NJCubScouter

Yes, Christine seems to have provoked the troop leadership (or higher) to realize that they are not providing a sufficient outdoor program for the Scouts, and to discuss a solution. It does not necessarily have to mean troops merging. Troops can go on joint camping trips, our troop has done a few of those. Either way, it's a solution to the problem. I hope it works out.

Miami_Chief, what are the "4 functions" of a district? Advancement, activities/events, training/Roundtables and supporting units (commissioners?) If so, I got 3.5 out of 4 without knowing there were 4 specific functions. And then what does the District Committee do, oversee the performance of the committees/commissioners carrying out those functions? (You would think I would know this after 15 years as a Scouter, but I have intentionally avoided getting involved at the district level except for being a YPT facilitator at district "training days" - which is the one "function" I left out, assuming I got the others correct.)

So in other words, the new Scouts will do the requirements for Scout through First Class that are in the current handbook, but the handbook they will have is the new handbook, that doesn't have those requirements? Or to put it another way, they will be working out of a handbook that will not have the correct requirements (for them) until they are working on Star? That seems very cumbersome and error-prone, especially for a 10-and-a-half year old just joining the troop. But I understand the problem, you don't want them having to buy a book and then have to buy another book about a year later. I guess the best answer is photocopying pages from the old book to put in the new book, which is also cumbersome (and of questionable legality I suppose.) Maybe what the BSA should do is publish the new handbook (at least the first printing, to be sold through the end of 2016) with an attached pamphlet in the back with the old requirements and places to sign them off. (And not charge any more for the pamphlet.) But past experience suggests there will be no pamphlet, and certainly not for free.

Yes, it is going to be a different time for every Scout, and it is going to be a burden, so we have to help the kids through it. The BSA has survived things like this before. I remember that at the time the requirements were changed in 1972, I was a Second Class Scout with a few requirements remaining for First Class and I was working against a deadline to finish First Class before the new requirements became mandatory for everybody. And those changes were MUCH more significant than these. They basically threw out the entire structure of different specific requirements for each of the "lower" ranks (much like we have now, again) and replaced it with skill awards (and a few merit badges.) The requirements for Star, Life and Eagle were also changed, but mainly in the number of merit badges and in the list of Eagle-required MB's.

Well, I guess for those (up to) 16 days the new Scouts (which is confusing since they won't have the Scout badge yet, but they are still Scouts) will have to look on the Internet for the new requirements for Scout. Or will the requirements on the Internet still be in draft form by then?

As a guess, a BSA program for Mormons who are not Americans just wouldn't make any sense. The people who become members of the LDS in other countries convert to Mormonism not Americanism. It would be the equivalent of having every Catholic troop in the US be members of Scouting Italy or all the Lutheran troops be part of Scouting Germany. Although there is a world wide scouting movement of which we're a part, if you look at BSA there is a lot of it that is very culturally and nationally specific. How would Citizenship in the Nation as a merit badge make sense if you were Brazilian? Now I'm a little confused, and I suspect I'm not the only one. Is the LDS Church talking about LDS members who are Americans but living temporarily overseas? (Presumably, in terms of the youth, as the sons of American LDS members who are in other countries doing work for the church.) Or are they talking about citizens of other countries who have joined the LDS Church? Or both? Calico seems to assume they are talking about the first group, USA residents temporarily overseas, for whom the BSA does have a structure available to have BSA units in other countries. T2Eagle seems to be talking about the second group, and he is correct, it makes no sense for them to join the BSA. It makes sense for them to join the Scouting program in their own country. Is there a definitive answer to this somewhere?

Part? My guess is that's the part Skeptic was referring to. So maybe it's not a "total" lack of Scout spirit, just a partial lack.

I think it depends. Is the district carrying out the functions of a district? Are there district camporees and other events and activities? Is there a District Advancement Committee, or if not, is there a process for Eagle candidates to have their projects approved at the district/council level and to get Boards of Review? Are there Roundtables? Are there any commissioners other than the District Commissioner? I assume there is a DE. (I am not sure what the 2.5 means, which of the Key 3 only counts as a half?)

Yes. Although the word on this forum has been that the new handbook will come out IN January, so it is possible that there may be some days between your son joining the troop and the appearance of the new handbook. But he will be subject to the requirements in the new book. What a system.

If I may speculate, it may be that a lot of people (including me) are hesitant to comment about what someone else's religion is doing. Not to mention that this thread has only existed for a little over three hours.

ScoutMom23, welcome to the forums! You will find that in this forum, sometimes you ask one question and get answers to questions you didn't even think you were asking - which is what has happened here. It seems that the issue here is at least as much about what your son's position actually is, as it is about what patrol patch he should be wearing.

If he is a patrol leader he is a member of that patrol and should be wearing that patrol's patch. Just out of curiosity, how old and what rank is your son? Maybe he is really a Troop Guide but they are calling him a Patrol Leader. That is just speculation on my part.

So that's 12 execs at National making $200,000 or more, and nine of those are making $300,000 or more, on up to the CSE making more than $800,000. And that doesn't even count the "other compensation," which is probably a combination of the value of benefits and whatever else. The total for the CSE is close to 1 million. And this is from four years ago, who knows what the salaries are now. I suspect that these people have been working overtime to mend fences as best they can to avoid a massive loss of major CO's. (By the way, though it's not relevant to this thread, I notice a former CSE, Roy L. Williams, is listed as receiving $230,000 from "related organizations." I wonder why someone who left office in 2007 was still being paid in 2011, and what the "related organizations" are.)

