mds3d

I will say this till I am blue in my face. The COR is supposed to be involved! Yes, for many troops this is a ceremonial position that belongs to the CO and puts his name on some forms a few times a year. That isn't the intended purpose. The COR is supposed to be the official representative of the CO to make sure that the unit serves the purpose of the CO and represents them well. If you have a situation where a Scouter might need to be removed he needs to be involved. If you have a Unit Commissioner they can be a great source of advice as well.

I hope you are doing the right thing. This still sounds like a bit of a toxic environment. Why would a lawsuit be filed?

I don't think BSA documents actually support the CC having Hire/Fire authority over the SM or ASMs. BSA Rules and Regulations published June 2018 state the following- "Chartered organizations may remove or refuse to renew the unit registration of unit leaders when the unit committee and chartered organization representative agree that the Scouter’s service is no longer desired or required." CO's may remove scouters. The confusion comes because so many CC's are dual CC/COR. I don't know what district volunteer would have said that. Besides, the camping r

The troop committee does not have the authority to replace you as scoutmaster. That is not their job. Officially only the COR has this authority. That being said my advice is as follows: GET OUT!!!!!! I may have missed it but I don't see your son's age and rank. They would have to be nearly done for me to say that you might as well stay. This sounds like a very toxic place. You might discuss the issue with your COR (the person really in charge). If they are supportive of you continuing to develop the troop then they need to inform the committee that they don't have the authority

I think the CO bears almost all of the moral responsibility that can be placed on someone other than the perpetrator. Lawsuits aren't about moral responsibility, they are about financial responsibility and most of these places are churches that would never be able to pay out much.

Having been both the bullied and the bully at various points during my time as a scout, and having no knowledge as to the actual nature of the bullying in this instance - I would say that your assertion that this SPL cannot change is a little over the top. These are presumably both Life Scouts, though I have no idea how old they are. These boys obviously aren't friends, but they don't have to be. Selection of the ASPL was done incorrectly it seems in this troop, and that certainly didn't help matters. It may be that no one has taught these scouts how to be around people who aren't your

I just want to comment on who has the responsibility of dealing with bullying. From a UC's point of view - It depends. If this is an opportunity to teach and improve the bully then it is "program" and the SM's job. If this is a situation that needs "corrective action" or requires involvement of the boy's parents (more than "let me tell you about the talk johnny and I had") then it is administration and the CC/COR/IH (depending on the relationship) should be involved. Anything where you are talking about "punishments" or the like needs to be handled by the unit key 3. If (and

@The Latin Scot I am a little sorry I posted this now. I will continue to address things you bring up however. I know you are not a new scouter. Neither am I. I wasn't talking about us. I was referring to the Scouter who turns to this community and others for the first time looking for advice that doesn't have anything to do with the terminology used around uniforms. Those terms are not "pushed" they are used, by volunteers who run and participate in district level meetings, to refer to the Official Uniform and matching t-shirts. Scouters ask things like "What are people doing a

I think that the use of the terms do not necessarily indicate a "lackadaisical attitude towards the uniform" If you showed up at any of our local district meetings (committee, commissioner, roundtable) you could easily be convinced that "Class A" and "Class B" were official synonyms for Field and Activity. I also here "Full Dress" around here a lot to mean the fully decked out version of the uniform (sashes, medals, etc). A scouter coming from my district online here for the first time would not understand any negative reaction to these terms. I didn't say that the use of just "uniform"

I don't expect a 12 year old to get a real job. I don't really think the BSA does either, at least not anymore. I think the idea is that dues should cover your monthly budget and that fundraisers should be used for capital expenditures (tents, flags, etc) that last over multiple years. However, since the BSA doesn't really recognize units as separate entities from their CO I would say that the official line is probably that those things should be provided under the budget of the CO. Since the CO actually owns anything the troop owns, any fund raisers that benefit the troop alone might real

"Class A" and "Class B" when referring to uniforms originate with the US military but are no longer specifically military. Police, Fire, and EMS departments also use this terminology. Additionally there are no longer officially "Class A" or "Class B" uniforms (confirmed with US Army, don't know about other branches) in the military either. Regardless, in most contexts, the military heritage of these terms is irrelevant. If the BSA was really that concerned with the military association they wouldn't license to a company called "Class B"

What I think is funny (and confusing) is that if you search "scout activity forms" you still get the following from Mike Walton http://www.scoutinsignia.com/abcd.htm As he is generally considered a good reference for scout things, him leaving this page up means (or maybe causes) the terms still do get used. Of course, what he describes is what my unit called them circa 2001. Except for us, Class A = the full thing, and Class B = just the shirt. I know that this was wrong even at the time, but I think it served a purpose. For our unit, it encouraged the full uniform while still giving

If you really want to cover your bases, and I do think that this is technically required, you might think of how this would be easiest for the situation. I would recommend providing the form to volunteers ahead of time (A&B) with something like the following explanation on an envelope containing the form) As an explanation - I advocate for the following handling of the AHMR- Forms are turned in sealed in a standard envelope. Each participant (or guardian) is asked "Do you (or your scout) have any medical issues we should be aware of before we are away from prompt medi

I would say that there might be some (although difficult to define) value in this goal. This is how I would pitch it. If units in the council are providing a high quality program, a certain percentage of registered scouts should reach eagle every year. Not reaching that number might mean that the provided program isn't as high quality as we want. It might also mean a bunch of other things. Metrics are useful for businesses and organizations when used correctly. The questions that matter are how they arrived at that number, and what do they do when the number isn't met.

