NJCubScouter

Alamance: I had the same reaction to the popcorn thing. The image I get is of the council showing this guy the door, meanwhile the Cubmaster is off in the corner pleading, "But I still get to keep him as my Popcorn Kernel, right? Right?" Perdidochas: You should tell your son not to worry, the BSA probably gets sued several times a month. (Usually over injuries, not membership issues.)

This story sort of makes me wonder, what would happen if little-old me showed up down there in Charlotte, adult leader application in hand, with my Jewish-sounding name and somewhat Jewish-looking face. After all, I am from a religion that (unlike the LDS) does not even profess to believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Would they keep me out too? Or would they accept me as part of our One Big Happy Judeo-Christian Family? I'll never get why we all have to divide ourselves up like this, but I guess it's a longstanding tradition, sort of like my troop's two-member Boards of Review... oops, wrong thread.(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

I agree with Scoutfish. Local option would result in a period of much wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, but in the end it would still be the same old BSA -- with probably about 12 or 13 openly gay Scoutmasters.

Scoutfish is correct, I just did a search on individual accounts, leaving out "Scout", and got a number of hits, including at least one entire thread on the subject. As others have said, if you have a question, ask away... but based on the past discussions, Be Prepared for some conflicting answers.

There is no risk. Nobody at any level is ever goin' to hold up a boy on such a thing. Really? No risk whatsoever? I seem to recall an old saying that nothing is certain besides death and taxes, and this is neither of those.

I don't have time for all the legal why's and wherefore's right now, so I will just say two things: 1) I have been advocating the local option in this forum for eight years, and it becomes clearer every day that this is the way to go. But... 2) It would be much better if local option were elected by the BSA without court intervention. To make it very short, I think perdidochas is probably right, local option would be difficult or impossible to achieve by court order. If Dale had won, there probably would NOT have been local option, the ruling would have covered all units. Or would it have? Maybe just units in New Jersey. (I'm serious.) It would have been a mess. The BSA should just do the right thing.

First of all, shame on this guy for not already knowing he was being discriminated against. (That was sarcasm.) Second, I'd like to point out that he never actually said he was suing, or planning to sue, the BSA or anyone in particular. He said he has "contacted attorneys." It also said he is "angry." I can tell you that a lot of people contact attorneys when they are angry about something, only to back down when they learn the realities of the situation, meaning the chances of winning, as well as the cost. Unlike the Dale case, in which I am presuming Dale's attorneys worked for nothing (but a potential payment from the BSA if he wins all the way to the end), I think this guy would have a tough time finding an attorney willing to do that when the law is settled. (Although it is one Supreme Court vote away from being unsettled, that vote is not there at the moment, so if anyone were to start this up again, this would probably not be the right time.) We also don't really know enough about the use-of-facilities situation in this case, to know whether there is a potential lawsuit there. If the BSA is using the school on the same basis as other youth organizations, and is not chartered to the school, there is probably no winnable lawsuit there, either.

Unbelievable. Well, whether for good or bad, it's a requirement, so my main interaction with it (as a BOR member) will be verifying that the Scouts have met the requirement. Personally, I think signaling should still be a requirement, but I don't ask the First Class candidates whether they chose Morse or semaphore.

Seems like discrimination hurts, especially if you're the one being discriminated against.

I think the practical, real-life definition of "Eagle mill" is "someone else's troop." Just like a "special interest group" is "someone else's group."

moosetracker asks: So why wouldn't offering different teaching styles and allowing someone a choice to develop their own training style develop the best type of teacher? It's a reasonable question. Maybe they were trying to keep things simple for the mostly 10-14 year olds who are going to be doing the "teaching." (I picked the most typical age range from kids who are going for Tenderfoot, up to kids who are going for Life, and sure there are a few Star scouts older than that but not a huge number.) So instead of just saying "teach", or trying to compress the first couple of years of undergraduate teaching school (with different teaching methods) down into a couple of handbook pages for 11 year olds (etc.) to try to figure out, they picked one method. What surprises me is that this method seems to be controversial. As I and others have said in the now-proliferating series of threads on this subject, it is really not much more than a repackaging of methods that have been around for many years, even before the dreaded 70's.

But Ed, you yourself (unless you were quoting someone else and I didn't realize it) said: "EDGE is nothing more than basic teaching principles the BSA has been using for decades with a fancy new acronym." If its just the same old thing with a fancy new acronym, I don't understand what the problem is.

Shortridge, I agree. A brief "explanation" of that kind would be appropriate before showing a new Scout how to tie the square knot. I also have a question for those who are opposed to this requirement: How would you feel if the Tenderfoot requirement were simply, "Teach another person to tie a square knot", and the Life requirement were to teach a younger Scout a skill (or set of skills) from the listed options? In other words, the same requirements, but without EDGE? The reason I ask is, I think the real essence of these two new requirements is TEACH, and the BSA has chosen to specify the teaching method, and some people are getting all hung up on that. But the idea is, TEACH. Is that a problem?

