NJCubScouter

Brewmeister says: Proponents of themes types of changes aren't seeking inclusiveness, they are seeking the destruction of an organization they do not truly value. Yeah, that must be it. I believe the BSA should allow local option, so I must be "seeking the destruction" of an organization that I "do not truly value." I value the BSA so little that I have remained on as a committee member even though my son is out of the troop, and I have actually taken on MORE responsibility (as advancement chair) since he aged out. And I have no current plans to leave. I do this service (as do the vast majority of people in this forum, regardless of what they think about any issue) for the sons of many people who can't be bothered to lift a finger to help the troop themselves. And it makes sense that I would value the BSA so little. After all, my dear departed father only dedicated the last 67 years of his life (since the age of 12) to the BSA, was a Scoutmaster before he had any children, was my Webelos leader (back when they were all men) and my Scoutmaster and was a leader and mentor to hundreds of Scouts and dozens of Eagle Scouts and a high adventure trainer for countless others. It doesn't almost bring a tear to my eye to think of how much he devoted his life to the BSA because he wanted to benefit the community in his "spare time" and how he tried to pass along the same spirit to his sons, and hopefully succeeded in some measure, and I wish he was still around to do it. And how, long after he retired as SM, he was still writing a monthly column about his troop for the local newsletter, literally until he went into the hospital for the final time. (Sorry about all this emotional baggage, but it's all true and maybe it helps make my point about how ridiculous the above statement is.) And then there's my son, who stuck it out when the going got tough, made Eagle and more importantly, learned a lot along the way. But you're right Brewmeister, the fact that I want the BSA not to force CO's to discriminate against gay people must mean I don't value the organization and want to destroy it. But enough about me. Here I am in a thread that asks a question, and despite Seattle Pioneer's repeated ridiculing of the question and those who have answered it, I will throw in my answer. Unfortunately my best guess, and I hope I'm wrong, is somewhere between 15 and 25 years. I think this truly is a "generational change" as others have suggested, and the generation that is going to change it is not even close to being in charge yet. Finally, I note this comment by shortridge: Some of us believe the opposite, that the act of discriminating against people based upon who they love is itself immoral. Yet your morality and religious doctrine outweighs my morality and religious doctrine. How is that right? I think I have said almost exactly the same thing in this forum in the past. That's the crux of the issue, stated as simply as possible. Was I copying shortridge, or is he copying me? It doesn't matter, because I think the more people who come to believe that, the better off the BSA will and the closer this necessary change will be to happening.

I have never heard of having mini-projects, which doesn't mean it's wrong, but I think I still prefer the idea of the Scouts earning their service hours for Second Class, Star and Life working on other Scouts' Eagle projects and on the various service projects and activities we have sprinkled throughout the year. We have a couple of regular Flag Day activities that we do in association with a veteran's group and another civic group, one of which has turned into an annual large-scale flag retirement (i.e. respectful destruction and disposal) ceremony that goes on for a few hours and requires a lot of hands. We also have a practice that, when camping at a private non-commercial facility (i.e. someone being nice enough to let us use their land, usually for little or nothing; and including a Coast Guard facility where we have camped), we volunteer to do a cleanup or some other service project for 2 or 3 hours. (Not just cleaning up the camp site which we do before leaving anyway, but something beyond that. And while I am in a parenthetical anyway -- admittedly these service projects are something that are scheduled/volunteered for by the adult leaders rather than being chosen by the boys, but so be it. They don't complain about it too much, because apparently we have been successful in ingraining the idea that service is part of Scouting.) And I will tell you, those little service projects on a Saturday late-afternoon before dinner do more for the public relations of the BSA than a whole team of "communications professionals" at BSA headquarters could ever do. We have heard more than once, "Oh, you didn't have to do that." Well, right. That's the point.

