Oak Tree

I agree with the quote as well, or at least the general spirit of it. The only thing I'd add is that bad staffers can have the same effect. Now, I don't think that a lot of these people have any ill intentions. They do support the cause. And they don't necessarily need to be cut out entirely the way a cancer might be - there are often ways to re-assign them. And there are others who aren't exactly rude, but aren't welcoming either. They continue in their role doing things the way they've always done them, and things gradually go downhill due to an absence of new blood, new energ

We had one unit recharter with three youth. No one mentioned anything about a waiver. I figured I'd ask for one if they told me that I needed five youth, but they didn't say anything about it. Sort of an automatic waiver, I guess. So you might not even need one, depending on who is doing your rechartering.

Congrats to Wayne. I looked over the list of past CSEs and realized I never knew who the CSEs were during my time as a Scout. Maybe that's a good thing.

You can be sure if someone is hurt the BSA's liability insurance lawyers will work hard to find a way to deny coverage, and not following the rules makes the lawyer's job a whole lot easier. and you need to understand that BSA lawyers work to protect the organization, not YOU the leader. They'll cut bait and throw you under the bus in a heartbeat to protect the council and national. They'll hang the CO out to dry if need be. We hear this a lot on the forum. Can you provide any examples of times when the BSA has tried to deny coverage and thrown the CO under the bus? The BSA has

Rayburn, I'm not aware of any reason this should not be done. I'd ask the ASM to show you the rules that specify this. "I would hate to violate the US flag code in Scouts. If we're not supposed to raise the flag indoors, then we won't. Can you show me where it says that we're not supposed to do that?" I doubt he can find anything. As you've observed, it's not easy for you to find anything that says this.

I'm with the others. If I were running the event, I might do things differently. There are various things here that don't come across great. But I don't think that making a stink about it is going to be in anyone's best interests. The only thing I might recommend, this being from my position as Scoutmaster, is that a parent who passes on some information from his son can provide a useful service. I don't know everything that happens, or how it affects every boy. So, getting some feedback about how some Scout is being really frustrated by some adult, or whatever, can be good info to h

Our troop has found the hardest to fill is treasurer. We literally had your situation, where a family moved in, the dad was an experienced Scouter, and he said "I'll do whatever you need me to do". We made him treasurer, because at the time, our former one had just stepped down and no one had thus far volunteered. I think that part of what makes it hard to fill is that it takes a fairly dedicated person, but those people usually are already volunteering for more visible roles. People who like to work in the background don't necessarily want to take a job that requires such constant attent

In general, I expect a MBC to be able to tell a Scout what he'll need to do to earn the merit badge. The first discussion, which can be by phone, or can be in person, can help set the ground rules. What does the counselor expect as proof that the Scout has done the requirements? What is his interpretation of some of the details? Which requirements will they do together and which ones should the Scout be expected to do on his own? In short, I wouldn't worry about having the Scout being too unprepared for his first meeting. Sure, it could be nice if the Scout has read the requirements,

I think that someone's interpretation of the rules depends on what they believe the rules are intended to produce. If we think it's a life skill, it's one thing. If we think it's to make sure you don't drown when you fall in from a boat or the dock, it's another thing. If it's to make sure you're fine playing in the deep end of the pool, it's something else. At any rate, the rules don't explicitly say anything about what aids may be used. For today's generation of Scouts, almost all of them are used to using goggles in the pool. Most of them use goggles for the test. We don't say any

The requirement for a trained lifeguard typically comes from the camp. Our camp allows us to do our own swim checks, but they have to be signed by a lifeguard. We've typically avoided the Scout camp swim check for multiple reasons. There's thunder. There's bureaucracy (waiting in a long line). There's the hassle of trying to make sure everyone carries their swim suit with them at the right time. Much easier to do on our own. We also use that test to make sure everyone is ok for boating activities. As for the "strong manner", that's the worst part of the requirement. If you

Did he physically assault another Scout? If so, he's gone from the the Troop in my book...period. Yeah, if only life were so easy. It can be hard to tell who really started something. Even when one kid throws the first punch, it can be because the other kid was intentionally provoking him (sometimes for a long time). We once had two brothers get into a fist fight that clearly was being carried over from internal family frustrations. Sometimes it can also be hard to tell where the "assault" started. Boys are rough-housing a little bit, and it gets out of control. We certai

I could see that there might be a period of waiting until the council rep signed it. That would give council the chance to do whatever checks they needed to. But once the council rep has signed it, what's the point of waiting longer? I'm with you - it seems like once the council has approved, the project should be able to begin.

