NeilLup

Hello Kittle, Another alternative You go to Wood Badge Your son goes (separately) to National Youth Leadership Training(NYLT). You then have a remarkable shared body of knowledge. Your call what you do but your "resource camp" isn't the only alternative available.

As I believe that I posted elsewhere on these board, at a Wood Badge course in 2006, 3 of the participants listed their religion as "pagan." Our Chaplain's Aide is Wiccan (also active duty in the Army) and organized a great Scout's Own service. If one truly believes in the 12th point of the Law, pagans are no less worthy of respect than any other religion which is not one's own religion.

Having been a Council Commissioner twice for a total of 8 years, I find this an extremely interesting thread. The problem is very real. To illustrate the problem, when I took the job the second time, we had about 450 Units which, at the 3/1 recommended ratio, would have required about 150 Unit Commissioners. We had a total of 12 of which about 6 were doing anything useful. There was simply no way in the world that we could come up with 150 people who wanted to do what Commissioners do starting with 6. After my 4 years, we were up to about 40. A big improvement but still far

Hello Shortridge, Actually, your percentage of 12% is probably a lot more realistic for Boy Scouts particularly when one considers older boys (i.e. the percentage should be the number of Scouts divided by the number of boys 11-17.) The percentage of Cub Scouts is a bit higher, probably typically in the 20-25% range. However, there are very general numbers and vary greatly from one area to another. That isn't saying that one can't do a lot better. But if you contact your local council, you can find out what is typical for the districts in your council and for the councils in

Hello Beavah, Sounds reasonable. However, if your area is anything like mine, churches are being closed because of too few priests. In many cases, a priest on Sunday has to cover several churches. Not that it's inconceivable to get a priest to come to Sunday services on a campout but it's very, very difficult because of their extremely busy schedules. There are ways to address the situation for Catholics. However, it the person absolutely insists on attending Mass, then addressing it may be impossible other than by going to a church for their regularly scheduled Mass.

"Should I say yes when it's held to me in worship as a sacred writing on par with the Bible? I think not." The challenging question is how to react when other Scouters may regard them as writings as sacred to them as the Bible is to you. How do you act not to disrespect those Scouters? The other possibility is to have any vestage of individual religion removed so that the interfaith service simply says "Sin is bad." That's rather dissatisfying also.

Hello John, I hope you have a wonderful Easter. One can disagree with the approach suggested by the BSA in the Unit of Supplemental Training. The purpose of that unit is not to suggest that it is appropriate for any one individual. Rather it is to suggest that if a unit/District/Council chooses to have an interfaith service, here is how to do it. If any person or group of people choose not to participate, that is a matter of their own personal religious belief. The alternative is having religious observances which actively, rather than psssively, offend others. Exam

Hello Rick, There is no question in my mind that you are saying the precise truth and that the document was handed out at your Roundtable. However, I don't believe that there is any chance in the world that it is an official, semi-official or even useful unofficial document. As was mentioned, I would say that a tip-off is the terminology used. The common lauguage would be "at the pleasure of" as "Counselors serve as the pleasure of the President." Saying "at the whim of" appears to empower a degree of arbitrariness and capriciousness that is simply inappropriate. As yo

Sounds quite reasonable, Albert. You would appear to be fortunate that the adults involved are basically people of good will and only need to be reminded of what proper action should be.

Let's see. Some rules of thumb. A community of 12,000 people. Say 2000-4000 of those are children. Of those, half are girls and not eligible so 1000-2000. Assuming age is distributed pretty evenly, each year group would be about 50-100 boys. The realistic targeted Boy Scout age boys would be about 150-350. Assuming a density of 25% which is neither great or terrible for Boy Scouting, that would mean that in the community, you have 40-85 boys who might reasonably be expected to be be Boy Scouts. If the total membership of the current units is in the 85+ range

Let's see. Some rules of thumb. A community of 12,000 people. Say 2000-4000 of those are children. Of those, half are girls and not eligible so 1000-2000. Assuming age is distributed pretty evenly, each year group would be about 50-100 boys. The realistic targeted Boy Scout age boys would be about 150-350. Assuming a density of 25% which is neither great or terrible for Boy Scouting, that would mean that in the community, you have 40-85 boys who might reasonably be expected to be be Boy Scouts. If the total membership of the current units is in the 85+ range

My father has not been with me now for 30 years. I still miss him. When he was asked to say a prayer for a meal, he would say "Good God, let's eat!"

