Bando

Rumors.... Things I ""heard"""...... Scouts sent home for vulgar language.... Entire Troop quarantined for a flu outbreak... AT&T VIPs given priority on the Big Zip....Certain glow in the dark patches are radioactive and will give you cancer (and are thus more desirable)....bunch of Scouts sent home for showing porn on their schmart phones in the shower house.... a certain political candidate predicted that the Jambo was going to be used for Emergency Mass Evacuation training....there is no poison ivy in West Virginia....there is a 60% chance of rain this afternoon (bright sunshine ).... Look at that radar, the lightning is going to the north of us..... they are going to combine the Pet Care and Cooking merit badges...

As is well known here and elsewhere, I have been one of the harshest critics of the run up to this Jamboree. I'm not a naysayer, but I saw the staff issues coming when they made it impossible for a guy like myself (overweight, but can carry my weight around) to staff Stamp Collecting Merit Badge. Having said that, I have heard nothing but positive responses from the kids and leaders who attended. Yesterday, I had chat with supervisor who came out to check my new air conditioning system. He noticed my Scouting stuff and said his two sons, 12 and 15, had just returned from the Jambo. They were very pleased with the whole thing. Yeah, they had complaints. The younger one didn't like the food and was not understanding of being unable to fire on the pistol range. Long lines and didn't get to do everything they wanted, but woudl they do it again? In a heartbeat, he said. And he would happily pay the $1800 per boy to get them there. So, I've come around a lot on this issue. They now have four years to work on after-action from this one. One issue I was not wrong on was the cold showers. If they don't fix that or allow some way for staff to live off-site, I won't be at the next one except as a guest. Presumably, though, they will by that time find enough qualified people to staff everything. So, I've become something of a Summit booster. Even sent them a donation.

Well send your feedback to Jamboree Director Larry Pritchard who supposedly is "conducting a detailed evaluation process to get feedback from those involved" for the 2017 Jamboree.

 

He said they will plan to do the Day of Service next time and called it a good lesson learned this time around.

 

Changing our whole food delivery system to the Scouts was a big change, a huge risk for us and it turned out okay,†he said.

 

All in all, Pritchard said he was satisfied with how the Jamboree went and looks forward to hearing feedback from Scouts in the near future.

 

http://wvmetronews.com/planning-alre...2017-jamboree/

Frankly, I would have loved to have seen the look on my old Jamboree scoutmaster's face if one of his scouts, much less an Eagle Scout, had walked up to him and said they weren't going to do something like the Day of Service because they'd rather go trade patches or shoot guns. It would be something to behold.

Well send your feedback to Jamboree Director Larry Pritchard who supposedly is "conducting a detailed evaluation process to get feedback from those involved" for the 2017 Jamboree.

 

He said they will plan to do the Day of Service next time and called it a good lesson learned this time around.

 

Changing our whole food delivery system to the Scouts was a big change, a huge risk for us and it turned out okay,†he said.

 

All in all, Pritchard said he was satisfied with how the Jamboree went and looks forward to hearing feedback from Scouts in the near future.

 

http://wvmetronews.com/planning-alre...2017-jamboree/

They should have asked my opinion.

 

Three years ago, at AP Hill, I was chatting with one of the other scoutmasters in our troop. He was rather down on the whole experience and said '10 would be his first and last jambo. No, I said, I was rather interested in the Summit, and -- except that my preferred job was being eliminated -- I would probably be interested.

 

But later that week I had a conversation with Jack Furst (one of the guys with the a statue at the Summit) and continuing for a year-and-a-half or two, all my direct contact regarding the jamboree was that I was too fat, that the area which I would have staffed (merit badge midway) would be eliminated, when it was re-instated the staff was greatly restricted, that the total number of staff was being cut in half and besides, the facilities -- especially for adults -- would make AP Hill look like the Ritz. My help was neither needed nor particularly welcome. I decide pretty firmly I would not go.

