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 merit badge counseling.).  It makes things cumbersome sometimes but I think it's the smart thing to do.  (And now the BSA requires it.)

1 hour ago, The Latin Scot said:

 It is indeed from the French, I want to say mid-17th century but perhaps earlier. The roots are certainly Latin though, as are those of most French words. And I confess I do use it casually; technically, it should always be followed by of, but I tend to be generous in how I use prepositions with foreign terms. Sadly my French isn't as fluent as my Spanish these days, but I still try to color my dialogue with as much of it as I can without sounding too pretentious. 

Quote

"All I wanna do is have a little fun before I die, "
Says the man next to me out of nowhere
It's apropos of nothin'

                                                  ~ Sheryl Crow, 1994

17 hours ago, JoeBob said:

Haven't there been EBORs where a candidate was passed using a belief in self or pantheism?

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.

39 minutes ago, David CO said:

If LDS is starting their own youth program, won't some new jobs be created as the old BSA positions are eliminated?

Sounds logical.

20 hours ago, Gwaihir said:

from my understanding, this is the plan, to have all the first batch of girl eagles to get a special national court of honor.  seems like treating everyone the same to me. 

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.

7 minutes ago, David CO said:

Because the wife goes clean out of his mind?

  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.

1 hour ago, Eagledad said:

NJ, I think your second point is the reason why your first point is just plain silly.

Barry

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

7 hours ago, Tampa Turtle said:

If my married eyes start to give some comely lass "a second glance" I hear "A Scout is Clean" and I am reminded to look away.

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.

18 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

Good post. As has been pointed out in previous threads, other than tapping into a new demographic to refresh the recruiting, National isn't proposing any program changes to attempt fixing the retention problem. 

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 consensus that there should be fewer "homework badges" required for Eagle, but when a specific badge is being discussed, it is a different story.  Then there was the discussion of going back to the 1911 camping requirements (50 nights for Camping MB, I believe.)  Ok, but it's not going to happen.  Then there was the discussion of "classical Scouting" (or some similar term), where a lot of people were all for going "back" to an earlier decade, but then it turned out that everyone wanted a different decade, usually the decade in which they were a Scout.  (Except for the 70's, probably.)

41 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

I can’t imagine all councils surviving.  I would expect mergers at councils heavily impacted.  Bryan isn’t stating mergers but he is stating some councils will be impacted.

 

https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2018/05/09/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-lds-church-announcement/

“While most councils have some LDS membership, roughly 10 percent of councils have a significant population of LDS members. These councils may be affected more significantly by the LDS church’s decision.”

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.

1 hour ago, Oldscout448 said:

As I moved into my early teens I discovered that girls were not as yucky as they had been when I was younger.   When I was 16, a  15 year old girl came to camp with the most amazing blue eyes I had ever seen.    Remember the word "twitterpated" from Bambi?   A few of the younger scouts in my troop tried to make a joke about me being stuck in a girls camp.   I just smiled,  told them to get back to me in a few years, and actually invited some of them to our wedding 7 years later.

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.

13 minutes ago, WisconsinMomma said:

The only race I have heard of in our Troop is of the boys who want to finish their Eagles and get out before the girls arrive.  However, I think this is short sighted and the girls won't be in their Troop, so what do they care?  But, it is out there. 

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.

4 minutes ago, Chisos said:

Reading your last sentence...I'm hoping there aren't units who are planning to "count" pre-Feb 1 work for advancement.  You've got to be registered to complete advancement, right? (rhetorical question...)

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.

21 minutes ago, Chisos said:

I think that timeline's possible (though crazy!).  6 months to get to 1st Class, 4 to Star, 6 to Life, and 6 to Eagle.  That's the 22 months.

That's doable, but they'd have to fit the 10 non-meeting Troop/Patrol activities in, in 6 months.

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.

10 hours ago, WisconsinMomma said:

In my pack, I think I will ask the CO if they will charter a separate Pack for the girls with their own Pack number, and we will share Pack Committee meeting night and share Pinewood Derby (because of equipment and setup challenges).  But we will need leaders for a girl Pack.   The Pack meetings could be on the same night but in different rooms in the same building.  It will be interesting to see what the other committee members and CO think about it. 

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

On 5/5/2018 at 6:33 AM, qwazse said:

Interesting to note:

The world crest is not drawn ... Nor is the US flag. Censoring any patriotic theme?

Second class rank by color, but fleur-de-lis?  Cub Scout diamond on belt. PoR, but no patrol. Either the guy's confused or trying to convey confusion.

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.

5 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

Correct we are the Boy Scouts of America, but as a point of historical fact the BSA grew out of association with the English Scouts.  If you are not cognizant and aware of the basic roots of the organization, then the shift of emphasis can be missed.

The point is that BSA and earlier the English scouts were founded and fostered to meet a need to work with and help develop boys into men who can be a positive asset to their community.  The leaders, movers and shakers, and people of influence saw that need.  They also saw a need for a similar organization for girls.

Now, yes society has changed.  The point is there is still that needed for an organization to work with and help develop boys into men who can be a positive asset to their community.  The current BSA has expanded their reach into many many things, not sure all of them are that focus.  The Girl Scouts (and they do have issues) at least continue to focus on their core mission.

Though you many want to, you are not able to rewrite or ignore history.  It it not 1984

 

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.  (!)

38 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

Thanks, post hidden and under moderator review.

@NJCubScouter , @Sentinel947

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

34 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

..... I hid those two posts for moderator review.

@NJCubScouter , @Sentinel947

Oh, brother...  yeah, guys, please...

21 hours ago, WisconsinMomma said:

I don't think Scouts will go fully co-ed, if as volunteers we can get girl Troops and Packs off to a strong start. 

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 added girl dens, rather than new all-girl packs.  Then when it comes time for those girls to cross over, it seems likely to me that most of the parents, leaders and girls are going to want to go for the "linked troop" concept - which is more likely than the freestanding all-girl troop to end up looking like one troop with single-gender patrols.

5 minutes ago, Saltface said:

As for myself, I can't see me giving a scoutmaster minute to girls about treating women and girls with respect.

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.

3 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

With each "Big Announcement" (no doubt prepared by the the well paid PR team) there come out multiple clarifying statements.  

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

1 hour ago, Cambridgeskip said:

Someone from 1912 would probably struggle to recognise the planet if you brought them in a time machine to today. The same will probably be true if you were to find yourself in 2021.

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 program (which does exist) is actually being delivered on the local level, which it often isn't.  But here we are, and we each have to decide individually how we're going to deal with it.

21 minutes ago, Buggie said:

Yah, weapons.  Flaming Arrows...

LOL

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...