I didn't want to post this in the original thread because I didn't want to derail. I seem to see someone bring up the classification of uniforms any time the words "Class A" or "Class B" are used. I just wanted to say that this interjection of correctness (pedantry IMHO) isn't helpful or courteous most of the time. Most of the time it easy to tell if people mean "Class A = Field" and "Class B = Troop T-shirt" or some small variant of that. In most circumstances it really isn't important that the field is the only real uniform and that there isn't an accepted variant on "fully uniforme

I just have guesses at this point, but are you willing to be a little more specific? We might be able to identify the guideline that your council thinks it violates. I think that some councils are stingy about approving things because scouts are supposed to pay their own way. The official deal is that units shouldn't really need a lot of money (or technically any).

The state says that they weren't deteriorating but becoming dangerously slippery from rain or fallen leaves. This is one of the issues with doing work for a government agency. If it had slowly needed repair, then someone might have thought to get in touch with the scouts to get it fixed. If someone thought it was a safety issue, then I imagine that order probably took less than 24hrs to issue. Someone said it was unsafe, a ranger went and determined it wasn't really necessary and a supervisor ordered it demolished. It wouldn't surprise me if someone actually slipped and got hurt.

Being a UC, I would say that this fits within our wheelhouse. The truth is, this isn't actually a legal matter yet. You have a scout who is accused of violating the law, but this isn't a police matter. No LEO would be able to act on the information here. This is primarily a mission issue. If this were brought to me, I would advise a meeting between the CC, COR, and SM and NO ONE ELSE. Primarily this kind of issue lies within the preference of the CO. Because, this is a potential legal matter and certainly a recruitment and relationship (and probably safety) matter this should be wh

I think the spirit of the rule is to only count "summer camp" once otherwise most scouts would only need to camp 5 nights outside of camp. I would not count part of a long term camp as a short term camp unless this was truly a different event (not during the summer camp week at the summer camp). Over the last two years this scout has camped 4 times + NYLT + Summer Camp. That is not enough for the OA IMHO. I think you are eligible because you camp. OA is a recognition of those who spend time away from civilization, usually under the stars or a tent roof, and who do it honorabl

Wow, Eagledad, I wish they would just make you in charge. Here is where I expect these things came from. Someone at national asked some scouts who stuck with the program (11 to 18) what made them stay. They got a large number of "the OA" answers. I think this is true of many Arrowmen. I also think that the rate of people sticking with the OA after Brotherhood is much higher than those who only ever complete the Ordeal. National must have concluded that getting scouts to brotherhood with help them stick with the OA longer, sticking with the OA will make them stay in the program longe

If they forced it, I would be tempted to pick a three digit number not in use and put that on your uniform and only use the 4 digit one (starting with a 4) for official stuff. Essentially that is what everyone with a less than four digit number does, they just don't include leading zeros.

All the information we have about 2017 is that "an incident" occurred. No one but the involved people, the BSA, and the investigators know exactly what that incident was. We have no idea if it was something to be reported or not. This is the problem with the news cycle related to criminal cases. Except in the most sensational of cases, we will never hear what happened to these people. The news will not report if they are found innocent, because that doesn't get clicks and sell ads. Yes, some of them seem pretty cut and dry, but others are all accusation at this point. It is ba

I am not really trying to challenge, just curious. Why do you want it to cease being a flag? Then you are destroying the flag by cutting and only burning two pieces of cloth. I find the traditions very interesting. Without a specific prescribed ceremony different ones have been created with different meanings and logic. We were taught that the flag was burned as one piece because it remains a symbol of unity until its retirement. We were taught to fold the flag in half then drop the stripes on the fire, then fold the flag over onto the fire so the canton remained up (because i

^ My notes in bold above. We cannot prevent every bad person from joining scouts if that person has not shown how he is bad yet. You posted 7 articles. 4 were definitely unrelated to scouting, 1 might have been unrelated (no information). The last two are hard to judge what would have been done to prevent it. None display any improper actions by any part of the BSA.

Zero cases where guidelines were followed is the goal. Making that number actually zero is solely in the hands of frontline volunteers and parents that need to make sure that guidelines are NEVER violated.