Mike Long

Wow, that's a horrible situation for all involved. Personally, I would not allow the process to continue until the matter has been discussed with the committee, council and district. I do not think we should be soft on substance use and abuse and do believe that IF PROVEN GUILTY he should face the consequences of his actions. Really this is a subject that you truly need to take up with your district and council advancement chair before you or your troop take any action regarding his advancement. Handled poorly this can (and knowing today's society, most likely) have legal repercu

Cheap tent stakes? Try some thick welding rod, a vise and a weekend. Bend your own.

Screenprinting easy? That's a relative observation :-). It's as easy as you make it though. I was a commercial printer specializing in photographic reproducion on dark and textured fabrics. That ain't easy. But it IS easy to do DIY troop shirts. I printed some for my troop back in '87 on the kitchen table and they still look pretty good. If you want to take the DIY route most art supply stores, craft and graphics stores sell the necessary equipment. I used to make a sort of hobby of pushing the technology the "wrong" direction. I've even printed shirts with latex house paint.

The only thing we require as uniforn in the woods are the t-shirts we had printed for our troop. In case anyone is interested, I was a screen printer for 10 years and have a huge knowledge of printing t-shirts and would be more than happy to answer any questions about the process, what to look out for ect.

Eisely I would agree that scouting as a whole is doing better than most aspects of society. Also, I would agree with the statement: "But on the whole, tacky behavior is less prevalent in scouting than what I have observed in schools and youth sports in particular." I guess that when we do see bad behaviour in Scouting it seems so much more obvious, outrageous and painful to witness. I know that I for one have become desensitized to bad behaviour in society outside of scouting and have almost come to expect it. My biggest personal struggle (as I am sure some of you have noticed) is

OK, LeRoy you have had your fun and it's time to move on. Some of us here actually use, write and impliment web technology everyday in our work. I am one of those people and I am very familiar with RiverportForums and web security in general. What you claim to have happened is not possible due to the structure of the code used in the forum application. Not only that, the app kicks back duplicate instances of the same email address or username. Very childish, very rude and very ignorant of the web.

Thank you for the information.(This message has been edited by Mike Long)

I think it's obvious that we all realize that there is a problem and I even agreed with you in that if chartering organizations can't or won't uphold BSA standards then they probably shouldn't have a charter. Rather than meet on common ground and attempt to move forward together you choose to attempt to browbeat those who respond. Now that its painfully obvious that you are not a regular here, Welcome to the boards. Let's have a polite dialogue. Lose the scarcasm and vitriol.

Camo is fine as long as it is not accepted as part of the uniform. Recently our PLC stated that they wanted to change our Troop t-shirts from red to Camo. I refused for a couple of reasons. First, the committe didn't want a para-military connotation. Second (and probably the only reason to ban camo at a camporee) was that we can see boys in bright red shirts a lot easier than ones in camo. I want to know where our boys are at any time. I think I have good boys but I worry about mischief when I can't see them easily. Troop campouts, no problem, wear it if you like.

With all the hubbub about units loosing sponsors and meeting space I am interested to know how it is affecting everyone. What I would like is for everyone to post here: 1-Your council name and area 2-If you know what kinds of organizations sponsor units in your area 3-How many or how big of a problem is this in your area. 4- feel free to list major issues in your area. I'll start. 1. North Florida Council (self-explanitory) 2. Almost all units are sponsored by churches and civic groups (i.e. Rotary Club) 3. I have not heard of anyone loosing a sponsor or meeti

Legal or Honest? Interesting question. Legal, most likely not depending on the laws of your community. There are still communities that have laws outlawing homosexuality and many more that do not have non-discrimination laws or policies. Please note, a policy is not a law. Policies are guidelines for operation. Disobey a policy and you get fired of repremanded. Disobey a law and you go to jail. Policy = We prefer. Law = We must. Honest, well that's a completely different issue. The BSA does not hide its code of ethics or its standards for membership. As a matter of fact

How about making your point without being insulting or derogatory! If you can't make you point AND keep to the conduct required a scout don't post here.

