NJCubScouter

Our council recently announced a "new district structure" in which the six districts in the council will not each have their own DE, but rather the council will be split into two "service areas" (three districts each, based on geography) and each service area will be served by four "executives" each dealing with a different subject area. Here is a little more detail from the recent council newsletter: Now, it calls the people "executives" but I can't help but wonder, in light of this thread, whether the "executives" will actually be District Associates (a term that is not used in the newsletter). I would be surprised if the two things were not related to each other. I did go on our council web site and found that the directory for my district currently lists a Field Director, District Chair and District Commissioner, with no DE. (We did lose our DE a few months ago and have been waiting to hear of a replacement; perhaps there will not be one, at least as DE.) Some other districts do have DE's or DD's listed. I see no mention of a District Associate in any district - but as the newsletter said, this is going to be phased in over the next year. I guess my question (somewhat rhetorical in this forum) is what are they going to do with the existing DE's, Senior DE's and DD's? Are they going to "demote" them into this 4-person-per-three-districts structure? Are they going to change their titles to District Associate?

blw2, my recollection of college is that any course that had the reputation of being "easy" turned out to be a nightmare.

Gwaihir, Your question has been passed along to the site administrator and hopefully there will be an answer soon.

I don't, but what council is that, and in what state? To get into the lodge, do you have to spell its name five times, fast?

SummerFun, welcome to the forum! (I find your choice of account name interesting, since it snowed a little here today.) This subject has come up a few times over the years, and my recollection is that there have been a few mentions of Scouts who did earn religious awards that were not of their own religion. I do not recall any mention of Scouts who earned awards from MORE than one different religion, which it sounds like your son is considering. Personally I think the best way for your son to start out would simply be to attend worship services of a few different faiths, without necessarily committing to a set of formal requirements. Perhaps he has friends from different religions and could go with them, or if he is a bold individual, just walk right in. The other idea would be read about these faiths and the comparison of different faiths. If, after doing that initial exploration, he decides he wants to go further and actually earn a religious award from one of the faiths, he should read the requirements and see whether anything in there would require him to profess any beliefs that he is not comfortable with professing. (I am not suggesting that the different religious awards do or don't require such a thing, as it has been a long, long time since I actually read the requirements for a religious award, and never earned one.)

I have heard of two incidents in our troop involving boys being sent home from a camping trip: One boy chasing another with an axe. (I was not told how close Scout A came to catching Scout B before the adults stepped in. My impression is that nobody really thought Scout A was actually intending to strike Scout B with the axe, but one does not need too much imagination to picture what could happen if Scout A, while running with the axe, happened to trip on a rock, resulting in a potentially very bad day for Scout B, or Scout A himself, or innocent bystanders C, D or E who happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.) One 11-year-old Scout who was sitting across a mess hall table from an older Scout (15 or so) and the two were having a disagreement over something, and the new Scout decided the way to resolve the dispute was to take his fork (I think it was plastic but I am not certain) and stab the older Scout in the hand. With some force, so plastic or not, some blood was drawn, but there was no serious injury. The stabber's parents were "asked" to take him home and the troop ever heard from them again. (I heard this story in greater detail than the other one because the Star Witness for the Prosecution happened to be my son. He was sitting next to the older Scout trying to eat his breakfast when forks started flying.) So I think it is fair to say that when a Scout is sent home from camp in our troop, it was really the only option under the circumstances.

I think the treatment of pot-smoking "back in the day" (late 60s to mid 70s for me) depended on where you were and who was in charge. The one time I caught wind of someone doing that (so to speak) they received harsh consequences. I don't know exactly what, since it was not someone from my troop; it was a TLD camp (what is now called NYLT) and someone from another troop was caught smoking pot. They were sent home, and I suspect they had to face the music in their home troop as well. I don't actually know how it would be handled today since the subject has not come up. As for alcohol use by leaders, back in the day, I think the reaction also varied from place to place and person to person. I have also seen some violations of that policy while an adult, none of which were ever reported. I think the problem with it now (aside from it being against the BSA rules) is that the consequences would be much more draconian than just being sent home from a camping trip.

Unless there are other relevant facts that we have not been told, the SM should be given a chance to change his ways and stop rescinding rank advancements due to disciplinary infractions, which is a blatant violation of BSA policy. There may also be other things that need to be changed, such as the disciplinary system itself, but I don't think we have been given enough information to make that call. Once the CR/IH makes the decision as what needs to be changed, the SM has the options of (1) making the changes, (2) resigning if he's not willing to make the changes, or (3) not making the changes and not resigning, at which point removal probably would be appropriate. Of course, this is all a tangent in the current thread, given that the Scout is changing troops.

