NJCubScouter

My son did not have a "religious leader" nor was he attending any services at the time he was approaching and making Eagle, so I wrote his "religious reference" letter for him. I have also sat on about 15 Eagle BOR's and would say that in somewhere between 3 and 5 of these, the "religious letter" was written by a parent. It has never been an issue. Eagle&CubMom, if you were a director of religious education, you are far better equipped than I was to write such a letter. I wouldn't overthink it. I can tell you that it makes it a lot easier if your son has a specific belief in a particular religion, which was not the case with my son. You can tie your son's religious beliefs to all of the good qualities that I am sure he has. In my opinion, the history of the relationship between the UUA and BSA (which has been discussed in detail in this forum over the years) is beside the point. I would not include any memoranda of understanding or any other documentation. The issue is not what an organization believes or does, it is what your son believes and does and how the two relate to each other.

Perhaps one could view the relationship between your CO and the BSA as being a business relationship, although I don't look at it that way. But even accepting that, what about YOUR relationship with the BSA? You are not simply a volunteer selected by a CO, YOU are a member of the BSA. You filled out an application, the application was accepted, and you have a membership card. If you move across the country, you are still a member. If in your new location a CO accepts you as a leader in their unit, or if you decide to get involved at the district or council level, you don't have to rejoin the BSA, you just transfer. Your Youth Protection training and whatever other training you have (assuming the BSA's computer system hasn't erased it) are still good. Part of being an individual member of the BSA are the shared values of the BSA, as expressed in the Scout Oath and Law. That does connect you, in some sense, to the other members of the BSA. Do you disagree with that?

I suspect that even though it is not "automatic" in the charter, it is done with little or no discussion, and is simply placed on the agenda of the next Executive Board meeting and basically rubber-stamped. That would be for the President of the U.S. and living former Presidents. Obviously "other distinguished citizens" require some discussion.

Cambridgeskip, there are actually at least three places this thread could have gone: Here, I&P or the "Going to the next Jamboree?" subsection under Open Discussion. There is already a generic World Jamboree 2019 thread there but this could remain a separate thread. I do not see any need to move this thread to I&P, as long as it sticks to the specific issue of "home hospitality" at the World Jamboree and does not get into another argument over what the BSA's (or any other country's) policy should be on gay/transgender youth or coed Scouting. I also do not think it is necessary to move it to the Jamboree-specific section because the title "Going to the next Jamboree?" is a little narrower than the question you have raised. So I am fine with leaving it here, at least for now. Other moderators may differ. As for your question itself, I did not realize that this was part of the World Jamboree experience for Scouts from other countries. I guess I just assumed that the Scouts arrived directly at their campsite at the Jamboree and left directly from there. It sounds like a nice addition. So I guess my first question would be, how have hosts and visitors been "matched up" for past World Jamborees? Do the hosts have some role in choosing the the Scouts who will stay with them? Or does someone in the host country's Scouting bureaucracy (in this case the BSA) do the matchups and the kids go where they are sent? And who does the "recruiting" of families to be hosts and what kind of information are the potential hosts given? I realize I have answered your question with more questions, but I think that once there is a more of an understanding about how this usually works there can be a better discussion of whether different membership standards may affect the process. My guess is that they wouldn't.

Isn't there an age requirement for NYLT? I think our council has an age requirement of 14, or 13 and completed grade whatever, but maybe that is just in my council. If blw2's council has an age requirement, and his son is just out of a new Scout patrol, he may not be old enough. And that assumes leadership training camp is what his son wants anyway, and I see no indication of that.

As will those of us who have been reading your posts in this forum for more than 10 years. I'm absolutely shocked to hear it.

I see no sign that we are losing the sense of shared values or common purpose, or that we have lost any of it. Twelve points of the Scout Law and duty to God, country, others and self, 16 check-marks worth of shared values and common purposes, all fully intact. I see a BSA that is now moving past the distractions created by issues that have nothing to do with these shared values, so it can refocus on bringing the shared values to more youth.

I believe it is the charter year, but in our district that is the same as the calendar year anyway. If the charter year differs from the calendar year, I am not certain.

I was hoping not to have to say anything in a moderator capacity in this thread. I would say that the moderators collectively (myself being part of the collective) have given this discussion a fairly long leash, especially when we consider the statement by the owner of this forum that is "pinned" at the top of Issues and Politics, which might have been interpreted to require action against a significant number of posts in this thread. I have justified to myself letting things go where they may, due to the slight differences between that situation and this, but the differences are really really slight. But now I am noticing that some posts are getting "personal" against other posters, which is a more "traditional" reason for the moderators to get involved. I am not going to single anyone out. I am only talking about a few posts. But please do not comment on other forum members. Focus on the ideas expressed in the posts. This is a major decision and was a pretty big surprise, and it is to be expected that there would be strong disagreement. But let's keep it to what people say, and not on the people themselves.

Great point. I have never known a transgender person, but I cannot imagine that it is an easy thing to do or something that one does lightly. Some people seem to think it is some kind of "fad", but look at some of the comments in this thread and the last thread. Who would want to endure something like that for something that wasn't real?

