NJCubScouter

Well, if you do look it up, spell it "obfuscating". But that is the right word, and (as my previous posts on this subject may indicate) I agree with your other words as well.

Blood drives CAN be acceptable projects under certain circumstances, which are specifically discussed in the Guide to Advancement, as quoted and discussed in this "Bryan on Scouting" post: http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/09/21/an-eagle-scout-project-doesnt-have-to-be-permanent-to-have-a-lasting-impact/ A post with an even more relevant title is here: http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2013/05/01/eagle-blood-drives/ Historically, our district has generally "discouraged" "drives" (food, blood, clothing) as Eagle projects, presumably on the grounds that they (usually) do not offer the Scout the opportunity to exercise sufficient planning and leadership. (The ONE I have seen approved was for a Scout who is severely disabled, i.e. cerebral palsy, wheelchair-bound, very limited use of his hands and arms, and seriously speech-impaired. And very smart, though he has difficulty getting the words out. To "compensate" for the fact that he was getting approval for a "drive", he planned a multi-day food drive at different locations and exercised as much leadership as he could, with his parents and older brother as "assistant leaders." He really was an amazing Scout.)

At our CO there is an AA-type meeting (I think it is specifically NA, Narcotics Anonymous) that meets at the same time as our monthly committee meeting. The issue of them meeting at the same time as our troop meeting would not even come up, as both groups use the same room (a gym) while our committee meetings only need the small room off the gym. The only problem we have is that there are so many people at the NA meetings that the parking lot isn't big enough. I believe that once or twice, the NA meeting has been rescheduled to the same night as our troop meeting, and the NA group met on the second floor of the building while the troop was meeting downstairs. Nobody has ever complained about it. (Although sometimes in our committee meetings, we joke that there are 60-80 people at the NA meeting while there are 5-10 at our committee meeting; and that they have better refreshments than us, since they have coffee and cookies, etc. and we have nothing.)

This sort of reminds me of a bit from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The sad part here is that the real-life communications abilities of BSA and its councils are reminding me of a work of satirical fiction.

Is that something you have come to expect?

Well, my humorous (?) point was that anything your mother, or father, or anyone else, has ever said to you on your birthday, they were saying it to you on April Fool's Day.

I just have one question, when your mother told you that story, was it on your birthday?

Too late, at least in my case. Seriously though, I don't think the issue is March 10 (or whenever) vs. April 1 vs. April 3 because if National were going to make a major paperwork change for local units like this, there should probably be at least three months notice. Really six months. But at least three months. As for your suggestion that people keep doing what they have been doing, I agree with that. They should comply with what is on the official National web site, which says the document is to be submitted to council. As for "passing judgment", based on the available evidence, I think it's completely reasonable to be annoyed right now.

That's right, that's what there should be. Instead we have the national director of health and safety (or whatever his exact title is) telling us "Guess we have to wait and see what happens on the 1st" and then linking to an article that was an April Fool's joke. This isn't right. If people at National want to have a little fun in their work and send fake memos around the office (if that is what this was), I don't have a problem with that. But don't send the fake memo out to the councils so the councils can then post it on their web sites, and/or send it out to their volunteers, as a real thing. And if you're the guy who wrote the memo, and you find out it IS being posted as a real thing, take some action so that us poor volunteering souls out in the field aren't getting conflicting information about what we have to do in connection with our April camping trip, and then when we ask about it, are told by the guy who wrote the fake memo "wait and see what happens." Do I seem annoyed about this?

As I have said, this does not have to be done in a Venture crew. I was just using Venturing as an example because the rules do provide that a crew member who has earned First Class in a troop may proceed to earn the rest of the ranks in a crew. The BSA would just have to figure out where and how someone who has not been a Boy Scout can earn the ranks through First Class, or maybe a separate program where they can go all the way from Scout through Eagle. Or not. It's like the other "membership changes", if one is committed to keeping things exactly the way they are, all kinds of roadblocks appear in front of a proposed change. With the "gay issue" it was who tents with who, what happens if the troop at the next site at the district camporee has a gay leader, etc. etc. After the change was made, we haven't heard of any of these issues actually being a big problem, and I think if they had been, we would have heard about it. If people want to make something work, they can make it work, and if they want to make it not work, they can make it not work.

If it is done the way I am suggesting, sure the Boy Scouts will still exist, and it will still be all boys. As for Eagle being issued in a different program, a coed program, it already is. You do not need to be a Boy Scout to earn Star, Life or Eagle, you can be a member of a coed Venture crew. But only one of the two genders in the crew can earn Eagle. It doesn't have to be that way.

Maybe it's just me but I think these are two different issues. I think it's best if Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts are for boys and Girl Scouts are for girls. But I don't see anything wrong with coming up with a way for girls to earn Eagle. If boys in a Venture crew can earn Star, Life and Eagle, someone can figure out a context in which the girls can earn Scout through First Class and then do Star, Life and Eagle in the crew. Without making either Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts coed. Where's the harm in that?

Well, as long as you have the satisfaction of knowing that you are insulting certain kids, even if they don't know it, I guess that's the important thing.