You use the word "simply" but then describe a process that could become anything but simple, possibly involving having to re-pass requirements he has already passed. IF (and this seems to be the route that the Scout is attempting in this case) the council would handle it, that seems preferable than going into a new troop with this unresolved issue over a rank that has been earned but no advancement report has been submitted. One issue with that (and why it's not so simple) is that the signatures on the advancement report are theoretically supposed to be of the troop committee members who sat on the Scout's BOR. (I say theoretically because in my troop whichever troop committee members are handy sign the advancement reports.) The committee members in the new troop might not be comfortable doing that, and it's really not right to make the Scout go through another SMC and BOR. And besides, the Scout's mother says she does not want to involve the new troop in this issue. (I'm going to assume, for sake of argument, that this is also the opinion of the Scout, who is the person who actually should be making the decisions here.) But if the old troop won't do what's right, and IF the council won't handle it, the new troop is the only remaining option.

If I were the Scout in question, I would want to go into the new troop with the First Class rank having been submitted to council, which is what he needs for the rank to be officially recognized. The key piece of paper (either actual paper or electronically submitted) is the advancement report, which is supposed to be submitted to council by the Advancement Coordinator (or at least with his/her approval, if Internet Advancement is used and someone else actually does the submitting.) It is supposed to be done whenever someone completes a BOR or the troop receives a completed merit badge card (or however it is done in your council.) It is my guess, based on what you are saying, that after the BOR your SM told the Advancement Coordinator to leave your son's name off the advancement report. This is completely improper. If your Advancement Coordinator or Committee Chair will not help you with this, maybe the council will accept your son's signed book and do its own advancement report since your son is switching troops. (I'm not sure if that's possible, it's just a thought.) Otherwise he will be presenting this issue of the missing advancement report to his new troop, which is probably not the best way in the world to go into a new troop.

Ok, good, because otherwise the math wasn't looking very good. So he's around 14, give or take a year? What rank was it for?

CaliGirl, you say your son has been "involved for 7+ years." Is that all as a Boy Scout, or does it include time as a Cub Scout? If he has been a Boy Scout for 7+ years, he would be just a few months away from his 18th birthday, right? Was the BOR in question a BOR for Eagle? One more question, did the chair of BOR sign off in your son's handbook at the BOR had been completed?

No, he can't. If the Scout successfully completed the BOR and was signed off, he earned that rank, as of that day. The COH is "just" a ceremony. Now, if you were to tell me that the "demerit" (a term the BSA does not use) was related directly to the BOR itself, I might become a little less certain of my answer. Like if it became clear that a Scout had lied about something at a BOR or... well, actually that is the only example I can think of. Otherwise, he had the BOR, he earned the rank. Depending on what the issue is, it could come up at the next BOR, but this one's over. What "other punishment", by the way? And also, welcome to the forum!

@@David CO and @@desertrat77, can you each give a few examples of subjects on which Scouting has become too "permissive" or "stricter"? When I think about this, one thing that jumps out at me is that Scouting (along with schools and other institutions that deal with youth) have become much "stricter" and less "permissive" about bullying of one Scout by another, than they were in the 1960s/70s.

It's interesting you should put it that way. You're correct, I already know the boy, in fact for the group of boys currently in the troop, if you add up all the BOR's they have had, I have probably been on the board for 90 percent of them, and at least one for each boy. For the last few EBOR's, it was the sixth (out of 6) BOR I had done for that particular Scout. I also stand on the side of troop meetings on a regular basis, so I observe what these Scouts are doing when they are not in a BOR. The point is, I almost (and I say almost, and I am half-joking) don't need THEM there at the BOR (much less their uniform) to know what I need to know. But that's not the way it works either. In my opinion, the BOR is designed at least as much as a learning and character-building exercise for the Scout as it is for the adults to learn something new about the Scout. I'd like to hope that in a few years (or less) when the Scout is sitting in front of a college interviewer or a job interviewer or a thesis committee or wherever his life may take him, the experience of having spoken with me at a BOR might be of some small benefit. I have no data on this, but I'd like to think it's true. As for the uniform, I think it is worth quoting exactly what the G2A says on this subject: So even though the uniform is not REQUIRED, the Scout is required to THINK about what he is going to wear to the BOR. He SHOULD wear the uniform if he is able to do so. If you read the first three sentences together, I would say they mean that if the Scout is not in uniform, he should (must? probably "should", not "must") have a good reason for not doing so. I also see nothing there that says you can't ask a Scout where his uniform is - but you cannot "not pass" him for not wearing the uniform. (That is not unusual, there are many questions that are asked at BOR's for which there is no "wrong" answer in terms of "passing" the BOR.) Now, even if wearing the uniform is "impractical", the Scout must still think about his attire in advance: "the candidate should be clean and neat in his appearance and dressed appropriately, according to his means, for the milestone marked by the occasion." I suppose we could have an entire thread or five on what THAT means to each of us. It's kind of interesting that the BSA tells the adults how the Scout is supposed to be dressed for a BOR (see above), but the BSA does not tell the Scouts how they are supposed to be dressed. I wonder if that is an oversight, or intentional.