It seems to me this issue has been discussed in this forum before. I am kind of surprised that over the years of the Venturing program, nobody has formed a "society of honor campers" geared to the needs of that coed program, including a system of symbols and rituals (if any) that is different from the Native American focus of the OA. I have no idea what such a system would look like, but it is really beside the point. The real point of the OA is not dancing and Native American ritual, it is fellowship, promotion of outdoor activities and the giving of service to fellow Scouts and others, particularly at camping facilities. Those ideals apply equally to Venturers (male and female) and could easily be the basis of a new organization. Now, what I think is a more interesting (and more difficult) question is, should female Venturers be eligible to earn Eagle, and how would that be arranged, since only the ranks of Star, Life and Eagle may be earned (by males) within the Venturing program? I suppose you could also allow female Venturers to earn T-2-1 but that again introduces an inequality as well as logistical issues, as you would then have females and males working at different levels on different things in the same program, not to mention the awkwardness of a 14-15 year old working on requirements geared to 10-11 year olds. Though I am sure that somewhere there are Boy Scouts who join at age 14 or 15 or older and go through the T-2-1 requirements.

Stosh says: If Morgan Freeman can give Obama a $1,000,000 campaign contribution, I wonder where a Dem gets his hands on that kind of dough? I'm not sure I understand your question. Are you saying you don't know where Morgan Freeman would get $1 million from?

How did this thread move so fast from an attack by Congresspersons on a woman just because she is Muslim, and John McCain apparently getting his, um, courage back, to a discussion of welfare? Just because someone said the word "Communist"? This forum amazes me sometimes.

Pack, you are not the first to compare the attack on Huma Abedin to McCarthyism. See http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505267_162-57475483/michelle-bachmann-refuses-to-back-down-on-claims-about-huma-abedin/, in which Representative Keith Ellison (a member of Congress from Minnesota, who for whatever it's worth happens to be a Muslim, the first one in Congress) makes the same comparison. So is it a reasonable comparison? Let's see: Joseph McCarthy, 1950: I have here in my hand a list of 57 members of the Communist Party in the State Department. (Very close paraphrase; sometimes the number was 205, or something else, and he never was able to produce a list. Not that the Soviets didn't have spies in our government, and not that we didn't have spies in theirs.) Michelle Bachmann, 2012: I have here in my hand a list of one Muslim Brotherhood spy in the State Department. (Very loose paraphrase, but it's basically what she meant.) Sounds like a reasonable comparison to me, especially when you consider that Bachmann (and the other four Congresspersons) also said that there "may" be other Muslim Brotherhood spies in the government. For anyone who doesn't know who she is, Huma Abedin is an American citizen (born here, I believe) of Pakistani descent, who identifies herself as a Muslim and works for the State Department as the personal assistant to Hillary Clinton. Here is a photo of her doing her job, although at the time Clinton was still a senator: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hillary_Clinton_and_Huma_Abedin.jpg . When former Congressman Anthony Weiner was having his "texting" scandal and the media referred constantly to his pregnant, very unhappy wife, Huma Abedin was (and still is) the wife in question. As for John McCain, I think he's pretty good, when he's not running for president.

Maybe we need a new policy, anybody who mentions a "tweet" in the forums has to donate $1 to scouter.com. ::Digging into pocket for $1::

I think every Scout would go for that one, funscout. And their leaders would go for the Ice Cream Knot (with cone, cup or sundae device, depending on the program.) But what does that have to do with Twitter?

I think the first thing I would do is identify for yourself (and maybe share with us, though if part of this is a list of music acts that a current 17-year-old likes, chances are I won't have heard of them) the potential recipients that REALLY cause you concern. Politically extreme and rabid commentators? Everybody has their own definition of "extreme." You mean like someone who advocates violence? Or someone like Rush Limbaugh, who some people (including me) just disagree with all the time? Musicians with controversial lyrics? When I was a kid, "Let's spend the night together" was too racy for the Ed Sullivan show. (Though admittedly I was too young at the time to know what was going on with that, or what "spending the night together" meant, but I found out later.) I do realize that in the ensuing 45 years, there have been songs with lyrics that are truly objectionable, but what are we really talking about here. Again, are we talking about violence? You do say that some of the sports starts have been involved with "criminal or abusive activities." I guess the criminal part would concern me. You do not need to involve yourself in the glorification of people who are known for committing crimes and violent acts. But it sounds like the "list" is kind of a mixture of people to be legitimately concerned about, and people who you wouldn't put on YOUR list. But it isn't your list. So then when I had the issue really narrowed down, I would have a talk with the Scout. Do you realize that X did Y? Do you realize that A is a symbol of B? Then see what kind of answers you get. Maybe if he says that you are trying to meet him halfway, the issue will take care of itself.