If that were the case, packs and troops would already be coed. I think National is trying to preserve the program AND allow the "entire family" to participate, at the same time. Some local people in some areas are trying to do the same thing, like Pack18Alex, whose post quite frankly surprises me a little bit. It's very clear to me that his pack did not start a "sibling den" for "political" reasons. They did it because that is what the families in the community wanted. There are posts scattered between I&P, Open Discussion, Cub Scouts and probably other sections of this forum where people have come up with their own little ways of doing the same thing or something close to it, whether through LFL, Girl Scouts, American Heritage Girls, Frontier Girls or some other method. Some of them may be good ideas, some may not be. But it's not some sinister plot to destroy the program.

I am not a huge fan of April Fools jokes, but if they have to exist, I think they need to be "self-contained" within the 24 hours of April 1. That's a rule I just made up, but it's a good rule. Otherwise they are just pranks, or to use another term, lies. Memos that come out in March and discuss a fictional policy change effective April 1 are not April Fools jokes. If we have to have this nonsense, let's at least limit it to one day. Now there are people in this world, who if they knew it was me writing this, would say "Hey, what about that time in college when you..." I did once manage to get an entire campus confused for a few hours, and I wish I could say how, but as I said, most of those people are still out there somewhere. But that was a long time ago, and I was really still just a kid, not someone who could spread misinformation all over the country instantly through the Internet. (Which, of course, didn't exist.)

Just got what, the memo or the joke?

I think it depends why he is isolating himself. We have one kid who is so shy and quiet that he does probably does isolate himself to some degree. When he was 11 he pretty much isolated himself in the troop as well, but he is getting better, very slowly. I think he is now 14. Recently I actually saw him smile. But when I do BOR's with him I still have to strain to hear him speak, and we're sitting across a very small table from each other. I ask him to speak up and he tries, but he doesn't really succeed. That's just the way he is. I don't know if he will ever be sociable, but hopefully he will at least start to speak at something close to a normal volume. I don't think this is because he doesn't like people or his country or anything. It's just the way he is.

That's horrifying.

Do you think Stosh intends it as a compliment?

@@RichardB, this thread exists because a number of councils are telling their volunteers about a policy change and linking to a memo that is online that YOU apparently wrote. You did write it, didn't you? Or at least you "updated" it? Is the memo a joke? And if it is a joke, what sanctions are going to be imposed on councils that have misled their volunteers by presenting it as the truth? Please just give us the straight story and, with all due respect, please stop playing word games. It does not show respect for those of us whose membership in this organization allows you to have your job.

I am not sure what you mean by "big pond." Can you give some examples of other youth organizations that give their members a chance to swim in a "big pond", and maybe become a big(ger) fish in a big(ger) pond? In Scouting, would you consider a patrol leader whose patrols wins the competition at a district camporee to be swimming in a "big pond"? What about Jamboree? Is that a big pond? What about OA? What about an OA Lodge Chief? National OA Chief? What about a council Venturing President? Regional Venturing President? National Venturing President? Or other officer at these levels? These are all youth positions, and admittedly there aren't very many of them, but the opportunity is there. (We had one kid on what our council calls the Youth Executive Committee, and one member of our associated Venture Crew was (I believe) an officer at the Regional level. I also know a guy who, in the 60's, was a national OA officer as a youth.) What about NYLT staff? What about NAYLE staff? Big fish in a big pond? I suppose an analogy would be a star athlete on a high school sports team that wins a state championship or is named to all-state in their sport, but there aren't many of those spots either. Robotics has a national organization, and the kids can do great things and win international championships and awards (as a team) and individual scholarships and other good things, and they can be captain or president or whatever of their team, but as far as I know every leadership position at every higher level is held by an adult. Unlike Scouting. We also have had kids in our troop go on to Harvard, top engineering schools, great liberal arts colleges, the military, police training academies, etc. etc. and they seem to do pretty well in those "big ponds". Their previous education, extracurricular activities obviously had important roles in their development, but I like to think Scouting helped them along as well.

The fact that some people 100 years ago or 14 years ago were insulting kids does not make it right.

Stosh, when you call the kids names, do you call them names to their face, or only behind their backs? Lest you feel singled out, I used to ask Kudu the same thing when he called some Scouts "cupcakes."

I know it is not a popular view in this forum, but the BSA seems to think the Eagle rank is more important than the others. There's only one rank that has its own chapter in the Guide to Advancement.

One person's "end-around" is another person's "compromise". And let me ask you this: As long as Boy Scouts remains all-male, why do you care whether the BSA has a separate program for 11-to-17 year olds that is coed? Forget the fact that some people want Venturing to be that program. (I don't, because there needs to be a program for older youth.) The BSA could create a separate program that is exactly the same as a Boy Scout troop, same ages, same ranks and advancement system, same leadership positions, youth-led, same everything except that both boys and girls can join and coed units would have to follow the YP guidelines applicable to coed units, which already exist for Venture crews. You and I agree that Boy Scout troops should be for boys. But why not a parallel program?