NJCubScouter

I fixed the spelling of your topic heading. Is this an outdoor flagpole that the restaurant has outside its building? If so it could be viewed as kind of a "public space" even though technically it is private property? Does the restaurant serve alcohol? It wouldn't make a difference to me but it might to some people, particularly in certain areas. I don't think there's a rule against it but it's kind of moot unless your troop committee changes its mind. Did anyone on the committee say it was against BSA rules when they were deciding not to do it?

I think it falls within the discretion of the unit leaders (adult and youth) to run and supervise the meeting. In our troop someone would have put a stop to that pretty quickly.

I'll have to tell my wife about this. The study was based on people born in a particular month, and it is the month my wife was born. And she was a Girl Scout, at least for awhile, though of course not in the UK where the study was done.

I would let things be as well. If the boy is happy and participating in the den with the boys who are, after all, his peers by age (though no longer by grade), and this is what the parents want, there is no need to change anything. If someone from council notices the "K" and says something, it can be explained that the boy did start the first grade but was moved back to K because of his special needs as determined in his IEP. Once you start mentioning special needs and IEP's I do not think there would be a problem. The council might need to have its "special needs person" bless this arrangement but I think that would almost be a given in this case. (When I say "special needs person", our council has a DE who as a sideline deals with special needs issues. I am not sure what the formal title is, if there is one. I assume other councils have some kind of arrangement for this, if not a DE then someone else.)

Melgamatic, first, I wonder about the fact that you say you have no suspicion that anything untoward is going on, but several paragraphs earlier you said that these two individuals are "friends", and the quotation marks were yours. Usually when one puts "friends" in quotation marks there is a suggestion that something is, or may be, "going on." So do you suspect something or not? Second, you say that the two of them "have driven alone together to various events." Are you talking about Scouting/Venturing events? If so, then that does sound like a no-one-on-one violation. If you have no suspicion, and if the adult leader is not driving the 17-year-old to troop/crew events alone, then I generally agree with Stosh that as far as the unit is concerned, nothing is being violated. One point that Stosh makes does need to be clarified, but I don't think it really has anything to do with your situation since the youth is under 18, and it is this: Actually for YP purposes, individuals "18-21" (21 meaning, until the 21st birthday) are no longer considered "youth." They may be "youth participants" in a Venturing crew (though actually I think the terminology is now "adult participants" as opposed to "adult leaders" but they are considered adults when it comes to enforcing all the YP rules. That change was made in 2013 or 2014, I believe.

Replies should go in the other thread. I am locking this one to prevent confusion.

I think it would be helpful if we do not generalize about people we do not know simply because they hold one position or another. There are UC's who do try to help the units and perhaps those who are there to push the council's agenda, but they are all individuals. The same goes for COR's, some do their job and some do not.

I suspect that if someone from council sees it or hears about it, the candidate may get a letter "reminding" them of the policy, but that's about it.

Well, meyerc, my post sort of "crossed" with yours. But I disagree with the idea that there is anything wrong with mentioning "Boy Scouts" as part of your experience. As I said, I did it, I have seen others do it, and nobody has ever suggested it was wrong to do so. In this context, it's the same as the Elks Lodge or the American Legion or any other community organization. You can tell people you are involved in it, and you can even elaborate on your experience. It's only when the "marks and logos" (including the uniform) get involved that there is a problem.

There is nothing wrong with mentioning one's Boy Scouting experience (youth or adult) when running for political office. People do it all the time. I did it (when I was running for school board, I listed my adult leadership on my campaign literature under community service.) I think the BSA would (legitimately) have a problem if one were to MISREPRESENT their Scouting experience. But as long as one is "trustworthy" there is no problem. I think this is true even if one goes beyond just a resume-type listing and discusses how their Scouting leadership has benefitted the community or their youth-Scouting experiences made them a better person, or whatever. Photos of a person in uniform, in campaign literature, are a different story. I actually thought it might be a grey area, but it's not. This is from a council web site, http://www.bsaonsc.org/policicaleventpolicy.html, but it looks official enough: Interestingly, in my Googling on this subject, I found a discussion in this forum from a few years ago in which the wrong answer was given to the "photo" question. Several people thought it would be ok if the candidate him/herself was in uniform in their own campaign literature. Apparently that's not correct.

I think asking for credentials in that situation is a bad idea. The focus has to be on getting the injured or ill person the best first aid in the most rapid manner possible. Aside from which, neither the Scout nor the EMT have the "authority" to control the scene and determine who does what. One would hope that common sense will prevail. Although this may rankle some people, any "authority" to control the scene would have to come from the government: Either a police officer or a first aid squad or rescue squad or fire department, presumably dispatched by the local emergency management department or whatever similar kind of entity may exist in your area. Otherwise we're all just citizens trying to do a good deed and we need to figure out on the spot, as best we can, who should be doing what.

In our troop any First Class Scout (or above) can sign off on any of the requirements for First Class or below (I have suggested in the past that this be tightened up a bit, but it hasn't been), with the exception of Scout Spirit which is signed off by the Scoutmaster at the SM COnference, and any requirements that must be done with a specific individual. The only one of those that I am aware of is First Class requirement 5 (discuss your rights and responsibilities as a citizen with a designated teacher, lawyer, etc.) For the higher ranks, generally the SM signs off on those except the Life "skill teaching" requirement can be signed off by any Life or Eagle Scout.