 

Then, over the past year, as reality began to sink in, I've had FOUR specific job offers, not counting the number of "gee, we could really use you" conversations. But by then I made other commitments for the summer and, probably more to the point, had made up my mind I didn't want to go.

 

Here's a hint: when you're trying to recruit volunteers, don't spend quite so much time and energy making them feel unneeded.

 

As to the zip line staffing-- I'd be curious to know how many certified zip line instructors there are in the country. I'm willing to bet 800 represents a considerable portion of the total. Fourteen days is approximately triple the training required of any other top-tier BSA certification. Add the physical and financial requirement and it becomes a pretty steeply declining -- and obvious -- curve.

Personally, I thought the new site was a great idea, and eagerly awaited a way to sign on as soon as I saw the plans. Though a mixture of low finances and uncertain plans for this summer ultimately made it so there was no way I could return in '13, I was still surprised that I was never once contacted by National to volunteer again. Never heard a word. You'd think the previous volunteers would be the first people they'd approach.

I get the impression that the new-look Jamboree scared off a lot of people, who bought in to a lot of the naysaying hype about an underdeveloped site and faulty program strategies, which weren't countered in the least by the Jamboree organizers. In scouting, word of mouth and hearsay tends to get a lot more sway than it should, and National has never found a way to really work around it. Some people still aren't convinced, even after the Jamboree turned out to be a relative success.

Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves one question: Did the Jamboree achieve its goal, which is to bring scouts from all over the world to a single place and give them a venue to have new experiences and, more importantly, make new friends? All the griping and naysaying aside, the answer is "yes." It's about the scouts. Not about the temperatures of our showers and whether or not our tents have a power strip. We can all acknowledge that the first Jamboree in a new site always comes with growing pains. It only gets better from here. From talking to a lot of the old timers who were at the first few Jamborees at AP Hill, the same thing happened there, too. The next time around, things will be better. So what are we going to do to make that happen?

Where is bando??????

Thousands of kids (and paying volunteers) had a great, life-changing time at the Summit. Your negative opinion about how that fun was facilitated by the BSA won't change a thing.

Honestly, can you find anything about this Jamboree that you won't complain about? The negativity is really grating.

From nearly all accounts, this Jamboree seemed to go on without any of the major hitches the naysayers were ranting about in the years leading up to the event. The facility looks beautiful, the staffing issues everyone worried about seemed not to have been a problem, and people even dealt with having a cold shower or three! Of course there will be an impact on local programs when a few hundred older scouts and adult volunteers per council are going off to the Summit for a couple of weeks, but you can't blame kids for wanting to take the opportunity to participate in what for many of them will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And even at that, it shouldn't wipe out the entire eligible counselor/staff base for local camps. Not everyone goes to Jamboree. If the folks at home aren't picking up the slack, whose fault is it, really?

Long story short, Jamboree is a major scouting event. It only happens every four years. It has incredible appeal and offers once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for nearly all involved. And if local programs can't find ways to get around the absence of a small portion of the larger scouting base in their regions to do things like staff camps and take kids to summer camp, seems to me that's the local folks' fault, not the Jamboree.

Explain to me again why the scouts need to sit in the Arena for 1.5 hours before the show starts??????

If there's one thing I've learned in Scouting, it's the fact that adults tend to gripe about things, while the scouts manage to find a way to have a great time with what they have. That's what Jamborees are all about when all is said and done. Everyone is thrown into the crazy experiment together, and it's the participants' jobs to make it a great time for all involved. I've seen it firsthand at both Jamborees I attended. It's magical, and it's how these things go.

Question (perhaps rhetorical): Would this thread exist if LFL's membership policy was the same as the rest of the BSA?

They really hit a home run with the Genealogy MB. It's a really, really great badge that gets kids thinking, engaging with all sorts of neat resources, and inevitably, they learn something about their families they hadn't even thought to ask about. The MB program at its best, IMO.

