Lisabob

"I feel that we need to really push stewardship early, during Cubs to really instill a sense of ownership and responsibility, then maybe it will carry over into Boy Scouting." I agree. In fact one of my WB ticket items focused on helping our pack get moving in this direction. In the process what I discovered was that the boys had no problem with the idea of conservation and in fact that their rather absolute sense of justice made stewardship and conservation very easy for them to understand. Their parents, on the other hand, were a much tougher sell. We'd routinely have boys who wanted to participate and parents who weren't interested in even bringing the kids to the activity, let alone rolling up their sleeves. No wonder, then, that the boys slowly learn this same behavior. I found that to be quite frustrating.

If I recall correctly Swift's "modest proposal" has to do with eating babies in Ireland because, after all, there are too many of them and besides it'll ease the burden on their families. The idea of a modest proposal is sometimes used to suggest something (equally) absurd in order to highlight a much larger problem, like alleviating mass starvation and extreme poverty by eating babies for example. Are you suggesting that the "Rule of 25" is a modest proposal of sorts? I'm not sure I see your connection to Swift either. It's late so forgive me if I'm missing the obvious here. One thing I haven't seen yet on this forum is an explanation (other than the cynical one) for why this "Rule of 25" is in place to start with. Anyone out there who can defend this policy?

Gonzo, I do think you are missing the point for the most part. It isn't a question of what the rules are, it is a question of whether those rules ought to remain the same or be changed, and what the consequences of such a change might be. Personally I think we, as an organization, could have a positive influence on more people without losing anything by changing the rules. You might make a different decision and I respect that. One of the things I find interesting about this discussion though is that ALL of the people I've ever met who argue that the DRP is crucial have been fairly mainstream Christians. While in itself, this is not particularly important (the majority of religious Americans identify as Christians after all), I wonder what religious minorities in the United States think about the DRP? As for the pledge - you may not be aware, but there are some religious groups (Jehovah's Witnesses, for example) who do not say the pledge at all. I know people who do profess religious belief and yet who do not say the one somewhat controversial line in the pledge for a variety of reasons - they'll say the rest, just not that one line. Among the reasons is because the historical fact is that that line was added as an anti-communist/anti-Soviet tidbit rather than as any kind of true profession of specific belief. This interpretation, I got from a group of (self described) evangelical, fundamentalist Christians who felt offended that the line in question wasn't more meaningful in the eyes of most Americans who blithely recite it. Consequently they don't say that one line because they don't want to water down the meaning by participating in mass recitation without thought. So be careful with how you interpret or challenge someone's decision not to say some, or all, of the pledge. It doesn't necessarily make them non-religious, or even non-Christian.

breathing. Seriously, this is something that many in the troop recognize a need to work on doing a better job with, but as it stands, I have never seen a boy be removed for failing to fulfill the position. And there have been a few cases where it would be justified. We do not have an attendance specification though.

OK, thanks again everyone.

Hi Gonzo, No problem, no offense taken. One of the things I like about this forum is that (usually) we can discuss these sorts of touchy topics in a reasonable fashion. Never in a million years would I want to have some of these conversations with certain people in a specific unit or district, for fear of the repercussions it might have! Angry adults make for bad programming for the boys. At any rate, I understand what the DRP and the membership requirements are. I accept that the BSA has a right to impose those requirements. As a scouter and the parent of a scout, I have signed those documents, although I admit I didn't even know they existed at the time, and so I agreed to abide by them. That doesn't mean, however, that I necessarily like them. My point here - as this thread began - was not to dispute what the DRP and membership requirements ARE, but rather to question WHY they are. If the purpose is to keep atheists out then yes, the current requirements achieve that goal. But why is this the purpose? If it is because the BSA has a religious character that atheists don't support, fine. Be clear about that fact and then let individuals make the decision about whether or not to join, rather than the BSA telling them they cannot join. Let them - not the BSA - determine what to do about the religious duty as described in the Oath and Law, just as we allow people of all different religious groups to interpret these particular phrases without BSA guidance. People often say "it can't be done" but look at what Hunt says about this (though he doesn't advocate for it) in the third post in this thread. It could be done, though I accept that not everyone would be open to such an interpretation. As you say, atheists might benefit from being members too. Not in the sense of conversion (which I do not believe is the goal of the BSA anyway - otherwise we couldn't be a non-sectarian organization) but rather, in the sense of having a more well-rounded understanding of the role religion plays in the lives of a great many people in our society. Looking around at the religiously-motivated violence we see in so many places today, I'd say that this sort of awareness is good for all people. If the goal of the BSA is to help youth develop personal values (again, this comes straight from the BSA's description of its purposes) then sure, these values can be developed among all youth regardless of their religious background. So here too, atheism doesn't make a lot of logical sense as a barrier to membership in my view. Understand, I recognize the RIGHT of the BSA to set its own membership guidelines. I just don't think that in this case the restriction makes much sense. In fact, I don't think dropping the DRP would have an appreciable impact on scouting as we know it, except to remove from debate one of the major sore spots for scouting these days (leaving us with only the "other two G's"). Units would go on doing whatever they're doing now. Some atheists would sign up their sons and accept that whatever religious aspects of the program are in place, they'll have to deal with. Other atheists would choose not to join a religiously-oriented group such as the BSA claims to be, but then it would be their decision and not the BSA's policy. Realistically though? I have very little hope of this actually happening.