Richard, first, thank you for the information. What is "Scouting Safely"? I have never heard that term used before, at least not to mean a specific "thing". How does it relate to the Guide to Safe Scouting?

That's interesting. Did you have any kind of extended camping/hiking/adventure experience in Boy Scouts every summer, or any summer? Or did you have some alternative summer experience, such as religious camp or family camping, that conflicted with what your troop was doing? Or what?

Oh, now you suddenly care what BSA National says? When did THAT happen?

I don't think you understand what the definition of a "myth" is. Funnily enough, the ad at the top of the page right now (and probably about 20 percent of the time I am in this forum) is for the following web site: http://www.classb.com/bsa/custom-boy-scout-troop-t-shirts/ (I couldn't get the picture itself to show up in my post.) So the BSA, which licenses this company "Class B" to produce Class B t-shirts among other things, doesn't seem to think it is such a myth. And it can't be a "myth" anyway, because that isn't what a myth is. "Class B" is just a phrase that is used to communicate what is expected. If the speaker and listener understand it to mean the same thing, what we have here is communication. The communication is real.

Well... maybe YP doesn't require it, but in a practical sense my troop does require it. I think it is common sense. And I am pretty sure that if one were to ask the governing body of our CO (a church) whether THEIR youth protection policies require it, they would say yes. Not that it's a problem anyway, we always have at least 3 or 4 adults at meetings, and sometimes more than that where it starts to become a distraction to the boys. Lately our youth membership numbers have been slipping and there have been a few meetings where the adults (including parents hanging out on the perimeter of the meeting) outnumber the boys, which isn't good either.

Maybe "Class A" and "Class B" are myths in your troops, but when the Scoutmaster of my troop uses one of those terms, the Scouts and Scouters know exactly what he means and act accordingly.

Yes, my idea is that it would be better if everybody stops calling Scouts derogatory names, like "snowflakes". As for "ordeal", I don't really care one way or the other, I have no involvement with OA since my own ordeal 40+ years ago, but maybe it is time to stop using words that are likely to create misunderstandings.

This is what I have called the "Good Idea Syndrome". The BSA is overwhelmed with good ideas, but rather than be selective about which ones to implement, they seem to try to implement all of them. Each award is a good idea, or even a great idea, in and of itself, but when you add up all the awards, they lose their individual "shine" and just become part of the background noise, and that's the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is that units, or individual Scouts, try to do too many of these things and lose their focus on the "core" Scouting activities and advancement requirements. It is the same thing with Eagle-required merit badges. Each individual merit badge is a good candidate to be Eagle required, and yet the current result of adding badges over the years is that there are now 13 required MB's as compared with 8 non-required, whereas the balance used to be even (or almost even). I suspect that when Cooking became required again, there was some discussion at National of de-requiring (I just made up a word) another MB - in fact there was speculation about it in this forum before the change was officially announced - but that was never done. And it's not surprising, because having Cit in the World (for example) be required is a "Good Idea", same for Family Life, same for... name your favorite borderline-required MB here. I think another manifestation of the Good Idea Syndrome is in some of the long lists of requirements for some of the MB's (both required and non-required) and the lower ranks themselves. Each requirement is a Good Idea, but add it all up and it's a lot. At least with the Emergency Prep Award and the Nova Award and This Award and That Award, they are optional. Well, technically I guess advancement is optional too, but you know what I mean.

I think it is one of several non-advancement awards that are not very well known, and even to those who know them, it is probably under-utilized because for most Scouts and Scouters, other things take higher priority. To my knowledge, nobody in my troop has ever earned this award, or any of the National Outdoor awards, or Nova awards, or most of the others. I just looked at a long list of BSA awards, and I would say that the only ones that are really well known in my "neighborhood" are the ones that have adult knots connected with them (including Silver Beaver and DAM), the religious awards, the veteran's awards and the 50-miler award. That is not to say that the award should not exist. And I agree with RichardB, if one thinks the award overlaps too much with other things, the answer is not to apply for the award.

Getting back to the original post: I see the offerings include merit badges, Webelos adventure pins, a Venturing award and adult training - everything BUT what I regard as the "core" of Boy Scout advancement, the requirements for Scout (or Tenderfoot) through First Class. Is it assumed that those are handled sufficiently at troop/patrol meetings/camping trips etc.? Even if it is, I do not like the overwhelming emphasis (both in this flyer and thitngs I see at my own council and summer camp) on merit badges. It seems to me the kids come into a troop and are immediately made to feel (not necessarily by the troop but in general) that they need to start earning tons of merit badges right away. Even at the first-year camper program at summer camp, the kids earn a portion of the T-2-1 requirements but they also finish the week with either 2 or 3 merit badges, depending on whether they are ready to go for Swimming. In the second year and beyond it is all merit badges - regardless oif what rank a kid is. There is no organized program at summer camp to get a second-year camper to First Class if he has not made it yet. Personally I think "we" start beating the drums for merit badges too soon, when we should be prioritizing getting to First Class. And of course the parents pick up on the encouragement of merit badges.

Nice one. But I'm assuming the proverbial fork is in the shirt pocket, not the pants pocket.

Unfortunately, this being the BSA, the online books would probably be behind a "pay wall".