Until the inevitable moment when someone starts a thread devoted to busting the myth that LDS units don't serve regular coffee...

In my troop, we use the blue card system. And as a merit badge counselor, let me say that the system has saved my butt, as well as those of several scouts, not to mention the troop, on more than a few occasions.

For example. A dad comes up one night and says "my son says he earned this badge from you two years ago at camp. He's on the verge of an advancement and needs the badge, but his advancement record doesn't show it." Me: "Well, have him talk to me. But let me check my records, I don't recall him completing the badge with the rest of the guys." Talk to the scout, he can't really say one way or the other. I'm certain he didn't finish, but it's my word against his. I go to my stack of completed blue card stubs, and sure enough, I've got nothing. He can't produce his stub to show he earned it. It's not in the troop's files, nor on the advancement report. No badge, sorry, out of luck. Historic MB, too, so extra out of luck.

Scout comes up to me and says "I earned this badge with you, but the troop doesn't have a record of it." Me: "Let me check my records. Do you have the stub?" He's already ahead of the game, has the stub with him, I get mine, we go to the advancement guy with the laptop and fix the problem. Clerical error. It happens. Everyone goes home happy, and in a fraction of the time.

A really nice, extraordinarily shy boy starts an Eagle-required badge with me when he's 12. It's beyond his abilities to finish it at that point in time. He just can't grasp the topic to get some of the lengthier requirements done with his emotional maturity and attention span. His blue card is a partial. Three years later, he comes back to me and says he's ready to finish. Pulls out the blue card, we go over what he hadn't done yet, and as a 15 year old, he does one of the best jobs I've seen a boy pull off for this particular badge. I admired his tenacity, and his ability to stick with it. And without that blue card, he might have had to do the entire thing over again, which would have been a lot of his valuable high school-aged time. Instead, he could quickly finish and move on to other things. Success.

A notebook? Stack of web printouts? Xeroxed requirements out of the MB book? Email? No thanks. With a blue card, there are three components that can prove the same thing, and one or two of the three can save a scout, troop, and/or MBC a lot of hassle and time. As adults, we're here to make sure the kids don't get screwed over by an avoidable mistake or two, not to mention keep them honest if they claim to have done X, Y, or Z at 12 and it's 17 and 11 months and they're trying to slip in a last-minute Eagle push. It seems to me responsible advancement procedures in regards to record keeping are facilitated best by the blue card system. Why take a chance?

(This message has been edited by Bando)

Comes through pretty loud and clear once you manage to navigate through the da's and yeh's and bizarre phrasing, doesn't it?

Questions:

Is this a "resignation" of any kind, or a symbolic gesture?

Since when does Nationals have the right to "expunge" youth rank advancement records? Isn't the rule of thumb always that once the paperwork is signed, it cannot be revoked? How many times does an Eagle do something criminal or unsavory, and the line is inevitably trotted out that their award cannot be revoked or negated? If not, there are probably dozens upon dozens of threads on this board operating under the premise of incorrect rank advancement policy. I can say or do all I want with my medal, but my record in Irving is what it is, and cannot be changed, based on over a century of advancement policy precedent.

If you want to be a punitive armchair SE based on your personal feelings on this issue, that's certainly your right, but it seems likely to me that these letters are being received in the Irving mailroom with a "here's another one, throw it in the pile," likely unread, maybe even fed straight to the recycling bin. If they're enterprising, those medals might even make their way into the National Scouting Museum warehouse for design/stock examples.

Don't forget that AT&T is one of the major reasons Bechtel will be ready for the 2013 Jamboree. All that wiring and infrastructure didn't just show up out of thin air, nor will the smartphone technology attendees will be required to use to navigate the program areas. And all of us who enjoyed a stable wifi signal and reliable cell phone service at AP Hill in 2010 courtesy of AT&T certainly know how great that is.

AT&T has shown a commitment to Scouting, which should be "fawned over" by all of us.

