NJCubScouter

I have been copying parents on emails since before it became a rule in the BSA. I was a "mentor" for my son's high school robotics team (in non-technical areas) and I found myself writing an email to the captain of one of the sub-teams that I was assisting, and it occurred to me, Hey, you are writing to a 16- or 17-year-old girl, and flashing lights, bells and sirens started going off in my head. So I decided to cc one of her parents, and luckily I had the parents' email from some team-wide email. Then I decided, why not do that for every student, and later, every Boy Scout (such as in meri

~ Sheryl Crow, 1994

I realize this is somewhat of a tangent, but I just asked the Internet what "pantheism" is, and I don't think there would be any justification in denying Eagle to someone on the basis that he or she is a "pantheist." The BSA requires a belief in a higher power and that you do your duty to that higher power. Pantheism has a higher power, even though it doesn't "look like" the deity of most of the major religions.

Sounds logical.

I guess it would be interesting to find out what kind of National recognition was given to Arthur Eldred in 1912. His Wikipedia page says the approval of his application came in a personal letter from James E. West, and they had to delay the award of his Eagle medal because they were still designing it, so it seems there was at least some measure of extra hoopla for the first MALE Eagle Scout.

But now that I think about it, if a hypothetical person (let's call him TampaTurtle) is having thoughts that are "impure" enough to violate A Scout is Clean, it wouldn't matter whether he is married or not, whereas Trustworthy and Loyal (and Obedient) only kick in if you are married.

You are correct, it was silly to say "I think..." when I should have said "I am absolutely certain..."

I can understand why you would hear "Clean", I would probably hear "Trustworthy" or "Loyal" or, if I'm joking around, "Obedient." If anything like that ever happened to me, of course.

First of all, I think that if there were ANY "program changes" made at exactly the same time as the transition to accepting girls as members, some people would scream to the high heavens about the program being "watered down" to accommodate girls - even if the program was actually being strengthened. Second of all, I think the reason that changes are not made to increase retention is that there is no consensus as to what those changes should be. That is played out in this forum all the time. Every time a a program change is suggested, there are arguments against it. There probably IS conse

There probably will be mergers of councils, but it's not like that is a new thing. I believe that ALL of the current councils in New Jersey are the product of mergers (or in one case a council simply going out of business) that have occurred in the past 20 years. If you go back to the mid-1970s there were probably more than 20 councils in NJ. Today there are 6 or 7 (two of which are headquartered in Pennsylvania.) There were at least nine councils in the territory that is now the Northern New Jersey Council.

First of all, mazel tov, as they said back in the Old Country. Second of all, this is why I have been a little surprised and perhaps a bit skeptical about the reports in this forum of current Boy Scouts being generally dead-set opposed to this. Most teenaged boys I know would not be so upset about being "forced" to spend more time around teenaged girls.

I just want to point out that before last Weds., the last post in this thread was almost 16 years ago. Nothing wrong with that, but just don't expect most of the previous posters to respond to anything, because the majority (if not all) of them have not participated in the forum in years.

I can't help but wonder how much of that kind of attitude really originates with the boys and how much of it is generated by parents and leaders.

It depends what the "work" is. The girls can LEARN all the things they need to know to pass the requirements (first aid, knots, map-reading, etc. etc.), but they have to wait until Feb. 1 to actually do what it says in the requirements, that is, "tell," "discuss," "show," "demonstrate," etc.

In 15 years as a committee member I have seen one Scout make First Class in 6 months. (Not my son, it took him 2 years and a few months because of swimming). So it is possible, but not very common.

I don’t think National counted on you, and I mean that in a good way.

I think you may be missing the point. The World Crest has been replaced by what I believe is a “Woman Power” symbol. It goes along with the text. As for the missing U.S. flag and rest of the out-of-place, missing and mis-colored patches, it is pretty clear that this cartoonist doesn’t know and/or doesn’t care about the details of BSA uniforming, beyond what he needed to do to make sure the reader understands that this is a Boy Scout uniform, so he could make his ideological point.

And where do the English stand now on the subject of coed Scouting? Not separate dens or patrols or linked troops, coed as in coed. And @Cambridgeskip says they sometimes have boys and girls tenting together. (!)

Sometimes you guys are enough to make a moderator run screaming into the night...

Oh, brother... yeah, guys, please...

I don't like to make predictions, but I have difficulty seeing how there are going to be very many all-girl packs. While National is making it an option, it seems to me that they are really pushing the other option, mixed packs with all-girl dens. The whole "early adopter" thing seems to have been built around all-girl dens in existing packs, not creating new packs that would be girl-only. My guess is that that is going to carry over into the "regular adopter" process, and that of the packs that end up having female Cub Scouts, the large majority are going to be pre-existing packs that have

There is no requirement under this new system that male and female "Scouts BSA" be in the same meeting at all times. In fact there is no requirement that they EVER be in the same meeting - that's an option, not a requirement. You can have that kind of talk with the boys alone (though personally I would add having respect for themselves as well), and the female SM or ASM of the female "linked troop" can have the talk with the girls about having respect for themselves, and boys and men.

Wait... we're still talking about the BSA and not other current events, right?

I don't think 2021 was the year you were looking for. That's 3 years from now. But I mostly agree with the rest of your post. The fact that "the world has changed" doesn't necessarily mean that any particular change is justified. But it also is not enough, in opposing a particular change, to say that that isn't the way it was done 100 years ago. The question is, what will be the effect NOW? And based on that, I have said in the past that my preference was to have boys be Boy Scouts and girls be Girl Scouts, with the Girl Scouts doing much more to make sure that their outdoor progr

By my count there are 24 patrol names there that begin with either "Fire" or "Flaming." I think the Flaming Sock Patrol is my favorite. Some warmth on those cold nights at camp...