Prairie_Scouter

The "under God" phrase doesn't seem to have the same historical context as the notations on currency. Isn't "historical context" how those things are usually decided? The "under God" phrase was added in 1954, during the Cold War, as a political statement to separate ourselves from those "godless Commies". Ed, perhaps you know more about this suit than I do, but the article noted that the person filing the suit was an atheist who had been working on this issue for 5 years. Not sure what the ACLU has to do with this, but it doesn't sound like the ACLU needed to convince this person to file suit. And the suit was not about removing the Pledge, only the cited phrase. k9, not sure exactly what you're getting at. The judge, in his decision, cited previous precedent that he was bound to uphold, saying that he was bound to confine his decision to the narrow constructs of this particular case. To do otherwise would probably have him labeled as an "activist judge", something that is regularly railed against here. I'm not real sure how you get from a judge simply following legal precedent to labeling him as a judge that wants to ban the BSA and jail the Scoutmasters. How do you suppose he'd do that? Regardless, this will all be decided in the higher Courts. It's by no means over. k9, I will agree with you on one thing, tho. The present administration is certainly doing some things that would remind many of the USSR of old.

Hi Seattle, Well, that kinda, well, sucks, especially with all the effort you've put into it. But, these things kind of ebb and flow. My troop is only about 20 Scouts. 2 years ago, we got 1 new Scout. Last year, we added 5. There are a lot of things that go into why boys go to a particular troop, and I know from personal experience that many times it has nothing to do with the Troop itself. Among very popular reasons why boys join a particular troop is "because Joe joined and I wanted to go with him". June may not be the best time to invite boys to a troop meeting. Kids are on vacation, and many just want to take the summer off. But, you've got the right idea in recruiting Webelos Scouts. Thats your new population. We've had a good relationship with one Pack for a number of years, and I'm about to start working with a 2nd. You might consider talking to other packs. Also, our Council has listings of Scouts who have dropped out for whatever reason, and they can give you portions of that list sorted by Zip code. These are former Scouts, so you could have better luck with them than total strangers to Scouting. If you're having that many turn you down or just not show up, you might want to ask them, the parents that is, why they didn't attend.

This kind of thing seemed to come up pretty regularly when we were in Cub Scouts. I worked these problems as a CC for a couple of years, so here's a couple of suggestions.... One, for recruiting purposes, general recruiting is fine to get the word out, but you really need to get to the parents one-on-one when you find potential leaders. In the interim, help out the DL by asking the parents to step up informally and help out at each meeting. If the DL is a good organizer, this might mean just helping with the projects each week. If the DL is over his head, the parents might need to prepare the projects for each meeting with the help of the DL. Once they see it's not a horrendously big deal, you might be able to get one of them to step up. You need at least one of the adult leaders in the den to be trained. Hopefully the DL is. Training is not a silver bullet by any means, but if you can get good training, at least the leaders will have some idea what's going on. Failing that, at least get the training materials and leaders guides for the leaders. At least they'll have something to work from. I wouldn't force the issue of den size too much. If the parents can be convinced to help out, having a dozen kids can be done, while not easy by any means. I've always thought it's better to have one large den than 2 marginal sized dens. You need a "critical mass" of kids for them to have fun. Lastly, regardless of how desparate you get, avoid the temptation to get "a body" to fill a leader spot. It takes a certain kind of person to take charge of a band of grade-schoolers, and while training can certainly help, an adult who's not comfortable with a group of kids isn't going to succeed.

Without knowing all the details of Smith's situation, no one can really make completely accurate statements. It is all conjecture at this point. We really don't know the order of events; just what's been published. It is entirely possible that "behind closed doors", BSA was aware of the investigation and decided to give a long time, loyal employee, a chance to leave with benefits intact. They wouldn't be the first company to have done so. Whether it was the right thing to do depends on your point of view of such things. But it appears that BSA was certainly aware of a criminal investigation in regards to Smith, and place him on leave as a result. It's not that big a stretch to think that BSA received information about the content of the investigation and allowed Smith to retire. Why they didn't allow St John, another loyal, longtime employee the same courtesy, if that's indeed what happened with Smith, is something that might be discussed further. As far as the BSA's ability to fire Smith, it depends entirely on his employment agreement, which we, of course, would not be privy to. Can they fire him simply because he's under investigation? Sure, they can, IF his employee agreement has a clause saying that the mere hint of impropriety can be a cause for termination. Companies who are in the public eye do sometimes use such terms in their hiring agreements. It's really not that unusual, and has nothing to do with whether the employee in question has actually done anything wrong. Such terms allow the company to protect themselves to what extent they can from adverse publicity.

