NJCubScouter

In our district the Scout gives a letter to reference-writers with instructions where to mail the letter - which is the Scoutmaster. Ideally, the SM gets the letter in enough time to give it to one of the committee members who will be participating in the EBOR. Or if the SM will attend himself (not as an EBOR member), he brings the letters with him. Sometimes the letters somehow end up in the possession of the Scout who gives them to a committee member. Nobody asks too many questions about it. I suppose if there was some evidence of foul play with the letters, there might be a problem, but there never has been. The letters are destroyed after the EBOR.

It seems to me that if they create an independent LDS program, they will have the same vulnerability to lawsuits, and the same constitutional protection from lawsuits, that they do now under the new BSA policy. The one thing that would be different is that the BSA definitely would not back them up if they are not part of the BSA.

I think it is just the opposite; they are trying desperately to keep them. Otherwise there would be no local option, they simply would have changed the policy and that's it. And, otherwise, they would not have just added a discussion of Duty to God as a requirement for every rank. Give one local option, take away another. Now, at least in theory, every Scout and every SM, everywhere, will be discussing God as part of every rank advancement. Who do you think asked for that? Was it part of a "deal"? I don't know, but the timing sure is interesting.

Christine, I'll say this as delicately as possible, and it's not a criticism of your church or its leaders, and its certainly not a criticism of you. And I should mention that I really have no knowledge about the LDS Church. I only know what I see, hear and read. But here's what I think: I find it really difficult to believe that an organization that is as powerful and influential within the BSA as the LDS Church was not able to get a vote postponed. It doesn't make sense to me. I have to wonder whether there is something else going on behind the scenes that you are not being told about. And that the church is not mentioning in its press releases. Maybe a miscommunication between LDS and BSA? Maybe someone in the church hierarchy agreed to something and the other leaders would not back him up? Stranger things have happened in the world. Your second paragraph makes me wonder about something else. Mention is made in this forum, from time to time, about LDS young men being required to be Scouts whether they want to or not. Now your post makes it sound like a lot of the parents don't really want them to be Scouts either, and that it isn't really about the membership issues. So if the Scouts don't want to be Scouts... and the Scouts' parents don't want them to be Scouts... who DOES want them to be Scouts?

Have you asked the older boys what they want to do? (The answer will probably get you to about the same place Stosh is suggesting.)

I think snow might be this stuff outside my office window (taken about a year and a half ago) I have never uploaded a picture before, let's see if this works...

Thanks!

Yeah, yeah. You can buy all the term papers you want, you just can't buy them from this site, unless they buy an ad. (However it is one does that.)

First of all, how can the registration fee be less than $10? I thought it was $25, though I have never separately paid a registration fee myself. (When my son was a Cub and Boy Scout the youth registration was always included in pack or troop dues, and both units pay for adult registrations.) But I think it is $25. Second of all, the units I am familiar with charge annual dues, which includes the registration as well as additional funds for awards and a portion of everything else (camping and event costs, equipment, etc.) The rest is paid for by fundraising. The annual dues have ranged from $40 to $60 with some asterisks here and there. (Such as, at one point the Cub pack was giving a "multi-Scout discount," about which I had mixed feelings, but then again I only have one son.)

As far as I know, only the moderators (including me) can edit the name of a thread after it is posted. If you say what you want to change, we can take a look at it. But I can tell you that if you want to change "Bs" to "BS", which is probably what you intended in the first place, unfortunately that is not technically possible at the present time. It has been an issue with a number of threads since the new forum software was installed a few months ago. The software apparently "auto corrects" acronyms so only the first letter is capitalized. A change has been requested and is being looked into by the administrators (not the moderators.) Update: I changed the title to spell out "Boy Scout", although apparently we now have the ability to use real, all-caps titles for threads.

I'm sure you can find web sites about those things without help from this site.

I agree with BadWolf and Stosh too. I'm afraid the Earth is about to spin off its axis... Calico, I probably shouldn't admit how much 70's tv trivia I know, but when Fred Sanford thought he was having a heart attack, he called out to Elizabeth, his late wife who he was about to "join." Esther (aka Aunt Esther) was Elizabeth's still-alive sister, who had a mutual hatred thing going with Fred.

