NJCubScouter

As for including the fleur-de-lis, the document CNYScouter linked to says the patch MUST include one of the "BSA corporate identifiers", one of which is the "solid fleur-de-lis." It also has specific guidelines for how the "identifier" is to be displayed. It also has specific guidelines for CSP's. Hopefully your "official BSA vendor" is aware of all of these requirements.

I think your answers are in the document that CNYScouter posted a link to. And welcome to the forum!

Our troop has never had a female SM or ASM. In the past there were two female committee members who went camping occasionally (one of whom had to go on any trip that her wheelchair-bound son attended, which was mostly summer camp plus about one weekend trip every two years or so.) There is one troop around us that has (or had) a female SM. (I guess I should clarify that we have had many female committee members, but only two have gone camping during the time I have been involved with the troop.)

The SSN is only supposed to be on the council copy of the application anyway, so it can be used for the criminal background check. The space for the SSN is blacked out on the unit copy. Which of course does not mean that there isn't other personal information on the application, so an app that is rejected by the CO should immediately be returned to the applicant.

This may be mostly a matter of semantics, since this is all going to be a matter of local option anyway. (Or so the BSA currently says.) In theory, a CO could have an all-boy Cub pack, a coed pack and an all-girl pack. That being the case, I'm not sure how much it matters whether you call it "Cub Scouting" or "Younger Venturing" or whatever else. (Obviously the terminology could get pretty confusing when it gets to an all-girl "Boy" Scout troop, but one of the slides that was linked from a previous thread hinted that they would come up with a new name for that.)

I know about it from reading this forum and seeing people post about what they are already doing on a local basis - in some cases having a coed unit "unofficially" and/or using "tricks" like registering girls as LFL members. I really don't think these people are doing this because someone was carrying a protest sign somewhere. They are doing it because that's what they want for their children. That doesn't necessarily mean they should be able to do it or that what they are doing should necessarily be "legalized" and made part of the official program. But it does show there is some level of demand. What I am saying about "movements" and "pressure" is that they are irrelevant in this case. They are not why the BSA is considering what it is considering. And yes, that's an opinion, but it's based on what I am seeing.

And you know this how, exactly?

My response to that is basically the same as my response to TAHAWK when he was worried about "change for the sake of PC", so I will quote the relevant part of my response: Or to put it another way, I don't think that the BSA's current consideration of admitting girls results from action by "movements (we know who they are) that are pressing for change across society". People have been talking about admitting girls, or merging with the Girl Scouts, for at least 45 years. I remember hearing about it when I was a Scout. And yet in all that time, it has never come anywhere near as close to actually happening as it seems to be right now. Why now? As I say above, two reasons, which are related: (1) BSA national sees a chance to add members and money (regardless of whether I think their predictions are correct), (2) there does seem to be some amount of parental demand for it, by people looking out for their own families and not part of any "movement." This seems to be happening primarily at the Cub Scout level, but not completely. These two things (and primarily the first one in my opinion) are what is driving this push for change - not "outside agitators", who may exist but are basically irrelevant to what is happening.

All the talk in this forum is about "coed" Scouting, meaning packs and troops being open to troops as a matter of local option, but the reports from the annual meeting indicate that that is only one of the things that are being considered. Another possibility is all-girl packs and troops, again as a local option. That doesn't seem so bad to me. I am not sure how many of such units would actually be created, but it seems to me that they would not raise the issues that coed units would.

First of all, I'd be willing to bet $1 (my maximum bet) that no more than 30 percent of the regular members of this forum know what "SJW" means. Unfortunately, I do. It is just more meaningless labeling which does nothing to advance a discussion. It is just name-calling. Not that there is anything wrong with social justice anyway. Second, you are of course free to opine as you wish, but I am kind of surprised at your statement that you would stop opining about what the BSA should do, if some undefined group of people started advocating for a different organization to change its policy as well. What the GSUSA does, and what some people might or might not be asking the GSUSA to do, has nothing to do with what the BSA should do. If you are against Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts becoming coed, you are against it. Why would you be influenced by the discussions (or lack thereof) about a separate organization? Or, stated another way, if the GSUSA did go coed, that wouldn't really change your opinion about Cub and Boy Scouts going coed, would it?

