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mk9750

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Everything posted by mk9750

  1. Bob, Sorry it took so long to respond. Busy the last few days. What part of OGE's reference: "A merit badge counselor can counsel any Scout, including his own sonalthough this is discouraged in order to offer a Scout the chance to meet a diverse group of outstanding adults. its permitted but discouraged. So, it is OK" is not unclear? But the more important issue: It is sad that you chose to comment on that part of my post rather than the important part. You certainly built up my spirit and helped me appreciate all you wisdom. Or not. It is example
  2. I'd like to be able to say that the policy is clear, but apparently, there is at least a little confusion. But as for opinions about the merit of the practice, now THOSE will vary widely. I have mine, too. All of them have value. But here is mine. Our Scoutmaster has a fantastic system and method for doing the the three Citizenship badges. They are interesting, VERY informative, and guys all say they get a lot out of all of them. The SM's son is well past 18, but when he was in the Troop, we discussed the pros and cons of our SM counseling his son. It was the opinion of EVERY SINGLE
  3. Here is where I see an obstacle to nirvana on this issue: Because there is no standard for how Patrols are formed, even if an intact Patrol were to attend a Camporee or Klondike, it could be a New Scout Patrol, a regular Patrol, a Venture Patrol, or a mixed age Patrol. Setting up competitions and hoping that everything will sort itself to make the competition fair is next to impossible. When it was our Troop's opportunity to lead the Klondike, we set the competitions up for 1st Class and under, and Star and over. For a Troop to arrange a group of guys under that format makes it very
  4. John in KC, If they add Cooking to the Eagle Required list, I hope the use it to replace Communications. I am a MB Counselor for Communications. They took a mederately valuable MB and did away with most of the worthwhile requirements. I have been considering notifying our Disctrict Advancement Chair that I no longer wish to counsel Communications. I don't mind wasting my time so much. I figure it's an opportunity to get to know a Scout better. But I hate that I am wasting the Scout's time. Mark
  5. I believe Goldwinger is right. Troops and Packs are not groups of themself. They exist only as an arm of their Charter Organization. As such, they assume the tax treatment status of the Charter Organization. If they are tax exempt, so is the Boy Scout Pack or Troop, and the Charter Org. should be able to provide your unit with a tax exempt certificate. In our Council, the Council has announced that they cannot extend it's tax exempt status to individual units. I believe this is because although the BSA owns the program, the Charter Org. owns the unit. Mark
  6. One Hour, I truly feel your pain! I find myself in a similiar low spot right now. I don't want to get too specific, but I have been quite despondent the last few weeks. My wife has even STRONGLY recomended I take a sabbatical from Scouting for a while. The problem is that even though something comes around every once in a while that makes me question why I am in Scouting, the vast majority of the time, I feel lucky to be here. I consistently get far more out of Scouting than I have even thought about putting into it. My dad was one of those guys who had a cliche for almost ever
  7. I also believe there is a strong recomendation NOT to wear the BSA uniform on overseas trips. Mark
  8. Perhaps we are fortunate in our district, but if a Cub Leader in our District were to call the District Training chair here, and could get at least a couple people from the Pack to go through the training together, he would set up a Saturday or Sunday session in your home on short notice. I've witnessed him doing this before, and his only real requirement is that you put enough people through the training so that not having a BALOO trained adult cannot be an issue for your Pack in the next few of years. If you are going to the Buffalo Naval Shipyards, your Cubs are in for a treat. I
  9. I can provide these statistics for our Troop. This would be a very small sample, and would likely differ from other Troops with a different mix of Program and Scouts. But these stats are accurate for our Troop. Since 1997, we have had 21 Eagle Scouts. Zero have been 15 or below. 1 has been 16 at the time of his BoR. 4 have been 17 at BoR. The rest, 16 Scouts had already turned 18 when their Bor was held. Mark
  10. As the original poster, it was three adult males at a roundtable wearing hats indoors that caused me to comment about any male wearing any hat anywhere indoors. Mark
  11. cad-guy, I know that Family Life and Personal Managment both have requirments that take 3 months to complete (techically, Personal Management's requirement is 13 weeks). Family life is a tremendous MB for a 12 - 13 - 14 year old Scout to work on, in my opinion. It is right about this time that young men begin to have a sense that their world extends beyond themselves, and helping a Scout begin to grasp this by beginning with a deeper understanding of his family is a great thing. I know I will get flak for this (I have in the past), but I am a real believer that there is far more
  12. For better or worse, I can remember this scene as well as I can remember my wedding: I was about 13 years old. My father and I went to the bus station downtown to pick up my grandmother, who had taken the bus to go back to her hometown. When we got there, about half the terminal was full. We had the wrong time for the bus arrival, so we ended up sitting in the terminal for about 3 hours waiting. While we were there, the terminal filled up. As it got more and more full, I could feel my dad's eyes as if they were piercing me, but I had no idea what his problem was. This lasted for 10 minute
  13. Ed, Do I understand you correctly? If I do, there is something amiss. As I read your answer, if a Scout were to earn First Aid when he is 2nd class, he would need to earn it again after he became a 1st Class Scout. I've never understood the advancement process to work that way. Do I have the process wrong, or do I misunderstand your answer? Mark
