BadenP

Hey Buffalo, an advancement tracking form does not make it an "offical program", there are no official BSA guidelines, program or procedures in print. Again all FCFY was ever meant to be was a marketing ploy for boy scout retention which never accomplished its goal.

Boy talk about taking something simple and making it complicated, an NRA certified instructor, as the GSS states, is totally acceptable and is a lot easier to obtain than wasting all your time and money going to camp school. All you will get from camp school is another unnecessary and expensive patch that is not even required in the first place. Go to the NRA courses and get certified there, it is a lot more convienent and a whole lot less expensive. Besides if you are going to a non BSA range the BSA certification means very little.

"Spoken like a true socialist" Brent what a totally ignorant statement on your part. If you had your way our country would look like one big wasteland digging for oil, minerals, and natural gas to support you driving your gas guzzling redneck pickup truck. It is people like you that have created this environmental mess in the first place over the years, tell me how are you going to tell your grandkids why the oceans are too polluted to swim in or why the forests are disappearing? It is because of people like you that our country has gone from a first rate country to a second rate one. You know Dunwoody it amazes me that you were ever a scout leader since you so obviously do not respect the beauty or the necessity of God's creation. So go race your pickup and waste more fossil fuel for your own selfish needs, I find you to be a totally reprehensible person.

Now a new internet news article today a NY Eagle Scout and a senior is suspended from his high school for having a 2" knife in his emergency kit in his car. He is afraid with this on his record he won't be allowed in at West Point next year. When will the madness end???

It really bothers me to see the ever widening gap between council staffs and volunteer scouters. When I was a DE almost twenty years ago this relationship while occasionally a bit strained was never as hostile as it seems to be today nationwide. I loved the way my two districts with some fantastic volunteer scouters were able to exceed FOS goals every year and in return we had the strongest district programs, highest percentage of trained leaders in the council, and scouting was a strong presence in both districts. This could only be accomplished by maintaining good relationships between myself and the council, the volunteers,and the community leaders. Now National seems to have lost sight for the need of this mutual cooperation to be successful and instead trying to use their authority to promote only their own self interests. And then they wonder why FOS is failing to reach their goals.

scoutingagain Do not lose heart because of a few cranky uniform purists, the accomplishment still stands, three Eagles in one family is a noteworthy event anytime. Some people just like to pick apart at the little things. Reminds me of that great quotation, "You are only as big as the little things that get you upset." Keep up the good work.

I too have gotten a lot of excellent information and resources in this forum. Specifically, for my Venturing crew resources and methods cited by emb021 and Eamonn have been very beneficial in helping make my crew continue to grow and prosper, and even when we disagree I still value their advice. For overall scouting wisdom Beavah and Kudu especially have been fantastic resources of sage advice, as have a few others on this forum, and I have used many of their ideas in working with troops and packs in my district. Aside from the I&P section that we all use to blow off some steam, lol, this is a fantastic resource.

SR540 You will not find an authorized or official FCFY program from the BSA because it is not either. FCFY was just a not well thought out marketing idea by National to assist in boy scout retention, which unfortunately it has not accomplished. Is it a good idea? Yes, if it is done correctly within the methods of scouting, but with no official guidelines it is a hit and miss proposition, some troops do it well and yet many just slam the boys through like it was some sort of race. Now if National is really serious about this idea taking hold they need to come out with a official set of guidelines so that the program is done consistently throughout the country and not the hodge podge mess that is currently passing itself off as FCFY.

Brent may have a point, however in my neck of the country it is rare to see a boy scout in full uniform anymore. Yesterday I saw an entire troop doing a fundraiser were in uniform shirts and jeans, which seems to have become the norm rather than the exception. In any case the accomplishment is what should be emphasized not the pants. I have a feeling the two older boys probably are not scouts anymore anyway given the year they received their Eagles, so it is amazing they still had their shirts and neckers. Anyway Boy Scouts needs all the good publicity and PR it can get to keep the movement alive in the public eye.

You know what Merlyn scoutldr is right on in his assessment of you, you ARE nothing but a Troll and one of the worst kind. Well I am through feeding the troll, namely you, you are not worth the trouble.

Merlyn I have NEVER condemned anyone for expressing their opinions even when I totally disagreed with them, so as you are so fond of saying,"quit trying to put words into my mouth".

Actually Merlyn theology really means the study of gods and the systems of worship people have used over time, but if you had studied theology you would have known that too. Ripmod is free to express his OPINIONS as is anyone else here but telling him not to try to shove it down others throats is because that is a violation of their religious freedom, that is not hypocrisy except maybe in your own mind.

See Merlyn you even have a fan base in this forum, lol. I said I rather doubted not he never did and since he did not rebute my claim I must assume it is a valid one, and yes pack anyone is free to study anything they want to that is the American way. NW, there were many scripture books that did not make the cut by the early church authority for various reasons, that did not necessarily make them invalid just not in line with the new church hierarchy which had been created after Constantines adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Holy Roman Empire. Later in the middle ages the now Roman Catholic Church made even more selective changes with the scriptures creating the Douay-Rheims Bible used up until the 1960's and Vatican II when the church revised the Bible once again eliminating the Douay Rheims used for hundreds of years. So you see men did alter the "Word of God" to serve their own purposes over the centuries, especially the Catholic Church.

