NJCubScouter

Actually this issue has come up recently in our troop. One leader expressed the opinion that because the (in this case) 15-year-old Eagle Scout does not need a POR anymore, they should not be eligible for SPL. I took the opposite viewpoint, that there is no reason why he should not be eligible. POR's are not really an issue in our troop, the leaders find POR's for those who need them. And even if electing an Eagle as SPL would shut out someone else from a POR, the boys would (or should) know that and if its a factor for them, they can vote for someone else. (That's one of the great things about democracy, people can vote for candidates for good reasons or bad reasons, or reasons that someone else may think are bad, it's up to them. I think in Boy Scouts we sometimes try to save the boys from themselves in this regard, but if we do that, how are they going to learn?) The outcome of the story was that my viewpoint won out, but the young man (who I do not think ever knew this discussion took place) decided to take a pass on SPL and will probably spend his last few years as Instructor and then JASM, and earn some palms, and whatever other activities he is into at high school. Sounds like a reasonable choice to me (and running for SPL would have been reasonable as well.)

I don't think you can attribute the difficulty in retaining Boy Scouts entirely or even primarily to Cub Scouting, but I do think it is a factor. Of the five or six packs that our troop has drawn from over the years, I think the boys with the highest "first year quit rate" have been from the pack that emphasizes camping the most. I think by the time they hit the troop, outdoor activities SEEM like "old hat" to them. I say "seem" because, of course, there are many adventures that those kids have NOT experienced, but some of them don't stick around long enough to find out. On the other hand, when I look around the troop, most of the leaders who have stuck around after their (actually, "our") own sons have aged out are from that same pack. Go figure. In the past couple of years that pack has found greener pastures as far as troops to join, so my "data" is a few years old. I also think that parents are a major factor here. There are quite a few parents who have "had enough" after Cub Scouting and really don't encourage their sons to move on to a troop or to stick with it for very long. This includes both leaders and non-leaders in the pack. Of course part of it may be that by the age of 11, some of the boys are showing "star quality" at sports and the parents are starting to imagine that mansion that their son is going to buy them with his first contract with the Knicks or Jets or Yankees or whoever, and Scouting gets pushed to the side. (I'm exaggerating here, but not much; maybe some of you have met those parents as well, though the teams may be different.) I also agree with Acco, the age range in Boy Scouts has gotten a bit out of hand. At that age, a year really can make a huge difference in terms of maturity. In doing Boards of Review I have come across a few 11-year-old FIRST CLASS Scouts who really should still be in Webelos, in my opinion. (Of course the "older" boys have their own maturity issues, especially if a girl wanders by, but that's a different subject and part of the "fun" of that age group.)

Tampa, that reminds me of the books my children have been giving each other as gifts the past couple of years, such as "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" and "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter." (Or something like that.) The front cover of the latter has Abe Lincoln holding something behind him, then I think the back cover shows that he is holding the head of a vampire. I assume these books are supposed to be funny, and maybe they are, I haven't read them. In any event, since my kids range from 19 to late 20's, they can read whatever they want.

Membership is not denied to youth who openly claim to be gay. Never was. Period. What is your source for that statement?

Oak Tree, I disagree slightly. "Don't ask don't tell" is an accurate description of BSA National's policy. (It was/is not an accurate description of the U.S. military's policy, but that is a different subject.) The issue here is that this council president in Illinois seems to be saying that a boy, having "told", should still be welcome as a member. While BSA National's policy on youths who say they are gay (as opposed to adults who say they are gay) is far from clear, what the guy in Illinois said is almost definitely NOT the policy.

