NJCubScouter

This forum does give some odd error messages. My favorite is still "Missing human verification information."

Well, only if his real name is "scoutldr"

Does anyone know what this thread is about, at this point?

It has been required on the adult leader application for more than 10 years. As for the original poster's question, maybe the prospective leader should call or try to meet with the Scout Executive (at the council office) to see if some accommodation can be made. I doubt it, but you never know until you ask.

Fred, personally I think most the things you mentioned are areas that should be corrected or improved before the SM or CC signs it. I see nothing wrong with making the Scout come back for a signature once the corrections are made. I might make an exception in an "emergency," and I know the same is true for the people in our unit who actually sign the workbooks. (Our CC insists on being the signer on behalf of the committee.) Although, I am not sure you could reject a proposal for "proposal quality looks like he would not do a quality job." I guess it depends what the problems are with the quality of the proposal. JBlake, the next time you sign one of these Eagle project proposals, you might want to read the words right above what you are signing, before you sign without reading the entire proposal. It says that you, as SM, have done certain things, including "I have reviewed this proposal and discussed it with the candidate." Admittedly, it says "reviewed" and not "read", but I think it means "read" anyway. Yes, it is the Scout's project, but you have a mentoring role, and this is part of that role. Scoutldr, we always used to tell Scouts that also: The plan needs to be so detailed that another Scout could just pick up the plan and run the project from it. And I think it is still legitimate to tell Scouts that, but with the current version of the workbook (and I guess this goes back about 3-4 years) it is no longer legitimate to require it as a condition for a signature. The plan is now a separate part of the workbook that does not require anyone's signature.

On Scouts settling down at night: I always found it amusing that on two-night camping trips, on Friday night (after sitting in school all day), I would hear Scouts talking, joking, etc. deep into the night, and I would fall asleep before most of them did, but on Saturday night, after a day of physical activity (whatever it was on that particular trip), everybody was pretty much out by about 9 p.m.

I just had the same "Invalid Server Response" issue while writing a post. All I had to do to get it posted was to log out, close my browser, write the post again in Windows Notepad, "copy", open my browser, come back to scouter.com, log in, get to the right forum, and "paste." No problem, only nine extra steps for one post.

I think part of the confusion here is that the term "same sex" has (at least potential) connnotations that the original poster did not intend. Your question, phrased differently, seems to be: Can adult leaders of the same gender share a tent? For example, can a male Scoutmaster and a male Assistant Scoutmaster share a tent? And the answer is, sure, although T2Eagle's answer is probably more accurate. And, given current BSA policies regarding adult leaders, there probably was no need to bring up the "married" part. Statistically speaking, the two hypothetical male leaders probably ARE married. They are each married to a different woman. (Note, I said "probably", i.e. not in all cases.)

Testing

I believe the point of the original post, if I interpret it correctly, was that it is okay to be intolerant. And the discussion has pretty much gone as one might expect after that.

I have never heard of a Scout unit doing anything like that, but it seems to me that if ALL of the candidates for an office are present (not just invited, but actually present), it is probably permitted. Sounds like a good demonstration of citizenship to me.

scouternetworkuser, first of all, welcome to the forums, and thank you for what you are doing to provide Scouting to this group of boys that otherwise would not have the opportunity. I agree with what others have said above, but the "language barrier" might be a problem for some of these ideas. Collecting 25 cents a week in dues is not a bad idea, but most likely the kids are going to have to get the quarters from their parents, and the parents may not understand why they are being asked and what it's for, and if the parents don't understand English (and some of the kids know very little English as well) you are going to have issues getting the message across. In fact, beyond the issue of finances, the language issue may be one of the biggest challenges. I do think you should get the kids to do SOME fundraising, but with the idea that it's mainly to have them participate to some degree in providing funds for their program, but there is nothing wrong with relying on the donated funds for most of what is needed, at least at first. After all, I assume that is why the donors provided the money, to get the troop started. I also think service projects, which are part of Scouting anyway, will get the kids into the swing of helping the community and not feeling that they are just receiving things.

For such a new thread, there are already several different issues being discussed here. To respond to the original premise, I see no reason to stop requiring merit badges for Star, Life and Eagle. I think that in general, the advancement requirements (including the requirement to earn merit badges) are a good way of having the Scout learn the advanced Scout skills (including citizenship) that go beyond the First Class requirements, while also allowing for a little "exploring the world" through the non-required badges. However, I do think that the number of Eagle-required MB's has gotten a little out of hand. There are now 13 required MB's, so a Scout can now make Eagle with only 8 non-required MB's. (Most of our Scouts earn more than that, though.) One of the original ideas of the MB program was that Scouts would be encouraged to explore different hobbies, interests, potential careers, etc. I think that between the number of required badges, and the emphasis on merit badges in some summer camps and units, the "exploring" aspect has been largely forgotten. In our troop, when an Eagle BOR comes around, you can almost guarantee that the Scout will have earned Leatherwork, Indian Lore, Nature and several others, because those are the "popular" badges at summer camp. The badges where you actually have to go find a counselor, like Architecture, Truck Transportation and Aviation, I don't see very often. (Though my son did earn Aviation.) But that is a "local issue." Nationally, I think the BSA should trim (or merge) one or two of the required badges. By the way, Ken, based on my reading, merit badges became part of the requirements for the three highest ranks when those ranks were introduced in 1911. So you have to go way, way back to the first year of Scouting to find a time when they were completely "optional" for advancement.

