Proud Eagle

I am afraid I must agree with Bob on the issues of servant leadership and Christ still living. FOG also makes good points. Leadership is a complex thing and cannot be easily summed up in any book or catch phrase. However, both men show a lack of wisdom in dealing with each other. Listen to their Scouting advice, but don't bother trying to figure out the disagreement between the two. On the issue of who started the petty argument between the two of you and who is right, I won't get into that. Personally I think you both need to take a look at weather or not your words are

Actually John, I think your reading is a bit off. I don't claim to be an expert but if you look at Sec 771 it says that no one can wear a military uniform unless otherwise provided for in law. Sec 772 then provides for the BSA to wear whatever uniform it chooses. So if the BSA decides to adopt the current uniform of the US Army, they are free to do so. They would, by my understanding, need to swap out all military insignia (including buttons on dress uniforms) for BSA insignia, but other than that the uniforms could be identical. In fact, in the early years, the uniforms were indistinguis

I also must disagree with the comment about people wanting to play Army. For me at least, that has nothing to do with it. Instead, it has everything to do with wanting to have low cost, readily available, durable, multi-purpose equipment. The stuff works great in many outdoor applications. It can easily be used on while out hunting, fishing, or Scouting. Is military equipment optimal for Scouting? Not necessarily. Is it good equipment for Scouting? Often. Obviously, I do not approve of using military uniforms in place of Scout uniforms (though there could be some exceptions

Define "needs". Do you mean enough to survive, or the amount it would receive under ideal circumstances, or some other measure? If all that is required is that the unit is able to survive, then yes. If you apply any other measure, then NO. Let me provide an example. Last year our UC (we didn't know we even had a UC until the guy called the SM at home one night) called the SM and told him that he had our charter and that someone needed to come pick it up from him. The SM suggested he could just drop it off at a troop meeting, and that would give him a chance to meat the tr

My troop seems to avoid songs like the plague. It may have something to do with the overly cheery adult song leader we had a few years back that seemed to think we needed to learn a new song at every meeting. Everyone was quite glad when she got too busy with work related things to continue, because no one had the stomach to ask her to stop.

The weight limit for horses is 200lbs if I am not mistaken.

I must say that I have never really noticed a problem with hand washing before food preparation. People normally remember that. Just to make certain they are usually reminded. The problem is people not washing their hands before meals. The biggest reason for this I have seen is the lack of soap in most camp latrines. If there is soap, it is a nasty looking old bar that appears to have recently been in the latrine, if you know what I mean. The other problem is there are some latrines at some camps with no running water. For camps with dining halls, there usually is no

Part of me wants to jump for joy that issues and politics has gotten back to what it used to be. Another part of me feels ill.

I am glad to see you got better. Now lets go see if the spiral scouts weigh the same as a duck...

Distinctive paint and decals can go a long way in preventing theft. They also provide easy public recognition on the road and at campsites and such. Our troop's trailer is red. We had a set of decals made by a sign company to the specs of a graphic artist in the unit. The decals are in white and blue, and look very nice to say the least. No one in their right mind would try to steal something so easy to spot. Usually for an anti-theft system we keep a padlock on the hitch to keep anyone from opening it easily. Now we happen to be in KY, and if I am not mistaken, we do have a lic

So it seems that officially tenure is calculated based on how long that unit has been chartered at a given CO. It also seems that there is some latitude given for local interpretation on such things as the anniversary strips.

OK. Somehow I must have missed on of Shell's posts until now. I don't know quite how that happened, but it did. Therefore, I did not properly understand the context of this situation until now. Sorry for any trouble that may have caused. I would agree that everything in this particular case seems perfectly legal. The website involved was simply providing information. The person giving the pack away was the one engaging in discrimination, and was within their rights to do so. I still, however, maintain the argument that if this had been a company giving away the backpack, it wou

I wonder why the valve isn't made a permanent part of the tank, in the same way the valves are built into the small propane cylinders. This reminds me of something I heard about involving an aerosol can...