The beltloops are a great way to get a boy (and family) excited about scouting and to expose him to new activities and ideas too. The boys also tend to be very proud of their accomplishments! For that reason, as a pack we always encouraged the boys to earn them. However, they can get expensive if you have some over achiever types who want to earn them all (40 in total I believe). Here are a couple of approaches to paying for them: 1) Make it clear to parents and boys that they need to do their part to support your fundraisers because the fundraising $ pays for the awards. 2) Raise your pack dues. 3) Charge den dues. 4) As a pack, decide that you will pay for ONE beltloop but not multiple copies of the loop for each boy. If they re-earn them or lose them and want additional copies, great, but mom & dad need to buy those. 5) Rather than setting a hard and fast limit, if things are getting out of hand, try gently re-directing a boy toward some other activities. Maybe they are burning through the loops because they like trying new things - great, get them started on some other new achievement (or electives in the Tiger/Wolf/Bear books). Maybe they like the constant attention at pack meetings - great, get them involved in the pack meeting in some additional ways - demonstrating skill, doing skits, leading songs, etc.. Finally, consider the extent to which this is really a problem. I was the advancement chair for our pack for several years and at times people - the treasurer - worried about this. But in reality, there were only a few boys who went overboard. Only one family seemed to be abusing the pack budget and came in week after week with long lists of loops "earned." In that case we asked the Den Leaders to clarify for all of their families what the requirements were, and to guide families toward setting reasonable expectation levels (in terms of "do your best" rather than "do it fastest") and that cut down on the excess a little bit too. And by the time the guys get into 4th/5th grade the appeal of the belt loops seems to wear off a bit too. Then they're focused more on webelos activity pins!

It is that time of year when patrol realignments seem to happen in our troop and probably in other troops too. I'd like to know how your troop decides who will be in which patrols moving forward, and particularly, what happens when you have boys that no other patrol wants in their group? Situation: One of our NSPs from last year will probably be re-juggled eventually. There are three scouts in that group who each have behavioral issues and who have never gotten along with each other. A couple of them have a long history of difficulty (from school and other extra curriculars). This is a tough patrol for any other boys to be part of as a result. There's been talk of splitting them up in order to reduce the friction, but other scouts in other patrols are horrified by the idea of having these guys in THEIR reasonably functional patrols. Who makes the call here?

I think you need to be careful with this last idea Gonzo, for three reasons. First, it may appear to be nod, nod, wink, wink to the rules. We've had our CO try this on us. "Well the rules say you aren't supposed to do this in uniform as scouts. So just make the troop do it out of uniform." Don't know about the rest of you but that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't think teaching boys to look for loop holes to rules they find inconvenient is quite what we want to be doing. Second, if this person has done a lot for the troop, is there any sense of payback here? Or of coercion? Or of, he'll stop doing these things if you don't go out there (as scouts) and support him? That, again, would leave a bad taste in my mouth. Third, is your troop open to announcing this "opportunity" for any political candidate for any office who comes along? If not, why not? Because you run the risk of politicizing the troop if the answer is yes to some and no to others. But you run the risk of being inundated with such requests if the answer is yes to all. I'd just steer clear of this whole minefield by explaining how scouts is not supposed to be political and at the very least it would create the appearance of scouting supporting a particular candidate for you to be involved - which might also put some scouts in an awkward personal position.

We've done the odd clean up at an area where we were camping anyway but the short (and in my view, very unfortunate) answer is, we don't do conservation. We do a fair number of community oriented service projects - helping various groups run their events for worthy causes. I don't know why we don't do more conservation. We have a couple of folks in the adult leadership with backgrounds in environmental science so it isn't like we don't have the depth of knowledge! Good for you that your troop is moving more in this direction.