>>jhnky's arguments are exaggerations of the actual situations. He has repeatedly fictionalized >>the reports and the magnitude of the issues. Could someone please explain this further?

Well, actually just a few posts up the thread here I did say that one of the Scouts who quit our troop said their reason for leaving was because our meetings are boring. We make a point of sitting down with every Scout that wants to leave to find out what they're thinking. We've done that since Cub Scouts, and that's, what, about 8 or 9 years now. Boys leave for a variety of reasons. I can't speak for all units everywhere, but our experience in our neck of the woods is that the boys leave because they have too many other things pulling at their time. So, if they leave because they prefer something else, it doesn't automatically follow that the unit is doing something wrong. Point is, whether *I* think the meetings are boring is really irrelevent. What matters is if the boys think it's boring; it's their judgement that counts. We try to cover that at our PLCs. Granted, it's like a trip to the dentist, but we do what we can. We try to guide them to things that seem to be fun, but if they can explain why think something is "lame" then that's good enough for me. And, I'd have to take issue with the idea that we're not asking boys to join. I'd agree that we may not be putting enough emphasis on current non-Scouts, but our prime audience for recruiting is the Web 1s and 2s. We visit 2 different packs every year, invite them to our open house and then invite them to one of our annual cabin camping outings in the fall. Then we follow up to see if they want to join. We also try to get a feel for why Scouts go to other units, to see if we're missing something. Other unit leaders in our area do the same thing, so there appears to be some sort of disconnect here. I agree with Bob to some extent. How can a good number of boys not like shooting sports, climbing and stuff like that? There seems to be a difference between what Scouts ARE and what they DO, for some reason that I don't really fully understand, but our guys are the same way. They love our activities, but wouldn't be caught dead in their uniforms at school. Personally, I think that blaming poor program implementation might be barking up the wrong tree in some cases, at least. The fact that a boy might not like the program doesn't necessarily mean that there's something wrong with the program or the leader implementing it. It could just mean that that boy's interests are elsewhere. Maybe it's just our national pasttime of having to lay blame. So, I don't think that you can make a blanket statement that the meetings are boring. Some probably are, but I don't think that you can make a blanket assessment that practically all boys quit or don't join because the meetings are boring. If a troop has 30 scouts, and they lose 1 or 2 because they think the meetings are "boring", do you change your program? No, you talk to the rest of the Scouts, and if they like the program, you move on. If they think some activities aren't that much fun, you make some adjustments, understanding that not every activity is meant to be a party.

Do we get a prize if a topic makes it to 100 posts?

I think, as others have said, that there are a variety of reasons for boys not joining Scouting. Not having a quality program is probably amongst the top reasons that Scouts leave Scouting, but I think that the wide variety of other available activities is the #1 reason that they don't join in the 1st place. Once a boy is in Scouting, those that leave fall into a couple of categories, I think. Those that quit pretty quickly, and those who leave much later. Early on, I've seen a handful of reasons for boys quitting, and they're usually not related to the program because at that point, it's all new, and unless a leader is doing a truly awful job, the boy will be having fun simply because it's a new activity. But, sometimes a boy is drawn out by his friends who aren't Scouts and want him to do things with them instead. Some Scouts are already overscheduled, and Scouting loses sometimes because, one, the boys are probably more likely to be drawn to things like traditional sports activities, and two, the parents see these other activities as easier on themselves. And lastly, you see Scouts who got into Cubs because of their parents, and now they're heading into an activity heavily aimed to the outdoors, and they're not really interested in that. Scouts who leave later on leave because of jobs, cars, and girls. The program plays a part in this if it isn't strong enough to hold them in competition with these other activities. Are there poor leaders? Sure. All of us could probably improve in some of the ways we deliver the program. But we need to remember that the program itself is aimed at a particular kind of boy, ie, you have to like the outdoors and by that I mean the outdoors and activities as BSA has defined it in their program. There are plenty of other activities in Scouting, to be sure, but the core is the outdoor program. Some boys will be interested in that some will not. Some will like it and eventually tire of it. A boy who's one true love is baseball won't find a lot in BSA. A boy who loves chess and building computers won't find a lot in BSA. If they try joining BSA and then leave, and you ask them why, they're likely to say that the program was boring. That isn't a criticism of the BSA program, or the leaders, it's just reality that it's not going to fit everyone. Poor leadership will sometimes play a part in why a Scout leaves the program, but placing the lion's share of the blame on the leaders is probably a bit too simplistic. There are too many other factors that could play into the decision to leave. In the past 5 years, we've lost 1 boy who said he was bored, and this was a boy pushed into Scouting by his parents; he probably should have never joined in the 1st place, given his interests. 1 boy left because he felt he was being picked on too much by some other Scouts. In this case, we the leaders failed, because we didn't catch it in time. We've made some changes in an attempt to do better in that area. The few others that left did so because they had too many other activities, including sports that conflicted regularly with Scouts. They were all sports that practiced every day while in season, and their coaches wouldn't allow them any time off for Scouts if they expected to play. So, as I said, a wide variety of reasons.

