LIBob

Rule #1 Honestly I have no problem with homosexual scouts or atheist scouts so long as they keep their belief system to themselves. If they want to come to learn outdoor skills and character as taught by scouting then IMO they are welcome. If they want to change the nature of scouting or change the opions of the 11 and 12 year old kids in the troop then they have no place in BSA. Rule #2 I DO have some concerns about gay scout leaders . . . hmm well actually I've known a handful of gay men and women who have kids. If a gay man or woman has a kid in the pack or troop then see Rule

If BSA were to provide services for girls the best way is to encourage each council to have a "girls scout week." On those weeks GSA troops and individual campers are allowed and BSA troops and individual campers. (or even allowin GSA troops to camp at BSA campgrounds just like BSA troops are allowed.) IMO GSA used to have a strong camping and outdoor skills element and currently does not. If we open our doors for GSA members to join our ranks first only the camping oriented girls and leders will move over. But in the long term going co-ed means the same cancerous leaders an

I think this deserves a repost. Scouting in Canada saw sharp membership declines in the late 1990s. They attempted to modernize the program by - opening several new sections that did not require the Scout law and expunged all references to God. - Making all sections (Cubs Boys Scouts etc.) 100% co-educational. - Adopting a global warming awareness program. The results? Well its hard to say. In 1998 number of scouts (tens of thousands I presume) left the program and formed a parallel program affiliated with the Baden-Powell Scouting association. Their numbers continue to

Basement Dweller mentioned co-ed cubbing The only objection I'd have is that I'm afraid it would lead Boy Scouts to become co-ed which I feel would be a catastrophe. I feel the eventual results is that millions of girls would join boy Scouts and eventually BSA would become as non-camping oriented as GSA. (notice I wrote "eventual" and "eventually.) If BSA wishes to address the decline of camping in GSA the best way to do is to recommend that each council have a "Girls Scout week" at its Scout camp. In such a week the program would be EXACTLY the same as it is for boys. At

Basementdweller and Packsaddle, I am sorry to hear that your daughers are not getting what they wnat from GSA. I have often suspected that GSA was about creating girl leaders, physically fit girls and girls of good character (all are admirable goals) at the expense of teaching camping, nature and wilderness skills. For example: Our local GSA summer camp touts - Swimming pools supervised by American Red Cross-certified waterfront staff - Hikes & nature activities on well-groomed trails - Basketball and volleyball courts - Indoor and outdoor sports and games - D

I should add that: - In a Roman catacomb a statue of St. Cecilia shows her making a three-fingerd gesture resembling the scout sign. It is said her gesture represents the Trinity. page 3 http://www.josemariaescriva.info/opus_dei/enCatacombs.pdf - In Taiwan and exact duplicate of the three-fingerd scout sign was used to represent the "three Peoples' Principles" (三民主義, nationalism, democracy, and livelihood)IOW loyalty to Chiang Kai Shek and his party.

Hinduism (and Buddhism) incorporate a number of hand gestures or "mudra" into their art, meditation, etc. e.g. - the familiar yoga meditation position involves resting your hands on your lap while making a sort of "ok" sign with each hand. It represents a person joining God by overcoming three forms of egoism. - another mudra involves raising your little finger and index finger like a heavy metal fan. It represents banishing demons ans ill thoughts - the mudra resembling the scout sign is a new one to me. This source: http://www.megganbrummer.com/web_images/Microsoft%20

Scoutfish I respectfuly submit that if you EVER swim without a buddy then yoiu are violating one of the basic tenets of scouting. You may tend your lobster pots however you wish. I am going to continue to tach my son and every scout in the troop NEVER to swim without a buddy, and NEVER to operate a small boat without a buddy boat. I sincerely wish you well, but swimming alone and (small) boating alone is 100% completely and totally outside of scouting. Scouts should exhibit gun safety both inside and outside of scout camp, same deal for swim safety, boat safety etc. ot

Alright Kudu, now I am feeling a little bit like an idiot again. As near as I can figure (recall that I was a super-active scout 25 years ago an an now just returning) you are saying well okay ou are not really saying this cause the following makes no sense: - 25 years ago scouting was okay - then "they" (BSA) developed something called woodbadge. - woodbadge directly caused a 20% drop in the number of cub scouts . . but caused the number of boy scouts to remain in the same range it always has. - the fact that scouting in Canada the UK etc. has dropped off precipitously means

Beavah wrote: Now yeh could say that everyone in da real world should always operate with full institutional resources and strictures. Every boater must have a buddy boat. Damn straight we should. Specifically we should teach that under any circumstances besides - fishing in the local 5-foot deep pond - a commercial grade fishing boat etc. every boat should have a buddy boat. Look even Lewis and Clark did not travel alone in the same boat. B-P crossed more than one river in his time and I'd bet my last dollar he never did so using only a single small boat. Heck t

add to the above . . . . . . Edit to add, today I took two barely 11-year-old scouts on a 2-mile walking tour of the Scout camp where they will spend a week this summer. Josh, the as't camp director, insisted I first tell him what my proposed route is. He also asked me to "check-in" when I am done my hike. It was completely non-intusive. It was not a big deal. Following basic safety regs are not that hard once you accept them.

Scoutfish wrote: What is needed is a side course forn a different set of SSD or Sa checks and safety SOP's for when the scout may be alone. Well if you change "when the scout may be alone" to "when the scout is on a non-scouting activity" I can concur. I don't set up 3 different swim aras in order to swim in some wild area and I don't teach my son to. but I absolutely always have a swim buddy. I (we) never swim in water more than chest deep on an unguarded beach. Souctfish wrote: You can't always have a buddy with you. Oh yes you can. And if you don't, don't swim.

