NJCubScouter

I am not sure of what point you are making. Which "these MB classes"?

I have a feeling that the requirement-writer for First Class requirement 5a was not necessarily being literal with the word "native." If you "find" it growing in your area or on a camping trip, I think it counts. I think what they are trying to exclude is, plants growing in peoples' gardens (on purpose) that were "imported" from elsewhere. Of course, I could be wrong.

Well, I think the purpose of that site was never really to inform BSA members about legal issues. It was mostly a public relations site on certain issues, and since those issues are no longer really at the forefront of most peoples' minds (despite the impression one may sometimes get from reading this forum), they apparently decided the site and the domain weren't worth keeping.

Welcome to the forum! New Jersey... New Jersey... it rings a bell...

I think the requirement is intended to mean what you wish it would mean. It is a poorly-worded requirement. It was obviously not written with the expectation that it would be analyzed (or, if you will, picked apart) by lawyers, or grammar experts for that matter. Or taxonomists. Personally, I think the listing of the broad categories (mammals, reptiles, etc.) is mostly superfluous. By "kind" I think they mean things like chipmunk, rabbit, squirrel, fox, deer, frog, lizard, etc. etc. Of course, within most of these "kinds" there are more than one species. If the 10-to-12-year-old in question sees both a white-tail deer and a mule deer, AND is able to correctly distinguish them, I think that's two. Otherwise, that's just another deer, and you still have nine to go.

Before I try to interpret the requirement, I need to know, am I limited to the words on the page, or am I allowed to consider extrinsic evidence of intent?

Those sound like good lyrics, someone ought to use them in a song. Oh wait...

::Life for Lifer here:: When discussing Eagle advancement with Life Scouts, I always use both my son and myself as examples. You can decide early on that you are going to do other things in Scouting (and outside Scouting), and not go for Eagle, which is what I did, to the great disappointment of my father (who was the Scoutmaster and who had himself stopped at Star. Fortunately for me my younger brother did make Eagle.) Or you can get going and do what you have to do. The one thing you should not do is wait until the absolute last minute (or last second) and drive your leaders and parents (and yourself) completely nuts and just barely make it. (That's where the example of my son comes in, and kids in the troop today still know his story, even though none of them were in the troop when he was. He's sort of like a legend, but it's all true.)

By the way, Ankylus, you seem to think I am some sort of spokesman for, and/or persistent defender of, BSA National. If you look back through my posts over the years, I think you will be disabused of that notion. I sometimes do give my opinion of why National does or does not have a particular rule, and sometimes I agree with the rule/non-rule and sometimes I don't, and sometimes I can live with it either way. In fact, on the vast majority of decisions made by BSA National, I can live with it either way. There have been some notable exceptions, and I have been pretty vocal about the fact that they need to be consistent with their rules and, if there is a rule, use clear language in expressing it, and not play double-secret-reverse April Fools' jokes on us poor slobs out here in the trenches, so we can have some clue about what it is we are supposed to be doing. But there will never be a rule for every possible subject, especially for hypothetical situations that have not expressed themselves in real life to any significant degree. That's just the way it is. If you ever do face the kind of situation you are talking about, please let us know how you dealt with it. Maybe you will blaze new trails and help your fellow Scouters at the same time.

I never said I think no such rule is needed. I was trying to explain why I think the BSA thinks no such rule is needed, or at least why it has not been given priority. Maybe they just haven't gotten around to it yet. But I will also say that it is my observation that the BSA rarely imposes a rule until a problem actually arises. The fact that someone thinks an issue might arise in the future does not seem to be enough for the BSA. They are not proactive. I am not saying that's a good thing. I am saying that's what I think the situation is. As for what I think, I do not care whether there is a national rule on this subject or not. If such a rule is created, our troop will follow it if the situation ever presents itself. If not, and the situation presents itself, I am sure we will deal with it in a manner that seems appropriate at the time. We have enough issues to deal with without making up new ones.

Parents in our troop don't seem to have that expectation. Most of the leaders and male committee members we have had in our troop (during my time) were Boy Scouts, but only two were Eagle Scouts, one of whom is still active as an ASM. (I stopped at Life.) Of the last four Scoutmasters, two were Eagle, one was a non-Eagle, and I don't think the current SM was a Boy Scout at all. Of the last three Committee Chairs, one was an Eagle (same guy as one of the Eagle-SM's), one was not eligible to be a Boy Scout, and the current one made Life (I think) and has all kinds of other Scouting credentials as an adult, but did not make Eagle.

Many of these letters are written by teachers, and I have said that when my time is up, I hope my eulogy could be given by a teacher or school principal. Generally speaking, their capacity for finding creative ways of saying nice things about people is amazing. Too bad I wouldn't be around to hear it...

That's true, but at least in theory there may be cases where it is difficult to avoid a particular person. For example, if a Scout's family (including the Scout) are regular, active members of a particular place of worship, if the Scout does not write down the name of that spiritual leader on the application, it is going to raise questions. It is also true that our perceptions of another person's opinion of us is not always accurate. As I said before, a negative review is probably very rare, but "very rare" means it does happen sometimes.

