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Lisabob

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Everything posted by Lisabob

  1. I might have missed something but here's what I was responding to: "I apologize if you thought that Republicans were dirty awful people was a characterization that I held. I do not, I was inferring that this the thinking of Democrats " You know, we Dems believe in compromise though, so we might meet you halfway on whether or not Republicans are "dirty awful" - which half do you want to drop? (firmly tongue in cheek, relax everybody)
  2. Hey OGE, how about you don't try to speak for groups you apparently are not part of? I am a Democrat. I don't think it is accurate to say that Democrats as a group feel the way you've inferred we do, about Republicans. If you'd like to go down that road, I'll be happy to start posting what I think Republicans think. After all, as a Democrat, I am sure I'll get it right!
  3. You know, in theory I think this all makes plenty of sense. It would certainly be nice to have more stability in cub pack leadership, similar to what many troops experience. On the flip side though, when I was a cub leader I remember many, many frustrating conversations with troop leaders and district folks who had not one clue about cub scouting. Many had never been cub leaders (maybe they were cub parents, but a lot of these guys delegated cubbing to their wives.). Some of them had been cub leaders but had selective memories or had not kept up with the changes to program, or never
  4. Hey GKlose, I really appreciate the openness with which you are discussing a difficult issue that your troop is facing. One of the things I like about this forum is that we learn from each other's experiences, which only happens when we share those experiences. That said, you mentioned in a post (bottom of pg. 6 I think) something about sharing more data on the scout's participation, attendance, etc, if people here ask for it. I don't think you should go much further down that road. Much as I appreciate hearing more on the story, the scout has a right to some privacy, too.
  5. I have seriously mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, it is easy to understand that you don't wish to be taken advantage of, and it does seem sketchy that the first thing a new troop member would do is to ask for a BOR when you barely even know each other. On the other hand, regardless of how respected the other SM in question is, it is possible that the relationship between the other SM and the transferring boy is just not one that will work out. Or that the culture of the previous troop was toxic for that particular boy, maybe in ways that the other SM just does not even s
  6. When my son was a little fellow, we started out in a pack that had "meetings." They were boring. He loved his den, but hated pack meetings and begged to skip them. His whole den moved to a pack that had "activities." They were fun! Nobody wanted to miss them. Do what works for your pack. Hand out awards at the activities, or in the dens, if you find it works better for you.
  7. Nope, still creepy. Honestly, the more I think about this, the less it makes much sense. You don't really know these kids because you're the UC and district membership chair - not a regular feature in their lives. Most importantly, THEY don't really know YOU. Sending them emails - even via their parents - is spammy, at best. The parents may or may not make the connection that the guy sending their kid birthday wishes is Mr. UC/ Mr. District Membership who comes to pack meetings from time to time and who collected the pack's pile of new cub applications. I can pretty much guara
  8. I agree w/ Basement, except that if you were the Cub Master or Den Leader, you would have ample opportunity to wish the kid happy birthday in person. Here's my standard: if you wouldn't dream of baking the kid cupcakes, DON'T send them some standard fill-in-the-blank birthday wishes. And if you WOULD dream of making them cupcakes, heck, just make them cupcakes! [Only if the parents aren't going to assume you're some creepy adult who is trying to lure the kid into their van with sweets or something, though. You have to have a real connection first.] Kids are already the targets of t
  9. rismith, what you posted from the GTA matches what I wrote. My point is, your claim that EBORs have to be conducted at the district or council level doesn't hold true everywhere. Some places do it that way; other places do not. There are pro's and con's to both, and we had a great discussion about that in a recent thread, which I am sure someone less lazy than me could locate and resurrect, if anybody is interested. Bigger picture: I don't agree with Seattle's suggestion that troops should be able to set their own standards, above & beyond national, for Eagle rank. I've crossed
  10. Hey Gunny, glad to see you back on these boards. Seems like it has been a while. But...um... you do realize that this thread is close to two years old? As Biden had not uttered his (rather idiotic) remarks about chains until earlier this month, I don't imagine Biden's exclusion from this discussion (up to this point) has anything to do with whether he was getting a free pass in this thread, or not.
  11. rismith, it might be worth noting that the decision about whether EBORs should be conducted at the troop or district level (or council) varies from place to place. In my area, at least until recently, Eagle BORs were conducted by the troop committee just like any other BOR, except with a representative of the district invited to participate. A few months back there was a good thread on the forum about people's preferences for Troop vs. District EBORs. What I remember is that people tended to have a strong preference for "the way we do it here," which ever that might have been. An int
  12. "For close to two of those years, we thought he had quit. I think the only other Scouts in the troop that dropped to that inactivity level in fact did quit. " Then you should have removed him from the roster instead of rechartering him in absentia for 2 years. That's a problem. You're trying to address it after the fact, but that's much harder to do in any kind of non-controversial way. I don't think there's an elegant solution to be had, here, because so much has changed in the intervening couple of years (troop leadership - both boy and adult, troop program, troop expectations, n
  13. Hang in there, Calico. As for spinach and pizza, somewhere in my 30s I discovered (to my utter surprise) that asparagus is yummy. But I hold out no hope for spinach, and I still love a good pizza.