Interesting video, Merlyn. I wonder if this guy realizes that he is advocating putting people in concentration camps, or if he is just so much of an extremist that he really doesn't know the meaning of what he is saying. Among other things, how someone could call themselves an American and say what he is saying, is beyond me.

I agree completely with Beavah and Eagledad, and that's not something I get to write very often!

What Lisabob said.

Horizon, I'll have to take your word for all that. Just one question though: "Retweet"? Isn't that what the bugler plays as the flag is being lowered after dinner, if he has a mild speech impediment? (Mild because, if he had a severe speech impediment, which they probably call something else these days anyway, it would be "We-tweet." You know, if you have to explain a joke, it's probably not very funny. What do you expect, my sense of humor is rooted in my monthly reading of the joke page of Boy's Life when I was a Scout.)

For those of us who have no clue what you are talking about and just barely know what Twitter is but have no account there and never plan on having one, what does "trending on Twitter" mean? (All I know about Twitter is that it allows you to send very short messages to other people, or a bunch of other people, and that millions of people use it to announce to their all their friends that they are at the grocery store or about to rob a bank or whatever, or they use it to send out photos of themselves wearing less than the customary amount of clothing to 40,000 other people and then end up having to resign from Congress. That's what I know about Twitter.)

In my experience, burnout among Scout leaders (especially SM's and CC's) occurs most often when the jobs of the other positions in the troop are not being done properly or at all -- which can occur either because nobody is doing those jobs, or the jobs are not being done properly, or the burnout-candidate has failed to delegate, meaning that the others cannot do their jobs properly even if they want to. This is basically what other people have already posted. However, I think that in some cases, there may be another contributing factor, which is that the person is not really the right person for that particular job in the first place, and has failed to "grow into it." So then you have the person getting frustrated that things are not happening as they are supposed to, other people are getting frustrated at them, which may increase the chances that other jobs go unfilled or are not done properly, which in turn increases the workload on the "leader." It all becomes a vicious cycle, and burnout is inevitable. I have seen it happen in several different volunteer organizations I have been involved in, not just Scouting. It could be a PTO, local charitable organization, library board, whatever; just substitute "president", "board chairman" or "executive director" (especially the unpaid kind) for SM or CC, and the same things happen.

Eagle BOR's in our district are sort of a cross between the two methods that Beavah describes, and when I have read discussions in this forum of unit vs. district EBOR's, I have never been quite sure which category we fall into. Based on the fact that the EBOR has more unit members (2 or 3) than district people (1), I'm guessing it would technically be a "unit" BOR, but let's see what the forum thinks: After the Scout gets his application signed off at the council office (the pre-BOR signoff, which must be done by the 18th birthday even though I don't think they are supposed to require that), the Scout calls the District Advancement Chair to make an appointment for his EBOR. The appointment is made for one of the twice-monthly EBOR sessions that are held in a central location in the district (although lately they have been rotating between two locations.) The DAC tells the candidate to inform his troop Advancement Coordinator/Chair (which at the moment would be me, which is how I know this directly) of the date and to ask (me) to arrange for two or three troop committee members (including myself if possible, which so far it has not been, so I haven't actually participated in any EBOR's myself, other than sitting in the "waiting room" during my son's EBOR) to attend and participate, and to also notify the Scoutmaster. On the appointed evening, at the central location, there are several EBOR's going on at the same time. The membership of each one consists of a district advancement committee member as the CHAIR of the EBOR (not just a "guest"), and the two or three troop committee members. Prior to calling the candidate in, the board members (and the SM, if present) go over the Scout's advancement records (including merit badge cards, which the Scout is supposed to have brought) and the recommendation letters and make sure everything is in order. Then the candidate comes in, and my impression is that if all the records seem to be in order, the discussion is mostly about the Eagle project and future plans, and if there are issues with the advancement records, some time is spent on that. (They also offer a voluntary "pre-review" before the application is submitted (and therefore by definition before the 18th birthday, so there is time to actually deal with any "paperwork issues" before they become a potentially insurmountable problem). The pre-review is handled by a district person, who may not be the same district person who chairs the EBOR.) The EBOR (the part with the Scout in the room) seems to last 25-30 minutes. So is that a "troop" BOR or a "district" BOR? It has aspects of both. It seems to be more on the "formal" side, but on the other hand, most of the people in the room are known to the Scout because they (we, in theory) are the same people who have been doing their BOR's since Tenderfoot, not to mention that they are (or in most cases, have been in the past) parents of other Scouts in the troop and have gone on camping trips, etc.