My father has not been with me now for 30 years. But when he was asked to say a prayer for a meal, he would say "Good God, let's eat!"

To get a bit more information, check out the Unit of Supplemental Training on "Conducting an Interfaith Service" on the BSA National website. This has been reviewed and approved by the major religions which participate in National religious relationships. http://scouting.org/BoyScouts/TrainingModules/Interfaith%20Service.aspx This doesn't help particularly with the person or group which wants their own service. In that case, you accommodate as best you can but don't kill yourself. They likely don't get a separate time for their own service but Scouts aren't penalized for part

To expand a little on Eagle 92's answer, as always, it's not that simple. There are two types of local council Scout shops. National shops Local Council shops If it's a National shop, then the employees are National employees and it's a part of the National organization. In this case, they should help you toward getting the warranty honored pretty easily. If it's a local council shop, then they buy materials from the National supply and sell them. They will still probably help you, but your purchase from scoutstuff.org is no skin off their nose. They had nothi

As a starting place toward answering your question, you should take the on-line training. Go to http://www.scouting.org/Applications/MyScoutingFull.aspx Sign in Take "What is Scouting?" and then take the "Troop Committee Challenge" Then come back and ask the question again.

Hello, I suspect that I know the answer that I will get to this question but it needs to be asked anyway. Where is your Chartered Organization in this? Ultimately, it is the Chartered Organization who selects the Committee Chairman and the Scoutmaster. If they have a problem with the SM and the CC being husband and wife, then that's the end of the discussion. If they have a problem or a position on the challenges you have mentioned, then their opinion should prevail. I suspect your answer will be "What Chartered Organization?" or else "They don't care." But if t

On at least 3-4 occasions in my 50+ years in Scouting, I have felt that I had to "ring the bell." In one case, it cost me a good Scouting friend. Another case probably cost me 5-10 years delay in being selected for the Silver Beaver. I believe that my actions were proper in each case; however, I'm not sure that I couldn't have handled things better. I believe that Beavah has good counsel in this case, but it needs to be tempered with iron. Don't expect any rewards for doing this. Expect that you may lose friends and if these people are powerful in your community, it may b

Hello gwd-Scouter, From what I understand of the situation, you don't particularly have a problem. Let's say that you have everybody present. Nine older Scouts and 12 new Scouts. First, you easily meet the 50% quorum necessary to hold an election. You would only need to have 11 Scouts present to hold the election. Now let's say that all 12 new Scouts abstain so that only 9 Scouts are voting. Any name which could appear on 5 of the voting ballots would be elected as I understand matters. The count for the quorum and the count for who gets elected are totally separate.

I'm sorry to be picky, but the word is Webelos. Always with an "s". Singular or plural. And it is an adjective. So Webelos Scout, Webelos Leader, Webelos den, etc.

Hello Scouter 760, You're right about abstentions in an OA election with one exception. Scouts who abstain count toward the 50% present which I believe is necessary to have a valid election. That's one of the problems which can arise with elections at summer camp. You need to have at least 50% of the total registered Troop membership there.

I have just read this amazing thread. Ms Summer, I too apologize for what your son is going through. However, and it probably won't make you feel particularly good, jumping through flaming hoops like this is what getting the Eagle used to be for a lot of us. So your son is getting his Eagle the old fashioned way. The good thing about that is -- that's the process that produced the old fashioned Eagle that made the Eagle something worth getting. I slao recognize the quote of the football coach who said "it is what it is" and that causes me stark terror that this might be my c

To quote my old Wood Badge Course Director "Don't overwork the problem." I have had a little involvement with the new National structure and it currently seems to be fluid, both in terms of professional and of volunteer responsibilities. So if you have a specific task you want or need to get done, your local council can probably help you find the current right person. But exactly how things will happen when all the dust has settled is still a bit up in the air.

Hello CubScoutJo, The site you found is part of the official National BSA website, so I believe it should be considered authoritative. Having said that, there is more than one person at National and it is entirely possible that one person wrote the information on the website and another the AC&P with a different "flavor" to what was written. But the information you got was "official" from the National Council.

Good "amateur" advice ( in the good sense) from all involved except from Calico Penn who is a pro in this area and has very appropriately refrained from giving specific advice. I might suggest finding out if your council has a meaningful Health and Safety Committee and, if so, finding out if they have a psychologist/psychiatrist as a member or on call. This could give you some local professional guidance. Rick (Kudu), I know that we have on occasion had significant disagreements on the best approach for Scouting and the best alternatives. I have tremendous respect for what you