Oak Tree

I think Sentinel is right that some organizations will not want to retain the anti-gay policy, but that Beavah is also right that some will. So if a group did want to retain the policy, shouldn't they just go ahead and adopt the principles that the BSA had? If it was legal for the BSA, and a group has the same goals and beliefs that the BSA formerly stated, wouldn't it continue to be legal for that particular chartered organization?

Terry - thanks for posting. Your article and your post cover different related topics, and both are well done. Thanks for your ongoing service to the community.

So will we need to re-charter a month after chartering to update the CO agreement? No. Did your agreement say that you promised not to choose gays as leaders? The charter agreement is pretty broad and these policy changes will not affect it.

Help me understand why when offered tools to capture this data and you have a chance to provide it you chose not to do it? It may indeed be interesting to have this data. In particular, it would be useful information to know about serious injuries and what their causes were. That said, there are a lot of reasons why people will choose not to do it. It's more paperwork with no benefit to the people who have to fill it out. It's doubtful that the data is going to be made available in a useful way. There is no guarantee that the data won't be used against you. I doubt people want

The executive board meets from Feb 4-6. I'd expect an official announcement on Feb 6. And I don't think they would have floated this publicly if it wasn't already assured that it was going to pass. (Despite understanding Beavah's point, I am confident they have the votes, and that they've discussed it with all of their major national chartering parties.) Seriously - the writing has been on the wall for awhile that this had to happen. With national board members, who are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, openly saying it has to change, you knew that there was some serious internal pressure. W

By all means ask for a change. Having no commissioner would be better than having this commissioner. What your commissioner is doing is not what commissioners do in general. The most common situations that I've seen are - no commissioner assigned - a name on paper that you never see - a warm body that you see maybe once a year - a friendly person who comes by a few times and is available if you need them, but doesn't actually do anything - a unit commissioner who is a friend to the unit and more or less works as described There are also the species of commissioner who are

Not required. You can check out the Tour and Activity Plan: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/680-014.pdf You need to have two adults, one of whom is registered, which means that he or she needs to have Youth Protection Training. At least one adult must have Hazardous Weather training. AlsoFor pack camping, one leader must have BALOOFor climbing, you need Climb On Safely and CPRFor swimming you must have Safe Swim DefenseFor boating, you must have Safety Afloat, Safe Swim Defense, and CPRThat is the complete list as far as the Tour Plan goes.

I also wonder about their stance on Gay or lesbian adult leaders??? Their statement of faith addresses this: http://www.ahgonline.org/uploads/AHGStatementofFaith08.pdfreserving sexual activity for the sanctity of marriage; marriage being a lifelong commitment before God between a man and a woman.Based on that I'd say they oppose gay and lesbian adult leaders, although you might interpret that to mean that celibate gays would be ok. AHG would allow for lesbian youth, just not leaders. As for the Book of Mormon, I don't believe they have a position. I don't any theological statements b

Sounds like you are doing OK to me, too. For patrol meetings, why would boys attend? What would they get out of it that they don't get out of regular troop meetings? If the patrol meetings had a real purpose that affected the boys, they might come, but honestly I think I'd just let patrol meetings be optional. For camping trips, the attendance that you are describing sounds about typical to me, too. Is it really malaise? Or are boys just choosing to go on the trips that most interest them? Is there some reason that they should go on more trips? I've thought about how to do better at

And Godwin's Law makes an unexpected early appearance in the thread.

Do do you make it by who drove or who committed to drive? By who actually drove. Actual expenses. Do you compensate by actual number scouts driven or the number of seats committed for scouts? Neither. By actual expenses. How do you adjust for changing plans? We allow reimbursement of actual expenses. Do you control who rides in what car? No. Do you control the list of cars and tell them you don't need them to drive? Yes, we tell people if we don't need them to drive. The great majority of time they are happy to ride along with someone else. If they choose to drive for

I don't believe that AHG has any rules against divorcées. And I know girls born out of wedlock are welcome. Our church did not have a GSUSA group, and they did start up an AHG group. They got plenty of people to sign up. I've looked over the materials and they look very much like the BSA's materials. They do ask their leaders to be Christian, and they are up front about that. Just as the BSA asks that all of its leaders must "recognize an obligation to God" but is nonsectarian about it. Those are similar, albeit incompatible, requirements. At least around here, it really feels like A

I think the big thing is the AHG is more aggressive at taking up the BSA on the partnership. The BSA signs Memoranda of Mutual Support with organizations all the time. It would not be unusual to have one with AHG. The BSA has one with the Military Order of World Wars, with the US Sportsmans Alliance, with the National Association for Search and Rescue, with the American Cadet Alliance, with the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance. It goes on and on. The US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Knights of Columbus, Trout Unlimited, Future Fisherman Foundation. No reason the BSA wouldn't s

