NJCubScouter

In our troop, a Scout who showed up for a BOR without a uniform would be asked to come back on another day. And before everybody goes and finds the section of the G2A that says you can't do it, you don't need to, I know that's what it says. It says the Scout must be "neat in appearance" or something like that but specifically says they do NOT have to be in uniform. In our troop they do. (And this is not an issue of someone not being able to purchase a uniform. We have a "uniform bank" and if that was not sufficient due to size issues or whatever, if the Scout was truly poverty-stricken to the point where all earnings from lawnmowing, etc. had to go to the parents to put food on the table (which we have had once or twice), we have enough resources and available benefactors that a uniform would appear out of nowhere for the Scout. Every Scout in our troop, every single one, has had a uniform, whether they actually owned it or not. If it is not being worn at the BOR, it is not because it doesn't exist, it is because it is on the floor of the kid's bedroom underneath other stuff, or in the wash due to poor planning, or they couldn't take 5 minutes to change out of their sports uniform before coming to the meeting, or any of the 100 other reasons an 11 to 17 year old boy can find for not doing what he is supposed to. In that case, there is always next week. And that is another reason why I think our "policy" is ok and we don't get challenged on it: We don't have quarterly or even monthly BOR's, we will have them every week if needed, on demand, and I think in one case where time was critical (Star Scout was about to turn 17-and-a-half) we got together and did it on a weekend. We meet the Scouts more than halfway, so they can be in uniform.)

This is a subject that has been discussed many times in this forum, and you are likely to get a variety of opinions. For me, the question is, has he passed the requirements? (Other than the project.) For example, you say he has not shown leadership. Has he held a position of responsibility in the troop (which could mean his old troop) for at least 6 months since becoming a Life Scout? As for outdoor skills, I am inferring that he made it to at least First Class with his old troop. You can't un-pass him for those ranks and I don't think you can hold the fact that he has forgotten most of his outdoor skills, or perhaps never really knew them, against him when he is applying for Eagle. There are some in this forum who will disagree with me, but the BSA has prescribed the requirements and the Guide to Advancement tells us how to apply them, which really boils down to, the requirements are the requirements, and you cannot require more. Of course, it would be great if every Scout would do more than the bare minimum. But if they pass the requirements for each rank, including Eagle, they get the rank. By the way, what is your position in the troop? (It looks like my post and JosephMD's "crossed in the mail", but we seem to be pretty much in agreement.)

Our governor had it, or some version of it. He lost a significant but not a huge amount of weight but seems to have put some of it back on. It did not seem to matter to his presidential ambitions, nor will it probably help him with his vice presidential ambitions. Good for this Scouter guy though.

But Stosh, the comment of yours that I was responding to was this: Now you're talking about something different. But let's look at the programs you mention: Sea Scouts has been part of the BSA since 1912, Cub Scouts since 1930, and Venturing (under the names "Senior Scouts" and Exploring since the 1930's or 40's depending on what source you read. All of those sound pretty "historical" to me. All of them have been around since the "first half" of the BSA's history. As for STEM (STEM CELLS, that's very cute), I have to tell you that I have never seen it in real life. The STEM Scouting program is still a pilot program in a few councils. I also have never seen the in-troop STEM program. All references I have ever seen to either of these programs were in this forum and in BSA-related pages that were linked to from posts in this forum. In fact, Stosh, I would have to say that the majority of mentions of "STEM Scouting" that I have ever seen were in in YOUR posts. You mention it more than every other member of this forum, combined. So who's "promoting" it? The BSA should be paying you, because you provide more marketing services for STEM Scouting than the BSA does itself. One would think you actually liked the program.

My son earned Law merit badge over 3 or 4 nights at summer camp. The counselor was a local attorney who came up to the camp after work and worked with the kids on the badge. I suspect the nighttime Journalism MB sessions at your camp were for a similar reason.

Stosh, you are a Scoutmaster in "today's Scouting." Is your program "a coed group in a STEM classroom"? And apart from just you, how many BSA STEM classrooms have you actually seen? The core Boy Scout program is still camping, hiking, cooking, etc.

My answer would be "yes", unless there is a particular reason why he shouldn't go. Is there any specific reason why you think a week at summer camp might "overwhelm" your nephew? Is "homesickness" a concern? I have seen parents concerned about homesickness, including me when my son went on his first week-long summer camp, but in my experience, the large majority of the time (including with my son), the Scout gets so busy doing stuff at camp, he forgets to be homesick. Does he WANT to go? Has he done any camping yet? (That is, weekend camping with the trips, Webelos camping, family camping, etc., and if so, how much?) If he has already been on one or two camping trips, unless you have a really serious and specific concern, and he wants to go, I would say, let him go. Most council-run summer camps have some sort of first-year camping program where basic Scouting skills (matching the advancement requirements for the lower ranks) are taught and practiced, and in some cases some requirements might be legitimately signed off at camp. (At the camp my troop goes to, the first-year program is a full-day five-day program and includes skills through First Class and also 2 or 3 "basic" merit badges, which I wish they would hold for the second year, but that's just me.) Does your nephew's troop attend a camp that has such a program?

I guess my problem in dealing with this subject is that I don't really know very much about Facebook. I do have an account but I use it rarely. I have five "friends" but I don't really know what that means, except I guess I can see some things on their pages that non-"friends" cannot see. To my knowledge I have never used Facebook to communicate directly with anyone. All of this is probably why I periodically get anguished messages from Facebook asking me to sign on so I see something that it is very urgent that I see, and occasionally I comply, but I usually can't figure out what was so important. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place. So with my relative ignorance of Facebook as a backdrop, I have read the BSA's social media guidelines, and I see no prohibition on "friending" anyone. I do see a clarification that a one-on-one private communication between an adult leader and a youth member is treated like any other one-on-one contact, in other words, it is a YP violation. What is unclear to me is whether "friending" someone necessarily results in one-on-one private communications. Can anyone who actually understands Facebook shed some light on this?

