." I was using it as an opportunity for all of us to take a look in the mirror and to stop casting stones. If I cast a stone of my own in the process, I am truly sorry (and I mean that). I did not mean to hurt anyone's feelings in the process.

I am a District Commissioner and have a 34 inch waist at 6 foot. Still too big but working on it.

Should someone with a 56 inch waist really be in Scouting? This person needs to look at the "physically strong" part of the Scout oath. Isn't this at least as important as "morally straight?"

As usual no one has helped you. The information you are looking for is in this publication [url=http://www.oa-bsa.org/resources/pubs/GOA-2012.pdf]http://www.oa-bsa.org/resources/pubs/GOA-2012.pdf[/url=http://www.oa-bsa.org/resources/pubs/GOA-2012.pdf] This is the guide for OA Officers and advisors. Look at Page 20 (Unit Leader Approval). It states, "To become eligible for election, a Boy Scout or Varsity Scout must be registered with the Boy Scouts of America and have the approval of his Unit Leader prior (bolded in the original) to the election. The Unit Leader must certify his Scout

Wood Badge was a great course to enhance management skills. I have been to many other courses like this as I work in Corporate HR in the real world. The fact is many people are not exposed to these kinds of issues and we still expect them to manage Scout units. Like it or not Scouts is pretty much run as a corporation these days and if you are going to succeed in that environment you need to know the rules. The ticket is a little hard to complete with everything else going on in life but that is part of the lesson. One has to stay on track and focused to finish it. I agree with Basement

Troop STANDARDS should have nothing to do with it as Eagle is a NATIONAl award. If a Scout met the requirements that is all that is needed to be awarded Eagle.

A case of someone asking for advice, and then not liking the answers. How about this...You are doing GREAT Bluejacket. Keep up the good work. This is definitely the right path to go down. The Unit's leadership and you will get along just fine as long as you keep fanning the fires of conflict.(This message has been edited by johnponz)

double post.(This message has been edited by johnponz)

BSA 24 is one guy I do not understand. He says that he does not wear knots on his uniform but wants to be able to earn/wear rank badges. His positions seem just strange to me.

I have to agree with Beavah here. Any Commissioner's #1 job is to be friends of the Unit, and that means the unit's leadership. Scouting is not about individuals making individual choices to attend events. It is about units choosing what their program will be and attending those events as a unit. When a Unit Leader asks a Commissioner to back off, said Commissioner should back off, and then work diligently on reestablishing the relationship. Be the unit and Unit Leader's friend, do not be an enemy. You need that Unit Leader's help especially during recharter. As an ADC I have 4

I am back from weekend 1 as well. The course is very good. I have seen a lot of the material before in management training courses, but it is nice to see it presented with a Scouting flare. They do pack your day though. I am pretty exhausted and have lots of homework.

The leadership is probably doing what the chartered organizations with the most authority want them to do. These COs are LDS, and the Catholic Church among other religious groups. This policy provides cover for the COs. They do not have to exclude gays as the "local option" would allow. Instead they can point to a National Policy. This is part of what a National organization does. It provides cover for those on the ground. These organizations have a lot of power within BSA. Indeed more than the volunteers and that is the reason the Executive Board will not overturn the policy. They are r

The leadership is probably doing what the chartered organizations with the most authority want them to do. These COs are LDS, and the Catholic Church among other religious groups. This policy provides cover for the COs. They do not have to exclude gays as the "local option" would allow. Instead they can point to a National Policy. This is part of what a National organization does. It provides cover for those on the ground. These organizations have a lot of power within BSA. Indeed more than the volunteers and that is the reason the Executive Board will not overturn the policy. The

Beav, You are 100% correct (I would say 110% but that really is not possible-LOL). There is no excuse to stand by and let a fellow human being die if you can possibly help the person. No rule should supercede this one. Everyone has to be able to live with their decsions so ultimately this is a personal decsion, but if my son is the human that is in this much trouble, I hope and pray the person helps.(This message has been edited by johnponz)

I was a medic in the Army many moons ago so I would be pretty comfortable giving an Epi injection in the situation. As Beavah said the chances of an unfavorable outcome are not that great. However a bee sting for someone that is allergic can be quite fatal quite quickly. This is definitely an emergency case. Some people do not realize how dire this can be and how quickly. It is no joke. I guess it is the same with imminent program failure. I too would throw the book away in that case, but then work to get back to normal. It is not normal and very stressful to always be working

And the answer is...it depends. In the situation you describe you save the kid. In a less dire situation such as a football game, you follow the rules. The relative consequence of following the rule matters and that is where judgment comes into play. It is hard to contemplate all of this on a message board when you are trying to make an argument one way or the other, but shades of gray always exist. Life is a continuum.(This message has been edited by johnponz)

First rule is no one dies on my watch and it supersedes all other rules. In this case you give the kid the epi and deal with the fallout later assuming the situation is dire enough that it is too late for a cell phone to help. The epi pen is probably the last resort but at least the Scout will be alive to sue me.

Beavah, I have said all that I can say on this topic. I know that there is no enforcement mechanism, and I am really not advocating for one. It would be a waste of BSA's time to try to police these policies. You are correct regarding the actual on paper reporting relationship. I know that the SE and rest of the Council staff works for the Council Executive Board with a dotted line to BSA. However as was pointed out on a different thread the reality is a little different. The leadership of individual Council's should do their best to implement the major policies of BSA, the "have

Of course there are some small rules that people ignore and are not a big deal. I recognize this and use common sense. Those are rules and not policies. However, I am not really talking about the small rules here. The mandate that Commissioners "must" not be unit leaders seems to be a big deal to National, and frankly is a big deal to me as a District Leader. If you look back through the threads on this topic, you will see that my position is it is too easy for the leadership simply to say...hey this guy does a good job with his Unit let's use him as a UC, SRTC, etc. in addition to h

I disagree with Beavahs characterization. If what he is suggesting was the truth then the famous quote (paraphrased), Councils and Units cannot add or take away from the advancement requirements would be seen as advice and not policy. I really do not believe BSA intends this mandate to be advice. It is the same with the mandate that unit leaders "must" not be commissioners. If BSA was only giving advice, why is there an Area Director who pretty much everyone agrees in the "boss" of the Council SE? As was pointed out to me on another thread National has more control of the Counci

Eastern PA for me

SP, I checked in the new Fieldbook, and you are correct that the bit about serving in one commissioner role was removed since the last version. However, the more important part about commissioners not serving as Unit Leaders is still there. Ghermanno is correct that it is still mentioned in the Administration of Commissioner Service Manual which is intended for the "administrative commissioners." This is probably the correct place for it as it is the DC and Council Commissioners" role to make sure that these requirements are followed. It would not be in the individual commissioner pos

I am really less concerned about commissioners doing 2 commissioner jobs that I am about Unit Leaders serving as commissioners. Took my family to the boardwalk, but I will look up the fieldbook reference when I get the chance

It is in the training for Commissioners. I checked the Scouting.org web site and there is definitely a PowerPoint presentation with this information in it. I can provide the link, but I am kind of tired of pointing out where all of this non-conflicting information is. Why do individual Executives allow this breach (their bonuses depend on reaching Gold JTE, and they want to do it the easiest way possible to guarantee their salaries)? 2nd Q your approach is reactive instead of pro-active, and by the time you notice this situation, it may be too dire to fix. The best way to handle this