NJCubScouter

Or, to put it in a more Scoutlike way, some people might have legitimate concerns about it. But I think those need to wait until we see the actual requirement.

Fred, the term "Arrow of Light" has been in use in Cub Scouting for so long (as the name of the highest rank), I think people will know it doesn't refer to crystals and alternative medicine.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but somewhere in TwoCubDad's post I detect just a hint of sarcasm.

Shouldn't it include all of the first three? As for the fourth, I think it would depend on the troop. Very few of the non-Eagle service projects that our troop does would qualify as Eagle projects.

So when you say "doing the project all by yourself is okay as long as it is beneficial to the organization," that should not be in the present tense. It WAS okay. Now (as I am sure you already know) you must "give leadership to others." (And a bunch of paperwork and other stuff, not to mention the actual project.)

Nothing makes me assume anything. I was present for part of the project and am reporting based on what I observed. And I didn't say he "didn't lead." What I said was"he had a bit more help 'leading' it than would be acceptable otherwise." And there was nothing wrong with that under the circumstances. I do not want to go into too much detail for the same reasons I usually don't go into too much detail about things that happen locally.

My council appears to discourage these kinds of projects - I know of several of this type that have been disapproved, and only one that has been approved. As a result, in our troop we try to head these off at the pass and have only had one Scout go to the district/council level with a "drive" project. That is the one that I know of that was approved. In that case, the Scout had (well, still has, but he's in his mid-20s now) a severe, permanent phyical and neurological disability, is wheelchair-bound with limited use of his arms and hands, and difficulty speaking. He had many alternative requirements approved along the way. For his project, he did a food drive, and he had a bit more help "leading" it than would be acceptable otherwise... but he was the leader, and they collected a lot of food! He did the best job that his disabilities would allow, and then some. He's a remarkable young man. But other than that type of situation, in our area we seem to be "holding the line" on that sort of project.

Well, that Huffington Post article is partly an opinion piece, but it has a lot of facts in it as well. JoeBob, I am curious as to which specific facts you believe are incorrect, and why.

Wait, his real first name is James, not Richard? The scandal deepens.

There's that name again. Maybe he could, maybe he couldn't. But nobody, including Christie and his critics, say that was what happened. He says he didn't know the lanes were being closed, for any reason, and so far there is no publicly known evidence to the contrary. If it is shown that he did, he would probably have to resign, because he would have been lying steadily to the public for many months. The actual reason for the closure is really secondary at this point, at least as it relates to the governor himself. The other impact is that we still have an acting state attorney general, because Christie's selection is the guy who was the direct boss of the person who wrote the "time for some traffic problems" email. A lot of people, including me, don't believe a deputy chief of staff did that without approval from anybody. Sorry for the interruption, you may return to your regularly scheduled Texas scandal now.

Sure they prefer email, it's easier to ignore and/or make excuses about. We had a glitch, etc. In my council, if you sent an email on a Friday morning in the middle of August and expected a response by the same evening, you would have a better chance of Al Gore responding to your snarky tweet.

Stosh, is one of your Tenderfoot Scouts actually an OA rep, or is that just hypothetical?

In New Jersey about 20 years ago we had a Supreme Court justice who was arrested for drunk driving and also for refusing the Breathalyzer test. He pleaded guilty and I believe there was some minor rumbling that he should resign, but he ended up receiving a "public reprimand." I suspect that the facts that there was really no partisan fighting over it, and that he was only about 3 years from mandatory retirement age, would explain why stronger action was not taken. On the other hand, today it might be different. We also had a local prosecutor who did the same thing, and I think he stuck around for a few months and eventually "retired", but it was a little different because those positions are part-time. As for this case, the right-and-wrong of it are obviously drowned out by politics. This does not necessarily lower my opinion of Rick Perry, but only because that would be close to mathematically impossible. Anyway, our own governor here has been the source of enough drama and political wrangling, I don't need to go looking in other states. And although both of them want to be president, it does not look like either of them is going to be, at least not anytime soon.

Ed, I am so pleased to see you back, I won't even argue with you. (Yet.)

I resemble that remark. Evilleramsfan, this does seem completely ridiculous - even to a lawyer. Let me ask you this: Is this policy a reaction to problems that have actually come up on camping trips? Or did someone just dream this up to prevent future problems they think could arise? Or a combination of both, for different parts of it?

Just some fair notice here, I am considering closing this thread to further posts - not deleting it, just locking it. I think we (including me) have all made our point, loud and clear. In recognition of the comment that MattR has made, I think that anything further along these lines is just "piling on" at this point. The main reason I hesitate is to give the original poster an opportunity to defend his work, if he wishes to do so. Otherwise, like I said, the point is made. Right?

But Stosh, even in the "old training material" there was still room for an SPL, and a JASM for that matter. My father was both, and he "aged out" 70 years ago. I don't know how much further back those positions go, maybe they go back to the beginning. The point is, they are not some new invention designed to rob the PL's of their place at the top of your organizational chart.