Merlyn Funny that you claim to know anything about theology, being an atheist I doubt you ever studied it. It is religious doctrines aka religion not theology that tells others how and what to believe, theology is the study of all religious beliefs from ancient tribal beliefs to modern day religions with no preference given to any one. But then again I would not expect you to understand that. Religious freedom allows you to believe what you want to or nothing at all, much like yourself, it is not a license to ramrod a belief down someones elses throat, that would be a theocracy which the USA is not. I am really surprised at you Merlyn I thought you were much more informed than perhaps you really are.

Sorry ripmod but your theology is as faulty as your facts from the through brainwashing you have received from that heretical religious tradition you belong to. You are free to believe what you like but do not tell others what or how to believe, in this country we have something called religious freedom.

What a bunch of bitter, angry, and childish sour grapes right winged crybabies, and to think you all work with todays youth. Don't you all have something better to do, man talk about pathetic.

John in KC I agree with your post 100% however it is amazing to me how many scouts sell fundraisers for their units at fairs , festivals, what have you in full uniform these days. Every fair and festival I attended this summer at at least one if not several units selling items to raise funds for their troop or pack, ie, refreshments, hot dogs, soda, first aid kits, flashlights, emergency kits, etc., etc. and when I asked what they were raising money for the usual answers were for a trip or camp, or new equipment. This was not just an isolated case or two either it was over a dozen units in different councils and all of them were in uniform. So this tells me that the adult leaders in these units do not know the policy or outright choose to ignore it.

It is one thing to teach a boy a skill, have him really learn it, then do it well, and then teach it to a younger scout, than to have a boy read it in his handbook and then do it barely able to exhibit it adequately for you. One is the scout way where the boy retains it, the second is just poor adult leadership, unfortunately most of the FCFY I have witnessed falls in the second category. The execution of the model is what leaves a lot to be desired in most troops. Remember this program was developed by National after a period of watching so many new scouts dropping out in their first year in an attempt to retain numbers,which it did not do. Like the 13 year old Eagle it is a McDonalds fast food approach to scouting, a lot of quantity and very little quality, IMHO.

OGE The problem with your scenario is that too many kids get signed off in FCFY that really have not learned the skills adequately, it is not about long term retention as it is to make sure each scout throughly understands and can perform that skill. The FCFY program can do that with some scouts but not all of them. If the troop is using it as their ONLY standard mode of training some to many of the boys will not be able to keep pace with the others, will become frustrated and will leave. IMHO, FCFY has its place but can NOT be the only method used for rank advancement in a troop. You have to ask yourself is my troop a group of teenage individual personalities with individual needs or are they a bunch of assembly line automtons who think, act and learn exactly the same.

In a well run FOS campaign most of the contributions 75-80% should come from the community, businesses, service organizations like Rotary, Kiwanas, Masons etc. not the scouting families. With this recession for the last two years the outside contributions have dried up and now they want more money from the scouting families which is plain wrong. Cutting the professional staff, especially at the National level, is what they need to but will not do, as well as take an across the board pay cut, which is what the rest of America is having to do. Trimming all the deadwood present in the professional scouting ranks, and there is a lot, is what National really needs to do instead of extorting the volunteers and the families of its youth members.

Is FCFY possible, yes, just like a 13 year old Eagle scout but what I have to ask is what is the quality of their training and how much did they even retain. You know this quantity over quality idea and moving at a quick pace in advancement that seems to be taking over the BSA probably, IMHO, is one of the main reasons we are losing so many boy scouts each year. No two boys learn the same way or at the same speed but the FCFY mentality is to produce assembly line cookie cutter first class scouts. What happened to the pride of earning each rank by developing each skill needed for that rank. Why is there a need to take the first three ranks of boy scouts and homogenize them into a one year crash course, what purpose does it really serve? The purpose of scouting is NOT to provide a easy speedy race to Eagle, remember the other methods of which rank advancement is only a part.

acco and egh Both of you have missed the point here, we do have the infrastructure presently to produce all the BSA uniforms for what to amounts to about $5 more than China. We are not getting the same quality of material or workmanship from China. This Mazzuca brainstorm of Chinese crap was for nothing more than putting more money in National Supplys aka National pockets. And in case you haven't noticed the price of uniforms has gone up. It is time for all of us to demand quality and not let National put this sham over on us, it is your wallet.

I am not defending Polanski, as I said earlier I think he is scum and should spend the rest of his life in jail. However that is not what the courts decided, they let him off easy because of his celebrity which is one of the problems with our legal system, a very obvious double standard.Lisa I think you are taking this way too personally as neither you or I will have anything to do with bringing him to justice.

eric I do agree with you in spirit however "arrested for" and "convicted of" are a world of legal difference, you are considered ONLY guilty of crimes you are CONVICTED OF, plea bargain or not, personal feelings or not. That has been our system of law for over 200 years.

LisaBob First of all Polanski was not charged or convicted of rape, the charge was having sex with an underage child, the girl never accused him of rape. Since you have lived in Europe as have I you know that the letter of the law, what is written and the spirit of the law, the way it is enforced is very different in Europe than in the USA, and if Polanski was not such a celebrity he would not have been able to live so freely in France and Italy all these years. The fact that the US officials want him extradited to serve his sentence doesnt mean it will happen, in fact the Italian legal system despises the American legal system. Look at the trial of Amanda Knox going on right now in Italy, an American accused of murder, the evidence and DNA tests have all been compromised beyond any legal definition of evidence, and yet this fiasco of a trial continues on after two years, where is the justice. If Polanski was an American hiding out in Italy he would have been returned a long time ago.