NJCubScouter

It is all a matter of who is presenting the roundtables and coming up with ideas (if any.) Up until a few months ago our district's Cub roundtables were boring and pointless -- basically all announcements and statements by the commissioners that were basically repetitions of council and district newsletter articles and e-mail announcements. Very little in the way of program ideas or advice on program planning, and very little interactive discussion from the "unit" side of the table. Now we have an "acting" Cub Roundtable Commissioner who is doing a great job. The handouts he gives look lik

Rooster says: A Scout is free to believe in whatever faith he so desires. I don't think anyone in this forum ever suggested otherwise. Well, I think at least one person in this forum has suggested otherwise. Possibly two. That is why I asked the question. (Neither of the two are you, Rooster, though I was interested to see how you would respond as well.) I will wait for some more responses before commenting further on the responses so far.

Tjhammer started a thread with the title, is the Bible infallible? Since this is a Scouting forum, I would suggest that a better question would be the following: Should membership in the Boy Scouts (youth and adult) be limited to those who believe the Bible (meaning both the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible) is infallible? Or to ask a somewhat different question (perhaps it is the same question from Ed Mori's viewpoint): Should persons who think the Bible is "just another book" be excluded from BSA membership?(This message has been edited by NJCubScouter)

Weekender says: I'm not saying the UW is doing bad things. But if they object to the BSA upholding moral standards then they are misguided. I don't think they "object to the BSA upholding moral standards." I think they object to the BSA discriminating against gays. You may see one as equivalent to the other, I do not, and the local United Way here (and more recently, elsewhere) do not. (And at least nine BSA councils, those who officially requested that local unit option be made the policy, apparently also do not -- are they immoral too?) Or, to look at it another, the BSA is

The "term" of any adult leader is until the unit's next recharter. (I was going to say the term is one year, but you can recharter for I think up to 16 or 18 months, presumably you would do this only once, to change your recharter month.) The chartered organization (the IH or CR) can remove a leader at any time, but at recharter time the CO "reappoints" the leader by signing the charter paperwork that has the leader's name and position on it. If the CO wants to change Scoutmasters at recharter time, the new name is included in the charter instead of the old one, and if the new SM is not alr

Ed Mori says: What I wish training would cover is dealing with the parents who want their son's to be "given" advancements just because they were there. This is probably the most frustrating part of Scouting I have encountered. I agree with that, and I would broaden it to include "dealing with (other) parents in general," with specific mention of advancement and perhaps some other specific areas. When I attended Basic Cub Leader Training (under the old training continuum), we heard a lot about the "ages and stages" of boys, and that is very important and was presented well, but a fe

Just my opinion here, but if someone lost a boy's advancement records, it was because they were careless. Maybe they are always careless with paperwork, maybe they were just distracted at that moment and misplaced them. Maybe they also tend to lose their personal financial papers, papers from work, etc., or maybe they are good about keeping papers that are important to them but bad at caring for things that impact on others. Either way, I doubt very much that sitting in a training course for three hours, or three weeks, is going to change whatever it is that caused the person to lose the pa

I was aware that this was a decision by each local United Way, though that has not been much solace to my council. Unfortunately, I live within the territory of one of the Original Eight listed by BobWhite as having eliminated BSA funding (except where a donor specifies our council as the recipient) prior to June 2000 (when the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Dale case.) (I guess it is fairly obvious which one of the 8 I live in.) We unit guys hear about this at Friends of Scouting time. "Reduced support" is always mentioned during the presentation, and at least once the United Way ha

Slontwovvy, you ought to be one of those tv political shows, because you can "spin" with the best of them. The United Way cut funding to the Boy Scouts "because of our freedom of association"? No, I think it was probably because of "our" ("yours" or "theirs," not "mine") discriminatory policy, which violates the funding guidelines of the United Way. I am not and never have advocated that any group cut funding or association with the BSA, but at least be honest about why the United Way (or at least some United Ways) have done what they have done. As for your appropriation for the BSA of

SagerScout, I want to thank you for your perspective on the Girl Scouts as they really are -- not the distorted version portrayed in the first link contained in the post that started this thread. (The AFA link, the AHG site seemed fairly bland in the brief glance that I gave it.) It agrees with my own more limited experience with the Girl Scouts. Each of my daughters spent a too-brief period in the Girl Scouts, and I have worked on school-related issues with women who hold positions at various levels in the local GS hierarchy. What I have learned from this is that Girl Scout leaders and

In addition to those school-related subjects mentioned by BobWhite, and the summer-camp badges, there are various things that a boy might be doing anyway that would allow him to earn a merit badge without major distraction from the First Class requirements. When I was a Boy Scout, merit badges could be earned after making Second Class, and I remember that the first one I ever earned was Coin Collecting. I had an active coin collection anyway, and meeting the requirements was just a matter of showing the counselor what I had and discussing it, and discussing those items in the merit badge pam

YP does indeed work when it is enforced, though I think it remains to be seen whether this story is a good example of that. Although the story says that nobody has come forward to claim abuse by this guy over the 30-plus years that he was a Scoutmaster and Scouter, this may now change. People who are abused as chidren or teenagers are often very reluctant to come forward, and often the publication of a newspaper story like this will bring out others who claim that the same person abused them years earlier. This can be due in part to people fearing that they will not be believed, but once th