Lisabob, I think that's the best summation of the BSA membership policy debate I've ever seen, anywhere at any time. Well done, and thank you.

Really, a good string of posts all around. And I agree with NJCubScouter's approach as well, I don't really have much more energy to keep debating this, and really it has nothing to do with my local experience. Yet. We'll see where that goes. I'm in information-gathering mode so I'll be prepared if that moment comes. And I hope it never does, because our very strong BSA units get along just fine here with their equally strong GSUSA counterparts, including a very successful, longstanding Venture Crew that draws from both. There's nothing broken to be fixed in my neck of the woods. And even if there was something broken, I don't see AHG as a valid group that can work with the BSA to fix it.

Don't forget, Basementdweller, if you do want to have non-Christians join up in your local AHG unit, or even Christians who don't adhere to their Statement of Faith (and its associated theological clarifications), you can just "fudge it a bit" to make sure they join you instead of GSUSA.

SP, that's the attitude that a program like the BSA and GSUSA allows you to do with a diverse group of young people, with a specifically non-sectarian approach to religion giving leeway to leaders with a lot of needs to serve. And you're right to present it the way you do to your Cubs.

But does the AHG program give you the leeway to "fudge it a bit?" It's not like it's just nominally Christ-based. It's a fully-fledged Christ-centered youth ministry. As it is presented, I don't see how you could possibly include "minority religions" in an AHG program if those religious traditions are not specifically more conservative brands of Christianity that fit the specific theological viewpoints of their Statement of Faith. They are rather clear and unambiguous about exactly what that theology means, not in a legal briefing or internal memo, but right there in the explanation of their program. I would venture to guess their program materials would conform fairly well to the SoF, too. So how do you reconcile that? "Fudging it" to fit religious diversity around a program geared toward relative religious homogeneity is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? It's not like this is a minor policy. It's the central component of their program!

Frankly, the idea of "fudging it a bit" brings up a whole other myriad of issues. What else in the program can you "fudge" and when does it go far enough to obscure the message of the program? Should we be "fudging it" in our local troops to make the program exactly what we want, in opposition to the way the program has been designed and presented?

And to play devil's advocate for a second, how is "fudging it" to shoehorn non-Christian individuals into an overtly Christ-centered program different than "fudging it" when it comes to, say, finding out a really great leader in your BSA unit is gay?

Looks to me like non-Christians are explicitly excluded by doctrine alone. It's claiming inclusivity while knowing few, if anyone will take advantage of it, and those that do will be forced to fit their participation around an overwhelming, overtly conservative Christian message they may not be comfortable with. The AHG "Statement of Faith:"

"We believe that there is One Triune God Father, Jesus Christ His one and only Son, and the Holy Spirit Creator of the universe and eternally existent. We believe the Holy Scriptures (Old/New Testament) to be the inspired and authoritative Word of God. We believe each person is created in His image for the purpose of communing with and worshipping God. We believe in the ministry of the Holy Spirit who enables us to live a Godly life. We believe that each individual is called to love the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength; and to love their neighbors as themselves. We believe that each individual is called to live a life of purity, service, stewardship and integrity."

http://americanheritagegirls.com/pages/page.asp?page_id=19322

What Jewish family signs their child up for this? Buddhist? Heck, there are some Christian traditions that would be uncomfortable within this theological interpretation. What does a "Scouts' Own"-type service on an AHG outing look like, and how would the Hindu girl feel?

AHG can claim all they want that they're open to everyone, but the fact of the matter is this organization's program is geared towards a very specific flavor of conservative Christianity, which is polar opposite in scope and ideology to the specifically and intentionally non-sectarian, spiritual-as-you-define-it nature of the BSA program. We don't pair our program with a particular religious agenda, and our materials and public policies don't take thinly-veiled stances on hot-button political issues. We equip our youth members with the tools to make decisions based on their own beliefs and values, without telling them what the end result should be. In reading their program materials, I don't see the same from AHG. That's problematic to me.