A troop I know has a Presbyterian Church as its CO. I do not know enough about that denomination to know which "organization" the local church is a part of, but based on what you are all saying it sounds like this church is probably part of the organization that has decided to allow local option (hmm, now there's a concept!) on the subject of openly gay clergy. In fact I would suspect that this church has been in favor of that move for a long time. After the Dale decision there was apparently some sentiment within the church to ask the troop to find another home, but that did not end up happening. The sign in front of the church includes the phrase "A Welcoming Community", which I have always assumed was a sort of code for "We won't throw you out for being gay." neil says: Okay, so what about the Episcopal priest who left his wife and family to go live with another guy after deciding he was gay. Do respectable people behave in that way? I don't think so. He then went on to become a bishop. Do I have to respect the people who voted him in as a bishop after they made their choice? They had my respect, but they lost it through their own actions. I think this sort of depends on exactly what the priest actually did. The phrase "left his wife and family" makes it sounds like he just abruptly walked out on them in their time of need, sort of like Newt Gingrich did when his wife had cancer, so I guess there's someone you won't be voting for. Or, to be nonpartisan about this, former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey when he announced during his resignation news conference that he was gay, and his wife was sitting there and apparently knew nothing about it. (The difference is that I don't think Jim McGreevey will be running for president or anything else again.) If that's what the priest did, just walked out, no financial arrangements for his family, etc., then I would agree with you, making him a bishop would seem like a highly questionable move. On the other hand, a transition like that can be handled with sensitivity and concern for the well-being of his family. If he did that, maybe it's not so questionable.

On the "Rainbow Council" issue, I guess I am a little surprised that there is a council by that name to begin with. In my state, all the council names are geographically based except for Patriots Path, which is a direct reference to events in the Revolutionary War in the area. New Jersey also has many "former" councils due to mergers, and most of these also had geographic names, with some named after historical figures like Washington and Edison. But "Rainbow"? Even without the ideological connotations, I wouldn't have expected to see a name like that. It probably does make sense to change it. What BSA policies should be is something to debate on their own merits, without worrying about the name of some council somewhere in Illinois.(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

TwoCubDad, you beat me to it, sort of. I was going to say that I suspect we are going to see a "clarification" from this council president once someone sends a clipping of that article to National. And you're right, this is nothing new. We already know that there are various people in various councils -- and in some cases the councils themselves -- that do not agree with the policy(ies) in question. By this time it seems that they have learned to keep quiet about it -- including being quiet about what may or may not actually be happening in their councils. This council president may not have "gotten the memo," but I think he is going to get it now. And if Merlyn's point is that there is a certain amount of dishonesty within the BSA regarding the application of these policies, I agree with him.

Out of curiosity, does the Scout recite the Oath and Law when appropriate in the course of meetings, etc.? In other words, if the troop recites these in openings/closings, does he refuse to recite them at all because they contain the words "God" and/or "reverent"? (There have been Scouts that did, and those cases attracted a lot of publicity, but I am guessing that the Scout in SMT's troop does not refuse.) Or does he say them but omit those words? Or does he just go along and say them? As I have written in this forum before, when I was an older teenager, I did not believe in God either. Or I thought I didn't -- in retrospect, what I probably did not believe was the "picture" of God that I had been raised with. I still don't believe in that "picture" today, but I am not an atheist. In the course of living, and reading, and learning, I found out there were other options, and figured out what I did believe in. Perhaps the same will happen to this Scout. The difference between me and him is, I did not go around advertising my non-belief. I did recite the Scout Oath and Law, every time I was supposed to. I don't recall thinking there was any contradiction at the time -- nor do I necessarily think there was, because what I actually believed or didn't believe is not so clear. I agree with Calico's suggested approach. One variation I would suggest is that in speaking with the parents, you may want to make sure they are aware that the BSA does require a belief in a higher power. I think we tend to assume in this forum that everyone knows that, because we all know it. But I don't think everybody necessarily knows it, particularly not the parents of a new Scout. For that matter, does the Scout himself know it?

Obama is not "Anti-American", he's just leading a movement to destroy the America we currently know and love. I find this belief (expressed above by BS-87) to be even more "out there" than the idea that President Obama was born somewhere other than in the U.S. I have also heard it expressed by hosts of radio talk shows, and it makes me shake my head every time. So you disagree with his policies. I disagree with some of them too, though probably not all the same ones or for the same reasons that you do. I disagreed with many policies of the past administration. But why does disagreement with policies have to turn into accusing the president of trying to "destroy the America we currently know and love."

I have them too jr56, though I have not had occasion to wear them since the mid-1970's. I have shown them to my son (complete with the garters and tassels) and he was very amused by them. I take it the new knee socks do not have the garters and tassels?