Not by its cover, but perhaps by its jacket blurb, and what the author has provided here is sufficiently detailed for me to say, in the most courteous manner possible, that at least some of the advice in the book does not seem consistent with what we are trying to teach the Scouts. A book that teaches the Scouts how to solve their own problems would indeed be hugely beneficial, but that does not seem to be this book. This book seems to teach parents how to take control of their son's advancement. Not to mention teaching 10-year-olds that they should be starting to work on particular Eagle-required merit badges (Personal Management, Personal Fitness, Family Life and I am not sure what the fourth one is) from Day One. There is a reason why T21 are earned before Star, Life and Eagle, but this book seems to be having the Scouts "go for Eagle" from the minute they walk in the door. If I am drawing incorrect conclusions, I apologize, but everything I am saying (and much of what the previous posters have been saying) comes right from the author's post.

I have encountered many error messages in this forum since the software change, but I just saw a new one, and I think it is the strangest one yet. I wrote a short response to a post, hit "Post Reply" and got "Missing human verification information." Really? What species does it think I am? Does the system believe that an infinite number of monkeys has taken control of my account? As usual, the "Copy, log out, log in, paste" method did the trick. But it sure was odd to have my evolutionary status challenged like that.

14 ASM's and 15 committee members? That seems like quite a lot, even with 90 Scouts. And of the 15 committee members, not one is the activities coordinator? Do you have an advancement coordinator?

I think training is often part of it. Perhaps with some boys, laziness or a general lack of concern may be part of it as well. But on the other end of the scale, I see Scouts who have taken on so many different activities between Scouting, sports and after-school clubs, etc. that it is difficult for them to focus on any of them. Managing one's time, knowing when to say "no" to another job or activity, and maintaining focus on everything you've signed up for is not something that teenagers are born knowing. I know a lot of adults who have trouble with it, too.

Well, saw PART of it, and heard about part of it.  And it's the part he only heard about - the gun-pulling part - that has people the most outraged.  If not for that part, I doubt any of us would have ever heard about this incident.  (I agree with you and RS that it sounds like the laws/regulations about picture-taking need to be straightened out.  It is still not clear whether these agents were enforcing rules that really exist, or not.  If there do need to be some limited restrictions on picture-taking, fine, make them as narrow as possible, enforce them equally at all entry points, and POST BIG SIGNS before the entrance to the restricted area, so everybody knows exactly what the rules are ahead of time.) But on the gun-pulling thing... I do not have time right now to do a minute by minute analysis of what he said, but it runs from about 3:30 to 5:00 on the video.  He is basing what he says on what two Scouts supposedly told him later - and lets not forget that he tried to prevent these (and the other) Scouts from talking to the investigators, because he decided that he would speak for everybody.  (Which is not how an investigation works, by the way.  An investigator interviews multiple witnesses if possible, and eyewitnesses are preferred over hearsay witnesses, which is what Mr. Fox is on the gun-pulling part.) We don't actually know whether he succeeded in preventing the interviews, because these statements were made before the investigators arrived, and there do not seem to have been any articles written after they left. As for seeing the videos of the incident, Mr. Fox says that the media and others have already made FOIA requests, which I am sure is true.  But let's also remember that after he gave this interview, Mr. Fox did see the video, as did the council SE.  According to articles posted previously, both of them said the video shows no gun-pulling, but that one agent walked out of camera range for 13 seconds.  I am sure that if the video did show a gun being pulled, Mr. Fox would have said so.

Mr. Fox's credibility is in serious question at this point, at least with me. I hope his health is ok and he didn't have a heart attack. (If anybody doesn't know what I am talking about, read the last article RememberSchiff linked to.) But I have seen two articles now that say that in addition to not identifying the two Scouts, he has DISCOURAGED the Scouts from speaking with the investigators. I have a problem with that. What is he trying to hide? I can think of a number of possibilities, and some of them aren't so good for Mr. Fox. And if I were the parents of these Scouts, I would not be happy that Mr. Fox was telling my son what to do. When a Scout is on a trip with the troop, the leaders act as his surrogate parents, at least in some sense. But they are home now, and they have real parents, and it is the real parents who should be counseling their sons on what to do. I also think that between the media and Mr. Fox, the facts of this matter have become so tangled that I think it is time to just stop guessing and speculating and see what happens. (Actually I thought that from the first post.) One article says a Scout took a picture and a different Scout had a gun pulled on him. Another article says the Scout who took the picture IS the Scout who had a gun pulled on him. Yet another article says TWO Scouts were held at gunpoint, and that's what the latest article says as well. Is the latest article just repeating an error from a previous story? Did Mr. Fox say that one Scout had the gun pulled on him, and then he said it was two? Who knows? The latest story also suggests that this now comes down to a question of whether, in a 45-minute video, an agent stepped out of camera range, held a Scout or two at gunpoint, and then came back into range, all in 13 seconds, and there is no un-holstered gun on the film. I am no expert on police procedure, but this seems unlikely to me. Of course, that part of the article could be wrong too. Maybe another agent stepped out of range for five minutes, but nobody's talking about it. But that's just more speculation and guessing.

I think the "circumstances" would exist sometime in the next 20 years, but I hope the BSA decides to change the "circumstances" long before that. I don't really need to spell it out, do I? There have already been calls for the federal charter to be revoked, and we all know why. But I don't think that issue will be "forced" in the near (or even not-so-near) future.