I think Beavah's list is missing at least one option: 4) EDGE is not very different from what has been done in the past, and is mainly a memory aid, so it's really not a big deal that the BSA put it into the requirements, regardless of whether you think it's necessary or not. Some might see #4 as close to #3, but but they are not the same. I just don't see this as a big deal, regardless of whether it was the best idea in the world or not. If I were the King of the BSA, I probably would have put the "teach a square knot" requirement in under Second Class and left out the new teaching requirement from Life. I am not offended by the Life requirement, just don't think it's necessary, but again it isn't a big deal. My big issue with the Life requirement as Advancement Chair is that, to my knowledge, all of the boys in my troop who are Star and approaching Star are still working out of the old handbook, so we have to actively inform them of this requirement. I have a suspicion that before I became Advancement Chair some boys made Life without passing this requirement when it should have applied to them, but I'm not asking too many questions about things that happened on someone else's watch.(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

Ed, until your last post I did not think you were one of the people who has a problem with the new "EDGE" requirements.(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

As I said in the last thread that drifted into a discussion of the merits of EDGE, I think some of you are reading much more into it than is really there. It really is nothing new or different than the way most people actually teach most skills, but with a "memory aid" added mostly to make sure that the teacher does not skip any steps. Note, I said "most people." If Kudu claims that he never explains anything first, but goes right into demonstrating it, well, I guess we'll have to take his word for it, but it doesn't make much difference because he is only one person anyway. And I think we need to remember that "explaining" does not necessarily equate to classroom instruction. Depending on the skill being taught, an adequate explanation can be one sentence, or it can be more than that. It may be that the explanation and the demonstration should be simultaneous. What needs to be "explained" to me, I guess, is the hostility for this new way of describing what is mostly the same old way of teaching skills. Sometimes I think a few people are looking too hard to find things to get upset about.

Gern is a "fellow"? Unless I have misunderstood Gern's past posts, or unless "fellow" has been rendered gender-neutral while I wasn't looking, I don't think so.

Well, as a Troop Committee member who has this award (whatever it is currently called, or what it was called then), I guess I am fortunate that when I handed in my application, the only signatures required were that of my CC and the district training chair, both of whom apparently decided that I was eligible for the award and should receive it. BadenP's signature was not required. Regardless of whether the word "leader" is in the name of the award and regardless of whether I am a "leader", I did fulfill the requirements of the award. As some have pointed out, there is an award that Troop Committee members cannot earn, the Scouter's Key, and I'm just fine with that. The Scouter Training Award (or whatever) is for everybody else, including those of us who are "mere" Committee members.

I have to admit that through most of this thread, I had the opposite opinion of most, and that was to welcome the young man back -- but only after meeting with the parents to make it clear that the past behavior will not be tolerated. After all, it sounds like the real problem is not with the Scout, whose main issue is that he is lazy -- hardly an unusual issue with teenage boys! -- but with the parents. So if the parents recognize their past "behavioral problems", and if you talk with the boy and are satisfied that he did indeed pass the requirements for Eagle and was not just passed through (by a Scoutmaster elsewhere who was browbeaten by the parents and gave in) I would give him a second chance. In a later post MikeF says he did speak with one or both of the parents, but it doesn't sound like the message was accepted. So far that reason, I shift back into neutral and say that since MikeF is obviously in a much better position to evaluate the people and the situation, his decision is not incorrect. But I do disagree with those who say the troop should not encourage the boys to help the Scout with his Eagle project. Whatever laziness he may have shown in the past, however-much he may have skated through the requirements after he went to the new troop, he is now doing a project. Hopefully it is a worthwhile project. This is an opportunity for the boys to perform service for the community (and coincidentally, earn some service hours for advancement and for the Scout's and troop's total of service hours) -- and at the same time they will be helping out someone who, to some of them, may be an old friend who they have not seen in awhile. He didn't do anything really wrong, other than perhaps to have the wrong parents. I think the troop members should be encouraged to volunteer for the project. (Aside to OGE: You mention the tale of the Prodigal Son. My version of the Bible doesn't have that one, but I am familiar with it. My understanding is that the wayward son admitted his past sins and asked forgiveness, which was given. As I suggest above, the parents (at least) need to fulfil their role in the story (admission and request for forgiveness, though not necessarily in those exact words), before they can be accepted back, and it does not sound like they have.) (Aside to Kudu: Nobody's dying here, and we are talking about a boy here, who is not necessarily a bad person.)(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

Neil: Actually I am really not sure what to think about it yet. All I was doing was making a few comments and asking a few questions. We'll see how it turns out. As for my own troop, it's someone else's issue. My job is to coordinate Boards of Review and committee reviews of proposed Eagle projects.