I agree with those who advise speaking with the SM and then deciding what to do. I disagree with several statements by Beavah: Honestly, from an objective point of view, the no one-on-one rule is more to protect the adult leaders from false accusations than it is to protect the kids. I don't think that's true, and I also think it's pointless to argue which reason is the primary reason. "No one on one" is listed as one of the "barriers to abuse", so it would seem that the BSA takes it fairly seriously as one of the means of protecting the youth. In my opinion, downplaying the "youth protection" aspect of the Youth Protection Guidelines could lead to incorrect decisions being made when situations present themselves, and incorrect interpretations of the guidelines. That does not mean that I would report this SM to the SE; if I were satisfied after talking to him that he either did not violate no one-on-one or that he understands the issue and will not let it happen again, I would not report it. Predators really start outside of scouting, eh? Become friends with da family, see the boys when no other scouting adults are around. Adult-on-youth molestation by anyone other than a parent or relative rarely happens on scouting events, and then only when the person has been doin' it outside of scouting for a while. As someone else said, these are generalizations, and I think they are dangerous generalizations. The BSA does not make any assumptions about where abuse starts, and I see no reason why volunteers should make them either. I don't know if you have any statistics to back up that these are true in a majority of cases, but even if they are, when you are confronted with a particular situation, I don't think statistics are helpful in deciding what to do. We have to follow the guidelines, and if it is a grey area I think we have to use some judgment in deciding whether what we are looking at is a violation, in which case the guidelines require that it be reported.(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

Kudu asks: NJCubScouter, when have I ever made a personal attack on any individual forum member? Leaving that question aside for the moment, in my post above, I didn't say you did. I said you engage in namecalling, and the one example that I can think of offhand is that you call unnamed boys "cupcakes." And in what universe is an Eagle Scout who has never walked into the woods with a pack on his back not a cupcake? I'll ask you again, what do you mean by cupcake? As for me, I am not sure what to say about an Eagle Scout who has never walked into the woods with a pack on his back, because in the troop I serve and the two troops I was a member of as a youth, there is (and was) never any such thing. (And my time as a Scout includes the period 1972-76 when you seem to think the Scouting program lost its way (without a pack on its collective back), though I never noticed the difference. That's the same era during which I hiked into many woods (including at Philmont and various chunks of the Appalachian Trail) with a pack on my back, though I never made Eagle. My son, who did, did not do as much backpacking as I did, but he did some.) Admittedly, my personal experience is limited to a total of only three troops. But in my "universe", your hypothetical non-pack-bearing Eagle Scouts don't even exist for you to call them names. And by the way, what do you mean when you call a boy a cupcake?

Well Sherm, Kudu does do some namecalling, and the one I have noticed specifically is that he calls certain Boy Scouts "cupcakes." His post above includes at least the third instance of this that I have seen from him. I am pretty sure I questioned this the last time I noticed it, and I am questioning it again. What exactly does Kudu mean when he calls a young man a "cupcake"? I also wonder, does he call the boys names to their faces, or does he just do it behind their backs on a web forum?

I don't know about any of the internal workings of that web site, and I have only visited there once or twice (without registering or posting.) So I did not see much of the bickering some of you are talking about, though I did see a couple of pompous and self-important posts by a former participant in this forum. (Not to mention any names.) But one thing I have observed about Internet forums over the years is that discussion forums on web sites owned by the same company or organization that is the subject of the discussion, are fairly strange and usually unsuccessful. Most organizations do not want to provide a platform for their organization to be criticized or questioned. As a result, either the participants end up self-censoring and a lot of the discussions become very stilted, or the organization itself starts pulling unwelcome posts. And eventually, quite often, the plug gets pulled because the organization finds the forum to be more trouble than its worth. Which version of that story happened with the BSA site, if any, I do not know.

What are the old and new "styles" of NYLT that some of you are talking about? Does it come down to whether young women (from Venturing and Exploring) are allowed or not? If that's the case, in the "new style," does this mean coed troops in NYLT? Coed patrols? Or what?

I don't think how you deal with an incident between a leader and a youth depends on the existence or contents of bylaws. As for bylaws themselves, if your unit already had bylaws, or the CO said you needed to have bylaws, then yes, you want to have the best bylaws you can have. However, if my unit did not have bylaws (and it doesn't) and I were reviewing a set from another unit for possible adoption in mine (which seems to be your situation), my approach would be to go to the top line of the document, do "Select all", then "Cut" and "Save." And then adopt that. But that might not work for everybody. If you have a particular issue that needs a "rule" to cover future cases, then adopt a written rule. Or a parent handbook with the rules. But bylaws, I just don't think they are necessary.