Christineka, did your source give you any information about when this decision may actually be announced? So the six-figure salary folks at National can start breathing again?

I think councils add on their own fees. I know that at one point out total charter fee was $25 per person, and that did not include Boys Life. I do not know whether it is still that amount - probably not, if the national fee by itself is $24.

I have never heard of a fully instructor-delivered YPT course. In my experience it was always the video introduced by a facilitator who then stopped the video for discussion at the prescribed times, handed out the handouts, and then took questions and led the discussion at the end. That's what I refer to as "live" training. I took the facilitator training about 15 years ago and facilitated the live training about 20 times - mostly at district "training days" where new leaders were getting the basic training for their program and position-specific, and they also threw in YPT and sometimes Risk Zone. I also did it on the CO level (troop, pack and crew) when we got enough people together who needed it and a couple of times at the council service center as part of their regular schedule. Nobody has asked me to do it since YPT became mandatory and council started encouraging people to do it online. As I said before, I do not think the online course is anywhere near as good as the live (with video) course. I agree that at least for the initial training, the live (with video) course should be required. I don't see it happening because I don't think they are going to change the rule (adopted a few years ago) that YPT must be taken before registration, and requiring a live course would create bottlenecks in getting new people registered. The compromise, as I suggested earlier, would be to revise the online course so it basically replicates the live/video course, complete with handouts. I agree that the in-person discussions are valuable, unfortunately I don't think enough people are going to do it when they are just registering for the first time. I think you would lose a lot of new leaders that way.

I'd say that being identified as a human being is an automatic tag of sexuality - the only question that remains is, which sexuality? Why single out 2 to 5 percent of people as being "tagged" with "sexuality", and not the other 95 to 97 percent as well?

That applies to all kinds of behavior though, doesn't it? We are all role models. I have children, and most people assume that I am the natural parent of those children, and they are correct. People see that I am married to someone of the opposite sex. They may (correctly) draw conclusions about how those children came into existence, even if I never talk about my personal life, which I don't. But doesn't that make me a "heterosexual role model" anyway? A confused teenager might be "misled" into thinking they are ready for that kind of activity and end up with a child they aren't ready for, with serious impact on their future life. Barry, I think you have written about this yourself. So maybe the focus needs to be on the fact that adult activities, regardless of what they may be, are for adults. I believe there is something in the Scout Handbook about that, or at least there was at one time.

I hope it does not become annual. I would take it every year, but getting some people to take it every two years (even online) is difficult enough. Although this should probably be another thread, I also don't think the online YP training is very good. I think the older format with the video with the panel discussion, and the scenarios, and the handouts, was much better, even if it did take 3 times as long and required a live facilitator. (They could do the same thing online and provide the handouts by a link from the training site, I have taken online continuing legal education courses that work that way.) It is difficult for me to judge since I already know the material, but I doubt the current course gets the material across very well to someone who does not already know it. It also appears that they don't update it with the changes to the G2SS, such as the rules on electronic communications and the recommendation that Scouts more than 2 years apart in age should not tent together.

That's a good point. And "they" are banned from Scouting, and rightly so.

Where does that requirement come from? It seems to me that the two-deep leadership that is already provided by the troop would be sufficient, even if he is a registered member of the pack rather than the troop. As for supervision for members of Webelos dens, I believe that when my son was in Webelos (more than 10 years ago) a parent of each boy had to be present on camping trips (but not meetings), but I thought they had changed that for Webelos since then.

None of that is really relevant to what I was responding to. Mashmaster said his co-worker was concerned that his son might be "around gay people." My point was that even before the policy change, the man's son could have been "around gay people," both within Scouting (non-openly gay people and openly gay people attending Scouting events as parents or other non-registered persons) and outside Scouting (school, etc.) In other words, this policy change does not change whether the young man may be "around gay people." It also does not change the status regarding this man's son's troop as far as openly gay leaders are concerned. They were banned before the change and, assuming this is an LDS unit, they are banned now. As far as an illegal or undesirable business opening next to my house, that is a pretty poor analogy. A better analogy would be a gay married couple moving in next to my house. I wouldn't care. Mashmaster's co-worker might care, because then his children might be "around gay people," but he would just have to live with it or move elsewhere where there is a guarantee that no gay people will ever move into the neighborhood. I doubt there is such a place unless the co-worker buys his own uninhabited island to move onto.

Almost fell off my chair at "another shade of white." It has always been "legal" to be a gay leader. It just hasn't been "legal" to be an openly gay leader. (Well, until about 20-25 years ago it was "avowed or known", whatever that means, then it changed to just "avowed".) So this person's kids may have been around non-openly gay leaders, or as you say, gay (openly or not) parents, non-leaders, other guests, etc. Not to mention, since 2013, openly gay Scouts. At least in theory. I still don't know of any openly gay (current) Scouts. And none of our adult leaders has "come out" in the past couple of weeks. I am not expecting that any will. It also should be remembered that Scouting is just part of the rest of the world. My children had two openly gay teachers while in high school. They also had dozens and dozens of apparently straight teachers and professors during their school years. The latter 98 percent seem to have been more persuasive role models for my children.

He'll be registered as a Scout, specifically as a Cub Scout. Some troops might allow him to attend the meetings, some might not. On a couple of occasions our troop has had a couple of boys who were "just visiting" for a few months until they became eligible to join the troop.

But if he hasn't earned the Arrow of Light, he won't be eligible to join a Boy Scout troop until he does, or until he turns 11 or completes the fifth grade.