Does that mean your CO funds all costs of the program?

Our troop has never bothered with JTE. I don't think the form has ever been filled out. I am not quite sure how we have gotten away with it, because in the past our district had really pushed Quality Unit, and I know that the percentage of units making Quality Unit (and presumably now JTE) determine certain things at the district/council level that they feel are important. (I have never thought it important to find out what those things are, so you don't need to tell me unless you really want to.) Of course, it is possible that someone somewhere is filling out the forms for us and not even telling us.

I think most people choose a party, or a candidate, based on what they stand for now, not what some long-dead people did 160 years ago. I have to wonder what Abraham Lincoln would have thought of Donald Trump. Of course, if Lincoln were running today, he probably would have come in 14th or 15th in the primaries. Trump would have belittled Lincoln for his somewhat homely appearance and (by contemporaneous accounts) rather high-pitched voice, and that would have been it for Lincoln. He would have gone down in history as a one-term congressman from the Whig Party.

"Here", 160 years ago?

Krampus, when you're finished rolling on the floor, I have a question. Just out of curiosity: Leaving aside the question of which way the numbers are going: Which way do you WANT them to go?

I think whether it is "normal" or "not normal" is not exactly the right question. In my opinion it is not acceptable. We as leaders should be modeling the behavior we want the Scouts to emulate, because they will emulate it, especially if it is behavior that is less than ideal. You don't want Mrs. Smith to ask her son "Where did you hear that word" and have him say, "Oh, the Scoutmaster says it 10 times at every meeting." Added part: I just re-read your post and saw the "swearing AT" part. So in addition to modeling poor behavior, now this (hypothetical?) person is verbally abusing the Scouts. Very not acceptable. Not to say that I have never heard our Scoutmaster let slip a word he shouldn't. But he makes clear afterward that it was a mistake. (And yes, I do realize the kids know all of those words and some of them use them, but they still don't need to hear them from Scouters, and especially not have the words directed at them.)

Well, of course the decision about whether you were sufficiently prudent or not is decided by six or twelve people you don't know, and weren't there (or one such person, if a jury is waived), long after the fact. You could be as prudent as the day is long, or think you were, and still lose if the "trier of fact" disagrees.

Welcome to the forum Ankylus! That's a big troop you've got there.

I believe it is both, and I tell the boys that during our discussion of First Class requirement 5. If voting were mandatory (as in Australia) perhaps then it couldn't be considered a right.

I guess this is sort of a philosophical issue, but I think I disagree. If you have a right, but can be deprived of the exercise of that right through your own conduct, under criteria that are clearly set forth in the law and after due process, it's still a right. It's just that you have forfeited that right. Another example is the right to personal liberty and right to travel, both of which have been recognized by courts as fundamental rights. If you are convicted of a crime and are sentenced to incarceration, you lose the right to decide what you are going to do, and where you are going to go, for the period of time that you are in jail or prison, and if you are released on parole, sent to a halfway house, etc., you now have some control over your personal liberty and travel, but it is limited. None of this changes the fact that those rights are rights.

And First Class requirement 5 (at least in the 12th edition of the handbook, I don't know whether they changed the number) which requires the Scout to have a discussion with an attorney, teacher, etc. about their rights and obligations as a citizen. I am the primary designated person for these discussions in our troop. I have probably done 50+ of them over the years. I always make sure the discussion includes the right (and obligation) to vote, so that does touch on "politics" to some degree.

I can tell you that my son is technically "affiliated" with an "organized religion", meaning that he was baptized into one, but by the time he was a Boy Scout, he was not active or involved in his (or any other) religion. (He is not an atheist either.) The "religious leader letter" for my son's EBOR was written by me, as the BSA rules permit. Of the 15+ EBOR's that I have sat on, I would estimate that about 40 percent of the "religious leader letters" were written by parents. This does not necessarily signify that a Scout is or is not active in a particular religion, or a particular place of worship within that religion, or what the Scout's level of activity/involvement in the religion/place of worship may be. The fact that a parent wrote the letter, or why, has never been questioned in any of the EBOR's I have been involved in.

Welcome to the forums USAF Vet! (And thank you for your service to our country as indicated in your user name.) Other than that, I will let others answer, as (despite MY user name) I have not been involved with Cub Scouting for more than 10 years.

Welcome to the forum Appliancedude!

I guess they couldn't get into Rutgers.

No, he has no years until he ages out. He will be 18 "soon." But he has two years left in high school. Now, why he is going to be in high school until age 20 when most people graduate at 17 or 18, I'm not going to ask. I'm sure there is a good reason. I see no problem with him being an ASM, if the SM thinks he's qualified, and mainly going on camping trips rather than coming to every weekly meeting. Maybe he can come to meetings when camping trips are being planned. TT seems to be saying that in the past when there have been "young" ASM's, "sometimes the parent scouters could be difficult." Difficult how?

Oh boy. My troop did a lot of hiking on the Appalachian Trail, but that was more than 40 years ago and my memory of the logistics is a little hazy. My son's troop (including me) has done some camping in northwestern New Jersey where we go onto the Appalachian Trail for short stretches, but the troop has never done an actual backpacking trip. I have suggested it, and we're practically right there (less than an hour away), but they haven't done it. I am sure there are those on the forum whose experiences are slightly more recent, and more extensive.