NJCubScouter

Just so it's clear, that is not what I was suggesting and I don't support that. I think the age range of Boy Scouts should stay where it is. In our troop, most of the older Scouts have been pretty good about working with the younger Scouts. Most, not all, but I think that's about the best you can expect.

Personally I think that tweaking of the required MB list is a really a separate issue from "Classic Scouting." There have been so many changes to the required list over the years (see http://usscouts.org/eagle/EagleHistory.asp) that almost any change could be justified on the basis of "getting back to the good old days." But as I have said before (probably too many times) I do think the required list has gotten too long and that the BSA should bite the bullet and make the difficult decision about which MB, and probably two, should be de-required. If it were one, and I had a vote, my vote would be to de-require Family Life, and if there were a second, it would probably be Cit in the World. They are both nice to have on the list, I would go as far as to say they are important, but they are not absolutely necessary in my opinion. They both have a history of being both on and off the required list. (Between 1952 and 1965, an Eagle Scout had to earn three of the four "Citizenship group" MB's, which were Cit in Nation, Cit in the Community, Citizenship in the Home (now called Family Life) and World Brotherhood (now called Cit in the World.) Whether Sustainability remains on the list is irrelevant in my opinion, because it is "optional" with Environmental Science. I am not really familiar with Sustainability, as I do not think any of the Scouts in my troop have ever earned it, and I have not read the requirements. If it is so boring, then the vast majority will continue to go for Env Sci, not that that is a thrill-a-minute either.

Nature was a required MB, 1952-1972. It became un-required at the same time as Camping and Cooking (both of which have since returned to the list), and at the same time that Swimming and Lifesaving became "optional required" badges.

I'm open to the idea of a parallel program to the Boy Scouts that is coed, but I don't think Venturing is that program. There is value to having a program for older youth. So you would have Boy Scouts (boys only, 10+ through 17)), "Coed Scouts" (obviously with a different name, same age range as Boy Scouts), and Venturing (coed, 14 through 20... I know it is 13 now, I would move it back.) I would open up Eagle to both boys and girls, regardless of whether they are in Boy Scouts or "Coed Scouts", or in Venturing if they follow the same rules that apply now: You earn up to First Class in Boy Scouts or "Coed Scouts" and can then do the rest of the ranks in Venturing. How's that for a compromise? The only problem is, it will never happen.

Yes, it is, and since this is all completely hypothetical anyway: If the BSA wanted to satisfy everybody it would probably have to provide several different "Classic Scouting"s, maybe one for each decade from the 1910's to... whenever each person thinks "New Scouting" started. I suspect some people in this forum would choose the "Classic Scouting" that corresponds to the period when they were Boy Scouts - the 50's, the 60's, maybe some people would even choose the 70's (meaning the "improved Scouting program"), although I know that is heresy among many here. And then some of our younger members would choose the 80's, 90's or later. Or maybe we could pick and choose. Maybe one person's "Classic Scouting" would be the 1979 handbook but with Bird Study added as an Eagle-required MB. Maybe another's would be the 1972 handbook but with Camping Skill Award required for First Class (as it was after 1976-77 or so) and Camping and Cooking MBs also required for Eagle. And for the more seasoned folks out there, maybe the 1959 handbook (the one with the smiling, waving Scout with the overseas cap on the cover) with whatever changes you would have liked to seen at the time. There could be more different "Classic Scouting"s than Heinz has varieties.

In looking at the comparison of the Camping MB requirements, perhaps there is something symbolic in the fact that actually going on camping trips has dropped from requirement # 1 to # 9 - and something MORE than symbolic in the fact that the number of required nights camping has been reduced by 60%. The first 8 requirements in the 2012 version are all about preparing for camping trips, talking about them, talking about different kinds of tents and sleeping bags and etc. etc., as opposed to actually camping. (Although you could say requirement # 8d (cooking three meals) - the last sub-requirement before # 9, is supposed to be done on a camping trip, although it doesn't actually say that. But that's still pretty far down the list.) When I saw Stosh's reference to "Classic Scouting" in the other thread, I thought he was referring to the "membership policies." Perhaps I was incorrect.