"If I were as unhappy as you are about everything going on around me, I would get out and find something else to do with my time". I remember this same mentality during the Vietnam War. "America, love it or leave it". Blind allegiance is never a good idea. As strange as it may seem, it IS possible to be in overall support of a country, or organzation, and yet see fault with it that one might want to try to fix. Bringing up those issues shouldn't make someone "the enemy". We should be thankful that such people exist to bring such problems to light. If BSA's policies and actions can't survive the light of day, then something is wrong with BSA. An organization like BSA lives on it's reputation, and the trust that it brings. Damage that trust, and the organization crumbles. This really isn't a matter of what percentage of BSA Councils are having problems, or whether someone did something wrong on their own time. That misses the point. When things like this are tied to BSA, rightfully or not, it damages the reputation of the entire organization. We should all be concerned about that. On point.... Is anyone aware of any information that measures BSA membership historically that is a true "apples to apples" measurement? To go all the way back, say, and measure the number of Boy Scouts relative to the number of eligible youth in a given time period, leaving out programs that are not "really Scouting" (my qoutes, only to note that the numbers need to reflect the same "kind of Scouts" and not other programs). Perhaps we could measure that if there is a website containing historical membership figures, and then match that up to census figures. This could potentially a ways towards determing if BSA membership is falling at an increasing rate, as jkh has asserted. Sounds like I just made up another project for myself this weekend Regards Atlanta directly... It's true that there is little we can do about the Atlanta situation directly unless someone here is actually a member of the council in question. However, there are things we can do to protect our own units. We can understand as much as possible what's going on in Atlanta so we can answer questions from our parents, should they arise, in as thorough a way as possible. This builds confidence not only that we know how to tie square knots, but that we try to keep up with the "big picture" of the organization. We can ask our local Council what steps they take to ensure that our membership numbers are accurate. If we note that our own unit numbers are "off", we can point out the issue to the appropriate authorities, and see what they do about it. That doesn't mean we're accusing them of anything, but just being aware that problems have existed that we need to be sensitive to. Acting at the National level is more difficult, but should the opportunity arise, we should take advantage of them if we are truly interested in the best interests of the organization.

The BSA is like a box of chocolates.....?

Including recruiting in the 1st Class requirement? Sounds kinda weird. The beginning ranks are all about learning basic Scouting skills. What's next? Participating in a popcorn or wreath sale? (This message has been edited by Prairie_Scouter)

Nothing in jkh's mention of Owasippe said anything about the unit volunteer's owning the property or having voting rights on it's sale. In fact, the comment was only using Owasippe as an example of what people can find if they start looking around for BSA-related matters, ie, the comment that nothing is "local" anymore. Anyone who wants to spend the time to look around can find published stories about perceived problems with the attempted sale of the land, and, I would bet, the sale of other camp lands owned by BSA Councils as well. And that hurts BSA visibility, as do any of the stories about "creative" membership numbers or problems with BSA employees for whatever reason. So, Smith dealt in child pornography on his own time, unconnected to his work at BSA. It doesn't matter. Why? Because his job connects him to BSA and his job with youth protection looks very bad for BSA. The fact that he did these things on his own time is completely irrelevent to the bad publicity that was created. BSA markets itself on the high moral ground it believes it is standing on. It has to be squeaky clean to retain its credibility. ANY time stories like these come out, it is bad news for BSA. People don't care that the units, districts, councils, etc, are legally separate from BSA National. The average Joe on the street doesn't see that stuff. All he see's is "Boy Scouts". There was a comment made about the volunteers agreeing to certain things when they sign up. Isn't it reasonable to expect that the leaders of BSA pledge themselves to ethical behavior and behavior that is in keeping with the standards that BSA is supposed to live by? At least some don't seem to be doing that.