I have yet to get and LED. I had a bad experience with head lamps early in my Scouting Carree. An adult in the troop loved them and made very good use of them, so I went and got one. I never really liked the thing. Once all the LEDs started coming out, my general thoughts were, "oh, neat, but too expensive". Then the prices started coming down and people actually started buying the things. I still haven't bought one because none of them really seems to produce as much light as I like. Also, all of the ones I have seen are far nearer to blue than white. I am really not a fan of b

A while back there was talk of Venturers at the National Jamboree. The conclusion was that Jambo is a part of the Boy Scout program. Now back in 1997, I was at Jambo as a visitor. I distinctly remember there being uniformed Law Enforcement Explorers on site as part of the staff. I also recall at least one article from Boys Life that talked about the Law Enforcement Explorers at Jambo. Now that would seem to be a precedent for including others outside of the Boy Scout program at the Jamboree. Another point, it seems to me (and I could be wrong because I wasn't around back then), t

(This probably isn't going to work, but it is worth a try.) Merlyn, Would you not agree that in many, if not most cases businesses are required to provide goods and services to the public, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of any individual member of the public? I would agree with you that if it is an individual giving something away, they are perfectly within their rights to refuse to give the thing away to Scouts. In the case of a business, which, lacking evidence to the contrary, I would assume is a public accommodation, it does not normally have that right.

packsaddle, Thank you for agreeing with me. I also find no reason why the UU fellowships/churches couldn't charter a BSA unit AS LONG AS THEY AGREE TO FOLLOW THE MEMBERSHIP POLICIES. The point I was making was that a UU group would not be very likely agree to those rules, as it pertains to atheists. Remember, we aren't talking about the garden club, we are talking about a religious, or at least quasi-religious group. Accepting atheists is a part of their system. It is unlikely they would charter a unit that requires them to not accept them in some way.

If the UUA are not willing to abide by the rules relating to homosexuals, I seriously doubt they would be willing to abide by the rules on atheists, particularly when they also have atheists as members. It may have been that the homosexual issue was the straw that broke the camels back for the UUA, but I seriously doubt they would now agree to the membership policies, even if the homosexual rules were repealed. I am not basing this on some secret knowledge of the UUA, but rather on common sense.

Anyone that is in favor of more environmentally friendly energy or in favor of energy independence should actually like OPEC raising its prices. KS hit on some of the reasons why, as have others. If the cost of importing oil goes up, domestic producers will increase production. Generally it is more expensive to produce oil domestically, so some of those previously uneconomic wells, such as those in western KY for example, begin to become economical to pump again. Further, incentives for finding and exploiting other sources of domestic oil also increase. The economic viability of s

Eagledad, I would suggest that the SPL that is no longer challenged by the duties of being the SPL was ready to move on to some new challenge. Perhaps it was time for him to seek out something such as an OA office, for example. Also, another good position for those that have reached that stage would be Junior Assistant Scoutmaster. It is almost custom made for the type of person you mentioned. Now if that 17 year old really wanted to be SPL because he thought is was the best way he could serve the troop, well great for him. However, I would think someone who has mastered the top youth l

The BSA can not adapt to every belief system and every set of personal opinions. BSA is an organization based on common principals and shared beliefs. If it tries to adapt its principals and beliefs to be acceptable to the beliefs and opinions of all people it will in the end no longer have any shared beliefs at all. I would rather the BSA have some very rare and narrow "sectarian" exclusions than try to meet the needs and wants of all the various beliefs and opinions held by anyone. I don't know about the Wiccans, but I know with the UUA there would be more than just the homosexual is

You offer good sound advice, and I thank you for it. I am by no means as depressed as I sound. That was just sort of a cummulative list of discouraging things from the past year and a half or so that are somewhat generic. Like anything else there are depressing days and then there are uplifting days. Then there are days that have some of both and other days that are just sort of bland and have neither. I suppose that has always been the case with life. The prime challenge is to keep moving even on the bad days. That is far easier when you have what I (not on original concept, I borr

The worst problem is not knowing wear you want to go. You obviously can't choose a path if you don't even know where it is you want to end up. I have to some extent been faced by this problem of late. I realized I really have no capacity for figuring out what I want to do. I was always used to figuring out what I needed or had to do, and then how to do it. That is pretty simple. Then all of a sudden, life stops having a clear path. There is no longer a graduation plan to follow. Instead there are hundreds degrees, thousands of colleges, and an infinite number of careers to choose f

Charging for meeting space? Yep, the world has gone nuts. I can understand a place charging outside groups for space, but charging your own groups doesn't make any sense. That is robbing Peter to pay Paul, at best. I would suggest anyone in such a situation find out if you can reach an agreement to use facilities at off peak times and provide all cleaning services yourself. If you aren't keeping them from getting rent, and you are not bringing them any extra expense other than lighting, you may be able to work something out. It would at least be worth a try. All this said, i

I learn something new every day. This is the first I had ever heard of such a thing. I guess my council must not be into this, but then again what can you expect from a council that doesn't bother to use proper accounting procedures or pay its taxes. While I am not familiar with the award, based on what I have just read I must say the idea of counting an OA ordeal as a troop camping trip is... I think I will go with "novel" to be diplomatic.