The bsalegal.org web site seems to have been taken down at some point. There are still some pages from various time periods archived at the "Wayback Machine", I randomly picked a home page from 2008 and a home page from 2013 to link to: https://web.archive.org/web/20080513084427/http://www.bsalegal.org/default.asp https://web.archive.org/web/20130729031517/http://www.bsalegal.org/default.asp I am not sure what to make of the fact that many of the links on the left side that were there in 2008 had been removed by 2013. I also tried to find the LAST archived home page, and there seems to be a way to do it, but that apparently is beyond my skill level. I saw a reference to a page from 2015 but could not find the actual page in the archive, which may just mean I was not doing it correctly. I always thought the bsalegal.org page was an odd mixture of public relations and legal material, and I did not think some of the public relations portion reflected very well on the BSA. It also seemed to me that, at least at certain times, the pages were actually being maintained by an outside law firm for the BSA and there seemed to be some public relations for that firm as well, although I couldn't find that in a quick look at the pages linked above. If the BSA changed law firms at some point, that may be a partial explanation for why the web site is no longer up. (Or it may not.)

Moderator's Note: I do agree with most of your post, but surely this topic needs less fuel, less heat, and less name-calling (that last part was not directed at gumbymaster.)

As others have pointed out, a unit does not necessarily have to meet at the CO.

I think that's true. I guess I am seeing the alcohol as an image issue, not a safety issue. And it isn't a huge deal. It just wouldn't be my preference, if it were up to me.

I'm getting a feeling of deja vu. Was there a thread about this dispute maybe 2 or 3 years ago?

Maybe I'm a little old-fashioned about some things. It just doesn't sound like the right setting for a Boy Scout meeting to me. But that's just me. It's a decision for the leaders of that troop to make.

I think they are separate issues. Accepting a youth as a boy who identifies as a boy, who "lives as a boy", whose parents accept him as a boy and want him to be in a program for boys, whose school accepts him as a boy, and (I am speculating here, but I think I'm right) whose medical/psychological professionals accept him as a boy, is a decision that stands on its own. It is about transgender youth, and that's it. That decision does not make it inevitable that the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts will accept girls. It only is inevitable if one does not believe that transgender is a "real thing." I believe it is a real thing. So "coed" is not inevitable.

I don't think there is a slippery slope here. I think what we have is a series of decisions on membership policies, and so far the last decision on each issue has been, in my opinion, the correct decision. (Well, except that I think the policy on openly gay Scouts should have been a matter of local option, as is the new policy on transgender Scouts.) So I do not think there is any possibility that the BSA is going to allow, for example, known pedophiles to become members. The BSA has learned how to draw the line between membership decisions that increase the risk of harm to youth members, and those that don't. So there is no slippery slope. This is, of course, my opinion, and I understand that your opinion is different.

The second of the two troops I was a member of as a Scout met in the "clubhouse" of the CO, but it was a fairly sprawling facility and the bar (which had fairly limited hours as I recall) was in its own room. In fact, the room where the troop met was all the way on the other side of the facility from the bar. I think I would have an issue with the bar being right there in the meeting room.

Sooner or later, every thread in Issues and Politics ends up in ridiculous analogies like this.

I know you didn't ask me, but I would bet a dollar that the answers are No, and No.

In which book did you find such a rule?

Well, that makes more sense, anyway. Among other things, sending an email to an employee requiring that they take a 15-25 minute online training module sometime in the next 14 days is entirely reasonable. Sending the same to a volunteer is, generally, not.