If "First Class First Year" means that the troop has a program that gives Scouts the opportunity, through regular participation, to make First Class in 12-18 months, I think that's great. I would say that our troop's program meets that test. Our "time to First Class" has ranged from seven months to more than two years, and our average is probably about 15-16 months. For those who take longer than average, the most common reason is a lack of regular attendance at meetings and/or camping trips. So, they have the "opportunity" and some take advantage of it, and some don't. It's their choice. And this is what I thought the BSA meant by FCFY, until fairly recently. However, I am getting the sense more and more that they really mean (or now mean) that a boy actually should be rushed along through the ranks. I quoted the language from the Guide to Advancement in another thread today, but I'll quote it again; it says the unit is supposed to "Establish practices that will bring each new Boy Scout to First Class rank within a year of joining, and then to Star rank the following year." Bring, it says. Not establish a program that will allow the boy to meet those milestones, but "bring" them. I have a problem with that. If the reason a Scout is not progressing "quickly enough" is that they miss half the meetings and camping trips, quite frankly that is their choice. Hopefully they are doing something productive like a sport or teaching themselves quantum physics, as opposed to just playing video games. But whatever they are doing, they are not doing Scouting, and they are not going to "learn their stuff" and advance through the ranks as quickly as someone who has a 95 percent attendance record. So I'd really like to see the BSA go back to "my" version of First Class First Year -- assuming they were ever actually there, because they don't seem to be there now.

By the way, while the Personal Management MB requires the planning of a project on paper, the Family Life MB requires both the planning and carrying out of a project. As has been pointed out, some of the POR's (the ones that are generally considered "leadership" positions require the Scout to plan and carry out certain "projects" such as meetings and camping trips. Some youth leaders will get more "planning and carrying out" experience than others, mostly because they make these experiences happen themselves. I remember that when I was SPL, one of my ASPL's and I basically created and carried out a new fundraising program for the troop. (Interestingly, we are both "Lifes for life.") And then there are the other POR's. Quartermaster does require "planning and carrying out" if it is done properly. Scribe might or might not. Some of the other POR's might not. I think the result of all this is that the current advancement program and troop structure give Scouts the opportunity to get some meaningful practice and experience planning and carrying out "projects", but does not require it. I think I would leave it that way. Maybe there should be a page in the handbook listing some of the ways that a Scout can "get ready" for the experience of doing a project, such as earning Family Life MB before starting the project, or having a POR like PL or SPL where they can practice planning and leadership. But I don't think I would make it mandatory. It's all part of the learning experience.

