Gone

Au contraire, I've seen districts out right creat units where there were none many times. No CO, just a DE trying to create a unit and find parents to run it.

Nope. They should be going to their PL or SPL. Dads are there to drive and supervise, that's it. And no "dads", Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones.

Not true as far as I've seen. Stationed there 10 years and involved with scouting there. Never saw coed scout groups doing that. Saw others doing it, but not too often.

As I said, our unit got the advice from the former IRS tax attorney. There are ways to individually allocate money to scouts during fund raising. I'm not the one who was involved in the details. Frankly, when it was discussed at the CC I paid attention to the summary and not the details. The unit asked the IRS to comment on our interpretation (nice to have inside help) and they approved our approach, so we have the proverbial "get out of jail free card" from them. They have blessed our approach so we're good.

I don't think the lack of racial diversity is a BSA problem. Many ethnic communities have other priorities other than scouts. Many Asian and Indian communities are more academic focused. They also have cultural schools which kids attend. Many other cultures are reluctant to join BSA because they don't understand it or its mission. But the most common reply our unit here's from those communities is that scouts takes too much time away from all the other things their kids are involved in. Again the oversubscribed issues rears its ugly head.

We have had great success in the Indian community. We focused on the outdoor and the educational aspects of scouts, along with the leadership development. We walk the families through the program and how it works, avoiding the usual BSA speak. The key we found was to recruit one kid and then more will follow.

We had a similar experience with a scout. We kept in contact with him and his family and encouraged him along as needed. Let him do "Lone Scout" for a while. It helped. Sounds like the adults could have done a bit more to help keep him on track. Either way, it never hurts to talk to district or council about what might be able to be done given the extenuating circumstances. One week is not as bad as a longer period of time. Someone might budge if the unit does not. All district or council can do is say no....which has already been said by the unit.

If by provisional you mean that the troop was formed as a contingent of many scouts from several troops? No, I would not sign off. I would document what was done with the scout and send that to his home unit. Most summer camps do not sign books either. They will note what was covered and send that home with the scout. Some units check how well the scout learned the content and then sign off.

We had a tax attorney look in to this issue for our unit (and he just happened to be a former IRS and council guy too). You *can* do some funding for individual scouts but you have to follow the IRS guidelines for doing so. Most units don't follow those nor do they manage the fund-raising accordingly.

@@SpEdScouter in our unit it would have to be something REALLY severe AND have the support, if not the insistence, of the camp director. In all my years we've never had that happen. As to your questions: I'd suspect violation of the "penal" rules of the camp (smoking, drinking, dangerous behaviour, etc.). The procedure would likely be dictated by the camp. Again, if it was a unit decision we'd solicit the input of the camp director. Time outs, with holding privileges. Two-deep counseling with the adults to correct the behaviour and to set expectations. They can try to protest, but if cam

Agreed. So a few things we see in our unit: If BOR or SMC feedback tells us a scout or scouts are weak in (x) core skill, they program plan is adjusted by the PLC to insert that skill at either meetings or camp outs or some other activity. The most frequent of the core skills we see a weakness in is orienteering, first aid and pioneering, so we hit those hard in our annual program plan. Our unit (and by that I mean scouts, leaders, COR and parents) have bought in to the concept that a scout must know these core skills in order to be able to "take part in a Scoutmaster conference" or to "succ

To be honest I am glad the adults did not back date him, though I am very sorry the adults may have failed him in helping him to manage his timeline. We had a similar situation long ago where a very good Scout mismanaged his dates and missed out on Eagle. Our SM at the time put in a new process to help the adults help the boys to manager their path better. In our unit, our SM contacts all Scouts that are 18-24 months away from aging out and sends them quarterly "reminders" of their age out date. This goes to their email, but he also pulls them aside during meetings to give a personal remin

Fair enough. But it would be nice if the mod apologized for his part just as the person who made the original mistake has. That way we don't have one level of behviour set for non-mods and another for mods. Given the thread title, I suspect that's what the OP was meant to address....to all of us.

At least one person got the reference. I sometimes feel like this place is turning in to that scene with the People's Front of Judea, the Judean People's Front, and the highly touted Judean Popular People's Front.

Not all men, @@Stosh. They've even narrowed that down too.

My friends in the south are seeing a MUCH different response from their CORs in the UMC.

You didn't. Packsaddle did.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who believe Girl Scouts should remain for just girls.

Interesting because that conflicts with the statement from the Methodists men's group that said they'd review the policy change at a meeting next month.

I get what is point was. I guess my point was this, once a FC, Star or Life scout learns their bowline, if they fail to be able to demonstrate it at their next SMC, how does an SM compel them to RELEARN the skill? Let's face it, once most scouts feel they've check the box they have little desire to relearn anything. I was curious how the SM (assumedly through the the PLC and Patrol Method, since that's who should be teaching these skills anyway) get these forgetful scout to relearn anything AND make sure it sticks? In my unit we require scouts to know their core scout skills in order to be

We have our Boy Scout unit, a coed Venture unit and a all-boy Venture unit. All three flourish. It *can* work.

Think of the permutations of "options" that BSA will have to manage with that combined with Monday's decision.

Unless they don't have capacity. I did a quick check on their ISP and their inbound capabilities are modest. According to net traffic they had over 100,000 inquiries to their system Monday-Tuesday. That was more than their system obviously could handle. Appears they've moved to another site that can handle more traffic and volume. From an IT perspective I would have recommended that knowing of BSA's announcement, but then again I've been doing IT planning a while.

My cousin's troop is looking in to Seven Ranges for a future summer camp. I'd not heard of this camp before. Anyone have any experience with this camp? How's the MB program? More importantly, how's the staff (revolving or pretty steady)? How are the facilities?

Scout groups change but IT problems remain.