My question is, "manipulation" by whom? If a local unit, on their own and unbeknownst to council, is getting girls and their parents to register with LFL under the guise of doing an LFL program but is actually using that as a "cover" to have the girls meet with a Cub pack or Boy Scout troop, that's one thing, and it's probably their problem if anything goes wrong. But if the "manipulation" is being done by the council, or even just with the council's knowledge, that begins to look "official", regardless of whether National knows about it, and regardless of whether you call it a "pilot program" or something else. There have been a number of posts in the past few years about people using LFL, either to have a "Lion Cubs" program before the current "official pilot", or to involve girls in Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts in various ways. Recently there was a thread in the Cub Scouts section in which someone said: My girls are also part of coed BSA programs, one being a pilot program based on Venturing but for middle school ages (which I am associate advisor for)." (http://scouter.com/index.php/topic/28828-running-a-frontier-girls-program-concurrent-with-a-cub-scout-pack/?p=450597) In that person's next post, she said that program was being run through LFL. I find it difficult to believe all this stuff is being done without councils knowing about it, and as I said before, once council knows about it, it becomes more than just some rogue local thing.

There has to be more (or less) to this story than this. If by "order" is meant a court order (which is what it usually means), then it means the BSA did sue SpiralScouts. If that is true, the rest of what is quoted above would mean that, after having filed a lawsuit, asked a judge to issue an order, received the order, served it on the defendant (SpiralScouts, that is), the BSA (or its attorney) got a letter from SpiralScouts attorney and then decided to forget about the whole thing. Unless the enclosure to that letter was a check in an agreed-upon amount, things just don't work that way. (And I doubt that is what happened.) And even if the BSA did decide to forget the whole thing, there still would have had to be some "interaction" between their attorneys. You don't just leave a pending court case sitting there without getting it wrapped up (to use a non-legal term) in some way.

At the time my son was about to cross over, I was Assistant Cubmaster. The Cubmaster's son had another year in the pack and a father in the then-Wolf den had already stepped forward to be Assistant Cubmaster, so the pack was in good hands. (And coincidentally, the pack charter was expiring a couple of weeks after crossover.) So it seemed natural for me to "cross over" as well, so I volunteered to be a member of the Troop Committee, and have been an MC ever since, in various roles. My son aged/Eagled out of the troop seven years ago, and has not been involved in Scouting since, but I'm still there. In light of your comments, Faith, I think it is relevant to mention here that when I "crossed over" I knew pretty much exactly what it was I was crossing over to. As a youth I was a Cub Scout and Boy Scout, and after I turned 18 I was an Assistant Scoutmaster, briefly, until I started college. I was a Life Scout, served in all the main-line youth leadership positions, etc. I also think I learned a lot about Scouting from my father, who was one of my Scoutmasters, and a Scout/Scouter for 67 years. So when I "crossed over", I had a pretty good idea of what was on the other side of the bridge. Had that not been the case, the transition might not have seemed so natural and logical.

Maybe its the lawyer in me, but especially in these times of online fraud running rampant, I don't think I would find "as far as they can tell" very comforting.

Wrenn v. BSA: https://casetext.com/case/wrenn-v-boy-scouts-of-america Very interesting. I had never read it before. The judge says he is specifically NOT deciding whether the BSA has a protectable interest in the word "Scout(s)". He says that several times. He says he is only deciding that "YOUTHSCOUTS" infringes on the Boy Scouts' rights under both trademark law and the Congressional Charter. Now, you might well ask, how can "YOUTHSCOUTS" infringe on "Boy Scouts" UNLESS the BSA has a protectable interest in the word "Scouts". And well you might. I am not sure that this decision really answers that question. But I am not sure it matters; either way, if you have a youth group with the word "Scouts" in the name, and the BSA sues you, in all likelihood you are going to lose. As for the BSA not suing Spiral Scouts, I have my theories about why that occurred, but it also seems to me that the BSA has weakened its case for the next time it sues someone in a similar situation. One of their arguments has always been that they aggressively protect their rights under trademark and the Congressional Charter, and that time they didn't. (This does not constitute legal advice, etc. etc.)

Well, given his current job and the issue of public lands, one can only hope that his Scouting experience ended before the councils started selling off their camps...