  14. This is a tangent to a current thread by GKlose about a 17 year old who appears to be lawyering his way toward Eagle, rather than just doing what's expected of him to earn the rank without contention. As lots of you know (because I have probably mentioned it oh, 100 times), I have an 18 year old in the house. He's a great kid. And yet, sometimes I feel like being a parent of a teen has been an up-close anthropological study of an alien culture. In the last year or two there's been a lot of talk in the house and from his social circle of other nearly-adults about "when I'm an ad
  15. Chris mentions: "This scout has wasted 15 months. If he put in even half the energy that he has spent looking up reasons why he should be signed off, actually being a scout" Since this young man is about to turn 18 in January, is a senior in high school and applying to colleges (of the type where he seems to think having Eagle on his apps will matter - so probably fairly selective & competitive) - put it on the table and tell him exactly this. Share your thoughts about how adults view each other when they make agreements and then one side tries to weasel out. Yeah, it happens more
  16. First, let me say I like NJCubScouter's approach to this. The young man still has 5 months before he turns 18. That's a long time. Try to give him - and you, and the troop - a way to end this well. A power play over whether he actually needs to attend a certain number of additional outings isn't going to get you there. Maybe instead of focusing on the "3 outing requirement" for the sake of the three outings (wow, what fun is that - "You must attend 3 times or else!"), you or the SM or somebody can sit with him and ask him to see things from your side. Explain to him what you
  17. Heh. Nope, delegation doesn't come naturally, but knowing that, I do try harder. Probably still fail more than not, though. Honestly I suspect that they asked me (the 2nd time) to be district membership chair because they wanted a warm body and figured I at least had that quality. Anyway that wasn't my point. I just used that for an example. I guess I could have said it more succinctly, but what I really meant was: Eamonn's right.
  18. You know, I was a district membership chair on two different occasions. The first time, nobody told me - my name was on a piece of paper, but it was news to me. (At the time, I thought this was a rare occurrence - now I know better.) The second time, I actually agreed to do it & kept the position for a couple of years. I backed out when it became a 40+ hour a week job. Just couldn't do that, and got very little help from anybody, but took all the blame if we didn't hit membership targets that were set by somebody way above me without ever having consulted me. To be honest, there
  19. Glad it seems to have worked out for the pack so far, and hopefully the new CM will grow into the role. Now, this is an aside. There are a lot of "I" and "we" and "our" words in your post. Please keep in mind that as UC, you are not a member of the pack. Consequently, the test of whether you were too bold is not the short term success of your efforts; it is more a matter of whether this pack can be self-sufficient and address their own leadership (and other) issues 2 or 3 years down the road, or whether they just start expecting you to intervene and "fix" them time and again.
  20. Yes Frankscout, it is the BSA's fault because it is the BSA's policy (and recent re-affirmation of that policy) that causes all of this upset. If the BSA didn't have this myopic policy, then we wouldn't be twisting ourselves into knots discussing the policy. We'd just be scouting. BSA has total control over this. They can choose to continue spitting into the wind, and accept the logical outcome. Or they can change their policy, reduce the drama, and trust COs to decide for themselves whether a person like the guy in this article are appropriate leaders for a particular unit.
  21. What are you missing? The last bit: Sadly, BSA loses another dedicated and highly regarded volunteer, because of its myopic and self-defeating policies, which the BSA just re-committed itself to within the last month. (that's what makes it a news story)
  22. Ah, sorry for any misunderstanding about the suggested 2-3 yr rotation. So what I'm getting now is that: 1. The SM has been in position for a while, shows no sign of stepping down, but some parents think he's not sufficiently focused on the troop level because of his district work. 2. The COR thinks the SM is just fine and is backing him, but the COR might not be seeing the full story. 3. Some folks are frustrated about not being able to post stuff about the troop/pack in the church that sponsors them (and other signs of lack of interest in the program). 4. There aren
  23. skeptic, are you familiar with Dale (I am certain you must be)? That's the "whatever reason" you seem to be searching for. The policy that BSA has asserted, vigorously, since about 2000 is the issue. The BSA's stance in Dale is the issue. You're pretty much correct that we used to have a "local option." That was, until Dale, when the BSA chose to elucidate a different position. Don't blame "gay rights groups" for a decision made and sustained by the BSA. A Scout is Obedient. A Scout follows the rules of his family, school, and troop. He obeys the laws of
  24. Um Barry, BSA already sells property to "save the program." Are you certain you aren't confusing correlation with causation? Even if you aren't, since this horse has already left the barn, what the heck, we might as well open the doors.
  25. Correction, OGE. No states put limits on members of Congress, as it would be unconstitutional to do so (you'd need to amend the federal constitution). Some states do term-limit their state legislatures, though. I happen to live in one of those and I think I've said before that it seems to produce terrible "leadership" in state government. Everybody's jockeying for whatever they can get "right now" since there are no long-term consequences for them - or anyway, they'll be gone by the time those consequences play out. But scouting is a little different than politics. I hope.
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