BadenP

It is nice to see there are so many enlightened scouters concerning this issue, kudos!!!!

emb021 I understand where you are coming from because I have been there. My first bit of advice is not trying to do the changes all by yourself, you need to have a good percentage of the Crew Advisors on your side, it has to be a group effort. In our council our SE was in a panic as he saw more crews and our last sea scout ship closing down. What we did was to get almost all our adult crew advisors,and VOA together from all areas of interest and come up with some solid and achievable joint goals to 1) Improve our Venturing programs in quality and size. 2)Really put our programs out there

qwasze The Venturing Oath, not well written I agree, still it distinguishes Venturing as a seperate entity from Boy Scouts and not merely an extension of it. I never have to argue with my SE about Venturing he asks us for advice. Those armchair scouters at National have no reason to make these changes. All of the ones they made in the past didn't work or IMO crippled all the programsin various ways. All of them at NAtional are ;living in fear that they will be recognized as the expendable deadwood they are, so they create these ridiculous surveys and programs in an attempt to save their j

qwasze and all In my experience with Venturing for almost 12 years now the problems in getting it off the ground has been a total lack of understanding of what the program is SUPPOSED to be based on their own literature by both National and Council employees. In addition the disjointed and watered down training given on all levels to Venturing advisors and youth officers. IMO how can any revision coming out of National, who doesn't understand the program in the first place, be of any real value to those of us in the field who have been delivering the program. At least in my council w

Oak Tree to paraphrase your last statement "and sometimes adult scouters say something with a little bit too much black and white worldview in it --- such is the life of a poor scout." (dedicated to BSA24 & Callay and their truly narrow vision of what the BSA really is.)

More than likely coming from National they will probably come up with a program like urban scouting of the 70's and destroy Venturing in the process. The only trouble Venturing has is that the staff at National does not even understand the Venturing program in the first place. They view it as an older version of boy scouts,so they want us to adopt the Scout Oath, what a joke, which it is not. In the field too many Venturing advisors are former SM's and run the crew the exact same way, some even ban girls from joining. The training given to new Venturing adult and youth leaders is totally innac

SP You really need to get over yourself already. You speak for very few, if any, of the scouters in the BSA. Your constant politicizing in every thread and on every topic is not only sad but irritating as well.

SP If you try doing that in a public school it would be your first and LAST time, and the school district would probably ban you permanently. Don't believe me, just try it and see what happens.

7hiker I don't know about what you are talking about, my emeritus advisor patch stitching is perfectly centered. I assume they could do the same thing on the SM patch, and it looks a whole lot nicer than a seperate strip running below the patch. Different strokes I guess.

David When I stepped down as crew advisor to become the CC/COR the crew took an Advisors patch to a local embroidery company and had "Emeritus" sewn on in gold thread. It is not official but I treasure it all the same. When I go on trips with the crew I sometimes put it in a plastic temporary patch holder and wear it on the front pocket, the teens love seeing me wear it. You could do the same thing on a scoutmaster patch, even though it is not official, unless you have a bunch of uniform police in your troop, lol.

Eagle92 When I was a DE one of my districts were 25% LDS, my RT Commissioner was LDS, and they came to roundtables, camporees, summer camp, and district events as much as the non LDS did. The only problem was that they left camporees on Saturday night, but they participated as much as anyone. One year I even had the LDS Stake President as my district chair, who was well known and liked by the entire community. This was in Northern California

SP You can't recruit in the schools for the AHG since they are a religious based and focused program, it violates the the Constitution. Merlyn That is an interesting proposal. The fact is that allowing girls in the scouts would boost membership considerably, especially in Cubs, and probably in boy scouts as well, Venturing is already there.

pack That is my point, it would be the LDS splitting not the other way around, but really as I said the LDS already has their own unique scouting program, with all the benefits of the BSA materials and facilities why would they split? Especially due to the fact if the BSA were to make any changes in their program/policies in regards to gender or lifestyle the LDS would be exempt from following those changes. It would be much more of a hassle for them to build another program from scratch, not to mention losing the benefit of becoming an Eagle Scout. The LDS is here to stay in spite of a