Uncle Bob, I'm with you brother! I have seen what you describe in my area too. The lack of Scout Spirit does exist and is probably the biggest threat to the Scouting movement. Luckily there are still those in our number that understand what Scout Spirit is and do their best to instill it in our Scouts. Keep on keeping on.

I know that now and completely agree with you. Definately a learning experience for me. I no longer assume that all of us can speak quietly in a corner like good Scouts.

Somehow I missed your post. Sorry. http://www.globalserve.net/~codyak/CUBCodyAK.htm If your Troop or Pack doesn't have uniform exchange how about helping this guy?

Eisely, I assume you are referring to my last paragraph. I tried a polite Scoutmaster to Scoutmaster conversation when that situation arose but it deginerated into me being verbally abused in public. The guy didn't want to discuss the situation like two adult Scouters he wanted to act like a bully at the elementray school bike rack after school. Pretty bad situation seeing that he was twice my age at the time. I would have preferred to come to an understanding but at least the situation vividly demonstrated the differences between us. If the situation comes up again I will still try a pol

Interesting. We are exactly the opposite with only one exception.

We ran into a similar situation a few yers back the only difference was that the other troop was pulling kids from our brother pack (we share the same sponsor) Basically if boiled down to the fact that our then Scoutmaster and the Packs then Cubmaster didn't like each other and it became an issue of how much the Cubmaster could hurt our Scoutmaster and hurting our Troop was a by product. What we did was simple we improved our program and made it known to everyone that had hear to hear with and eyes to see it. My PLC was upset that they never had any new Webelos come up for two years and

I would like to point out that the boys set the budget for our tents not the adults. As long as the tent works well for your boys the price is right. The boys wanted 12 new tents and asked how much they could spend on them. The committe was about to debate price, I cut the the committe off at the pass and told the Scouts we can spend as much as they can earn. If they choose expensive tents, then they need to work harder and earn more. They then backed off of getting the North Face Roadrunners they wanted at $250 a pop. I do have one other suggestion for getting the money for tent

Please note the line "on the way out.." kinda makes one think of Fashion doesn't it? No matter what anyone says wool works and it works well even wet. PolyPro and all the fancy new synthetics work great too (a little better than wool when wet), it simply comes down to comfort and price. Oh yeah, If you wear wool pants and get to close to a campfire the wool singes instead of melting to your skin like synthetics do. I use both but being a long-distance backpacker I tend to use the synthetics.

Hey, Come On folks! It's a step in the right direction, let's at least give them that. Everyone screws up now and again. It's time to make it right, learn, improve and move forward.

Actually there has been a lot of talk regarding Gays in the Issues & Politics area. How about we keep the discussion in that area and leave this one to program?

I agree. Well Greg, my best suggestion to you is that you do what the folks in the other forum did. Call the BBB and file an internet fraud report. I hate the fact that I am even suggesting that a Scout file fraud charges against another Scout. I need a shower.

In my first post I said the issue rarely comes up-to clarify: it came up once with one Scout and twice with two different parents outside of Scouting. Your replies are pretty much what I have been hearing from everyone I ask. I have only had one Scout bring up the issue and his statement we simply to the effect that he thought that it was horribly unfair that thousands of Scouts are being hurt because of a handful of people disagree. I have to agree with him and personally I don't even see why this is an issue. Please don't misunderstand the statement I just made. I personally dis

We hear so much about the battle going back and forth with this issue and how much it is hurting people on both sides. Some folks would have the world believe that we actively hunt down homosexuals and that we preach "Nazi-esque" hate propaganda against homosexuals. I have talked to many scouters in my area, all of them at various points of the spectrum on this issue. I can't find one who will admit to even discussing the issue with their Scouts, now or even before this whole issue reared up. How is it that two court cases have divided our great movement so badly? (I can only think of