That statement from the GTA mentions the reason why the letters are not to be shared with the Scout and are to be destroyed, and it's a pretty good reason: The person writing the letter might want to include information that is negative (or not completely positive) and would not feel free to state his/her true opinion unless confidentiality is going to be maintained. On the other hand, I have been on many EBOR's and have NEVER seen a letter that was not completely positive. Most of them almost seem to glow with pride at being asked to write a reference for the Scout in question. There have even been a few times when I have thought (to myself) that while the Scout in question is a great kid and has certainly passed the requirements for Eagle, the praise was may be a bit overly effusive. It is therefore a bit difficult to imagine ea letter that goes in the other direction. But I am sure it does happen, somewhere, sometime. The one real surprise I ever got from reading something at an EBOR was when I read the Scout's statement of life goals, and one of his goals was that if he ever had a son, to be involved in his son's Cub pack and Boy Scout troop, not like his own father who had also been an Eagle Scout but had not been involved at all in his son's pack or troop, never went on camping trips, etc. I mean, I knew this about the father, but what I did not know about was the son's strong sense of disappointment in his own father because of it. That was kind of an eye-opener.

Really, how 1990's of you. We are still in the 1960's as far as EBORs.

In our district it is the second option, except that the letters are to be sent to someone in the troop, either the SM or someone who will be a member of the EBOR. (Our EBOR's are technically troop BOR's rather than district-level BOR's, with several troop committee members plus a District Advancement Committee representative, but they are held at a central district location.)

There you go. I would think that if there is no rule covering a situation, you are supposed to use your best judgment anyway, but there it is in writing. Also, at the time the youth membership rules were changed (or clarified) in 2013, there was an FAQ that made a similar statement about tenting arrangements, along the lines of "use your judgment." I can probably find it if I need to. There was some discussion about it at the time. I do not recall a similar document regarding the change for adult leadership in 2015, but I don't see why it would be any different. Use your judgment. The BSA has not given us a rule other than that on the issue of tenting arrangements for people of the same gender, and I do not think they are going to do so anytime soon.

Be careful what you wish for...

It doesn't. I think the BSA expects local leaders, units and CO's to exercise a degree of common sense and discretion when there is no specific rule on a subject. In other words, the idea seems to be that if left to themselves, people will usually choose to behave reasonably and not cause undue discomfort for others. If not, the unit and/or CO may get involved. Obviously that idea does NOT apply to interactions between adults and youth, which are the subject of specific rules, but that's not what we're talking about here. I also think the BSA tends to shy away from making rules for things that may never happen, or almost never. (YP again being an exception.) Gay leaders have been permitted for two years now, which is not a long period of time, but it's not nothing, either. So, Stosh, do you have two (or more) openly gay adult leaders in your troop? I'll bet you $1 you don't have any, partly because I'm guessing and partly because you said you'd quit if your unit had an openly gay adult leader. There's no issue who they tent with if they don't exist. My troop has not had any openly gay leaders, or Scouts for that matter, though there was one Scout who "came out" after he left the troop. I have not heard of any in our district or council, not that I necessarily would have heard, but the fact is that I haven't heard. Nor do I recall anyone in this forum mentioning that he/she was a BSA member and is openly gay, since the policy was changed, nor do I recall anyone saying they even had an openly gay leader in their unit. Much less two. (There was a forum member, who left years before the policy was changed, who said he was gay, but he himself seemed unsure as to whether he was "openly gay", and one of our current forum members has identified himself as openly gay, but the BSA policy never applied to him because he is in the UK.) At the time of the policy change there was an article about one gay leader rejoining the BSA, and of course there was also the Eagle Scout who was famously being hired as a camp staffer in New York. One must assume there are others, but apparently not enough for the BSA to decide to make a policy about.

I did not put in my post how things actually worked in the pack I was a leader in, because it wouldn't have been of much use to the original poster... because we did not do things the right way either. We really had the opposite issue, with the Cubmaster doing that job as well as the job of the Committee Chair. But in that case, the Cubmaster knew he was doing both jobs. In ladybug's case it sounds like she is doing part of the Cubmaster's job, because she was told these things are part of the CC's job.

ladybug_scout, first of all, welcome to the forum! My understanding of the Cubmaster's role boils down to: 1, Plan and run the pack meetings; 2, Communicate with, and when necessary supervise, the den leaders to make sure everything is going smoothly with the dens and to make sure the dens participate in pack meetings and other pack activities; 3, Work with the pack committee to make sure all activities receive whatever support is necessary. The BSA has a more detailed view of the subject, as I found in this training syllabus for Cubmaster and Assistant Cubmaster Specific Training at http://www.scouting.org/filestore/training/pdf/511-503_WB.pdf. This includes some instructions to the trainer, but most of it is a list of what the Cubmaster's role is: Based on your post, it sounds to me like your Cubmaster is probably less involved in planning the pack activities than he/she should be, and that if all he/she is doing at pack meetings is to run the opening and closing ceremonies, there's probably something missing in between.

I sense echoes of another recent discussion here. The signs didn't by any chance say "Printed April 1" anywhere, did they?

So RS, what are your thoughts about Cooking merit badge? ::Ducking::

On the other hand, it seems to me that Webelos is the time to get the boys into the habit of actually reading the requirements (so they'll know what the pin is for), since as Boy Scouts they will be advancing independently of each other and it's not a bad idea to know what you are supposed to be doing. I have seen Scouts get through First Class without ever actually reading the requirements, but it takes a lot longer.

If that's a joke, it's so clever and sophisticated that I don't get it.