I think too many here are using their own personal prejudices and stereotypes to justify what THEY want the scout uniform to be, too many are stuck in their personal vision of "the good old days". Time for you guys to come into the 21st Century and see what the boys actually want. After all it is the boy and not the uniform that makes him a scout. Change is part of life and I am willing to bet by the end of this decade we will see the uniform undergo some big changes.

whitepine Councils can not secede, they are part of the National organization. Some new groups might form but until they are tested and prove to be viable alternatives the majority will stay with the BSA. The LDS basically already have their own exclusive scouting program and would continue on the same no matter what the rest of the organization does.

I agree with the group on this one. Another stupid idea from National with no place to go. I think old Tico has way too much free time on his hands.

F Scouter Hey Frank still as surly as ever and just as uninformed. It looks like Terry must be real desperate for moderators that he appointed you, what a laugh. Yes you and ponzi will get along just fine since both of you have such narrow minded viewpoints on both scouting and life. Frank all I can say to you is that the BSA is indeed fortunate that you are no longer in an active position to influence any youth. So now you can concentrate all your poisonous comments here in this forum,the only place where anyone will even listen to you anymore, lol.

skeptic Wow I didn't know you were in communication with or could channel and speak for the poor dead spirit of the founder of scouting, LOL. What else has he said to you? I really think it is really crass of you to even claim to know what Baden Powell really truly thought about anything outside of scouting, as it would be mere speculation. I think your ideas of "misperceptions" may be your own. Like ponz you may just be way too close to the AHG subject to see things objectively. Not that you would care anyway skeptic, but the Council of Churches in my area has unanimously voted to b

ponzi, ponzi,ponzi You are really a piece of work. I am not closed minded as you have shown yourself to be in the past. What I do see is an organization trying to falsely pass themselves as a "scouting" organization which is quite simply not the case as my previous post shows. The LDS uses its scouting program to partly prepare their boys to go on a mission at 18. They do not try to wangle boys into their scouting program under false pretenses to convert them to Mormonism. The AHG does exactly that however, telling their potential members look at all the fun things we do, and once th

jjansson The elitist attitude of your last post shows exactly why AHG is NOT a scouting organization. You all pray that your Islamic girls will "see the light and accept Christ into their lives". What a condescending and racially biased remark. Look I have been a Christian minister for 15years now and have been involved with an ecumenical association of priests, rabbis, ministers, imans, etc. We understand that we all have very different religious philosophy's but we respect each others differences and look for common ground for constructive dialogue in eliminating prejudice and mi

AHG is in no way close to being a scouting program. It is nothing more than a religious recruitment tool and nothing more. jjansons last post just proves my point.

I can only speak to the GSA in my area, but many of them enjoy doing outdoor treks, in fact our crew has two groups of senior girl scouts who regularly join us on some of our trips. Also in our area they do a lot of community service events and projects. In addition the adult leaders and their young ladies love to do joint activities with our district crews. The only restriction is that the outdoor activities are limited to the older girls. It was nice to see BSA and GSUSA youth participating jointly and putting on a program in a Memorial Day Celebration this past May. The mayor came over to u

bnelon & ghermanno I agree with both your posts 100%. As an ASM, SM, and CA all of the EBOR's were done on the district level and it was indeed showcasing the Eagle as the pinnacle of the scouts journey. As a DE for two districts there were numerous times I was asked to be on the district EBOR's and for me I considered it quite an honor and experience. IMO, unit level EBOR's lack any real luster or special quality. In my current council ALL EBOR's are done on a district level.

emb021 Venturing still goes unanswered because no one at National really understands the program or its potential, the original premise of the program is full of holes that the adult and youth leaders in the crews have had to compensate for in their programs. Personally I would love to go to National and rewrite the entire Venturing program, patterned after our districts very successful program. In addition get rid of all those pathetic and poorly written Venturing manuals and replace them with one handbook, easy to reference, resource filled, and full of useful information that can be us

BSA24 & Barry While interesting debate it really has nothing to do with the topic at hand, Aus. Girl Guides.