MattR

It's not so much that the course wasn't good. It was really good at what it did. Great enthusiasm. But it didn't have what I was looking for. I had a Troop-method troop with a couple of scouts doing everything and I wanted a patrol method troop where everyone had a job to do. Culture in a troop is really hard to change and getting from one to the other is a common problem that in hind sight is not so hard, but is really hard to figure out the first time. I guess my point is there's need for something that complements the course. Something you can take before you write your ticket so your ticke

Join my troop! I'd never turn down an offer for help. Sorry to say, but I'd start asking the wise old guys around the district and on the committee on what it might take to replace the SM. That assumes someone is willing to step up. Best of luck

FrugalProf, have you tried volunteering to run it? Maybe the SM just doesn't have the time or isn't quite sure about part of it. If that isn't accepted and nobody likes the SM then maybe it's time for the CC to have a talk with him and see if he can let loose some of the reins. I wouldn't get too hung up on running ILST exactly as it's in the manual, especially if you have a young troop that has little experience with leading. For a 12 year old I wouldn't expect much more than to get the troop to line up and be quiet. That would be a good start. I used to do the standard ILST and it

I wonder how many people actually leave. I hope not many. Those that do probably should, and those that stay will make us better.

AZMike, I accept your apology, and I apologize for offending you. Yes, the cherry picking comment was over the line. No, it absolutely has nothing to do with me being Jewish. I'm not trying to argue and win you over. I apologize if I implied that. I'm trying to find common ground. After the vote there will be a lot of angry and smug people, neither of which will help the BSA. Machiavelli will rule. Packsaddle, respect would be a good thing not just for me, but for everyone. If there were mutual respect then 20 years ago people could have sat down and worked out a solution to keep people rea

AZmike, here's one cherry the religious right seems to have missed in this argument. One of the main points in the Torah is human dignity. A kid that's gay, that didn't choose to be gay, that can't be "cured" of being gay, that won't inherently harm anyone because he's gay, has no dignity in the boy scouts because he is shunned for something he has no control of. He is seen as inferior, immoral, and is an outcast. All of this because of something God gave him. I'm no religious scholar, but I know this type of humiliation is Wrong. Furthermore, human dignity can supersede commandments in the To

AZMike, when do you have time to write so much? Anyway, we have until Thursday, so let's get back to it. I'll pass on the natural law theory, but thanks for the offer. Using Wikipedia is not what I did, but it is a great source just because it shows how much conflict there is in a topic. The bible has been interpreted and caused arguments for a very long time. The Mishnah and Midrash are explanations and commentary on the Torah. They were written from roughly 140 to 1750 AD. If you've ever heard the joke about 2 rabbis and 3 opinions in the same room, this is where it came from. The

AZMike, we're probably not going to get anywhere with this discussion, but it's interesting and I'm having fun arguing with you. I'd never heard of Natural Law before, so I looked it up. In a nutshell, it seems vague at best. I have to agree with ThomasJefferson, the only natural law when it comes to human behavior is best described by Machiavelli. Morality is what keeps us above that muck. Sexual slavery and debt was real, it was not just POWs that were slaves. Look at wikipedia under the bible and slavery to find a real great quote about selling your daughter as a slave. Comparing

AZMike, I agree with some of what you say and disagree with some. First, there is not a consistent set of moral rules. Different religions believe different things about a few things, homosexuality in particular. I agree that "doing what he or she feels is subjectively right" is a bad idea. But my religious beliefs are different from yours. You might say that I'm not true to the bible, but I'm fairly certain you aren't either. Do you keep kosher? 2500 years ago slavery was fine. It was actually considered a good way to help slaves pay off debts. Nobody believes in that anymore, although it is

It's pretty easy to copy and paste tables into spread sheets and graph them. Canada changed their policy in 98. The drop in beavers and cubs (ages 5-10) from 1990 to 1998 was nearly a quarter of their membership (~20k, or 2.5k/year). From 98 to 05 they lost another 30k, or 4.3k/year. After 2005 it leveled off. All told, the younger scouts lost 3/4 of their membership from 1990 to 2005. Their venture scouts (ages 14-17) hasn't changed much from 90 to 12 (6800-6100). The age between the younger scouts and the older scouts was between those two extremes. While policy on gays may have had somethi

My plan is to keep working on the Patrol Method in my troop. We've made a lot of really great progress in the past year. Irrespective of all the bloviating going on by adults far far away, my scouts are a bunch of great kids and are the reason I keep going. The people that say the country is going to hell don't know the scouts in my troop, or probably any other troop. Most of the scouts would be fine with gay scouts and some would be real uncomfortable. Either way, they know the right thing to do, they can be tougher critics than the adults, they can figure out how to get along with each

Krampus, there's nothing that says gays can't be in scouting now, they just can't admit it. So they're already sleeping in close quarters. What does "not avowed" really mean anyway? So a kid knows he's gay, is part of the local gay organization, but denies he's gay. He's not avowed. What an ugly mess. I talked to my DE and it looks like council's South of the Mason Dixon line and East of Texas (including Texas) are voting against, North and East of the Mississippi are voting for (not sure about Florida). The West coast is for. The center of the country is following the red/blue map.

