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 to create a paper trail of every single thing they've ever done wrong in their troop that resulted in someone getting hurt.

It's clear that not everyone is going to fill it out, so any statistics will be meaningless. Since the statistics will be meaningless, why bother to contribute?

It creates an atmosphere of bureaucracy in the troop, which isn't what you want when you are trying to create a sense of adventure.

I'm sure there are more, but I think that hits the high points.

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. With declining membership and the constant controversy, with the military dropping its don't-ask-don't-tell policy, with gay marriage passing in state referenda - it was just a matter of time. The only question was how much time.

This is not changing the stance on girls or on atheists, neither of which generates anywhere near the publicity, and both of which are clearly stated parts of the organization's mission.

> prepare for a flood of media stories everytime some local CO exercises it's local option to exclude gays

I don't see many stories every time an organization chooses to use its local option to exclude women, or to exclude other religions (our troop has a policy that you have to be a member of the church to be Scoutmaster). Churches get to choose the leaders for their youth programs. I doubt this is going to be a big issue for the time being.

> By dropping its anti-gay policy, the BSA would be able to once again start phony units in schools.

No. The school policy is much more about discrimination on the basis of religion, which the BSA is retaining.

It's clear that the I&P forum will become less active. This has been a constant topic for years. After the policy changes, I think the issue will basically disappear.

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 extra involved and work very hard for a unit.

And there are those who are a bit problematic - who view themselves as the police or something. It's not common, but it does happen. You don't need them. They are supposed to be there to support you - it's up to you to decide if that's what's happening.

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 beyond their statement of faith, and I would think they would not want to make any such statements. Nevertheless, I also don't see any religious awards for Mormons.

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 this in our troop, too - but it depends on what you want to emphasize and how hard you want to push. When we were a small troop, the percentage attendance was higher. As a larger group, boys seem to feel less cohesive and are more likely to pick and choose. For now I've decided I'll live with that. I'd be curious to know what others do to encourage higher participation.

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 their own convenience, then we don't reimburse for gas.

If a father drives his son, then we just compensate them with their share. We would not compensate in that situation. If you are driving, you have to be willing to fill up your car with Scouts.

But what if we arranged drivers and received his commitment late. We don't arrange drivers until after the sign-up deadline. Generally we won't take late sign-ups. But if you did sign up and wanted to drive, no reimbursement.

When doing it by number of scouts driven, we often have extra space created by people not going, arriving late or leaving early. So it's easy to get someone who volunteered to drive to have zero or two scouts in the car and the guy with the suburban to have seven scouts in the car. Happens all the time. So what's fair. If we asked people to drive and they end up with a mostly empty car, we still reimburse for actual expenses.

Another problem is controlling how many drivers you have. Often you don't need a driver but they want to bring their car anyway. They can, but no reimbursement.

Sometimes they show reluctance at having more then one or two others in the car ... OR ... show reluctance to load their car with scout gear. This has never happened to us, but I'd give my speech about when you agree to go as an adult, you are a leader to all of the kids. If you aren't willing to do that, you probably shouldn't come.

Do you create a list where only the first X drivers are compensated? Sort of. We've never really had competition for that. Sometimes it's not the first X, but the combination of vehicles that we need.

What if a key volunteer is past the cut-off for needed drivers, do you not compensate the key volunteer for his driving? We don't pick them first-come, we pick them at the sign-up deadline, so we can make sure to include any vehicles we need.

What about the scout who leaves early? Do you compensate his father for driving him home before the end of camp? No.

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 AHG is a girls' version of the BSA. We let them borrow our flag - pretty much treat them as a sister organization. I'm not sure if they are doing anything explicitly Christian in the implementation of the program. At the same time, I do know of Cub Scout packs around here who are explicitly Christian as well, and there are BSA units that will only accept Christian leaders, too.

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 sign an agreement with AHG. The difference is that AHG is really serious about making the most out of this relationship, wants to use the camps, use Philmont, use the training, etc.

I'm still not sure exactly what the BSA gets out of this. If it weren't for the sectarian issue, I'd think the organizations would be on an obvious merger course, as the programs are almost identical. The only real difference I've seen is the statement of faith required for adult leaders.