Thanks. You really don't need to start a new thread about things like this. The flag report system works. On a related note, to the people who responded to one of the spam threads, or have done so in the past: It's probably better if you don't do that either. It's just that many more posts that will be deleted along with the thread.

Since this thread has reared its ugly head again, I will just repeat that the recent Confederate flag controversy (remember that? Seems like years ago, before the News Cycle cycled on in its interminable way) is not about what happened in the 1860's, it is about what happened in the 1960's.

Well, if the advancement program is being run properly, you only get what you have earned. As for "instant gratification" not being "real world", it depends on what you view as recognition or gratification. This hits home for me because my son is in the first year of his first job after graduating college (as an engineer, by the way), and I am observing as he deals with the "real world" for the first time. I have asked him what kind of feedback he gets from his bosses, if any. He says he gets the occasional compliment, but he also understands that his main "recognition" is the check he gets at the end of every week. He also understands that the fact that the tasks he is being given are gradually getting more difficult and complicated is a sign of "positive recognition" because it means they believe he can handle these tasks, and over time (when combined with the fact that the company is apparently making money and expanding) may lead to bigger checks at some point. If that's the recognition he is getting, it's good enough. Or as a wise old man once told me, "Ever since the Mesopotamians invented money, there's been more than one way to say thank you." (I've never checked to see whether it was actually the Mesopotamians who invented money, but that's not the point.)

I want to "second" the request to allow capitalization of acronyms in thread titles, if that is feasible. This comes up on a regular basis, mostly because this forum is mostly about the "BSA" and people want to use that in thread titles. "Bsa" does not look right. And recently someone started a thread that I am sure they intended to title "NPR Story On BSA/LDS Relationship" but it came out "Npr Story On Bsa/lds Relationship." That looks silly.

Oh, I didn't notice that before. Also they took out the standing long jump, added "modified stretch and sit" (I'm not sure exactly what that is), and increased the walk/run from a quarter-mile to a mile. The latter change may require some change to our program. Usually sometime after crossover the PLC selects a meeting for the Scouts going for Tenderfoot to go outside and do the quarter-mile. It only takes a few minutes. At a mile, that will consume a good chunk of the meeting. They probably should do that on a camping trip rather than at a troop meeting.

In the "Scouting the Web" area there was a new thread, started yesterday, named "Research Assistance Needed." For those (including the several people who replied to it) who wonder where it went, I have hidden it. This is due in part to some of the concerns expressed by posters who replied, including the possibility that the original post was not "authentic" and the possibly malicious nature of the link in the original post, which was then quoted (as a link) in some of the replies. I also felt that the link was "advertising", even though the original post suggests it may not have been intended that way. Since all of these reasons are based on "suspicion" rather than solid facts, none of them alone would have caused me to take action, but in combination I decided there was good reason to do so. My decision was made easier by the fact that the thread really has nothing to do with Scouting.

Unitarian-Universalists might disagree that the BSA does this. Well, if you read it literally, it says the BSA "will not require..." In the future. Starting on July 27? (I realize that's probably not what they meant.)

Can someone here please explain, as if to someone with no knowledge of databases, what the difference is between myscouting.org and my.scouting.org?

I will admit I was momentarily confused by "Bong Museum" but quickly realized it must be a museum named after a guy named Bong. Which it is. When my son was in the Cub Scouts we did an overnight in the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey. I think that was a special "Scout weekend." The closest thing our troop has done is overnights on the Battleship New Jersey, which in a sense is a museum, but that's not exactly the same thing.

Don't get me started.

As far as I know our SM has not done anything about it yet. I am not sure he even knows about it yet. And in a sense, I am not sure there is anything to really know yet. These requirements are still in draft, right? And under the "transition plan" as I understand it, it will not apply for Tenderfoot through First Class to anyone currently in the troop. It will only kick in when someone joins the troop after Jan. 1 an starts working on Tenderfoot, right? (Or is it Scout?) We generally don't get crossovers until Feb. or March. As for anyone who joins the troop in the late fall, I guess it makes sense to have a conversation about whether they should even buy the current (old) book or wait for the new one.

That's enough rattling of people's chains (mixed metaphor though it may be), and enough getting rattled. Please.

Nope, as long as the SM was of a different gender than the wife and all of the concubines.