  14. Oh my! I didn't mean to start a religous war! What I have learned though, from these responses, is that it is possible that what I thought was a UNIVERSAL rule with very NARROW exceptions may not have been that universal after all. Beavah is right, there are certainly times at which certain clergy were miters and skull caps (I could be wrong, but I don't believe they would be refered to as yulmalkes in the Catholic church). And I am sure there are other times and in other situations where wearing head cover in indoors was not only acceptable, but required. But I was broug
  15. Our roundtable, which is usually held at an LDS church in their gym, had to be moved to the worship area because of a scheduling conflict. Last night, while we were all sitting in the pews, I noticed three different male Scout leaders with hats on. One was a bush style hat, the other two were ball caps (one was a BSA themed hat, the other not). First, what has happened to our society that men wearing hats indoors has beome acceptable? Second, even if it has, why would anyone continue to wear one inside a church? and third, how out of line would I be if I were to mention to these "gentleme
  16. Ohio had plates for both Boy Scouts and Eagle Scouts. I just got the notice that my Boy Scout plates will no longer continue in the program, as they have not met the minimum demand. My 2 sons' Eagle plates have not been pulled yet. Man, I gotta get to Oklahoma and start tailgating some folks to find EagleDad! Mark
  17. At an Eagle BoR a few years back, in which the District Advancement Chair (DAC) was late: DAC - If you could add a 13th Point to the Scout Law, what would it be? Eagle Candidate - Punctual! The Eagle candidate looked as if he was trying to pull the word out of mid air and put it back into his mouth for a second or two. No one laughed until the the DAC started to, then we could hardly finish the Review. Mark
  18. Wingnut, You make an excellent point, and this is an area I fail at as the advancement chair in our unit. I speak regularly with each Scout about his advancement, and for the "lower" ranks, I review their books almost as often. But I do not schedule BoRs for non advancement reasons. It doesn't seem to be necesary to me, but if I am serious about the Adult Association question, perhaps I should be more diilegent. Let me throw out a hypothetical situation. What would everyone's opinion be about an added requirement (in the actual requirements, not made up by a SM or Troop Committee) th
  19. First, please understand that I, too, agree that under the current make up of the requirments, it is wrong to hold a Scout back based on artificial time frames determined by a Troop Committee (or SM, for that matter). In our Troop, we have had 3 or 4 instances in the last 12 years of this happening, and we simply do one BoR for both ranks. However, there is a dichotomy between the idea that we not require Scouts to experience seperate BoRs for each rank, and the desire of the program to provide opportunities for Adult Association. Every chance a Scout gets to demonstrate his abilities, to
  20. First, I too want to welcome you. Second, you have received some very good advice here from all. There is not one comment here with which I can find fault. Third, Congratulations to your son. He has acheived a high honor. Doing so with extra obstacles only makes the achievement sweeter. Fourth, I too want to comment on the SM attending. We found the same problem others found - If Scouts were involved helping the Eagle Candidate, they often turned to one of the uniformed leaders, or slightly better, the SPL, for guidance and direction. So we generally have avoided attending Eagle
  21. This is a great question! I have been trying for probably 6 years now to convince our guys to give this a try. I have been trying to get our older Patrol to put together a plan to review it with the SM to see if they can get his approval. Every time we get the guys talking about it, they seem excited. The excitement peters out by the time they get back together again the next week. I've always suspected that they discuss it with parents, and the parents say no. But the guys say they didn't talk to their parents about it, and no parent has mentioned they heard the guys were trying to do th
  22. I wonder whether our Troop would be considered "rogue". "have had poor experiences with commissioners." - Well, we've had three or four UC's assigned to us over the last 13 years. One time one of them came to a Court of Honor (they get invitations to ALL of our CoHs and such). He showed up in a rumpled up uniform shirt and jeans. He looked sheepish when he saw all of our guys in full uniforms. We haven't seen a UC since. Once in a while we get a ADC to an Eagle CoH. "They don't use the council summer camp but instead go out of council." - In 1991, before I was with the Troop, we we
  23. If one Scout's experience can shed light on your situation, let me opine: Back when I was a Lion Cub Scout, it was traditional, at least in our area, for a boy to cross to a Troop at the Pack meeting right after his 11th birthday. I remember how proud I was when my new Scoutmaster handed me my Troop neckerchief, and told me sadly that the next campout was Klondike, and being new, I wouldn't have the experience or the equipment to go. He told me that if my parents agreed, and if I already had my winter sleeping bag, insulated boots, etc., he would let me go. But only with my parents permis
  24. In our Troop, if the Scout planning the Coh (regular, not Eagle) doesn't remember to request that the SM or another adult prepare some remarks, it is entirely likely you would not hear one word from an adult through the entire hour and a half. Most often our CoHs include a few words from the SM, but that is it. The uniformed adults do sit in the front, and it isn't all that uncommon for the SM to lean over to the em cee and remind him to do this or recognize someone for something, but for the most part, the adults are mum. For Eagle CoHs, the planning is done by the family and the SM
  25. Beav, What a wonderful job voicing the frustration I think a lot of SMs (and many other volunteers) sometimes have about our program! I will always remember a day many years ago, not too long after my son and I crossed over to Boy Scouts. I had to stop by the SM's house before a Troop meeting. I got there about an hour and 15 minutes before the meeting start time. I was trying to discuss an issue with him, but he literally took 9 - 10 phone calls from the SPL, a few other Scouts, and a host of parents. My conversation with him should have lasted 15 minutes at most, but it took a full
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