NJCubScouter

Those seem reasonable. And from the photo it does appear that the red-loop Scouter is presenting the girl with something, so maybe it is an awards ceremony. As for the funeral, I assume the deceased was a Silver Beaver recipient. That seems appropriate as well.

There was recently a brief discussion of the flag thing in another thread. I had pulled out my old Boy Scout uniform shirt (purchased 1972/3) and was surprised to see that it had no flag. They were not part of the uniform until later.

Ha. That 19-year-old was leading adults, not children (well, presumably...) and the YP regs were a little looser back then anyway.

And look at that, it has the American flag over the pocket, not on the shoulder. At least this way there are no arguments about whether the flag is "backwards" or not. I realize that doesn't help you very much, but I am sure someone around here will be experienced in the ways of memorabilia display, which I am not.

Your daughter will be able to be a member of the Boy Scouts of America. It seems unlikely that she will be a "Boy Scout." The BSA is creating a new, separate program for girls 11 through 17. Presumably it is going to have its own name, and there already is a "Boy Scouts." It would probably be reasonable to expect that the name will be "______________ Scouts." I think I heard the CSE actually call it "Something Scouts" in one of the videos. The most obvious word to fill in the blank is already taken as well. It will be interesting to see what they choose.

Ok, well we shall see what National does. My prediction is that they will try to do what they think will cause the least amount of additional controversy, and I think that would be not to "count" her achievements in Canada, and not to do anything else that will permit her to earn Eagle without fulfilling the existing time requirements, starting from when young women can actually join the new Boy-Scout-age-level join troops. My predictions have a mixed record. It's also funny, we both said "life isn't fair" but it leads us to two different conclusions.

Couldn't help but notice that myself. Though I do not fault anyone for wearing all the knots they have earned, and the Woodbadge beads are normal uniform wear. What I am not sure about are the circumstances under which one is supposed to wear the actual Silver Beaver, as opposed to just the knot. I have not earned it, but I have known plenty of people who have, and I don't think I have ever seen one wearing it. I suppose if one is attending an awards ceremony for new Silver Beavers, that would be one reasonable occasion on which to wear it. I don't know when else one would do so.

Latin Scot, I agree. My first set of questions (for her Cubmaster and/or her parents) would be aimed at finding out whether she really is being treated as a den leader or whether the reporter just misunderstood what they were writing about. If she really is being treated as a den leader, then I would find out what kind of paperwork, if any, was done for her "den leader" position. I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that council never received an Adult Leader application for this teenager, and that neither council nor National were aware of it until someone brought this article to their attention. If one were to go back there in a few weeks, after this article has had a chance to percolate up through the hierarchy, one might find that the situation (whatever it actually was) is no longer what is described in the article.

I don't know her either (but as I have said before, I do have admiration for her, I just don't agree with her on this specific issue.) What I do know is that she apparently lives in New York City and regularly attends troop meetings in London, Ontario. Even if you were to discount the "resources" factor, New York City is closer to London, Ontario than most of the rest of the country is. What do we say to a girl in, let's say, rural Texas, exactly the same age, who under no circumstances is going to be able to go to London, Ontario on a regular basis?

I am not sure what you mean by "the tide" though. As far as I know there is no 16-year-old den leader. At most there is one pack in Dallas that is calling this 16-year-old a den leader. I don't see how that is a "tide."

Let's please refrain from characterizing other people (or groups) or their reasons for doing things, particularly because this thread is not in Issues and Politics. Up until the last few posts I have seen no reason why it necessarily should be. (And I guess I should be clear, I am talking about the "conditional Scouter" thing.) I would like to be able to leave it here.

Hawkwin, we seem to agree most of the time, but I can't join you on this one. I think it is appropriate to make a distinction between a youth who actually lives in another country and a U.S. resident who is able to participate in a program in another country. Plus, while it is great that her parents have the resources to fly her to Canada and back on a regular basis so she can get a "Boy Scout (ish) experience," what would the BSA say to a girl (with the same "timing" issue) whose family could not afford all that traveling? This decision has been controversial enough without adding in exceptions to the advancement requirements for young women who are "too old" to meet the time requirements when the new program takes effect. As I have said before, when a major change like this is made, there is always someone who becomes the last person who does not get to take advantage of it. Life is not always fair.

You seem to be assuming the article is correct. For the reasons I suggested above, I would make no such assumption. And even if she is considered a "den leader" by the pack, what we most likely have here is yet another story about a "rogue unit." I can easily imagine someone at National seeing that article, and having basically the same reaction that most of us did here.

Thanks for that link, Sentinel, I didn't know about any of that. Some of the comments below the article are, um, interesting too. One guy tries to minimize the ex-Mrs. Lucas's role by saying that in later films, George did just fine without her. Like when, the prequel trilogy? Maybe she could have edited out Jar Jar and the whole midichlorian thing. Maybe even the battle-droids. ("Roger Roger.")