Perhaps if BSA National did a better job of monitoring the organization and made it clear that ANY sort of unethical or illegal behavior would not be tolerated, folks like jkhny wouldn't feel the need to bring up these issues. jkhny isn't "finding fault", he is merely reporting fault that is already there and desparately in need of repair. Problems with membership figures have existed for decades; one has to wonder why BSA National hasn't yet found an effective means of auditing those numbers and establishing policies that permanently "cure" the problem. They may have made attempts at all of those things, but at this point, you'd have to conclude that their efforts haven't been effective. Auditing isn't magic; it just requires solid checks and balances that are verified on a random basis to ensure authenticity. Effective operational procedures should play into the audit policies. Using membership numbers as a component of a leader's performance evaluation just makes it too tempting to get creative with the numbers. BSA should consider de-coupling this from the performance measurement metrics. If they've considered this and rejected the idea, then it is incumbant upon them to make sure that the numbers, and the processes that create them, are absolutely rock solid. If there is a formal tie between membership numbers and performance, rather than an informal tie, ie, "x" growth in membership means "x%" increase in salary rather than it just being a component of the review, then cheating on these numbers could be interpreted as being not only unethical but fraudulent. Using concocted numbers as the basis for funding from outside organizations is most certainly fraudulent, and should lead to criminal prosecution as well as termination as an employee of BSA.

That is an outstanding idea, Linda! I'm also thinking that these Scouts will eventually go home, and they've most likely lost everything. Maybe local units could spend a little money and send some supplies to a local distribution point down there. A couple of hundred bucks could get them 10 new Handbooks, and maybe some additional supplies...a couple of shirts, maybe? or something.

I think to make 1st Class at least one member of your family needs to be a conservative Republican now

Hey, Packsaddle, I am a Chicago kid born and raised, and therefore have the bloodline to take cheap shots at the Chicago political community. Besides, it's kinda like a lifelong hobby for us, like moaning about the Cubs and Sox every year

There will be plenty of recriminations, I'm sure, before all is said and done on this, and it'll be years until it's all sorted out, I'd bet. But here are a couple of thoughts, without laying any blame at the feet of all the brave folks out there right now trying to make things right for the people of New Orleans. We all share the "blame" to some extent for the response to this disaster. Why? First, New Orleans only exists because of Federal taxpayer dollars being spent by the Army Corps to hold the waters at bay. The levee system around NO was built to withstand a Level 3 Hurricane. Why? Because of a cost/benefit analysis done by the Corps., which you can be sure took into account the political will of the American people to pay for this. If you're going to build something to protect an entire city, any engineer will tell you that you can't place bets, you have to build to the worst case scenario. The American people would have certainly balked at the cost; now, we'll pay to rebuild the city instead. Second, the ability of rescue teams to respond is dependent, to some extent, on the kind of equipment they have and their transportation capabilities. If we, as a country, said through our votes that we wanted a response system that could respond almost instantaneously to any disaster, we could very well have it. The cost in manpower, technology, storage depots, etc, would be tremendous, but possible. To some extent, anyway. A large enough disaster will tax and overwhelm any rescue system. One thing I've noticed very clearly during my voting years is that everyone wants everything, but nobody wants to pay for it. Third, many in our country want everything done for us. In my earlier days as a climber/backpacker, I did receive some rudimentary training in rescue, to be sure, so that we could help each other when necessary. The attitude was that, to some extent, you had to rely on yourself when bad things happened. Many people seem to be poorly prepared to take care of themselves in case of disaster, whether it be their house burning down, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. People can only do so much on their own, of course, but if people with the capability to help themselves don't do so, it puts that much more burden on the rescue system, which should be helping those who really can't help themselves. Maybe it's an education problem. People need to understand that when a disaster happens, for some amount of time, they are likely to be on their own. Maybe the rescue system includes every family being educated on what they need to have in their home to survive the first 48 hours of a disaster. So, did someone screw up in planning the response system? I don't know. There are plenty of stories around now. One said that FEMA and Homeland Security planning is being directed to respond to biochemical attacks and the like, rather than natural disasters. National Guard units are saying that because the Army is short on equipment in Iraq, they have to leave their equipment there when their deployment is over, hampering their response back home while they re-equip. Who knows? You can almost bet that whatever we plan for, the "other thing" will happen. It's Murphy's Law at work. There will always be a contingent saying "this should have been better". We NEED those people to say those things so that improvements can be made, so those who can't stand the criticism coming out need to stand back and see why it's being said. Sure, some of it is for political reasons, but the main thing is that the information see the light of day. If you absolutely HAVE to blame someone, I suppose you could go to your homeowners insurance. In there it says something about "Acts of God". Maybe that's as good a place as any to point the finger of blame if you have to do so.

