Oak Tree

I can actually see the point that the council is making here, but it seems like it's being a little bit abrupt in the implementation.

I am curious how they will define the CO. If you rename your "Friends of Troop 369" organization to "Youth Opportunities" and say that it is a community service organization committed to providing opportunities for kids in the area, how is that different from any other community service organization?

What is it you hope to accomplish by registering them?

Merit badge counselor isn't a unit position, but it is free, and it triggers the background check.

If you them to think of themselves as registered, but not give them anything in particular to do, we would tend to register them as committee members, but not assign them any actual role.

Depends on what you mean by "completely different" from New York.

Boston has history, DC has the government - both are very tourist-friendly places. If you want to see something less urban, North Carolina has the Outer Banks and the highest mountains in the east and is again tourist-friendly (you can fly direct to Raleigh or Charlotte). Visiting Florida is almost like an entirely different world - the flora and fauna are very different from the rest of the country, distinctly tropical.

I was told by a Shooting Sports director who is a retired cop that in NC crossbows are illegal for folks under a certain age, I think 16 but don't quote me

You can find all North Carolina laws at the NC General Assembly web site: http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/statutes/statutestoc.pl

According to this site, crossbows are legal "for any properly licensed hunter" (North Carolina Wildlife Commission) http://www.ncwildlife.org/Portals/0/Hunting/Documents/CrossbowFAQ.pdf

And "A youth under age 16, accompanied by a properly licensed adult, may enjoy those privileges conveyed by the license held by the accompanying adult."

It does appear that the law on crossbows has recently changed. From http://www.ncwildlife.org/Portals/0/Regs/Flipbook/index.html, "A pistol permit is no longer required to buy, sell, receive, or otherwise transfer a crossbow. A disabled crossbow permit is no longer required to hunt with a crossbow. Ownership and use of crossbows is now regulated the same as any other type of bow."

I agree, it's a lot of interesting data.

The biggest problem with data like this is that it doesn't address causality at all. All it does is provide correlation. Does being an Eagle Scout really help develop some of these things? I'm sure it does. But some of them could just be from the fact that smart kids with perseverance and good parents are more likely to earn Eagle, and smart kids with perseverance and good parents are also likely to have other success in life too. Really hard to separate. You'd want some kind of random-chance kind of effect to try to determine any sort of causality.

This particular response from the BSA seems a bit lacking - Unfortunately such mock, unauthorized badges show up from time and to time

The later response from the BSA communication specialist is much better, and doesn't appear to throw the boys under the bus the way the first response from the local council does.

Anyway, seems to eventually have been well handled after the issue came to light. This is indeed one area where adult experience might come in handy - "that could come across offensive to some people".

Is this their actual patrol patch? If so, it's not round, and all the words and image wouldn't have fit on the standard sized patch, so there's another reason for sticking with the standard. I do believe it would easily be possible to come up with offensive patches even without using words, though, and sometimes the boys want to pick things like that just to be provocative, and because they think that a lot of people are overly sensitive on some of these issues.

How do yeh actually "schedule the activities a scout needs" for First Class, when what a scout needs for First Class are skills, not activities?

Beavah, I think you might be overly pedantic on this one. What we are scheduling would be opportunities for the Scouts to learn the skill. Scheduling time at the pool for the aquatics requirements. Scheduling troop meetings on cooking skills or whatever. Scheduling some time on a camping trip to work in the axeyard.

Technically, you are right. The Scout doesn't get the signature for the activity (except for those few where he does). The Scout gets the signature for demonstrating the skill. But the activities provide the opportunity to both learn and to demonstrate the skill.

What Beavah said.

In the ideal BSA world, the committee would have approved the outing on the annual plan, and would be verifying that all the adults had the right training and insurance, and would have a representative sign off on the tour plan (if required) as a matter of routine.

If new trips are coming up, my opinion is that they (the committee) should leave it to the Scoutmaster(s) and Scouts and would only step in if the program was going far afield. They should provide general direction to the Scoutmaster on what types of trips are ok, but should not need to approve individual trips.

However, your committee can set its own rules.

I would take the signature on the tour plan as indicating agreement to be bound by the BSA policies, and not committee involvement in the program to the extent of micro-managing the process.