Thanks for posting that link to the whole survey results, AZMike. I never knew it existed. I read the whole thing and what a mish mash of numbers. Predicting what will happen based on these numbers is like predicting the Final Four. It's a Rorschach test, you can find anything you want in there. What struck me was that the parents and the scouts are fine with some sort of change and the scouters are not. Something about knowing your customers applies here. Maybe I picked up on that because I'm the one in my troop always defending the notion that the scouts do know the right thing to do an

Have you ever noticed how little boys beat on things and little girls beat on emotions. Children beat on things to understand them. Boys are wired to understand things, girls are wired to understand people. Not always, but generally. We had an exchange student from Denmark stay with us and she was a scout. She, said, confirming what someone else said, that most scouts are boys. The bigger difference seems to be that in Europe parents aren't involved, it's mostly 20 somethings. She was very jealous of our calendar, though.

Yep, that's why I didn't put Islam in the list of religions that don't have a solid stand on the issue. By "most mainstream religions" I assume you mean Christians and Muslims, as they're the only two that take a consistent stand on homosexuality. Those two religions are, by membership, the largest.

That concern, while a great example of a confused bureaucracy, is probably less of a real problem. How many parents in your troop help out but aren't registered adults? So tell the scout not to register but ask him to help out. It won't work for the guy that wants to be SM or a camp director, but will work for everyone else. As packsaddle said, it will work itself out. It's not great, but I'd rather deal with that problem than splitting my troop in half, or splitting camporees, or .... It's like the people that tell us scouts can't climb on rocks over shoulder height. That probably works f

My point is that organizations sometimes need to figure out what they do well and what they should stay away from. What the BSA does well has little to do with gays and is more about creating troops and packs with a good program. By taking a stand on gay rights the BSA has become a focal point of the culture war. They've been that way for a long time, it has done them no good, and going all in or all out won't change that. They recognize that society is mixed on this and taking a position that reflects the middle ground is a position that reflects society. I can certainly see how you would not

I must admit, I like the idea that there won't be two different types of troops. On May 25th I'll just be able to say this is the way it's going to be, take it or leave. I don't need to worry about splitting the troop, or split camporees, or split summer camp. There's some wisdom in that. If the program is good then scouts will stay. Maybe the strategy isn't to appease the far left or far right, because they will still scream and oxygenate their blood no matter what the BSA does. They also have no qualms about destroying the BSA to make a point. Maybe the strategy is to appease the center

My take on this is that it started with the top 70 when they said they wanted a change. They did an informal poll of the councils and came up with the 2/3 want to change it number. They start talking about the change in Feb and the blow back is big, so they figure they'll do a real survey and things will go their way. As the results indicate, it's really a mixed bag. The future implies change is needed but the current membership is on the fence. A little risk analysis - they don't want to walk away with nothing - suggests change the scout policy now and the adult policy can wait. It's int

Only Orthodox Jews prohibit only homosexual acts. No Jews would likely prevent a gay scout or leader from being in a unit (Orthodox and conservative Jews would not be happy with married, gay parents). Reform, reconstructionist, and conservative Jews will ordain gay rabbis. Buddhism is just as all over the map as Judaism. Hinduism is similar. In both cases homosexuality isn't mentioned very much so it seems like it's up to the individual.

I'm sure it was the ghost, there was nothing obnoxious about the joke. No offense was taken. At this point, we need a place to talk so I'll be thrifty and leave things alone.

I'm posting this here because someone erased my joke, the other threads seem to be messed up, and this one has plenty of room. The reality of what I do as a Scoutmaster sort of hit me last weekend at a campout. It really got me thinking. I know I won't change anyone's opinion, but here's mine. The biggest problem I have is with scouts that don't have a stable family. I have scouts whose fathers have died, a scout whose father held him and his mom at gun point, a scout raised by his grandmother because his parents are in jail, a scout suffering PTSD because of things his biological mo

How does the comment "wasphood at its finest" help the discussion? It comes across sounding like a personal dig or someone making fun of gays or any other minority. I doubt if that was your intent.

Packsaddle, I could see how one survey would be better. I read that they are sending out 1.1 million surveys. With only 3 million scouts, that's real accurate. They'll know unit by unit. The process is odd but I think it's slow for a reason. This is a big change. Change is hard. Maybe they're trying to minimize the fallout. All the talking and blogs and angry comments and grandstanding media sessions are just filler to give people time to come to terms with this. Some will go no matter what but a lot will probably realize that scouts is still a good thing and hopefully figure out how to w