Ok, I'll put on my best teacher persona and try to hand out credit. The question hasn't been all that clearly asked, as we've demonstrated, so I'll make up my own idea of what the question was. "In the given scenario, is this likely to develop into something that requires Scoutmaster action or are the Scouts likely to have a good result among themselves?" Full credit to Beavah for arguing that the Scouts are fine in this situation. "Provide a general framework for making such distinctions." Full credit to Beavah based on his above post. Hard to argue with anything ther

I don't think of this as a "youth protection issue", at least not in the terms that BSA normally uses. It certainly is a legal issue that you need to address. Presumably, if a restraining order is obtained that requires him to stay away from the kids, he would not be able to attend troop meetings. You wouldn't have to do anything special to enforce this. I wouldn't see how the troop would have any more "responsibility to enforce the Court's order" than any other person or organization. As a leader, I'd hate being placed in the middle of this. You don't need to ask him to leave. The C

What do you need a membership committee for? I don't think I've ever interfaced with one that did anything that really mattered to our troop. We've found most recruitment works best at the unit level. Honestly, my district works ok, and we do a few things with district-level folks, but if the district disappeared tomorrow, it would barely be noticeable to the troop. Unless they are actively coming to you and screwing up your program, I don't see why you'd need to be so negative towards them. You seem to be expecting them to do something for you. They are just volunteers like you

Did he say nice, supportive things about the Boy Scouts? Yes. I can't point to anything the President has said that's negative about the Boy Scouts. I was at the jamboree and I'm glad we didn't have the security nightmare. I suspect, though, that his position on gay marriage and gay rights in general puts him strongly at odds with the national BSA policy. At some point I wouldn't be surprised if he were to decide that he can't continue to be the honorary president of the organization. I don't think the BSA is going to kick him out, and I don't think he'd do anything prior to th

Yeah, our pack would have been ok with both examples in the original post. The first one (shooting when everyone else is) I don't think we would have thought twice about. For the second one, I think that having a shooting club set up the range and the rules, that's pretty much equivalent to having the council do it. Now, if you are reading the G2SS literally, you're right, I think you'd decide that they aren't allowed. As for your four examples later, I think we could actually manage to do most of those in some fashion or another. "Let's go bb shooting, I have a big back ya

Yeah, moosetracker, in some cases the DE could be a reasonable person to go to. One reason that people might go straight to the SE is that in the G2SS it says "Any violations of the BSAs Youth Protection policies must immediately be reported to the Scout executive." Another is that for problems like this, a DE might bump it up the chain and have the SE deal with it anyway. However, especially in large councils, the SE isn't going to be able to deal with all of these problems personally. I know that in our council, if you call to report a problem like this to the SE, you're going to g

Big people talk about ideas. Smile. Yep, I got this one covered. I'm definitely a big person. Even bigger than the guy who is intimidating PepperSammy over in the Cubmaster Problems thread. I'm all about ideas. I'll pass on the discussin' others bit. I've got to work on my body language. My smiling good-natured attitude just isn't coming through entirely correctly. Even while discussing ideas, people come up every now and then. I just can't resist things like "Lisa'bob does a great job of giving reasonable responses" or "Don't you love the way Beavah writes?" Or even, "Stos

Should I be able to complain without giving my name? Maybe you should, but there isn't any easy mechanism for doing this. Still, you could definitely do it. Call the CO or the council office from a phone that's not yours, or send an email from some email address that you get just for the purpose. Honestly, though, I'd really hope you don't want to complain anonymously. Do you have friends in the pack? If you don't, I'd just leave. If you do, I'd get together with them and make a multiple complaint. If I were the CO, I'd want to know about this, so that I could remove the CM. Most CO

Now, as an aside, I reckon the propriety of gossipin' behind people's backs and makin' side bets about their character or tendencies is left as an exercise for the reader. Actually, I agree with you on this one (and yep, I did note the smiley that went along with it). In general, I'm a big fan of openness. I find this an effective way to deal with leaders. I don't want to say "Now, don't tell Bob that I said this, but ...". If another leader comes to me and says "I don't like the way Bob is doing things", then I'll say, let's get Bob over here and discuss it. So, for the same reason

I think that a U-Haul trailer could work well. I'll just add one word of caution, which may or may not apply depending on where you are renting. They seemed to be extremely disorganized in terms of knowing exactly what trailers they would have on hand to rent. You could reserve one, but they seemed to be depending on the fact that people might be returning trailers to them from other places. Some places seem to have way more trailers than they could rent at any one time, so you would probably be fine in those situations. But if you happened to pick a very busy weekend, there might be som

Yes, ours get used off-season. The districts hold their camporees there. Units use them from time to time. Our pack has camped there a couple of times, but I don't think our troop has. The OA Ordeal is held there. Wood Badge is held there. Training programs (IOLS, BALOO) are held there. Other groups are able to use the facilities as well, for a rental fee. I don't know what the usage looks like, but I do have the impression that there is some.

Oak Tree, I'm not quite sure what you are asking. Are you asking if whether the opinion of a half dozen people has convinced me that all pranks should be forever banned in every scout unit across the land? Are yeh asking whether I think that some pranks are inappropriate? Are yeh asking whether I think that when lads do poor pranks that the proper response is to ban all pranks in a unit? Are yeh asking whether I find Alan Funt and the modern Canadian candid camera pranks to be contrary to the Scout Law? Yeah, I guess I wasn't clear in the way I phrased my question

I agree that some of the literature does make it sound like the chaplain would normally be an ordained minister. However, my experience is that that would be a rare situation in practice. We've had a number of troop chaplains, and none of them have been ordained. I really think that most troops do not have an option of having an ordained person serve as chaplain. A layperson would not just be not unusual - it would be far and away the norm.