Still, in spirit, in our troop, I'd have no issue telling the committee about new trips that are being added to the schedule. It's good to have more people in the loop.

The only reasons I'd expect a committee to not approve a trip would be We are asking for use of troop funds beyond what is normalWe want to do more fundraising than the committee thinks would be wiseWe are proposing something that is out of keeping with official BSA or CO guidelinesWe are proposing something that, while technically not against the rules, would be very out of character for the BSA or the CO (going to an R-rated movie, for example)they identify some other major concern that was overlooked (schedules won't accommodate the trip, or equipment won't be available, or something)Otherwise, if the trip is a standard trip with common Scouting activities, using typical troop resources within the budget, I wouldn't expect the committee to provide input.

If the committee does have a concern about trips in general, it would be better to provide general direction to the Scoutmaster rather than try to decide details on individual trips.

My simple answer: provide the opportunities for Scouts to advance if they want to take advantage of it, but let them participate or not as they desire. Some of them will make it in one year and some of them won't. We don't make a big deal about trying to get there in any particular period of time.

I believe I'd have a conversation with the Scout, ask him to tell me what he actually did.

This can get tricky, though. I've done this when two different Scouts were in the same class and they appeared to have actual different recollections of which requirements had been completed. Some of these can be vague - did the class really topic X or not? But some are pretty clear and yet the boys will still have different recollections.

If you know for a fact that the requirements were not completed, I'd give the Scout the opportunity to finish the requirements.

Use tact.

Summer camp can be fairly nasty in this regard, but we've come to pretty much accept what the camp says. We did turn down one recently for what seemed like it must be a typographical error - one of our Scouts was listed as having gotten a high enough score in archery, but both he and the other Scouts in the class knew he hadn't.

I think the big thing here is to appear to be fair to the Scouts. If the MBC is letting everyone get through a little bit easy, then it might not be a problem. But if one Scout is getting through with way less work than everyone else, and clearly not meeting the requirements, then you are doing a disservice by approving the badge.

The more you can spread out the bottleneck, the better. Either in time, in space, or in responsibility.

Best option - have the Scouts register ahead of time, have a list at each merit badge location, just check off the attendance.

You could also just have each counselor do the registration for their own merit badge. Or have each Scout do it - give them each a blank blue card as they walk into the class and have them fill it out.

Or if you really want or have to do it that morning, use one representative from each unit.

Something like that, anyway. I hate these tremendous process inefficiencies. Good for you for trying to make it better.

Is the AHG truly a Scouting program??

Yes.

At least, by how I interpret the phrase 'Scouting program'.

In our pack, all the Cub Scouts wear the red numbers. The pack provides the custom unit number. The troop provides a custom unit number in green on tan, but only does that when the Scouts cross the bridge, so there's not too much danger of the Cub Scouts getting their hands on them in advance. Using the custom unit numbers definitely makes for less sewing.

I really liked having my son as SPL. Mainly because I had easier access to the SPL.

Mostly in my role as SM I just ask a lot of questions. "Have you thought of X?", "What do we plan to do at activity Y?", "Does that plan look to be complete?", "Are we ready?" - and I could treat my own son just the same as any other SPL in that regard. It helped that he was pretty good at the role.

Two to suggest that if you don't keep your activities well-lit, you aren't going to be covered by BSA insurance.

I'll add one more voice to the chorus of agreement here.

Technically, the SM can't refuse to sign the Scoutmaster conference requirement, but he can certainly refuse to sign the Scout Spirit requirement. I don't believe there is any appeal for this.

Or if someone has already signed that requirement, then the Scoutmaster can provide input to the BoR and they can deny him his rank until he better demonstrates Scout spirit.

But that's just the technicalities.

I talk to my CC all the time, too - I wouldn't want to be SM without having the CC on the same page. And certainly not overturning my decisions.

I would probably give the dad a choice before booting them, but in general I agree with Beavah's approach. Ask the dad what he hopes that his son will get out of the program. Ask if he's getting it. Indicate that the program is put on by volunteers who are choosing to run it in a certain fashion and that the SM is in charge of the program. Would he like to have his son stay in the program the way it is, or would he like to leave?

But it sounds like it may be beyond that point, in which case you should just separate them from the troop.

