bacchus

Carpentry.

"Just wanting to clarify. But CO's have control over their units in a lot of respects. Venturing can have co-ed units, but they can also be all male and even all female crews. Haven't seen an all female crew, but that would be cool if a CO felt that need for that."

Our council has a couple all-female crews.

Sorry, that was taken the wrong way I was referring to Baden, but he makes a good point that if you want a co-ed unit, Varsity is not the way to go.

Also Sherm I agree that suddenly attempting to start up a new older-youth unit from the existing unit could sure look like some of the troop organization are "splitting up".

"Juries are idiots."

Be aware that when you say this, you are also calling the judge an idiot. He has the power to issue a Directed Verdict. He is also the trier of law while the jury is merely the trier of fact.

Did you ever notice that juries don't write opinions, but just say YES or NO to the questions that are asked of them?

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/BoyScouts/Resources/ThreeWaysVarsity.aspx

It sounds like you already have your mind made up about Varsity, but here are some ways it can be used.

Gary, they can be dual-registered in the Troop to remain eligible.

Nice summary Schiff. I will have to print that and share it.

As the COR, you and the IH should be discussing these things on a very detailed basis regularly. You need a relationship that includes trust and reliability on each other.

I would say if the IH already said no, he/she has that authority and that's the final answer. Anything other than completely following the denial and you are breaking down your relationship, and greatly weakening the entire charter arrangement.

As the COR, you are the IHs spokesman in his/her absence and he/she needs to believe you will follow through on directives.

It sounds to me like it was handled correctly. I wouldn't get the committee involved.

Personally, if I was the dad I would have done something until the SM stepped in. Maybe that's the real problem...

Just so I know who to defend, which organization are you talking about, LDS or BSA? And by elite are you referring to all the Eagle alumni out there?

"I don't see it happening though until the LDS church backs out of the BSA. Many church members don't see that too far away, maybe 5 years at the most!"

What? I must not have met any of those church members because I haven't heard this. The Church is fully behind the BSA and very supportive.

If the Church was so against co-ed opportunities, and had such great power over the BSA (as alluded in your comment, and suggested in other threads), then why is Venturing co-ed?

Some pre-Venturing program that is co-ed might be a good thing. BSA could even make it an additional program and keep cubs and boy scouts separate for those who want the old-fashioned "boy" program, much like they have the existing overlap with Venturing and Boy Scouts.

As a leader in scouting, I want to see my youth perform as a team. With a constant inflow of scouts every couple months, it seems as though there is plenty of time to work on this, and a great need for it. I want them to learn leadership skills. With a regular rotation into PORs, I can see this happening.

The rank advancement is a different matter. I want to see the youth succeed and get their advancement, and will everything I can to help them. I don't feel it is my job to push their advancement, just to make it an option and available. There are other adult leaders who feel it is their job to slow down advancement, or even prevent it at times.

To me the rank advancement is a different matter than forming, storming, norming, and performing of team building and leadership.

1) Do you see it differently?

2) If you have ever slowed down somebody's rank advancement, what was the reason?

Back to the original post. Let's review what we know from the article.

1) The city of Philadelphia entered a contract with the BSA (or more likely, some locally chartered entity of the BSA). 2) The city is now trying to break that contract.

The excuse is some public policy issue, however I seriously doubt the contract has language in it that says the city can legitimately break the contract for public policy issues.

More likely, the city is trying to add another $200k to its coffers every year.

What I find interesting is that any sane person can read the article Merlyn posted and realize it is biased against the scouts by the quotes they use and the suggestions for legal tactics in the future in this matter.

I have a heavy zero degree bag that I sleep on top of.

Desert,

So you actually believe that not taking WB really makes some people better adult scout leaders?

Moose, I agree. Somebody can't expect to just come in and steal all the active older scouts in a scouting program!

Desert: "Bacchus, where does your drop out fall short? On scouting knowledge? Enthusiasm? Human relations? Communication?"

It would probably fit into "attitude". Meaning that if somebody does not have the intention of doing everything they can to be a successful adult leader, then they don't really care to be the best adult leader they can be.

"Even if he graduated, is there any guarantee that he'd be different?"

Yes. I would definitely see a different attitude.

One of our scouters went to the first weekend and never returned for the second, nor did any tickets. Maybe due to the game, I don't know. Anyway, he's now a major player in the scout program, and the lack of training shows.

It's tough to be trained and have somebody else trying to tell you how to do things when they "know how it's supposed to work" but you know they don't even know what they don't know - and don't even care to learn.

Moose - "The troop did finally kill the Venture program, by just doing nothing with it, for it.. And by having the parents from the troop, not back their sons if they wanted to jump.. "Go, but find a ride 'cause I wont take you, and no I will not be a leader".."

Sounds kind of dirty.

Stlhiker, if you are trying to convince a stubborn scoutmaster to be a venturing adviser as well, you will most likely run into the same situation as moose. if you are trying to convince the stubborn scoutmaster to not necessarily be the adviser, but to give the crew his "blessing" with the committee, you are still in danger of running into the same problems.

You might instead want to get the older, former scouts and their parents together and start up a new committee and crew from scratch, and propose this to the CO. That way you aren't cutting into the SMs program, and you are actually using the venturing program how it was intended.

Moose, I have to give your son props for taking the high road and realizing this can be resolved by him just taking care of business even though his father stepped in and put up another hurdle. Imagine how nasty this could have ended up if he hadn't been the mature one.

Why is the quartermaster shirking his responsibilities and shifting them to an adult? I think at his next BOR I would ask some specifics about a POR where he "hadn't done a thing with it" other than at the end of his term to create more work for an adult.

My DE gave me an old one when he left the BSA a year ago. It's too small for me, but it fits the younger kids nice for some pictures.

"Number 1) This should be you son's goal not yours."

No offense intended, Moose.

Whenever somebody mentions their young son's intentions on advancement, this statement is immediately made. The statement sounds neutral enough, but its true translation is, "your son doesn't want to advance, and you should just leave him alone to play scouts."

I have noticed this is only an issue when a scout is perceived as being "too young" for advancement. When the scout is being pushed by his mother at 17 to finish up his Life requirements so he can start working on Eagle nobody seems to care that it's his mother's goal and willpower pushing him on.

I say if the youth does the requirements let him have his BOR.

My personal opinion is that you work the program and let advancement take care of itself. Scouts is really 2 programs, scouting and rank advancement. If a scout wants to work hard on his own and advance faster than the norm I don't see a problem with that as long as he is taking care of his responsibilities in the Patrol and Troop. if a scout wants to ignore the rank advancement and still takes care of his responsibilities that is fine too.

However, what I find more often is the extremes. Scouts who have semi-dropped-out and come back to finish Eagle right before they turn 18, and scouts who want to keep the rank advancement going early on. Unfortunately, there are many adults out there who think they are the "keepers of the Eagle" and if a scout is too young, will set up roadblocks and barriers. Those same adults will bend over backwards and bend the rules to get a 17-year-old to Eagle by his birthday.

My response would be that if the activity fulfills both requirements then you can count it for both. You can do that any time the requirement does not specifically exclude that option.