NJCubScouter

His profile says he is in Ohio.

They could have kept something having to do with recorded music that is not just in a "device". I think most Scouts actually still do know what some of them are, even if they don't see them every day. My kids never believed me about 8-track tapes, though, and I don't have any to show them. On the other hand, my kids are older than the Scouts of today. My oldest daughter actually bought CD's and worked in a store selling CD's for awhile.

Well, the previous now-you-see-it-now-you-don't (discussed in the thread that Ken linked to) and the fact that the official national web site still refers to the requirement for tour permits, with no indication that it is becoming defunct in 15 days, does raise a question or two.

That page from the Gulf Coast Council links to a FAQ document that is apparently from National. Here is the document: http://files.constantcontact.com/ac05d2b4101/a38e92b7-3a44-4f10-b81f-71ac99a7d6d8.pdf I notice that on each page of the FAQ it says "Updated 3/10/17 by RRB". I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that "RRB" is the same person as our fellow forum member RichardB. So my first question for @@RichardB is, Are we to ignore the fact that this change in policy goes into effect on April Fools Day? And my second question is, assuming that this change is real, is it time to put a note on this page, http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/HealthandSafety/TourPlanFAQ.aspx, that the contents are about to become obsolete?

I have seen no sign that the original poster (or anyone else involved in this particular situation) is "indignant" about this. And I don't think the main issue here is really whether someone (adult or youth) is going to steal any of the alcohol. The "concern" seems to be whether this particular room is really the "right environment" for a Boy Scout meeting, and even beyond that, whether the CO's facility as a whole is the "right environment." I don't see how anyone here (other than Cubmaster Pete) can really know whether that concern is "misplaced", and it isn't our decision anyway.

Spoke too soon. Actually what happened was the theme on my iPad (Safari) changed itself back to Bulletin without me telling it to, and the virteq thing showed up again. I am sure there is a reason for this, but I have no idea what it is.

I had forgotten about all this "theme" stuff, but I just found the link again and reset the theme (on my iPad) to IP.Board, and the virteq thing went away. My theme on Chrome (on my laptop) is still "Bulletin" but it doesn't affect my laptop.

Yes, DO NOT TELL STRANGE WINDOWS YOUR PASSWORD. The regular sign-in procedures for the forum still work, so I have to conclude that they have not changed. I have a suspicion that this is a bug as opposed to being malicious, but of course I could be wrong. I have been getting it on my tablet (Safari browser) but not on my laptop (Chrome). I just hit Cancel and it goes away. It is irritating though. I will write to Terry now to see if he can make it go away.

You can choose to believe that if you wish. I believe the actual point is pure showmanship.

I was making a prediction for the future. People do that in this forum all the time, especially when it comes to the future of the BSA. Nobody cites statistics for things that haven't happened yet. By the way, the whole point of the policy we are discussing is to reduce travel into the United States. So, once it actually goes into effect for more than 2 or 3 days at a time, if it "works", there will be less travel.

Well, of course the recent governmental activity is going to adversely affect travel. And, not to try to steer this thread back to the subject of Scouting or anything, it is probably going to adversely affect attendance at the 2019 World Jamboree, but of course we won't know that until we know what things end up looking like after court proceedings, probably more revised executive orders, etc. I just looked at the World Jamboree 2019 Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pg/2019wsj/posts/?ref=page_internal) and there are a few negative posts mixed in among the general eager anticipation for the jamboree. I don't know whether the nations of Sudan, Somalia, Yemen etc. generally send delegations to the World Jamborees or not, so the direct impact is something I can't even guess at. It will be interesting to see whether there is any impact on the enthusiasm of the nations of Europe, etc. for this world jamboree.

Ha. Well, that certainly is a unique explanation.

It seems to me that when you are in charge of an international trip, you get to decide how "big of a deal" it would be if someone gets turned back. In this case the persons in charge are the Girl Guides of Canada, not any of us. If the point here is that the Girl Guides have decided that if some of their members are unwelcome in the U.S., then none of them will travel here under their group's auspices, it's their decision to make. They are answerable to their own members as to whether that is a good decision.

They change the rank requirements too often. A new handbook with major changes in the requirements came out just over a year ago. They couldn't wait another year before changing them again? I can see changing them asap if it is an "emergency", but none of these are. The two for 2C do not change the meaning of the requirement, and the one for 1C could have waited until the next handbook. (I am talking only about the rank requirements, not about the MB requirements, which are not in the handbook anyway.)

What the original poster actually said was: "But COR and Council have supposedly been made aware of it, and don't seem to mind." What "supposedly" means is that someone else TOLD beaglelover that the COR (and council) were made aware of it and don't seem to mind. So she doesn't actually know whether anybody told anybody anything. As for "fired", I agree with RS, we should not get tied up over terminology. Some people use "fired" narrowly, to refer only to paying employment. Others use it more broadly. I guess I fall into that category. I can tell you that attorneys often speak of "firing" a client, even though the paying relationship works the other way. And I have used the term in the past to refer to an involuntary termination of a volunteer. I was once on the board of trustees of a small local foundation, and the terms of one group of trustees was expiring, and all expressed interest in being re-appointed. One of these trustees, however, had made a nuisance of herself, was pursuing personal agendas, giving the foundation a less-than-perfect reputation among some of our beneficiaries, and generally "not playing nicely with others". The board decided to reappoint all of the trustees except her. We were all volunteers. Was this trustee "fired"? Well, you could say that her term expired and she wasn't reappointed. Or you could say she was fired. It all works out the same to me, and I am sure she felt like she was fired.