Have you tried calling their customer service? I recently had to do and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised - especially since I had previously emailed them and got back an answer that obviously would not solve my problem, and when I emailed them that their solution would not work, I never heard from them again. (The problem had to do with my account name, which had worked on myscouting.org, but did not work on my.scouting.org.). When I called, I was expecting to be on hold for at least 30-45 minutes and then be bounced from person to person until, hopefully, someone knew what I was talking about and could help me. So imagine my shock when a person picked up the phone after 5 minutes, and that person knew what I was talking about and knew how to fix it, and fixed it. She was very professional and helpful. (The actual fixing took about 20 minutes, but that was just how the system worked.) It is so rare that I have anything positive to say about anything connected with the workings of National, I thought that in fairness I should mention this.

That page shows red, white and blue spinners, but you can only buy the white or blue ones online. Major demand for the red ones, I guess...

Regardless of whether they are actually members or not, the state seems to be paying the BSA "nearly" $2 million a year for the program. That would come out to about $13 per student.

It looks like this is probably part of a larger fight over the state budget: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/florida/articles/2017-06-07/budget-battle-forces-florida-legislators-back-to-work

The only issue I have with that is that we don't really know (and I suspect that krikkitbot doesn't really know) where in the council hierarchy this decision was actually made. All we really know is who is carrying out the decision (the DE.) Or maybe the impetus came from district-level volunteers who complained to the DE, who was just the "front man." Either way, even after this DE is gone, the same kinds of decisions may continue.

I don't think you have to worry, because if girls are allowed to become Cub Scouts and "Boy" Scouts (new name to be announced?) it will not be "for the sake of PC." If it happens, it will be entirely because BSA National believes that it will result in a substantial increase in membership. Or, if one is a cynic, one might say that it would be because of money (resulting from increased membership.) Either way, it is about numbers, with or without dollar signs in front of them. There is some evidence that they are at least partially right. Over the past few years there have been a number of posts in this forum about units (particularly packs but also a few troops) that seem to WANT to be coed, and they have taken steps toward this through workarounds such as registering the girls through LFL (which I don't think you're supposed to do) or using the "Frontier Girls" program or other organizations (for which the BSA receives no money.) I am sure the BSA knows this is going on here and there, and would like to get these "unofficial" members into the system on a fee-paying basis and to count them in the official membership - along with all the other thousands of girls who (National thinks) will join once the units are officially open to them. As you may be able to tell, I don't necessarily share the BSA's apparent optimism about the results of going "coed". I think they are missing the fact that some number of boys would probably be taken out of the program by their parents, and some volunteers might be lost - even if there is a "local option." And I still think the best thing would be for the GSUSA to prevail upon their local leaders to actually deliver the outdoor program that is already a part of the official GSUSA program. But it sure does seem like girls are going to be admitted into the Cub Scout and Boy Scout programs in some way.

The BSA is a 501©(3) organization and a nonprofit corporation. It says so right on the BSA's web site: https://aplacetogive.scouting.org/magento/index.php/give-to-national-scouting.html?utm_source=scouting_top_nav

I was wondering about that.

But then it seems to me that the Scouts are not doing the work "as Scouts", they are doing it as employees, which may raise other issues depending on their age, state law, etc.

Richard, from this and other recent posts of yours, I get the impression that you believe that EVERYTHING that can be done in Scouting is specifically mentioned in an official book somewhere. That does not seem right to me. I think local leaders have to be able to make judgment calls about things that are not in "the book" one way or the other, as long as they are keeping in mind the purposes and values of the program. Or maybe to put it another way, it has to be in the "spirit" of the program even if it is not in a book. To me, allowing former members of the pack who have just crossed over to go on one last camping trip with the pack seems like it is in the "spirit" of the program.

Condolences to the family and troop.

I don't think the example provided by oldisnewagain had anything to do with Eagle projects, that's why I said we were talking about 2 different things. The example presented was that a man who maintains lawns, as a business, asked for Scouts to help him out. I don't think that request should even be passed along to the Scouts as an option for earning service hours, or for doing community service just for the sake of doing community service. As I said before, I assume this is NOT for an Eagle project.

We're talking about two different issues.

Welcome to the forums, GaG8tr! I know of nothing that would prohibit a just-crossed-over group of Boy Scouts from attending a family camping trip with their old pack. Perhaps @@RichardB would like to weigh in?