ASM1

You people have too much time on your hands. And sctmom, why did you buy your son a PINK Easy Bake Oven? please don't tell the rest of his troop.

We have American Heritage, how about Ammerican Culture, or American politics? It seems the youth of today has not clue who our fore fathers were, and the political system they put in place for all of us today. American Heritage only touches on these and stays the course of American History.

Our politcal system today is complex and our scouts our future leaders. They need the foundation to know thier jobs when they mature.

Just a thought. And my 14 year old son make an awesome standing rib rost for our Christmas feast last year and didn't care which side the forks went on. It was fantastic.

ASM1

Whoa! I'm Studdering... Three posts?

SHHHHHHHHHH! It's Secret!

But, if what you say is true. It is time to go right to Roundtable and confront your district commissioner in person, and in front of the rest of the district.

ASM1

SHHHHHHHHHH! It's Secret!

But, if what you say is true. It is time to go right to Roundtable and confront your district commissioner in person, and in front of the rest of the district.

ASM1

SHHHHHHHHHH! It's Secret!

But, if what you say is true. It is time to go right to Roundtable and confront your district commissioner in person, and in front of the rest of the district.

ASM1

Well, what could I possibly add? The advice in all of the responses is "Right On"

My only comment would be about the very mature observances and leadership skills shown by Troop510S, Wow! Bravo! As ASPL for your troop, I can only say your troop is very lucky to have leadership such as yours. Right on top of the situation, and seeking advice to resolve an obvious problem.

Our troop has 8 ASPL's and all of them together would not have noticed a situation like this or sought out advice about it. Maybe our SPL, but I doubt it. We would have noticed it and fixed it. Once again, BRAVO! Excellent Job Troop510S, Your a true leader!

ASM1

As for the original post, (topic leader) This is sometimes the problem with OA and why feelings for OA run so strong. Boy Scouts prohibits secret organizations, yet OA is that and more. So secret it seems that even the members do not know current policy.

As for my posts, knowing this, as well the SM and other ASM's at that summer camp, we, (all OA members) took the bull by the horns so to speak and just got it done. If we would have waited and asked, there would have been days of indecision, bad calls, wrong decisions, and only frustration would have remained.

According to national OA policy, once a scout performs his ordeal, he is OA for life. I performed mine in Michigan. Does that mean that now that I live in another state I am no longer OA? I don't think so.

As far as not being able to perform ordeal out of council, not so. It is extraordinary, but it happens. It has happened in our lodge more than a few times over the years.

Sometimes too secret to know what is what....

ASM1

The scout in question was overlook because his name was not on the ballot. He had been out of the country with his family who was serving in the military. He was overlooked becuae they forgot to add his name to the ballot. The scout in question is by far, one of our most talented leaders. We did the right thing, and national agreed. The Key 3 from the host lodge agreed, and our Key 3 agreed.

ASM1

Thanks for the reply.

On waiting two years before urging Woodbadge training? All new leaders are urged to attend new leaders essentails and all outdoor training including youth protection. But Woodbadge, even though a leader may take the course and pay for it himself anytime our council offers it, our troop likes to work with a new leader for at least two years before they urge the taking of Woodbadge and the troop pays for it. In fact, our troop pays all cost of all training for leaders, including transportation, with the exception of Woodbadge unless they invite a leader to attend. With a troop the size as ours, I think it is an issue of trying to keep the budget in line by not paying for leader who may not remain in the troop.

On the SMC issue. Our troop is unique. Most of our adult leaders are active duty military. Our SM will assign a temp SM from the ranks of ASM's for outdoor activities like campouts. Because of that, almost all of our ASM's are fully capable of taking over the troop should a crisis arise, which is frequently these days. So our ASM's perform SMC'c when ever they arise. Even if the SM is present. It does not matter who gives the SMC. Our scouts know they can come to any of us.

I am betting you have already resolved this issue because of today's late date in July, but we had almost the same situation happen last year. We attended summer camp out of council and lodge. At the OA call out, the SM and a few of the attending ASM's got together and decided to have a scout called out for OA because he was overlooked in our troop elections earlier that year. Here is how it worked, with the apporval of national. At the time though, we just made the decision, and worried about taking care of the legalities when we returned to council.(and this scout also attended his ordeal in the hosting council) After the call out, the SM, and the ASM's met with the Key 3 form the host lodge and got a letter to be given to our Key 3 requesting permission to admit the scout into the lodge after his ordeal. We checked with national, and it was legit, and he was accepted no problem. Best of luck.

As per the standards of Baltimore Area Council, ASM's are Scoutmasters, they are Assistants. We encourage advanced leader training and Woodbadge to most our ASM's after two years of service. Our troop has 75 boys and 18 ASM's. If we had to wait for just the SM to hold a SMC for every boy, we would not have very many advancements. If the official rules of BSA were to exclude ASM's they would not be encourage into training. The same training the SM recieves.

ASM1

First of all and very most important. GET OFF AOL! AOL not only shares information with local authorities, which is good, their membership files are very easy to penetrate and are the first ones accessed by child preditors looking for families with children. Second, try to get off a dail up connection and switch to cable or DSL, then buy a Linksys Router which will place your computers behind a firewall. This firewall is not as secure as ones used by corporations to protect credit card info, but they are a good source for family and personal information protection. Third, prohibit your children from accessing or using chat rooms for any reason. There are strange people in those chat rooms. If you follow these instructions, you will rid yourself of stalkers because they cannot access you.

ASM1

(This message has been edited by ASM1)

Greetings, I am an ASM for a Troop 672 in the Baltimore Area Council, and also own a small web development company. We created a web site for our troop that has worked out really well and I wanted to let everyone know about it. This site is complete with a database back-end administration portion that allows instant information updates like rank advancements, troop election results, and activities instantly. It also has a forums sections to keep everyone in the troop up to date of current news and events. We would love to make this site available to any troop that would like to have an updatable web site. Although we cannot afford to create these sites for free, we certainly can provide the site with hosting for extremely affordable rates so even small troops can afford to have one. If you would like to tour this site to see if it would fit within your troop needs, email me smithw@bsatroop672.org and provide some BSA affiliation info and I will send you the user name and password of the Admin section of this site. The site itself is located at www.bsatroop672.org . The price of this site will be $399 which includes hosting for one year. Annual renewal of hosting will be $149 We will bend to your budget requirements all we can, and help all we can. I am sorry we can't offer this for free, We wish we could.

Sincerely,

ASM1(This message has been edited by ASM1)