I agree with qwase that "advancements will not be processed" does not mean the same thing as "all work done on advancements during the period of lapse/suspension/whatever are null and void." I do not think the latter is true. First of all, unless the unit is without a charter for many months (maybe the end of the next charter period? But I'm not sure) when the recharter finally does occur, there should be no "break in service", so everything that was signed off during that period is "validated." I would NOT rely on that for a last-minute Eagle candidate whose 18th birthday falls during the "lapse" period; I would recommend some sort of emergency action as qwasze suggests. But this thread is about a Cub Scout pack. If the pack is rechartered within, say, a couple of months, the kids will get their badges, if maybe a little delayed. I don't think the BSA really cares much about the timing of these badges with the exception of the Arrow of Light, which impacts on eligibility to join a troop for a boy who is not yet 11 and has not completed fifth grade. (On the Eagle application, the only Cub Scout advancement that is mentioned is Arrow of Light, and they don't even ask for the date.) But all this assumes that the charter problem is resolved within a few months. I'm going to make a guess here, that once the school year ends and there is still no charter, meaning that the boys are not registered as Cub Scouts, and they have not completed their requirements for Wolf, Bear, etc., someone could raise an issue about whether they can ever actually earn those badges. Although, as I said before, by that time people have probably drifted away and you may not have a pack anymore, if and when the paperwork is finally completed.

The YP policies, guidelines and training are designed for the protection (or more accurately, increasing the level of protection, since nothing works 100% of the time) of both the youth and the adults (and, I would say, of the BSA, the councils, the units and the CO's as well). I see no point in debating who it is "more" for the protection of. Statistically, the number of false accusations that are avoided may very well be greater than the number of child-abuse incidents that are prevented, but we will never really know, and anyway, so what? If ANY child abuse is prevented by the YP system, and I am convinced that some is prevented, then it is worth it. It's not a competition between one purpose and another. And anyway, the BSA requires this training and imposes these policies, so if you have den leaders or whoever who don't have it and don't know it, you have a problem regardless of what the system does "more" of.

In that case, I wonder whether they are even registered as Den Leaders at all. Our council will not register a new adult leader without a Youth Protection certificate. It is my understanding that is the case nationwide. (I just noticed Wëlënakwsu said basically the same thing. I should have read the entire thread before posting.)

Our troop went through this, and we followed the instructions we were given - no meetings, no camping trips, no nothing. Fortunately it was clear what the problem was, and it was resolved in about 10 days. I won't say it was resolved easily, because a new SM had to be drafted on the spot. But it was done, and we only missed one meeting and I don't think any camping trips were missed. I would take it very seriously. Whatever has to be done has to be done and in the meantime I would not play games with doing things as "individuals". And of course, the more the time goes by the more there is a risk that some boys/families drift away. If your CC dawdles in doing what they need to do to get this straightened out, your pack is at real risk of disappearing permanently, so if that is the case I think someone needs to go to the CO and try to get a new CC appointed.

I'm guessing there is one more "not" in that phrase than you intended there to be. Those extra and/or missing "not"s will get you every time.

Do we really need to put labels on people? Anyway, I haven't noticed anyone in this thread, regardless of supposed ideological orientation, actually opposing a "classical scouting program" in addition to what we have now. No two people seem to agree on what a "classical scouting program" would even look like. There are more than 100 years worth of options to choose from, and that doesn't even count the mix-and-match varieties.

Is this satirical, or do you really think each council should be able to change the advancement requirements? And add merit badges? And while we're adding merit badges, apropos of the other thread, maybe some council would like to add the Bartending Merit Badge.

I think I had 4 different SM's (including my father) and they probably would have too, but that was in the 60's and 70's, and I suspect that at that time, the requirements did not read as they did in 1911. I could look that up, but not right now.

The second link is the only one that actually answers the question, and it is a council site, not a national site. But I would go with that on the grounds of "better safe than sorry." But it would be nice if national had a clear directive on this. And as for the different views of whether its clear enough, I have always gone by the philosophy if that if people are arguing about whether a statement is clear enough, it probably isn't. People have a tendency to think that a statement is clear if it is clear to THEM; but unless the words used mean the same thing to both the speaker and the listener (or the writer and the reader), then communication has not occurred.

I am not sure I would reach that conclusion. It may be that those vague requirements from 1911 were interpreted in radically different ways by SM's and MBC's (if they even had MBC's at the beginning) and a decision was made to make the requirements more specific, such as to require that the camping be a Scouting activity. It might help to know when that change was made.