Wow, thanks for the quick responses! One more question: for unit #, we have these listed two different ways. For example, let's say the person in question was in pack 321. On some of our district forms that is listed as 3321. Which of these does the person use on the transfer app? This wouldn't be a big deal if they were transferring in to our council, or within our council - but they've moved across the country (out of our council) and apparently the new council wants the details done right. Thanks again!

I'm trying to help someone with the transfer paperwork for a scout and they need to know our council #. I can wait until Monday and ask our council office but if possible I'd like to be able to answer this person sooner. Can anybody tell me how to find out my council #? It isn't on our council homepage and I haven't had much luck w/ google searches. There's got to be a listing somewhere! Thanks.

Looking again at the aims of scouting and the purpose of scouting as defined by the BSA (see my last post, I'm not re-pasting it), I don't see how being an atheist precludes a boy from achieving those aims or meeting that purpose. Even if we suppose that achieving those aims requires exposure to the notion of faith (of whatever sort), why can't we allow atheist children to join the program and benefit from that exposure through whatever religious elements currently exist in our program? We don't necessarily require that scouts become believers even as things are now - they can be "unchurched" and have no particular affiliation, have exceedingly vague and unvoiced beliefs (rocks?), and still be scouts. If we take that one phrase about personal values based on religious concepts, this still doesn't appear to require that people buy into any religion, but rather, only that they acknowledge that many "personal values" can be extrapolated from religion in some manner. Even many atheists would probably accept the notion that bedrock values - trust, loyalty, compassion, patience, a sense of right and wrong, courage, honesty, etc.. - are often rooted in historical religious texts. This does not necessarily require a belief in those religions, but rather, simply an understanding of the themes and ideals that various religions espouse. Sort of like studying religious texts as literature can be done, even by people who do not take those same texts as religious truth. For those whom this approach offends, let me ask this: if your religion is the one true religion, and if the purpose of the DRP is really to ensure that scouts and scouters become the "best sort" of people, rooted in faith, then aren't all those scouts and scouters of other religions destined to fall short of the mark, being wrong in their religious beliefs? Does it matter which "wrong" answer people chose, whether it is the wrong faith or the lack of religious faith?

Yeah Cary, I can't stand to see a fellow bobwhite down. DON'T WAIT! Lisa'bob A good old Bobwhite too!

I can only speak to what I know my son's troop does. In our troop there is an adult Quartermaster who works along with the youth QM to maintain the gear in working condition. The SM is regularly involved in discussion about what is needed. The gear is stored in someone's barn, who happens to have extra room (neither the QM nor the SM). In the past, the SM has done all of these tasks, but that was largely because a) there wasn't a functional QM and b) that particular SM was a bit of a control freak.

I'm doing some work on a district webelos-scout transition plan (as it stands, there isn't one). There's tons of stuff on the web, some good, some not. One thing I've run across is a "cubmaster's disappearing packet." In some cases this seems to be a rather old document and in some cases a fairly up-to-date document. My questions: Have you heard of this and if so, what worked and/or didn't work in your experience from this document? Thanks.

Gimme a break. This SM is doing the electronic equivalent of sending out the thought police. Not only is this not likely to work out the way he hopes, it is likely to cause big problems. Someone needs to tell him - gently or otherwise - about the first amendment to the Constitution. If it were me, I'm not sure I could do it with a straight face though!

Hi queenj, It sounds like your son just recently became a boy scout, is that right? If so, yes by all means, he can start earning merit badges. Don't force the issue if he isn't interested though, and don't worry about him starting with the Eagle-required MBs. He has several years as a boy scout ahead of him. Also, there's a point (Star & Life rank) where he has to earn some Eagle-required MBs in order to advance further. So it is built into the system - not like he'll get to almost-Eagle and have none of the badges done yet. Part of the purpose of the MBs is to give kids a chance to try new activities and develop new skills. Maybe he'll like an MB so much that it will become a lifelong hobby for him, or possibly even a career track. (Conversely, my son found he disliked one of the MBs he thought would be "cool" and decided that this was *not* what he wanted to do for a living! Also a valuable lesson.) Another purpose, at least in my view, of the MBs is to encourage kids by recognizing their efforts in a different way than rank advancement. They sure feel great when they are awarded their first MB patch! Finally, some MBs are harder than others for young scouts, either because they're not physically ready or because they're not mature enough. Some probably are pitched toward a high school curriculum and could be pretty challenging intellectually for a 10 or 11 year old 5th grader, unless they're deeply interested in the topic already (ex: Environmental Science MB might go well with a high school biology class). I'd say several of the Eagle-required badges are among these. If he is interested, that's one thing, but if you push him into these, he may have a bad experience with them as a new scout. Most new scouts tend to focus on the somewhat simpler badges to earn and have fun doing it, setting them up for working on increasingly difficult badges down the road. So let the MB experience be a positive one for him - let him decide when he's ready to work on them, and which ones he is interested in. As he advances he can work on those Eagle-required badges when he is ready, too. He'll figure out the system pretty quickly once he sees how the other guys in the troop do things too.

