NeilLup

Sixstones, you probably did exactly the right thing. If your purpose is to serve youth, then staying and fighting is probably counterproductive. I might also comment that on rare occasions, I have seen a spat or power play within a church congregation played out by means of a Cub Scout pack (for some reason, it is a Pack, almost never a Troop.) But in a case like this, it is probably best to leave the matter to the District or Council, DE, SE or volunteer Commissioners.

Hello Andrew, Your question is a good and interesting one and, I believe, not explicitly covered in BSA literature. To some extent, it depends on circumstances. Is the boy 12 or is he 16.5? Has he been earning merit badges, just not the right ones or has he not been earning anything? Has he been in a leadership position or not? Has he been active with the Troop, attending meetings and campouts or has he been absent? Has he been very active in other Scouting activities (like the OA) or has he been active in school activities (captain of the football team)? The purpose

Hello Bob White, I know that you can't "fail" an SM Conference. YOU know that you can't "fail" an SM Conference. But the Scouts don't know that. And their parents don't necessarily know that. My suggestion related to avoidance of anything which could cause dinner table gossip, back room chatter, etc. Caesar's wife and all that.

Hello Acco, If your son really wants an SM conference from you, so that he too meets with the SM, you might oblige him. However, you could explain that you wish, to remove any possible taint of conflict interest, favoritism, etc., you wish him to have a SECOND SM conference with one of the Asst SMs. He gets what he wants and you get what you want.

"If a fisherman bait his hook with the kind of food that he likes, he will not catch many, certainly not the shy, game kind of fish. He therefore baits his hook with the kind of food that the fish like." BP, Aids to Scoutmastership I do not believe that anyone is suggesting compromising the values of the Scout Oath and Law. However, I do believe that each generation and indeed each individual can and must interpret and personally accept the Oath and Law for their own lives and their own times. Probably the most striking example for me comes from the time of Vietnam. So

Hello DSteele, The presentation which I recently heard was at a Regional Wood Badge Course Director's Development Conference. It related to the characteristics and needs of various generations. It specifically addressed the "Baby Boomers" and the way they viewed the world and suggested to them the different way that younger leaders were comfortable. It spoke about what needed to be done to make Wood Badge and Scouting more appropriate and more inviting for those younger leaders and to encourage them to become long time Scouting leaders and Wood Badgers and to complete their Wood Bad

Hello dsteele, Actually, my memory of the generations and of the presentation is a little different from yours. It is the WWII (depression) generation that is motivated by money. The Baby Boomers are motivated by fun, by process and by paying personal attention to them. The Gen Xers are more "What's in it for me.

The following site: http://www.bcpl.net/~etowner/anacron2.html says this about Key and the Tune: Key and the Tune As early as 1806 Francis Scott Key adapted the tune to an earlier poem he wrote entitled "When the Warrior Returns" in honor of an American naval victory over the Barbary pirates. Hence, there is no doubt that Key was well acquainted with the tune, when in, September 1814, he saw the flag over Fort McHenry "by the dawn's early light." Soon after the battle, the poem and tune were published, a reminder of the American victory. Of course, that isn't sayin

The US National Anthem uses the meter and tune of an English drinking song "To Anacreon in Heaven." Also, it is in 3/4 time, which is waltz time rather than marching time. As far as the OA song, I suspect that Urner Goodman and Carroll Edson were throwing things together as fast as they could. Likely, they were just putting something together for their summer camp in Philadelphia. They never said "Let's plan a national honor society for Scouts which will go nationwide." There were many such organizations at the time and only years later was the OA chosen as the national one.

I believe the tune is from a Russian national anthem. You will hear it toward the end of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.

Scholarship When I first joined in our brand new Troop, our SPL was a transfer Second Class Scout and everybody else was new. One could not earn Merit Badges until one was a Second Class Scout and then some merit badges were restricted until you had completed the corresponding First Class requirements. Someone noticed the Scholarship Merit Badge. At that time, your teacher was the counselor, so right after I passed Second Class Scout, I did the requirements and passed it pretty quickly.

To continue evmori's thought: BOR: "Where do you learn your knots?" Sammy "I never did." BOR: "Gee, knots are a requirement. Who passed you on knots?" Sammy: "I'm not sure." BOR: "Let's take a look at your book. I see that your Patrol Leader signed that. Do you remember where he signed that?" Sammy: "No, I don't remember." BOR: "Well since that is a requirement, would you mind if we talk with your Patrol Leader about when and how you passed it. Maybe you would like to practice up and review knots with your patrol leader. Let's look at the o

Hello Rooster, So that there isn't just frustration, it may be worth writing for a moment about what the proper channels are. 1) The less formal route is to write to the appropriate National Committee. Document your concerns and thoughts and mail them to the appropriate Committee. I know of two cases where a single letter from a unit level scouter caused a change in national literature or in advancement requirements. In the case here, it is a bit tougher since you are asking Health and Safety to change a policy which they have carefully considered. However, it certai

Hello asm206, I don't know if you have ever looked at or studied game theory. The most common "games" -- the ones which we commonly hear about in pro sports, etc. -- are zero sum games. That means when one party wins, the other party loses. But not all games are zero sum games. There are other types of game. There are games where everybody can "win". Marathons are games where everybody can be a "winner." And there are games where almost everybody can lose. In pro golf, for example, in a tournament, there is one "winner" and almost everybody else is a "loser." An

Beaver, When your beads are presented and the two other gentlemen are present may I suggest that you be sure that your District Executive or other appropriate District Representative are present and are briefed on their history. It borders on criminal when we, as an organization, lose touch with people like this who contributed in the past. They might wish to have some further involvement or possibly some financial gift and should have the opportunity to be invited.