Again, I see no reason why BSA resources, committees, and outings should be open or supportive of this group.

I never stated any such thing. In fact, I stated the exact opposite. I will not be returning my medal, but I respect the right for those who think it an appropriate gesture. I don't. My Eagle medal is in a velvet box in my sock drawer awaiting the next formal troop event, and my gold card is in my wallet at all times.

So far you have made two accusations, both false, and have made no effort to answer the substance of my posts. Only attacks. Not courteous, friendly, or kind. Nor helpful, for that matter. I wonder about that.

EDIT: Here is the post in question. I do not intend to make this personal, it seems an unnecessary tangent on what could be a reasonable discussion.

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=361585#id_361665(This message has been edited by Bando)

I will add this link as an addendum to my previous post:

http://girlscoutdads.com/

Looks like a guy doing his best to provide his daughter and other local girls with a quality program, asking a lot of the same questions and engaging in the same kinds of program-based dialogue we have with each other over here in this site. Looks to me like there are a lot of dads out there taking a positive adult leadership role with their daughters through GSUSA. That's a good thing.

Seems I've answered my own question.

Where did I ever say I "resigned" from Scouting? Currently registered volunteer, glad to work with a troop of great young men and fellow dedicated scouters.

I asked a question. You responded with an angry rant.

My question stands. Is there a policy preventing men from being leaders in the GSUSA? My experience locally indicates there is not, but I am willing to be corrected if you can provide evidence the GSUSA has officially changed their policy in this regard.

I would be interested in seeing a policy statement or official position from GSUSA to prove what appears to be a subjective accusation of their program being "hostile to men."

Reads a lot more like frustration with local folks on the ground than an accurate blanket statement backed by a national membership policy.

Personally, I would prefer the BSA not affiliate with an openly sectarian, overtly non-inclusive Evangelical program that mimics scouting through the narrow filter of the Christian Right. The more I learn about AHG, the less comfortable I am with the BSA giving validation to this organization's unfounded insecurities with GSUSA.

But that's just me. If it fits your goals for your kids, go ahead on your own with like-minded folk. But the BSA, and local committees sponsoring BSA units, should have nothing to do with it.

Except how is it a "political" statement? It is specifically pertinent to the BSA, has nothing to do with government or public policy, doesn't involve a candidate or political party. It's a statement to promote better scouting. If you wish to politicize it into the parameters of a political party or ideology, that's on you. And if your idea of promoting the membership policy is to attempt to silence anyone who dares to voice an opposition, then I wonder how you teach your scouts about citizenship and the freedoms of American society.

As for me, I see this as an issue that is directly relevant to the reach of our program in the lives of young people and families across America. As an Eagle Scout, I think it to be important to promote better scouting, in whatever form that might take. For me, better scouting is hindered by a membership policy that needlessly excludes a portion of our society, and brings associated negative publicity and unnecessary local obstacles to the program. This is preventing opportunities for our scouts.

I will continue to advocate for inclusive scouting because I truly believe it is in the best interest of our organization and the families it serves. This was true when I was 15, and it's true over a decade later. I am glad I used the opportunity I had to mention how I felt about this issue in a public forum. It was one moment in a speech thanking a LOT of wonderful people who gave me a lot of really great opportunities, in the interest of promoting the idea that those great experiences should be available for all. That's not politics. That's wanting more buddies and their moms and dads to share the fun.

I'll add that every ECOH is different in that it reflects the experiences and personalities of the young men it honors. They're not all the same, there are no rigid rules or frameworks by which we can define them. They're intentionally completely open-ended. Heck, they're not even required! It was my day in my troop, with family and friends and scouting people who knew me in some cases since I was a Tiger Cub. And, remember, we're a boy-led organization, right? So what does it say about a boy-led group when adults are rigidly trying to suppress their thoughts and opinions? In a boy-led troop, where does the adult agitatedly shutting down the Eagle Court fit in?