Earlier I pointed out that Section 2 does not mention the word "Eagle." So now I decided to go looking for the word "goal." It appears once: "Though certainly goal-oriented, advancement is not a competition." So I don't think things are quite so clear-cut. And then, as I also pointed out, the Boy Scout Handbook (i.e. the document the BSA is giving to the boys to read, unlike the Guide to Advancement) does set Eagle as a goal. I think what the BSA is really saying here is that advancement should be kept in perspective. I'm not sure the BSA itself does that perfectly, for example the now-famous statement in section 3.0.0.3 of the Guide to Advancement stating that the "Unit Advancement Responsibilities" include: "Establish practices that will bring each new Boy Scout to First Class rank within a year of joining, and then to Star rank the following year." That does sound kind of like a goal, doesn't it? And I hate the way they word that; what do you mean "bring" the Scout to First Class and Star? That sounds like the Scout is passively riding in the advancement-car, observing the ranks along the way, rather than actually doing anything. I think we also need to realize that the word "goal" is somewhat ambiguous. You can have intermediate goals and ultimate goals and maybe other kinds of goals as well. This is why the whole "strategic planning mentality" drives me crazy, with its goals, objectives, aims, purposes, mission statements, vision statements, etc. etc. Half the time I can't tell which is which, and I doubt the people using these terms can really tell either. Sort of off-topic, but I just think we need to be careful about making dogmatic statements with the word "goal."

Moosetracker, XO = Executive Officer = second in command of a military unit. Horizon, #1 is what all boys in my troop have historically been told when they are starting on their project plan, except the reference is to if he had a family emergency and couldn't be there, not specifically to him dying. Interesting variation though. I wonder if this practice will survive the new approach, in which the plan is optional, or it does not require pre-approval. #2 is interesting, I have never heard of that before. I can see the advantages of it, but I also wonder whether it detracts from the "leadership" aspect of the requirement, by having a second "leader."

Actually, Section 2 doesn't even mention Eagle, one way or the other. I decided to look at the Boy Scout Handbook (12th Ed., 2009 printing) to see what the BSA is telling the boys their goal should be. Take a look at page 54, entitled "Reaching Your Goals." I am not going to type the whole thing here (unless I have to), but it sure sounds to me like the BSA is telling the boys that the goal of the advancement program -- at least, THEIR goal -- is to make Eagle. Can you really interpret it any other way? I am not saying this is good or bad, I am just reading what it says.

I think a few of you (starting with Nike) are reading way too much into the order of the words. As for "values", the Australian Girl Guides also have a "Law" that is similar to ours, but not identical. They have now edited it to streamline it a bit and combine some of the concepts. They seem to have removed "loyal" and "obedient", but I assume they figure "respect" covers both. I think I understand why, if one were going to remove two words from a modern "Law", those would be the two, but I am not going to speculate out loud. (Nor do we need to have a whole discussion about it, since I don't suspect that our Oath or Law (or Declaration of Religious Principles) are going to be changing anytime soon -- regardless of whether they should or not.) It is interesting that in the article that Merlyn linked to, the main objection in Australia seems be NOT about the removal of "God", but about the removal of "the Queen." I guess this figures. It is my understanding that religion is not nearly as big a political issue in Australia as it is here, but the issue of whether Australia should be a republic or a monarchy is a HUGE issue there. There have been prime ministers of Australia who have supported eliminating the monarchy, and they had a referendum about it in 1999. It was defeated, but that was due in large part to the split among "republicans" about how the new position of "president" (which would be a figurehead) should be elected.

Do Tigers still wear those orange t-shirts? I thought they have been wearing the blue Cub Scout shirts for at least several years. (You can tell it's been awhile since I've been around a Cub Scout pack.)

Woapalanne (that's the name of my council's OA lodge, #43, but I see you are in South Carolina, so ?)... anyway, I had to remove my belt (along with my shoes) the last time I flew. I have even had to remove my belt a few times when going through security at a courthouse. My attorney ID card ("don't leave home without it") used to get me past all of that nonsense (at courthouses), and usually it still gets me past at least the belt-removal and similar indignities and time-wasters, but not always.

Well, I knew that before this thread was finished, we would hear from Beavah and his peculiar (and fictional) view of history that ignores things like mass forced conversions, Crusades, Inquisitions, etc.