A Cub Scout requirement book with all of the requirements in one place, the way Boy Scouts does.

Eagle Scout mother and father pins that are gold instead of matte gray. Why does the mentor get a nice shiny pin but the mother gets one that doesn't look at all good next to all of the other mother's rank pins?

Sea Scout merchandise. At least orderable.

And "mice, mice, mice, running through the rice."

It is very rare (and in my opinion unnecessary) for a Charter Organization to charter 2 of the SAME BSA units.

I've seen it done with a large Catholic church in our district. They had more than enough boys for one pack, so they sponsored two, which met on different nights. It made sense, but they did run into competition for resources (like using the fellowship hall for the Pinewood Derby on a given date).

Well, given the convoluted path of the thread, I'll just go ahead and throw in my own pet peeve on safety terminology. It's when people say that "Being safe is our number one priority!"

When I hear this, I think the person is indeed misrepresenting the fact that the program can be "safe". Also, I find this not to be a useful guideline at all - if I were to use this in the field as a decision making tool, any time something might be unsafe, I'd avoid it, but virtually everything can be unsafe.

Now, depending on how you define terms or split hairs, you might think of "being safe" as meaning "keeping risk within a minimum tolerance" - and then, yes, I'd agree, that is a top priority. But the generic term just isn't accurate or useful. If the number one priority was not to have any Scout injured in the Scouting program, BSA could just shut down and easily accomplish the goal.

And yes, I agree, it's up to adults to manage the overall risk portfolio, but our objective is to train the Scouts to do that as far as possible.

I agree with the above interpretations, but as a thought experiment I can think of a possible situation that would allow for a slightly faster than one-year turn-around.

If a Scout earned Star on August 31, when would his six months be up for Life? February 28. That would be six complete months. What is six months after that? August 28.

Atheism is not a Religious belief

Toh-may-toh, toh-mah-toh.

Atheism is not a religion (the first link), but the second link is more ambiguous. The broad definition of atheism is just the absence of a belief in any gods. In that sense, it is not a religious belief, but it is marked by the absence of a religious belief. Hence the BSA is still discriminating based on religious beliefs (you must have one) when they discriminate against atheists.

The "strong atheist" definition is of one who denies the existence of god (as opposed to just not having any belief). In this case this would clearly be a religious belief.

The exact definition of the term isn't likely to matter to the BSA, though.

It can definitely be done. I've seen it - complete with different BSA ID numbers in the different councils.

We've had that situation.

The best approach is to talk to the parents directly. Talk to dad, talk to mom. See if one or both of them support their son in being in the program. Ask what they hope to have him get out it. Explain how advancement works and how their son might feel left out when all his buddies advance. Invite them along. Ask them way ahead of time to see if they would support his camping out at least once in the next three months (or something).

If the parents don't support the program, there's not going to be a way around it, so communication with them is really the most effective route.

Yes, that is what they are supposed to do.

Will they let him submit it on the new form with a turn-around time of less than one month? If so, it doesn't seem like it would cause much of a delay.

I don't think that the BSA should align/twin/partner itself with any organization that excludes children and/or adult leaders based on their religious beliefs.

I'm not sure if this sentence was intended with irony or not, but the BSA clearly excludes leaders on the basis of their religious beliefs if they are atheist.

Still, I do not think a merger could happen without having AHG broaden their stance. The Christian only thing bothers me as well.....Poor fit for the BSA. I agree with Basement on this one - this philosophical difference would be a big sticking point for any national merger. It's not too much of a sticking point for any church that wants to offer both programs.

I would predict that if AHG wants to pursue a merger, they would agree to include other religions as the BSA has done. I don't see much about the AHG program that would really make that a problem. The big hindrance would be the strongly held beliefs of those that founded the program - but I don't know how big a deal that would be in practice.

Actually, though, at this point I'm not sure what AHG would get out of a merger. BSA clearly would love to get all the new members. AHG would get more members, I'm sure, and that would help to lower their current unit chartering fee (much higher than the BSA), but right now AHG seems like it pretty much is getting most of the benefits of partnering with BSA - they're getting to use the camps, the training, Philmont, etc.

There is no way the BSA would adopt an official Christian-only position.