I think that organizations like Royal Rangers and Campfire would view the BSA as a competitive organization. Whereas AHG is not (except at the Venturing level). I had not even heard of Missionettes (apparently now called Mpact Girls Clubs as of five years ago). They look to be very specific to the Assemblies of God and are the girls counterpart to Royal Rangers. As such, I'm sure they don't view the BSA as a Christian-enough organization. The Royal Rangers appears to be set up as an explicitly-Christian version of the BSA.

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 our estimate, some a bit higher. We try to set the cost so that it all averages out.

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, maybe he didn't really want the position, maybe it was just a bad weekend. But you need the leader to provide more communication all the way around. And since the other adults take their cues from the SM, it's hard to fix the problem if it starts with the SM.

I'd recommend finding a troop more to your liking.

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. But regardless of what the BSA says, your adult leadership should feel no qualms about approaching these people. That's what leaders have to do. Definitely get in sync with the CC and SM so that everyone agrees, and then someone just needs to tell them, "Hey, knock it off. Seriously. It's inappropriate."

You can up the ante as much as you'd like. Get more people, make it a more serious meeting. I would do the above informal statement, then if I saw one more PDA, I'd follow up with "Final warning. Needs to stop now, or we'll have to ask you to leave, permanently." If everyone is really fed up already though, I'd do the more serious thing - ask them individually to talk with a couple of leaders. Sit down in a room. Act serious. "A number of people have expressed how uncomfortable your actions are making them feel. It's inappropriate in a Scouting context. It needs to stop now. This is your only warning. Understood?"

As for them sleeping in a tent together, it sounds like no one in your unit is very comfortable approaching them and setting boundaries. Someone just needs to step up. I would definitely not involve the boys in this.

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 transportation and had to come up with options, it might be different.

Here is my list of pros and cons.

Pros:Don't need to worry about having enough drivers or space.Can take trips with fewer adults without needing to rent a vehicle.Cheaper gas per Scout if bus has more than 10-12 people on itAllows most adults to do trip preparation, talks with Scouts, etc, during travel.Allows all youth to be on the same bus (not sure that this is always a good thing)Buses are very safe, much more than 15 passenger vans.Cons:Repairs. Costs and sucking up leader time. You might be able to recoup the costs if you charge transportation fees similar to what gas costs. Depends a lot on usage (number of trips and number of Scouts)Not useful for trips with a small number of ScoutsThere are some places buses can't go.Have to have drivers who are allowed to operate a bus.Have to have a place to store the bus.Buses tend to be old and prone to breakdowns. A bus breakdown on a trip is a real pain, more than if one driver's car breaks down.I like having cars on trips so that we have more flexibility in dealing with transportation needs (leave early, emergency room visit, supply run, etc)

I actually haven't run the numbers. The biggest issue for me would be just the time spent dealing with bus issues. I have enough things to deal with. Maybe if there was one dad who really wanted to take that on as his project, it would be easier to consider.

Plus, I just don't like the vibe. Even though it might be useful in some cases, it just screams "car-camping" to me and generally reduces flexibility. Your mileage (literally) may vary.

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. He is not to be responsible for follow-through or any other aspect of the process.AndThe responses are not to be viewed by, or returned to, the Scout. Doing so could discourage the submission of negative information. For the same reason, those providing references shall not be given the option of waiving confidentiality. Once a review has been held, or an appeal process conducted, responses shall be returned to the council, where they will be destroyed after the Eagle Scout credentials are released or the appeal is concluded.I do want to thank everyone for posting what their council's policy is.

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, because the trailers rotate randomly.

We have a good relationship with the other troop (and with all the others around, for that matter), but you might think there was some type of competition going on in our neighborhood...after all, why wouldn't these two guys just put their troops together? (I think it would be over 200 Scouts total.)

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 can start with one of those and people can upgrade if they want. We find that there are usually a couple of Scouts (or dads) who want upgraded things in general. In fact, our troop hasn't had to buy a water purification system since enough people had them.

Things don't have to be super-light. People were backpacking in the 1970's when none of this stuff existed. You can still have a great time.

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 participants dues requirement, or by crediting amounts raised against the cost of a trip, the booster club is providing a private benefit to that participant. Consequently, such practices could result in the organization failing to be described in 501©(3).A quick search didn't reveal anything directly on the point of prizes. I would guess that they may be allowed because they are non-monetary and their value is 'incidental' - but I might question the incidental part for some of the larger prizes.