I can't disagree with you CPAMom, but I am not sure the things you mention have changed all that much in the past 12 years or so. (CS enrollment has been declining for roughly 12 years. So while I am confident enthusaistic dads and good den leaders would probably cure the problem I am less certain enrollment declined because dads havely lost enthusiasm or because den leaders have stopped being good. Eh, maybe Dad spends too much time on the internet.

Alright so Beavah is right to a degree. I state on the other thread that every single scout drowning was caused by SSD/SA not being followed when in fact that is a very common denominator but it is wrong to assume that happens in every single scout drowning. (mea culpa) That said we should be teaching scouts safe swimming and safe boating and expecting them to follow it in their personal lives as well. Gun Safety should not stop when a scout leaves scout camp and neither should the buddy system. I think we'll find that when a scout drowns (whether at a scouting event or ot

Eagledad wrote: I'm not sure how you say apples and oranges. IF the BSA suddenly looses half its membership to lets say the Campfire Kids, we would howling and discussing why. If the Canadian Scouts is loosing a large number of members to a new youth camping organization, that is pretty telling. Very telling. The Canadian Scouts only a few years ago was considered one of the best Youth Scouting Organizations in the World. Now in just a few short years it is struggling to survive. First lesson for the BSA is to Learn from Canada and not duplicate their mistakes. Barry Obviou

Telosian? As in Aristotle or as in Dr. Who? Anyway, I caoch little league baseball. the other coaches (and the parents) think of me as "old school" because I have the team stretch jog, and do calisthenics. On my tema and teh others if a kid breaks a sweat a bout one-third of the time Mom calls him over and fans him off, (no kidding.) Kids are fatter today than before. Air conditioning is ubiquitous. Backyard swimming pools are common place. You can do stuff on a Nintendo DSi you couldn't do on a desktop computer 15 years ago. Church attendance is down. Visits to nationa

Okay I'm not an idiot (I hve no idea why I wrote that). My point is that admittedly I am just now returning to scouting, but I don't see any direct line beween anything national has done (policy on gays, woodbadge, lack of emphasis on camping) that could possibly be leading to a decline in enrollment. Given that the decline is almost exclusively among cubs scouts and that smoewhat similar declines have occurred in both Canada and the UK I doubt I really really doubt it has anything to do with any policy from Irvington TX. So far the biggest changes i see - Scouting now has

As someone who is recently returning to scouting, I must say I have zero (nada, zip, nil, zilch) problems with "national." As someone who was a full-time scout in my adolescent/teenage years I can only imagine what sorts of problems those might be (and fail to understand why such things might be problems.) I mean . . . . okay I don't know what I mean. but I suspect there is some sort of "code talk" going on here. I'm an idiot (a bona fide card-carrying idiot,) who believes that scouting is scout-led and patrol-based. I find it really really hard to believe that an organization

Yeah I suspected the BP scouts had been around longer, they just seem to have taken a bump in membership in Can. and the UK in response to attempts to modernize scouting in those areas. what's the 300' rule?

UK Scouting counted 671,000 members at the start of the 1990s had declined to around 446,000 by 2006. Hoping to address this UK scouting modernized in a number of ways, each pack/troop was allowed to become co-ed. All senior scout groups (Venture scouts) were required to become Co-ed. Scouting UK made a special effort to reach out to British Muslims and encouraged the creation of Mosque sponsored troops. The program was also modernized to a point the traditional scout skills such as camping and first aid wee less emphasized. By 2006 UK scouting awarded more computer MB and mor

Scouting membership in both the UK and Canada have also been in steep decline, in fact their decline is much more serious than ours. I'm guessing therefore that the source of the decline has more to do with family life in the Gameboy age than with any particular court case or BSA policy. Moreover I'm not a big fan of the steps the UK and Canada took to "fix" the problem. Each country chose to "modernize" scouting. In Canada's case the decline continues but that may be because of the growth of an alternative "traditionalist" scouting movement in Canada. More on each of tho

Indeed the Boy Scout part of the program is still cruising along nicely Yr .. Boy Scouts* 1988 .. 1,025,370 1989 .. 1,007,871 1990 .. 1,010,857 1991 .. 988,270 1992 .. 975,589 1993 .. 979,192 1994 .. 978,608 1995 .. 989,343 1996 .. 1,000,078 1997 .. 1,016,383 1998 .. 1,023,442 1999 .. 1,023,691 2000 .. 1,003,691 2001 .. 1,005,592 2002 .. 1,010,791 2003 .. 997,398 2004 .. 988,995 2005 .. 943,426 2006 .. 922,836 2007 .. 913,588 2008 .. 905,879 That said Cub enrollment is down ~20% since the late 90's. Note however that visiting national pa

Now again I realize that the following comes from a media article but in this case I'm going to go way out on a limb and claim I the article reveals enough information that we can disuss possible causes. In 2007 three adult employees at a scout camp took an aluminum boat to a lakeside bar and ran into problems as they returned in the early am. 07/19/2007 (KFSN) -- Fresno County authorities have released the name of a man who disappeared after falling off a boat into Huntington Lake. The man missing since the incident Friday morning has been identified as Dennis Diesenroth.

Greaves thanks for pointing that out. I was unaware of that.

Well Beav I have not castigated anyone about anything. What I have done is to take a handful of articles about scouts drowning and combed through them to see anything in the article could leads us to believe part of SSD or SA was not being followed. Along the way I have been (falsesly)accused of a great many things including - believing that the articles tell the entire story and provide 100% of all pertinent details - maligning Eagle scouts and/or their parents and/or their leaders - etc. As for the Clackamas river drowning I clearly stated right at the top Fro