A couple of thoughts. Lynda, in all fairness, I don't think Merlyn has ever said that he hates BSA and what it stands for. He is opposed to what he sees in some BSA policies, regarding the inclusion of atheists, and the use of public facilities by Scouts that he sees as a violation of the separation of church and state. If he hates BSA, I'd ask him to say so to clear that up. stlscouter, The statement about a boy not being able to grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God pretty clearly is implying that atheists can't be the best kind of citizens. That sounds denigrating to me. Now, is BSA a religious organization or not? They seem to play that both ways depending on what court case you look at. What makes something a religious organization? Is there some legal definition? Is BSA a religious organization that uses the outdoors to teach its aims, or is BSA an outdoors organization that sees a belief in a god as central to its aims, or is it a youth organization that sees both the outdoors and a belief in a god as central to its aims, or what?

Hunt, I don't know either. I hope that he'd pick a centrist next, but this president sure seems to love to pick a fight. I wouldn't be surprised to see him pick someone like att. gen. Gonzalez, who's name was bantered about before.

One could also ask if Smith "retired" before the accusations came out, or if he was "allowed to retire" in order protect his benefits, an accomodation apparently not extended to Mr. St. John., or possibly exteneded and refused. Also, from a story published in Florida, it seems that St. John was "outted" by a disgruntled employee of SeaBase. St. John didn't seem to be acting in a way that would have made him "avowed". The fact that he stayed at a gay resort in Key West doesn't seem to me to be enough to get fired. In the "don't ask, don't tell" policy of BSA, what happens if someone else "tells"? Interestingly, I can't find any stories so far where St John actually admitted to being gay; anyone else seen anything? As you said, Hunt, many unanswered questions that I doubt we'll ever get the answers to.

The information in the original post came largely from the district newsletter published by the Fort Dearborn district of the Chicago Area Council. Although the tone reflects the frustration of the author, the facts of the story itself are coming from several writers who apparently attended the meeting. I wouldn't think that a district newsletter would allow blatant misrepresentations of fact about their home council to be published. Smith and St. John are a different topic, to be sure. It does seem that the CAC leaders are playing with the rules a bit to protect their power position. It seems pretty clear from the votes taken so far that those votes have basically been "votes of no confidence", yet they appear unwilling to leave, and are using quirks of the bylaws to remain in power. My opinion in this case is that this has nothing to do with Scouting, other than the black eye that will be created if it becomes more public, which, granted, becomes yet another negative public perception of Scouting (people here are still concentrating on the sale of Owasippe as a news item). This is about the Chicago Area Council as a business with a ruling body that refuses to relinquish power. Of course, what they're doing kind of fits right in with Chicago politics in general

Supreme Court justices have a habit of going their own way once they've been placed in office. Not that many stray from their well-known philosophies much, but they don't always vote the way of political expedience. Roberts is probably a shoe-in at this point. From all reports, he is a very intelligent person, and seems to know how to "play the Washington game", which will serve him well. Chief Justice Rehnquist was known to have a desire to not have the the court review the same issues over and over. He felt that this just confused the judiciary and caused more problems than it solved. Whether Roberts will follow that path as well remains to be seen. I think the trick in all this is to find judges who can set their own ideologies aside when dealing with the law. The fact that we have judges that can be labeled as conservative or liberal is, I think, a bad thing. They should be impartial in their interpretation of the law. I don't think we're doing a very good job of selecting impartial judges these days, from either side of the aisle.

For our Derby, we hand out ribbons to everyone as a small reward for participation. Trophies for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are handed out at each rank, and then for the entire pack.

Well, OGE, if the 1st 20 that you're watching follow the trend, then I guess jkhny also has the answer to the question implied in his report, that is, "does anyone here a problem with a Council's leadership that refuses to abide by the results of their Council elections". That answer would appear to be "no". Seems like within the past week or so, we've gone into a new territory in "Issues and Politics". It used to be, posters would attack an opposing view, and sometimes degrade into personal attacks. Recently, it seems, some folks are saving time by ignoring the posts completely and just attacking the poster. It's ok to disagree; it's not ok to become disrespectful of the posters. If you don't like a topic, just don't respond to it, it will quickly age off in that case.

You guys have been sniffing at the propane tanks again, haven't you.