Maybe not the Scout Law, Packsaddle, but leaving the gun safe unlocked does not sound very "mentally awake" to me.

I think I finished wondering that back in the summer, after the contents of the videos were revealed. It is definitely one of the three main possibilities. One of the others is that the Scout(s) completely made it up, which I think is the least likely. The last one - the one I lean towards - is a combination of overactive teenaged imaginations, and a Scoutmaster who misunderstood what the Scout(s) said, and what he thought he heard matched up with some of his ideological beliefs, so he didn't question it. I guess I'm trying to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, though the Scoutmaster doesn't get away without some blame under either scenarios. (Notice that none of my scenarios actually involve an officer pulling a gun on Scouts.) Of course, this is just guesswork. We will never really know for sure.

First of all, if anybody doesn't want to read about Star Trek, you might want to skip to the next post, or the next topic altogether. I do know more about the subject than I should probably reveal, but I think there is a point to be made here. Packsaddle, I could answer some of those questions you ask, but most of the answers would boil down to "it's just a tv show." In questions having to do with the first series, the more complete answer is, "it was a tv show with a very very low budget." For example, not that you brought this up, they "invented" the transporter because it was a lot cheaper to do a "special effect" (manually erasing parts of images from the film bit by bit and throwing in some glitter) than build the sets and props necessary to show a ship landing on a planet every week. (These days a 16-year-old sitting at a computer could do it, but not in the 1960's.) As for the Klingons, in the first series they made them look as "alien" as they could afford on a small makeup budget, which wasn't very much. I think they just changed the color of their skin and did something with their eyebrows. Starting with the first movie and in the later series, they had more money to throw around for makeup and prosthetics and things, and they used it to make the Klingons look much different. As another example of the "real world" causing "inconsistencies", in the "Next Generation" they started a story line that was really kind of important (mysterious bug-like aliens invading the galaxy) and dropped it because there was a scriptwriter's strike. In real life, I mean. They later sort of brought back that story line, but with a completely different kind of alien (the Borg.) Here's the point: For many of these things, I suspect the producers didn't think many people would notice, or at least that they wouldn't care, just like nobody really cared when the husband on "Bewitched" was suddenly being played by a different guy or when Hawkeye on MASH mentioned his sister, and later he turned out to have been an only child. They're just tv shows, and people watch them to be entertained and don't focus on the details. Of course, in the case of Star Trek, this turned out to be completely wrong. Some people cared very much about the details. There are entire books about inconsistencies in Star Trek. Someone once gave me a book titled "The Nitpicker's Guide to Star Trek", or something like that. Sometimes, eventually, they decided to try to explain the inconsistencies onscreen. Dcsimmons is correct, at one point Worf said Klingons don't like to talk about why they changed appearance from one century to the next. (It was an episode where they spliced together scenes from the original series and one of the later series, so both "kinds" of Klingons were visible.) But in the last Star Trek series ("Enterprise") they did try to explain it. The explanation was so convoluted I'm not even going to try to remember it. I know it had something to do with genetic engineering. I'm sure there's something about it on Wikipedia.

Of course that's the ideal, and that is what I did in my one instance of "stepping down." (Or halfway down.) But I have to admit there was one meeting at which I was at the stage of saying "Take this job and..." Well, you know. Fortunately, I didn't say it, and arranged a smooth and quiet transition. And luckily for me (and the Scouts!) there was someone else who had been "on the sidelines" but willing to step up when needed.

I think it's a matter of local custom and availability of facilities. I see someone above said they have pack meetings on Sunday evenings, and I have seen others say the same thing in this forum, but for whatever reason, I don't think any packs in my area would have regular meetings on the weekend. (My son's old pack would not anyway, because the meetings were held in a public school.) That pack met on Fridays. The dens met (usually at someone's house but sometimes in the school) on a weekday whenever the parents decided - sometimes right after school, sometimes in the evenings. Tuesdays through Thursdays seemed to be the most popular.

Eagledad, I agree with almost all of what you say. Keeping the competition "manageable" and keeping everything in balance is the key. It sounds like your pack keeps everything in balance. If a parent becomes "heavy handed", the pinewood derby committee steps in and maintains the balance. Unfortunately, when I first experienced this event in my son's pack, the "heavy handed" parents (and I am talking mostly about the fathers) WERE the pinewood derby committee. When I saw kids (mainly Tiger and Wolf) crying because they lost, that suggested to me that things were out of balance. When I saw lingering hard feelings between fathers because of whose son won and whose lost, it was clear that things were out of balance. When the new leaders (including me) first took over the pinewood derby committee and were criticized for de-emphasizing the trophies, things were obviously out of balance. (And I am not talking about "trophies for everybody," which we did not do.) We tried to push things more in the direction that they are in your pack, and we made a good start, but after two years of the "new direction," my son crossed over, and I went with him. Hopefully the pack was able to maintain a more balanced approach.