I would say it's easy to imagine, in a situation where there is as much interpersonal hostility as there obviously is here. In effect, this pack split up. As in a divorce, where there may be bitter struggles over who gets the children or the stocks and bonds, here the "children" are the pinewood derby track, trailer, etc. Fortunately, this level of warfare, where the two sides fight so much that they make the newspapers, is not typical.

I understand that. But (assuming that the person who spoke with the church's pastor was from the council), then either the council person did not understand that, or gave the pastor incorrect and/or false information, or the pastor misunderstood what he was told, or what the pastor said is not being correctly reported. And there may be a few other options as well. I doubt we will ever know.

Interesting. I wonder why it says "Sam Houston Area Council" on it.

Well, the movie tickets, the popcorn and the diet Cokes were a lot cheaper than any number of other things we could have been doing on New Year's Eve.

Wow, what a mess. Even with all of the accusations and counter-accusations, I suspect that there are still facts and details that are left out of the articles. And one or more of the players here must not be telling the truth. This part particularly caught my attention: I wonder who are "the Scouts" from whom the minister got his "instructions." The council? If that is the case, why would the council tell the CO that the pack disbanded and then issue a charter to a different CO for the same pack? I also suspect that the sale of "unofficial" popcorn probably played a small role, if any role at all, in the denial of the charter. But that's just a guess.

Ok, Big Spoiler Alert for anyone who hasn't seen it. SSF, it is obvious that you have strong feelings about this and there probably isn't any point in debating it with you, so I won't try. We each see things "from a certain point of view," but it's not the same point. I do want to take issue with your characterization of Luke, and I realize that I am probably in the minority among Star Wars fans on this. Yes, for the vast majority of this movie he was a real downer, having basically given up on the galaxy and just living on his island catching fish and rejecting Rey's efforts to get him to return. But in the end (did I mention SPOILER ALERT? I'm going to scroll down a little... ...a little more... ...here we go... In the end, when everything was on the line and he had the ultimate choice to make, he sacrificed himself for the greater good. In my book, that was heroic. That was admirable. Yes, I suppose heroic males were difficult to find in this movie (do we count Chewie?), but at that moment, Luke made up for all of it. Not that I think anyone needs to be keeping score between the men and the women anyway. It's a movie.

I think our pack's rule was that the car had to be made from the kit (which was given to the boys for "free", meaning their parents had paid for it as part of the dues.) I don't think anybody even raised an issue about it. We did have an "open race" for parents, siblings etc. and I think non-standard cars were permitted.

Now that I have seen the thing, and have read this thread, I have read a little further and have learned some of the reasons why some people don't like it. One of the reasons is that it (and Episode VII) contradicts what was in the books and other media (which apparently was called the "expanded universe"), which is what Eagle94A-1 is talking about. I am not part of the group that cares about this. To me, Star Wars is the films themselves. I did once read one Star Wars novel. Or more accurately, if I recall correctly, I read about half of it before losing interest and setting it aside, apparently forever. This was in the late 80s or early 90s, and the book covered events after the "fall of the Empire" in Episode VI, but it was definitely published before the prequel trilogy started. I do seem to recall that Han and Leia had children (twins?) and I am not sure whether Luke was married or not. I think the name of the book was "Heir to the Empire", and I strongly suspect that from that, Eagle94-A1 can tell us who wrote it, when it was published and summarize the plot. (Please don't feel compelled to do the latter. ) It just didn't hold my attention. As I recall it was mostly about the politics of the post-Empire period, and while I don't mind the political intrigue in the movies, for some reason when it comes to books I prefer my politics in non-fiction form. More to the point, I doubt that most of people I saw the movie with were any more familiar with the books, comic books and whatever else, than I was. They were just there to see the movie. Most of them have probably seen the previous seven, as had my wife and I. (And I don't think my wife had even read part of any of the books.) On the other hand, Eagle94A-1, the theater at which we saw the movie DOES have a liquor license. It is a "dine-in theater" and they do serve adult beverages. My wife and I stuck with popcorn and Diet Coke. For outrageous prices of course, but we don't see that many movies in the theater anymore.

Well, the BSA itself is still using "Family Scouting" on their own web site to describe the change. See https://www.scoutingnewsroom.org/family-scouting/ It's the headline of the page.

It seems to me that if (for example) Den 5 is a Wolf den with boys in it and Den 6 is a Wolf den with girls in it, you could just refer to Den 5 and Den 6, if you want to. Some people may refer to them as the "girl Wolf den" and the "boy Wolf den", or some other combination of words, but I don't see where the BSA is requiring any particular form of reference.

Where do you see that? The original post does refer to "Webelos II girls" but I think that just means girls who are Webelos II's, not that that is what they have to be called. Unless I am missing or misreading something. And by the way, I thought they had gotten rid of the Webelos I/Webelos II terminology and now there is a Webelos den and an Arrow of Light den. Or was that just a rumor?