However, the Gold standard for Troops currently calls for 10 short term overnight campouts per year, the PLC meeting 10 times per year including an annual planning meeting and at least one Scout attending NYLT. That's pretty tough and frankly, there aren't many Troops that do that much. The NYLT requirement is not a problem for our troop as we generally send two boys to NYLT every summer, which is the standard number of slots available in our council. However, 10 camping trips is a lot, and we just miss making it even though (by our standards) we go camping "every month." We generally go camping on the third or fourth weekend of the month, and at that time in December most of our families are otherwise occupied and would rather not have part of their family going on a camping trip, so we do not camp in December. (There is a one-day district first aid event earlier in the month, so we are still active, just not camping.) In July, we spend a week at summer camp, so no short-term camping then, and then we take August off so as not to conflict with families' vacation schedules. So, unless the week at summer camp counts as "short term camping", which I don't think it does, that leaves us at nine. One question this (and other criteria on this form) raises in my mind is: What are units' attitudes going to be toward "settling" for the "lower" level awards (bronze and silver)? Are most units just going to say, well this is our program, and we get what we get? Or are they going to change their program, in our case by adding a camping trip in December or August, in order to achieve the gold level? Or is there going to be a huge nationwide uproar that causes national to reconsider this? (I am not betting on that last option; a lot of grumbling maybe, but not a big uproar.)

Bart, they are linked to in the thread "New 2011 Performance Recognition Program" (see the third post in that thread), though there has been some question in that thread about whether that document is the final version. I'm hoping it is, because it's on a council's web site, which means that if one council is posting a non-final version, other councils may be handing out the same non-final version and telling their units to follow it. However, it's probably safe to assume that what is posted is, at least, very close to what your unit will "officially" receive. (Well, it's never really safe to assume anything -- especially since there have been at least two major instances in the past year of BSA documents being posted somewhere and then withdrawn -- but on a relative scale, in this case it's probably fairly safe.)(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

I can envision maryj57225, our intrepid freelance writer, hoping to write an article on Boys Life that Scouting magazine will actually publish, reading some of these posts and thinking, "Hey guys, I came here for help, not this!" Unfortunately reality is not always the way we would like it to be.

This thread is pretty timely for me as I have become troop Advancement Chair within the last month. One of the things I have inherited is a "troop tradition" that BOR's (through Life) are conducted by TWO Troop Committee members (both registered, by the way). Sometimes there will be three if there happens to be a third committee member around (other than the CC who is usually otherwise occupied at the troop meeting). But the job of the AC (to date) in setting up BOR's (we do them on an as needed basis, and in the month before a Court of Honor it gets to be every week) is to make sure there will be at least two Committee members (usually but not always including himself/herself) there for the BOR. I did once (long before becoming AC) point out at a Committee meeting (where we were discussing a different aspect of BOR's and had the relevant pages of "the book" in front of us) that the book says BOR's consist of three to six committee members. The answer I got was that there usually are not enough people to make a three-member BOR. Although the solution to this seemed fairly obvious (recruit more members!), I decided (for reasons that would require several pages describing the interpersonal dynamics of our committee, which I am not going to do) not to rock the boat at that point. So now I have the job, and have already begun recruiting a few parents to join the Committee and the BOR rotation, as well as a couple of "old hands" who had not been asked to help with a BOR in a while. Before long I will have at least two people joining me for every BOR, and start a "new tradition" (which happens to be in compliance with the book.) Then I can start the more difficult task of tackling a couple of other "old troop traditions" regarding BOR's, which I will not even mention here so as not to derail the thread. Someone mentioned Scouts sitting on BOR's for Scouts going for the lower ranks. This was actually part of the much-reviled (in this forum, anyway) "improved Scout program" of 1972. One of the many changes was that instead of a "Board of Review", the last requirement for every rank was a "Progress Review" (preceded by the "Personal Growth Agreement Conference", known before and after that time as a Scoutmaster Conference.) For T-2-1, these progress reviews were conducted by "older" Scouts (I forget whether the minimum rank (oh excuse me, they changed that to "Progress Award" I think) was Star or First Class. I do not know when this change was reversed. All I know is that when I rejoined Boy Scouting with my son around 2003, Progress Reviews by Scouts had already been replaced by BOR's by adult committee members (as before 1972), and "ranks" and "Scoutmaster conferences" were again the accepted terminology.

I have thought about this with regard to my grandson, who has allergies to peanuts as well as dairy, wheat and a few other things. Since he has not yet reached his second birthday, his food intake is well-restricted by his parents at this point, but I wonder what kind of life he is going to have once he starts school, becomes eligible to join Scouting, etc. Some of the things he is allergic to (such as dairy) are, I suspect, digestive-problem types of allergies, and I think his wheat allergy has been determined to be a break-out-in-a-really-bad-rash-all-over type of allergy. The peanut allergy is, however, the Epipen-type of allergy, and he does have (well, his parents have) Epipens for him. I don't know where it is on the severity scale, and I'm not sure whether his parents know, either. So as I say, I am concerned about the degree of adjustments that are going to have to be made by his parents and eventually by him as he gets older. I do not think it will become a Cub or Boy Scout issue, however, as my daughter has made it fairly clear that she does not plan to enroll her child in a program that excludes... ok, I don't want to derail the thread and this is in the wrong forum for that. Excludes certain people, let's say.