We reimburse for gas @ actual cost. We tell drivers to show up with gas tanks full, and to fill up at the end of the trip. Most do, but occasionally we have to reimburse per estimated gas expenses. We do have an estimate of about how much it costs to transport a Scout per mile, based on the typical vehicles and typical occupancy that we experience. We announce a cost for the trip up front. We give the Scouts (and the adults, too) a maximum budget for food (per person). Food is purchased by patrol. We reimburse any actual expenses incurred. Some trips costs might be a bit lower than o

Yeah, sounds frustrating. I think that most troops can probably identify with one or the other of the items on the list. There are always growing pains and trying to make sure that all the bases are covered with adult and Scout leadership that is in flux can be a challenge. But having this entire series of things happen would be exceptionally frustrating for me. I like more organization. This troop really has a vacuum of adult leadership / vision / organization / training. It sounds like the Scoutmaster is just barely able to show up and let things happen. He may be overwhelmed, mayb

I guess it depends on how wrong it is. For many things that are wrong, there is no specific guideline to pull out anyway. If something is plainly wrong, to me and to the person doing the action, I'll definitely talk to them about it. The time that I would go to the rules is in situations where the person might not realize what the rules are. Then it's just a friendly conversation to let them know the rules. It's hard to talk about this in totally abstract terms. Depends a lot on what situation you are visualizing.

I don't think I've ever seen anything directly on point here, and it would be hard to draw a definitive line between acceptable pecks on the cheek and the more uncomfortable full make-out session. I did find this guidance for females at summer camp, which seems like pretty good advice. Link: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/doc/guidelines-for-female-conduct-at-bsa-camp.doc In general, pubic displays of affection should occur on your nights off, not in camp. Remember, you are a role model for Scouts. Also, PDA breeds gossip [...] Everyone's focus should be on program, not relationships

There are always a couple of troops at summer camp that have their own buses. Troop logo on the side and everything, so they are clearly troop buses. I'm always amazed that they can make this work financially. I talked with a leader from one of the troops. He is a mechanic and does all the repair work on the bus for free. He also had an in with the mechanics at the school district so they were able to get a good bus at a very good price at auction. We would never consider this option. We've never had a trip where we didn't have enough drivers. Perhaps if we regularly were short on tr

National tried to clear up things with the latest Guide to Advancement and Eagle Leadership Project Workbook, and they also tried to make it clear that councils/districts are not supposed to add requirements to the Scout. It's clear from some of the above comments that not all councils are following along, but just for the record, here are a couple of excerpts from the Guide to Advancement 2011:It is acceptable to send or deliver to the references an addressed envelope with instructions, and perhaps a form to complete. The Scout may assist with this, but that is the limit of his participation.

All of our letters go to the council office. Email can go to the council office and also to the district Eagle board chairman. The district's instructions to the person providing the reference are that the email should not be copied to any other recipient. The Guide to Advancement states "Completed reference responses of any kind are the property of the council and are confidential, and only review-board members and those officials with a specific need may see them." I don't see that the troop's Eagle mentor has any need to see the recommendation. Ours certainly doesn't.

I don't want a generator, or flood lights, or music in my trailer. But a hot shower...that might be a luxury worth thinking about. That, and underglow lighting, and spinners for the hubcaps.

I don't want a generator, or flood lights, or music in my trailer. But a hot shower...that might be a luxury worth thinking about. That, and underglow lighting, and spinners for the hubcaps.

JMHawkins story of two towns with one troop made me smile. We have the opposite situation. We have a number of troops in our town, which is clearly big enough to support them. But as it happens, the Scoutmaster for the biggest troop lives two houses down the main road from me. For someone driving by, who's paying attention, it might look like we have some type of competition going to see who can have the most Scout trailers stored in their yard. Neither of us keeps the trailers regularly, but ours do end up in my driveway after trips, and for work days, etc. I'm assuming his yard is the same,

Do not carry along the two-burner Coleman stoves. You need some type of backpacking stove if you are going to cook. I personally think cooking is a big part of the experience, but you could indeed get by without it. You don't need special backpacking cookware (pots and pans). Pots and pans that you already have should work fine. We generally don't bring a dining fly. Maybe if we knew it was going to rain all weekend. If the boys have backpacks, tents, and sleeping bags, the rest is pretty cheap. A couple of backpacking stoves. There are very cheap water filtration methods. You c

I've wondered about the prize thing as well. Nevertheless, the IRS documentation is quite clear that you cannot earn money for yourself as part of a charitable fund-raising effort, and our troop has therefore quit allocating any money to Scout accounts from fund-raisers. There are substantial past threads on this topic in this forum. Here's one link: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/booster_club_field_directive_6-27.pdfIf a booster club confers a benefit on a participant in return for their fundraising activities, such as by crediting amounts raised by a participant toward that partic