Not to mention that just because they've been together since (whatever) grade doesn't necessarily mean they're friends. I'm all for letting the boys make their own decisions when it comes to patrol membership. Keep in mind, though, that the "laggards" may decide that THEY want to be in the other high functioning patrol too. Are you then going to tell them they have to stay together while the other guys split off? If no, is another patrol obligated to take them in? What if they don't want to? To JerseyJohn: Are these other guys really uninvolved/uninterested, or are they just not focused on rank advancement? There are ways to be a strong part of the troop without that focus. Some guys just really want to go camping and have fun. Some want to work on MBs instead. Is there a possibility that this is the dynamic among your "laggards?" Not to hijack the thread but I've wondered about this whole issue of patrol realignment myself. We've got several guys together in one (former) NSP who are hard to get along with, period. And they are like oil and water together. And having been together since (whatever) grade in school and in cubs, some of them really can't stand each other and would probably jump at a chance to redistribute themselves. But no other patrol wants to have any of them either because they're disruptive and obnoxious. Sooner or later someone has to make this decision. In most of the troops I've seen it would be either the PLC as a group (which might not work either if no one wants certain guys in THEIR patrol), the SPL, or maybe the SM. Jblake, in your set up, if the boys in the patrol can't agree on what to do then who decides? I'm not criticizing, I'm asking - so don't jump all over me here.

Looking at the web description of this new pamphlet, I see that it replaces the "Take a Stand Against Drugs" pamphlet that used to be in place. I also see that this new pamphlet is designed to be used with kids in grades 1-12 (seems like a stretch to me!). Here's a link to the description, for those who may be interested: http://www.usscouts.org/safety/Drugs.html Without having seen the "guts" of the new pamphlet I won't comment on whether I think it is, or is not, age appropriate for 4th graders. I will say that when I was a Webelos DL, I asked the parents to cover the material in the old pamphlet at home with their children. And then I asked the boys to let me know when they and their parents had completed that requirement so I could sign their books. Perhaps you can do something similar with this new book - let each parent make their own choice about what they think is appropriate for their child, in their home.

Kim, I apologize if this has turned into a thread where everyone is coming down on the Girl Scouts. That really wasn't my intention when I started it, I just was caught by surprise by this one dad's comment to me. In fairness though, this Dad said he asked to become a girl scout leader for his daughter's troop and was told no. I have no reason to doubt him - and he was looking for a better program for his daughter so it isn't that he couldn't be bothered to spend time with her. Maybe this is a local or regional decision, I don't know. But just as there are great cub scout and boy scout programs I know that there are great girl scout programs too!

The reason I liked the Troop Committee Challenge online is because it is about three thousand times better than the "live" version of the training around here, which does not follow the syllabus and is often a "wing it" sort of deal. But yes, I can imagine where, done right, the live course would be much better. I'm just thoroughly sick of sitting through more bad, live trainings run by people who do not know how to teach anything to anyone and don't bother to put time into learning how, either.

Fgoodwin, I understand what you are saying about another boy feeling that there is a double standard. I guess about all you can point out is that you are asking him to do his very best (in fulfilling requirements x,y,z without cutting corners) because you want him to have the full experience that he is entitled to. While you probably shouldn't comment on how another scout got his badge, you can certainly make sure the scouts you are working with know that you have too much respect for them to be encouraging them to cut corners. And as someone else mentioned, make sure each of these guys has a mentor so that even if they don't have Eagle Scout Dad in the background, they know they've got someone in their corner.

LongHaul, you're right about the time issue, I had forgotten about that. Heh, so much for that (not so) good idea.

Hoo boy, this is a topic that I've learned really upsets people. At one point in our WB course when we had the "diversity" lecture I (big mouth that I am) made the mistake of observing that many units, and maybe the BSA in general, did not appear to be all that interested in actually having diversity within the ranks, but more with making the right noises about diversity. To the extent that we do talk about or maybe do something about diversity issues, it just seems to me that often times we define "diversity" so narrowly as to avoid getting out of our immediate comfort zone. And doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose?