NJCubScouter

I tend to apply multiple grains. Truckloads, sometimes. For example, when I look at that site and see several favorable references to a competing girl's scouting-type organization, I have to wonder about the motivation behind what I am reading. None of which, as I said before, has anything to do with the absolute right of a religious organization to allow or disallow use of its facilities and resources as it sees fit, regardless of whether the facts on which the decision is based are true, false, opinions* or some combination of all of those. *In which case they are not facts and can be neither "true" nor "false", but you know what I mean.

What it looks like is an anti-Girl Scouts web site. Based on the original article linked in this thread, the GSUSA denies many of the affiliations alleged in this web site. If I had to decide who to believe, I'll go with the GSUSA. But of course what I think has nothing to do with what this thread is about. A church or diocese has the right to affiliate or dis-affiliate with whatever groups it wants, based on the facts, or non-facts, or whatever criteria it chooses. Whether it is a good idea or not is a separate question, but since this thread involves a religion that is not mine, I don't think it's my place to comment on that issue.

Parts of it seemed kind of geared toward professionals as well, though I assume most of those attending are not professionals. On the other hand, based on the presenters of the various seminars, it almost seems like the BSA is flying the entire staff at Irving to Florida and putting them up in a hotel. Your registration fees at work?

I would like to think that the BSA and councils made some sort of adjustment to reduce the impact on the professionals of the units that left due to the membership changes. It would be kind of unfair to do otherwise. It would be particularly unfair given the differing impact of that decision in different parts of the country. My council probably did not lose any units at all because of that, or at least very few, whereas there are obviously some parts of the country where that was not the case, for example, where you live. Note I am not saying I think the BSA DID make that adjustment. I have no idea whether they did or not. I would just like to think they did.

Jeanvaljean, what is the "MB Coordinator" position? Is that a district position, or a position in your troop? What does that person do? I have never heard of that position. Troops are supposed to have an Advancement Coordinator (which some people call Advanceent Chair), but that person does not get directly involved in the earning of MB's. The Scoutmaster is supposed to have a list of MB counselors, in our district there is a district list. Some troops have their own list of counselors within the troop, but either way these are MB counselors registered through the council. The Scout talks to the Scoutmaster about which MB he wants to work on, gets the name and contact information for a counselor, gets a blue card signed, contacts the counselor and they go on from there. (Keeping in mind there is to be no one-on-one contact between the counselor and the Scout, either in person or by email or other electronic media.) No special event is needed to get a merit badge. And, although some troops have "merit badge classes" at troop meetings (ours used to, but no longer does), that's not really the way it's supposed to work either. Added note: If the SM does not have a list of MB counselors, I think it is reasonable to ask the SM why not, and if there is no satisfactory answer, and the SM seems to be making no move to get the list, it is then reasonable to take the issue to the Committee Chair.

There sure is a lot of business jargon in those "spark session" descriptions. I have never been quite clear on who goes to the national annual meeting. I know that only specific council representatives as well as regional and national-type people get to vote at the "business meeting". The session descriptions seem to be mostly, though not exclusively, aimed at the council level. Do other people go as well? Is anyone here going this year? Or have gone in the past? And if so, in what capacity, if any?

It did not start out that way, but this thread has gradually crossed the line into that magical, storybook land known as Issues and Politics, where it will now be found.

Ok, I was trying to see whether there could be any justification for just "letting it go", but based on your answers, I guess there really isn't. Have you actually spoken with the CC about this yet? You express some concerns about what his attitude may be. But have you actually given him a chance to do something about it?

Hmm. Were there other kids in the pack who went to camp with the parents paying? Were there kids who wanted to go and would have gone if the pack was paying, but didn't go because of the cost? What you have here is that most of money in question was spent on a Scouting activity that benefited members of the pack, which in and of itself is a good thing. The problem, of course, is that depending on the answers to my latest round of questions, the beneficiaries of the funds may have been determined through favoritism.

Actually, I think @@dfolson's council is acting in a way that makes the scout (and his SM) the quality assurance people for the scout's project. I know boys who are very uncomfortable with the thought of adult strangers in some office somewhere pouring over their write-ups for weeks without telling them. Letting the scout (and the SM) know that there are only a fixed number of adults in the process helps them. That's why promptly scheduled EBoRs are important. Finish your workbook, turn it in, be prepared for your review in a couple of weeks, know that those reviewers will only have a few minutes prior to read your materials, and they will ask about your project anything they couldn't grasp from your write-up. So, read what you wrote and be prepared to fill in the gaps. Along these lines, Bryan's forums have an interesting discussion regarding online vs. handwritten workbooks. Some of you may wish to chime in there: http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/forums/topic/eagle-scout-workbooks/ My assumption was that Stosh was being sarcastic there.

I think a lot depends on the details here. There is inappropriate spending and then there is inappropriate spending. If the CM spent hundreds of dollars on camping equipment for the pack without going through whatever approval process the pack uses, that's one kind of inappropriate spending. If the CM used the money to make his own car payments or to buy groceries for his family, that's a different kind of inappropriate spending, and in that case it is also known as "stealing." In one case the pack has tents it may not want or need or be able to afford, but at least the tents are there and can be sold or whatever. In the other case the money has been stolen and the pack has to decide how far it wants to go to try to get it back. And those are not the only two possible scenarios. I also think it makes a difference how much was "spent inappropriately" (which means you know how it was spent) and how much is "missing" (which means you don't know how it was spent.)

I'm not sure exactly what that means in light of your original post. Do you mean that there WAS sufficient development, planning and leadership, but it just hadn't been reflected in the workbook? Or that the Scout was given a break because the adults had messed up the approval process?

The GTA section is 9.0.2.10 (hmm, reminds of a tv series, though I never watched it), which says in pertinent part: "And unless it involves contributions only from the beneficiary, or from the candidate, his parents or relatives, his unit or its chartered organization, or from parents or members in his unit, it must be approved by the local council." So apparently you, or your family, or the unit, CO or beneficiary may contribute money with no paperwork. (Interesting that they include the unit itself; I would like to see someone in our troop try to justify spending money on one Eagle's project and not another's. Project beneficiaries will often provide contributions, usually some of the materials for the project.) The same GTA section confirms that if funds are actually raised (presumably outside the sources listed above), any excess funds go to the beneficiary, but that if the beneficiary is "not allowed, for whatever reason, to retain any excess funds, supplies, or materials, the beneficiary should be asked to designate a suitable charity to receive them or allow the unit to retain the funds. The unit must not influence this decision."

If nothing else, this discussion is remarkable because there are now two threads going on at the same time where Col. Flagg and I seem to agree with each other.

I agree with all that, it's the kind of "balancing" I am talking about. You mention recreation, well there were probably trees where your local soccer or baseball field is, and for that matter where your house is. (I suppose it depends on where you live; it certainly is true in my area that the site of virtually every building, recreation field and everything else was once covered by trees.) Those areas cannot be re-planted with trees (except here and there) because we are using that land now. But the balance changes over time. The housing development where I live probably would not be laid out the same way today, there probably would be some uninterrupted "open space". But we don't really need to have an elephant hauled from thousands of miles away to entertain us in a circus in our home town. We can watch a documentary about elephants and view them in their native habitat, and when the film crew goes home, the elephants are left to their own devices. Perhaps it's not as thrilling as seeing the elephants, up-close and personal, doing tricks for us in a circus, but it is better for the elephants.

SSScout and fred johnson, I agree. I once questioned the number of adults we had going to summer camp when compared with the number of Scouts. Part of it was financial since our "troop tradition" is that any adults who are not freebies from the camp are paid for by the troop. But part of it also was that the ratio of adults to Scouts just seemed way too high and what are all those people going to do all week, anyway? (I wasn't going.) The other committee members looked at me like I was the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

This seems fitting. For those who may not be aware and/or are too young to remember this, and who did not click on the links, Ellison Onizuka and the other astronauts pictured above were the last crew of Space Shuttle Challenger. A very sad day. I remember exactly where I was.

Well, there are a lot of things we humans do that "leave a trace" on nature. Most of us (including me) eat animal flesh. We (as a species, not each individual) cut trees to build things with or to clear land for other uses. We destroy mountainsides to get minerals. How do we decide what is ok? I think we generally try to achieve a balance between how much we need (or think we need) something and how much damage it is going to do to everything else. Most people would conclude that the things mentioned above are ok because they provide us with things we want or need, but in "modern times" we usually we try to do them within reasonable boundaries - such as not hunting or fishing a particular species to extinction, or trying to minimize the destructiveness of mining. We (most of us) conclude, for example, that our desire to eat a steak or hamburger is more important than the life of any particular cow. So how does the circus fit into this? For most of our history humans believed that our desire for entertainment justified hauling wild animals here and there, sometimes causing them pain, and sometimes causing them to die. As consciousness of this issue has increased, I think generally the animals have probably been treated better, but now the balance has shifted to the point where the desire to reduce the impact on the animals is turning things like circuses into money-losing propositions. In the balance, our entertainment is not quite as important as some of the other things I mentioned above. So it's not just "leave no trace" (which I think is a misnomer anyway, there is no way to leave NO trace, it's really more like "leave as little trace as possible"), it's balancing that "trace" against our needs and desires.

Jeanvaljean, just out of curiosity: What rank is your son, and how old is he? Has your son gone to the Scoutmaster and asked for a merit badge card and the name of a counselor for an MB he is interested in? If so, what happened?

That is the question, and it seems that for a number of people here, the answer is not what I thought it was. I always thought the reason for a leader to be at summer camp was mainly to provide sort of a generalized supervision of the Scouts ("generalized" because the leaders aren't actually with the Scouts most of the time) and to "be around" in case "something happens." This also satisfies the BSA's two-deep leadership requirement for overnight activities. Plus if the SM is there he can do SM conferences and if enough committee members are there they can do BOR's, but that is really secondary. The main purpose, unless I am wrong, is to "be there", and you can't be there if you aren't there.

A consoling role is fine. But you can't be in a consoling role if you are outside the camp playing golf or whatever and, at that particular moment, a cell phone call chooses not to go through and you're still playing golf while the Scout has been taken to the hospital. You don't even know what is going on. Yes, there are other leaders back at camp. But if you're the SM, I think trips outside of camp should be minimized.

Welcome to the forum and welcome to Cub Scouter-ing. Our forum has an entire section on Cub Scouts, maybe you will find something helpful there. And feel free to start a thread there and ask any questions you want!

I think that what you are talking about is different from what RS is talking about. It sounds like all of your excursions are still within the camp. If Little Johnny has some sort of accident or incident between MB classes and requires emergency medical treatment or a trip to the hospital or whatever, they can probably find you. At least you were in the camp, not 20 miles away in town having a cup of coffee. I also think it makes a difference whether it is THE Scoutmaster or another leader. Little Johnny's parents would like to know why "THE leader" was outside the camp having his own special breakfast while others were making sure their seriously injured or nearly-drowned son received proper first aid before the ambulance arrived, and the Scoutmaster didn't know anything about it until an hour later. And I am not saying an SM cannot leave camp when necessary to conduct business or pick up something special for the boys or whatever. But what RS seems to be describing is a more systematic thing, including trips out of camp that are not really necessary, or necessarily benefit the Scouts. I think it is wise to keep such side trips down to what is really necessary, and to make them as brief as possible, especially if you are the SM.

That's interesting because my guess, based on occasional observation of particularly 11-14-year-old boys in an "all-boys" setting with occasional visits by teenage girls, would be the opposite - MORE risk-taking and foolish behavior. That is one of the reasons I have expressed serious reservations about "coed Scouting." But maybe we are talking about different kinds of "risks."

Not to mention Pet Rocks. But those just kind of sat there, as I recall. Perhaps an analogy here would be the Tamagotchis, which I am sure I have spelled wrong, but I am sure some of you remember those. I don't know what impact, if any, those had on Scouting, because my daughters had already quit Girl Scouts when those became the "big thing", and my son was not interested in them, and if I recall correctly they were mainly a "girl thing" anyway. There is probably still a broken one lurking around in a dresser drawer somewhere in my house, from my oldest daughter. But I would think they would have been a prime candidate for "banning" at Scout meetings.