Who the "customer" is in theory and who gets customer-like treatment are not necessarily the same thing, which I think is part of what Packsaddle is getting at. I think national and councils are likely to see large donors and organizations that charter many units as being the "customers", but maybe not the individual CO's that don't make waves and don't even send their reps to district and council meetings. It would be nice if they saw the boys as the ultimate and most important beneficiaries of their efforts, and I am sure some people at national/councils do, but maybe not all. And with apologies to the current and former Scouting professionals reading this, some of the professionals I have spoken to -- not all, but some -- behave as if they believe THEY are the customer. Whether the various levels of their superiors encourage or discourage this attitude, I do not know. As I wrote in another thread within the past few months, this sort of thing is certainly not unique to the Boy Scouts. Many people think that no matter what their job or role in an organization is, they are the center of the universe and that the organization and its actual "customers" exist for their benefit. Try dealing with court systems on a regular basis.

Sounds like the Missouri PTA and it's local units have actually been a little slow to get with the program. This is old news nationwide. The national PTA recommended more than 10 years ago that local PTAs stop being chartered organizations for BSA units due to liability concerns.

I'm going on the basis that this was an April Fool's joke unless and until proven otherwise. Some of the writing doesn't seem "right" for the BSA and the link produces a page-not- found error. I usually go on the assumption that anything posted on the Internet on Aplril 1 is not to be believed, unless I wrote it.

Clemlaw, I think later BSA publications do acknowledge that it is a fleur de lis. I don't have one handy though. I did a Google search and found a couple of references on scouting.org to the fleur de lis as a Scouting symbol but there were no pictures so I'm not sure exactly which insignia they were referring to. It has been generally understood, since I was a Scout, that the "Scout" badge depicts a fleur de lis.(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

security man, just out of curiosity, how many members were at the meeting in question and how many registered committee members does your unit have. And if the number of "active" committee members is different from the number registered, how many of those are there? Robert's Rules says that a quorum is a majority of the membership unless the bylaws state otherwise. The trick is that Robert's Rules does not actually apply to your committee or any other organization UNLESS you have bylaws that adopt that book as the parliamentary authority. So if you have no bylaws or can't find the bylaws, Robert's doesn't necessarily apply. It's not the only book available. Of all the committee meetings I have ever attended, we have never worried about what a quorum is, and we seldom take actual "votes". The general attitude seems to be that if you don't show up, you don't get to participate in the decision-making. There have been a few major issues where the committee chair has tried to make sure that members were aware beforehand that a particular issue was going to come up, so nobody could complain later that an action was done behind their back. That is a common-sense approach that does not require bylaws or rules, rather it requires a committee chair who wants to promote harmony and teamwork rather than just dictating. If you don't have that, then you have to start worrying about things like what the quorum is.

6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer... $15. [if someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?] Sounds like a law school exam question. You write a bluebook page or two on why it is a crime, then another page or two on why it isn't. (Do they have bluebooks anymore? Or do you just type the answer on your laptop and email it to the professor?) Assuming that it's a serious question (which it probably isn't): Sure. The guy obtained property from another person by the threat of force, and in this case, using a weapon. The fact that he "lost" some of his own property while doing so is irrelevant. (The guy also committed the crime of assault with a weapon, but I think the questioner was asking about armed robbery.)

Yes Nolesrule, that's the one. What can I say, I was a Hebrew School dropout. I think I have the theory correct, though.

The problem with a chart like this is that one's perception of one's position on the chart is not necessarily where other people perceive you to be. If the answer to a question on the chart is supposed to be yes, the person reading the chart always thinks they are at "yes" whereas an opponent in the debate is looking at it from another angle. I think if everybody in these discussions (in this or any other "debate" forum) recognized that 95 percent of the time we are discussing opinions, not facts, the discussions would go a lot more smoothly. Unfortunately, these days (and not just in this forum) fewer and fewer people seem to recognize that opinions exist at all. There are facts (what I say) and lack of facts (what you say) and truth (what I say) and falsity (what you say) and that's it. If we disagree, at best it is because you don't have all the facts, and at worst it is because you are lying. Tough to have a real discussion that way. And that's basically what the chart says. But the chart isn't going to help.