I also laughed when I saw fred johnson being labeled "left", but I figured I would let him speak for himself first. Now I'll say that having read his posts for the past few years, it is ridiculous to call him "left." In fact, there is way too much "labeling" going on in this thread: Conservative, liberal, left, etc. It is a convenient shorthand that is often inaccurate, especially when applied to "the other side." I recall that this was a pet peeve of Old Grey Eagle, who for the benefit of the newer members of the forum, was a moderator and a great guy, who sadly passed away long before his time. He would always bristle when these easy and inaccurate labels were thrown around. I guess now I will do it for him.

Nothing to add except that the 16-hour drive to summer camp kind of jumped out at me, especially to a place he doesn't really want to go. If you're going to go to a mediocre camp, no need to go 16 hours, we have several of them within 45 minutes. Maybe your son would me interested in going "provisional" to a summer camp nearby. Of course then he would be with NONE of his friends (unless one or two others decide to do the same thing), and would be with a whole campsite full of new people to meet. Which, if your son is shy, might not work out so well. It was just a thought after seeing the 16-hour drive to a place he doesn't want to go. I hope things work out to where your son can be happy in Scouting, or at the very least, happy out of Scouting.

This idea that some people have that "Scout Sunday" is being downplayed, or will be downplayed, does not seem to be correct. See this from Bryan's blog: http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2017/01/09/scout-sunday-2017-scout-sabbath-2017-everything-need-know/ There are also references in there to Scout Sabbath (the Jewish version), which has existed alongside Scout Sunday for many years. I remember it from when I was a Scout. (Interestingly, there is a patch for it on the blog page, which refers to "Scout Shabbat", Shabbat being the English spelling of the Hebrew word for Sabbath.) The article also refers to the Muslim version, which I had never heard of before, "Scout Jumuah", organized by the National Association of Muslim Americans on Scouting. I think that's great. Although I am not a Christian, I will be at the Scout Sunday service this Sunday at the church that is the CO for our troop, as I have been every year since joining the troop, except when there was an unavoidable conflict. Scout Shabbat, as I will now call it, following the BSA's lead, is from sundown next Friday the 10th to sundown Saturday the 11th. Scout Jumuah is Friday the 10th.

I disagree, and I agree with Fred. I don't think the BSA is intentionally "taking sides" with anyone (any more), they just wanted to try to get this over with, end or reduce the negative publicity, and refocus on growing and improving the organization. This is the way they decided was the best means of achieving that. Whether it works or not remains to be seen.

I am not an expert on Girl Scouting, but I suspect the council would be very happy to have a troop doing outdoor activities as long as you have the correct training and do the right paperwork. My general impression in speaking with Girl Scout leaders in years past is that the amount of training required by the Girl Scouts for any given role or activity is greater than that required by the BSA. GSUSA National encourages camping, see https://www.girlscouts.org/en/our-program/ways-to-participate/camp-and-outdoors.html. But as qwasze says, it is up to the local leaders to make it happen, and if they are not interested, it doesn't happen.

I don't think I have ever heard the term "Eagle out" other than in this forum. As for my troop, the number of kids who earn Eagle at 15 or 16 is what you would call a "small sample size", so it is difficult to draw conclusions. It's probably about 2-to-1 in favor of those who stay around and give back to the troop through (and often past) their 18th birthday, and those who go on to other things shortly after making Eagle. I am not sure how you would count one who makes Eagle at 16 and leaves the troop but becomes (or remains) active in a Venture crew, we have had at least one of those. They are not necessarily helping the troop that helped them make Eagle, but they are still involved in Scouting.

Oh. Hmmm is right.

I agree. I think the BSA has learned its lesson that letting these kinds of issues drag out for 15-20 years does not do the organization much good. I'd say that's progress.

There are no "coed" Boy Scout troops, at least not officially. This policy change does not alter that. Or, to put it another way, Stosh, the BSA has changed its definition of "boy". Their definition now agrees with yours "only" about 99.97% of the time, not 100%.

Hopefully this is not a preview of the new menu item at Taco Bell.

For anyone who is wondering, I reorganized the threads on this subject, moving one from Open Discussion and putting all the posts on the new policy into this thread. I was going to lock the older thread but instead edited the title to direct posts on the policy change into this thread. Here is a written statement from the BSA web site, http://scoutingnewsroom.org/press-releases/bsa-addresses-gender-identity/. This statement is a shorter version of the CSE's spoken statement in the video above.

@@RichardB, can you shed any light on the rumor mentioned in the original post?

I liked Bernie Sanders as a candidate and appreciate the role he seems to be taking under the current "order". I understand that he was too far "out there" ideologically for most people, but it would have been nice to have a truly decent (though sometimes a bit grumpy) person as president. Maybe I feel a bit of a personal connection with him. Given our shared ethnic-religious backgrounds, the Brooklyn accent and really his whole way of speaking, it would have been a bit like having one of my uncles as president.

We have a one-year term for SPL. I would estimate that approximately half of the Scouts who have been elected have run for a second term. (Over the ~ 15 years of which I have knowledge; and I am estimating partly because I don't have a photographic memory and partly because I wouldn't be sure how to count things like the year we had co-SPL's (not a good idea, but it wasn't my call) and one of them turned 18 during the year, so his non-running for a second term was not voluntary. And actually our current SPL is going to turn 18 just before the end of his term, so he wouldn't be able to run again either.) There has been one, and only one, who served two terms and ran for a third, but he did not get re-elected.

The last time I checked, the BSA recommended BOTH a dedicated ASM and a TG for a New Scout Patrol. Like a number of other things, it is not solely a question of "need".