I had the opportunity a couple of days ago to talk with a member of the National Health and Safety Committee who is one of the custodians of the G2SS. I asked about the ban on laser tag and other things. He said that any activity which intends to do harm to another human being mimics doing harm to another human being imitates or simulates doing harm to another human being is forbidden. They believe that either really doing, pretending to do or imitating doing harm to another human is not appropriate for Scouting.

To add to the comments of Saltheart, a recent article in my college's alumni magazine said that the average applicant to the college listed EIGHT activities during high school. Scouts would be considered one. Being an Eagle Scout might be considered two. So if a boy spent a great deal of his time on Scouting and didn't have a lot of activities, he would be far behind other boys and girls who were applying in this area. Note that this was the average applicant, not the average accepted applicant. So the average accepted applicant had more. The admissions director said that to

Hello Roadwatchr, Please let me lay out what I think you said happened. You gave out the application to the person. The application was submitted to the local council without your approval or that of the chartered organization. At that point, the person was rejected for "prior convictions." From what I know of the BSA process, there is some puzzling business here. Unless there was a CORI check in your council, just being convicted of a crime does not automatically disqualify. Did the person list these convictions on their adult application? I believe th

Whoa, fellow Bob White, There's a line in your post which really bothers me. "The things you need to know are only those things a parent chooses to share." I know of a case where a parent chose not to share that 1)Their child was on serious medication for ADD/ADHD 2) For the weekend of a Scout campout, the child was being put on "vacation" from the medication 3) The parent chose not to tell this "because then you wouldn't have taken my son." The Troop was going to a remote camp involving a 10 mile hike in. The boy went bonkers at the remote camp due to the lack

A far more likely problem is that the medical form IS available but the parent didn't list a medical condition or didn't want it known. On an adult leader training course a long time ago, we had prepared patrols based on geography, diversity, medical conditions, etc. One married couple showed up and the husband demanded that he and his wife be in the same patrol. He said that his wife was essentially blind. When I looked at her medical form and showed him where it said nothing about her vision, he said "You have no need to know that!" I think that we all know of boys who

Hello SPLT15, I think you have gotten some great advice and it is about time for the ball to be in your court. I just wanted to write one thing so that you won't be too disappointed or surprised. You seem to be a pretty savvy, alert guy but you did say that you are 14 and adults can see things differently at times. This is something that I more commonly discuss in adult leader training, but maybe it is appropriate here. Many adult leaders in Scouting are parents. Almost all have families, households, etc. Most Boy Scout leaders who have boys in the Troop try extremely ha

Hello Misnwyo, I might suggest one other source for leaders. Have you contacted any of the Boy Scout Troops in your area and asked them, on a one time-one year basis, to supply leaders? Best would be some adult leaders. If not permanent, at least close support for outdoor activities. Another great area of support would be Den Chiefs, as many as 2-3 per Den. You also could even contact Venturing Crews in the area, if any, for Den Chiefs. Part of what this would do is introduce more Scouting knowledge into the Dens and so enable inexperienced parents to be effective l

With sincere respect for evmori, it is not the place of boys or the PLC to tell parents what they can and cannot do. They can make requests, but decisions about adults need to be made by the SM, the Troop Committee or the Chartered Organization. There really seems to be a problem between you, SPLT15 and this woman. It is not fair to you to ask you to handle this kind of situation with an adult. I would suggest that it is inappropriate for an individual who is not a registered leader routinely to participate in camping activities. There are certain youth protection and other

Hello SPL T15, You did very, very well with a difficult situation. I might only disagree with one item of naming which in no way changes the situation. To me, a PLC is a rather formal thing. It is scheduled in advance, may have an agenda, has the patrol leaders SPL, etc. there together with the SM, etc. It doesn't happen on the spur of the moment unless the SM or SPL call it rather formally, for example, to handle a disciplinary matter. What you had on your trip was, if you will, a meeting of the trip leaders. You, as SPL, are certainly entitled to talk to the SM or

I think that all of us who were at one time or another children were able to tell what topics our parent or parents cared about and which they did not. When he came home from work, my Dad would ask me about how math had gone. He didn't ask me about history. He made flash cards for math. He didn't for religion. So the first way that a parent can influence the Scouting of their children is this simple matter of interest or non-interest. They can ask what happened. They can be a bit conversant with requirements, etc. Then, there is the matter of support. At the time