That is up to your troop to decide, either way. That has been my whole point in this thread. Aside from troop meetings/COH's/camping trips, our troop does two flag ceremonies a year, one is an elaborate Flag Day ceremony involving all of the historical flags of the U.S., at a fraternal/charitable lodge-type organization (and there is a bar-room in the basement, and afterwards the kids are treated to pizza and soda in the bar-room), and the other is a flag retirement ceremony in which the American Legion also participates, in a public park. There is also a historical society that does a July 4 event and rotates invitations around to the various troops in the county (BSA and GSUSA) to participate, and our troop has done that a couple of times. I don't know of any other flag-type ceremonies that our troop has been invited to participate in. I don't think there has ever been an invitation to do one at a business. I don't know what our reaction would be to more flag ceremonies, or to do one at a business, either in general or specifically, since these subjects have never come up. I do think our troop has the right to decide whether it wishes to do more of this sort of thing, and if so, how much more, and where. Between what we do at meetings etc. and the events I mentioned above, I don't think anyone could say that we do not give sufficient honor to the flag. How much more should be done and where, if the subject ever comes up, is, in my opinion, our business.

I understand what the BSA rules are but it does make me wonder how you can call it a "uniform" if there are no consequences for not wearing it. It would just become a set of clothes that some people wear and some people don't, and I don't see how that builds character or serves any other purpose.

I have presumed nothing.

Hi Jack, welcome to the forum! If you like, you can start a new thread and tell us a little about yourself and your Scouting experience.

I think that derives somewhat from the military "ancestry" of the BSA uniform. Although I don't know whether the ribbons, pins etc. are limited to the military dress uniform or are also worn on the "everyday" military uniforms, since I've never been.

I would have no problem at all if a Scout turned up at a BOR wearing a business suit. Well, under BSA rules I am not allowed to have a problem (or at least not allowed to express it) if the Scout is "dressed neatly" or whatever term the G2A uses. But you know what I mean. We have had kids show up in suits at meetings (usually late) a couple of times when they were coming from high school events where they had to wear suits. But not when they had a BOR. I do not recall a single time in our troop, in more than 10 years, when a Scout showed up for a meeting in which he had a BOR scheduled, without a uniform. (There may have been a few times when it was just the shirt, along with a notarized affidavit from their parents about why they didn't have their pants (just kidding about the affidavit.)) The uniforming rate for meetings when they don't have a BOR is somewhat more varied. (And I'll add a note of agreement with something Stosh said: When a Scout is at a meeting and their uniform is elsewhere, usually the functioning portion of their brain seems to be elsewhere as well.)

I think sports is the better analogy, since we are talking about voluntary (and volunteer, as in unpaid) youth activities - although there is no escaping the fact that the idea of a uniform in Scouting was borrowed from the military.

So are you saying the uniform should be worn 24/7/365?

If it is "overzealous" to expect a Scout to wear a particular set of clothes at a particular meeting (the BOR), when he already owns it, when he already wears it at other meetings, when the uniform is one of the methods of Boy Scouting, well, call me overzealous. I've been called worse. If the Scout is a paragon of virtue, that's great, he can just as easily be a paragon in uniform as a paragon out of uniform. If the BSA had to make a choice between paragons of virtue and the uniform, I would say choose the paragon every time. In fact, If the BSA was to decide tomorrow that the uniform should be eliminated completely, I would be surprised but I would not quit in a huff. But as long as we have the uniform, and as long as a Scout has a uniform, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect him to wear it at a BOR.

Before anybody gets too bent out of shape and/or excited, the point of that Huffington Post article is that people should be careful about all the misinformation on the Internet, because what the headline says could happen cannot actually happen. Or, if you wish to be less charitable about it, the gist of the article is essentially "Made you look!"