Well, well, a discussion of what Jews think about Christianity. I didn't see any of this when I made my post earlier. Merlyn Le Roy, or whoever you are, said: If the Jews are right, Christians are in violation of the 7 laws given to Noah, because worshipping Jesus as a god would constitute idolatry. To which Weekender responds: I've not once heard a Jew claim Jesus to be an idol. Weekender, it does not surprise me that you have not heard a Jew claim that; generally we do not go around saying things like that, partly to be polite and partly to try to avoid the massacre

Weekender, just out of curiosity, I have a question about this statement: Personally though, I find that the basis for building character MUST be an unchageing, unchangable set of moral standards that do not necessarily conform to societal norms but require an individual to understand that there is absolute truth and that there is right and wrong and that sometimes society is wrong. Short of there being a living God there can be no such standard. If we make the rules at our level then the rules are subject to change and interpretation. My question is this: Do you think that a person

Rooster says: We don't like the GSUSA's political spin. Yeah, I always thought those Thin Mints were curved to the left a little bit.

My guess (based on no facts whatsoever) is that if the BSA ever does actually revoke an Eagle, the vast majority of instances would be where someone's application (already approved) is found to contain false information. In other words, the person was not entitled to the award in the first place and the revocation is necessary to protect the integrity of the award. But for cases where the person properly earns the award but then "goes bad," revocation would seem pointless. There might be a point to it if the BSA were disassociating itself from a criminal -- but BobWhite says the revocat

We should always beware of overgeneralizations. I don't think anyone would suggest that all youth sports coaches stress winning over sportsmanship, team play, leadership, etc. I have known coaches, especially at lower age levels, who stress equitable playing time for team members and are interested in everybody having a positive experience and improving their skills to the maximum extent possible, regardless of their "incoming" skill levels or aptitude. However, I have also known coaches who don't. As I said earlier, I know of some coaches, as early as the 4th-5th grade level, who seem to a

Sorry about the formatting of that last post, I wrote it offline and some glitch in my computer prevented me from transferring it to the forum the way I usually do, and it ended up have line-breaks where I didn't want them.

First let me comment on the title of this thread: Are Internet Forums the Correct place to protest BSA Policy First of all, I would not describe what anybody does in this forum as being "protest." We are discussing the issue and stating our viewpoint, on all sides. It is not necessarily "protesting" any more than a post in the other sub-forums saying that the uniform shorts are uncomfortable, or that the Webelos hat is ugly, or that Cooking should be a required merit badge, or any of the other things that Scouters believe could be improved. Second, I would say that the

KoreaScouter says: I only asserted that it's easier to reconcile your membership in an organization when you're in agreement with its policies. As someone who is not in agreement with one of the BSA's current policies, I would agree with that statement. It would be easier if that policy did not exist. However, life isn't always easy. For me, the reasons for me to be involved outweigh the reasons for me not to be involved. What makes it easier for me to be involved is the knowledge that this policy is not in keeping with the true principles of Scouting and that eventually it could

I did not realize there was so much variation in the cost of Scout summer camps. The $400 for a week of beach camp in Southern California seems out of line, it must be a very good program. But $125 is a major bargain. Our council's camp charges $225 for the week, $200 if the troop registers before April 30 which I assume most do. Last summer I paid $175 for a week of Cub Scout DAY camp, and that's with NO meals included, though bus transportation is provided. I think Scout camp is a bargain compared with most other activities. And the boys aren't really getting the full program, at

Sctmom, I agree with you about youth sports. It is a wonderful thing in theory and if kept in the right balance with the rest of life. In reality it is often way overemphasized. Practices EVERY weekday, as you say, and don't dare miss one; kids being on multiple teams with 2 or even 3 games on weekends; traveling to games all over the state and sometimes elsewhere; this is not uncommon. And this is at the age level you are talking about, 4th-8th grade. And it only gets worse for boys on a high school team. In a couple of cases I have heard about, it almost seems as if the coach (and

BobWhite, as the sentence of mine that you quoted makes clear, I was not talking about what is the right thing for me to do. I know what my job in Scouting is. I was talking about what is the right thing for BSA-national to do, and that is to change the policy, even though (as you have repeatedly mentioned) it has the legal right to keep the policy as it is. Regardless of how violative of the true values of Scouting and of the Declaration of Relgious Principles it may be.

sst3rd says: As a long time Scoutmaster, I, the CC, nor the COR, have of yet to receive in writing, any policy (new, amended, or otherwise) concerning gay leadership being rejected. I continue to review the adult application, and I still don't see any mention of rejecting gay leadership (or to be on the look out for it). A "policy" has never been discussed at the many levels of training that I've been involved in, nor have I heard it mentioned at Roundtables, District, or Council meetings. Yes, this is a major peculiarity of this situation. I cannot think of another position taken b

BobWhite says: But the bottom line is if you speak publicly as a member of the BSA against the values of the program, the BSA rights to free association allow for you can be removed. I have seen nothing in the BSA literature that says that if you advocate against the policy, you will be removed. Let's assume that legally the BSA can remove you, I have not seen any policy that would do that. I have seen an indication that it is a violation of BSA policy to advocate against the policy to youth. That presumably was the basis for the adults in that PBS documentary about Scouting for A