qwazse

Last time it wasn't a problem. Before that, I just reminded my DE that Venturers have boundary issues and asked her to respectfully "override" any stupid flags that don't accommodate the full range of options allowed by policy.

First, on behalf of your boys, thanks for your years of service as a scouter. Second, on behalf of the young men (and, possibly, women) who missed out on scouting until now, thanks for making yourself available as their advisor. Thirdly, like the "dogs love trucks" commercial. Boyscouts love paperwork! The simplest solution would be for Packs and Troops become co-ed. Then just make certain activities available to only scouts over 14. That would solve our paperwork problem. But, I'm sure the preponderance of scouters find Scouts UK's strategy to be unpalatable.

Why? Are grade school boys watching fashion shows these days?

The general rule is we don't let adult errors get in the way of a boy's success. They should have waited four days. They didn't. They boy's scout spirit did not change in those four days (assuming mom's word is good ). The SM or CC should talk to the council registrar about modifying the date of the Life BOR. There may be no more paperwork necessary than writing the correct date on the Eagle application then explaining the discrepancy when you turn the form in, but it is a whole lot easier if the error is rectified now. (Basically someone at your council HQ should cross-check every date on the Eagle App with council records, and every discrepancy slows them down.)

The woman wants to help! Let her! Anything you can do to help her feel like part of the unit is great. Everyone in your group will just come to terms with it.

Make it easy on yourself. Drop them from the roster if they don't pay the dues. Let them know they can fill out a new application and turn in a check when they want to join again.

BSA has no specific recommendation on this issue. Organizationally, you are two units under the same roof (i.e. the chartered organization). YPT should be sufficient for your adults primarily with the troop; and VYPT, for adults primarily with the crew. I have certainly used chaperones with YPT training on my co-ed crew outings and have not asked them to take VYPT. When it comes time to recharter and you have adults who have been involved with both units and need to re-update, either course will do, but encourage them to take the one they did not taken last time. By the way, thanks to your advisor for taking this on. It's a wild ride!

Agree with all of the above. Especially to be direct. The committee chair should simply say that since the SM conference his behavior on the internet became a serious issue. Give him two options ... talk about it to you all now, or talk to the SM about it and re-schedule the BOR when he is confident that he has talked this over. That should be appropriate. Although there was some bad behavior, keep in mind the boy did some good things. For one thing, he included trustworthy adults as his friends. Explain to him that whatever he does with social media in the future, that he include continue to include people he and his grandparents respect as his friends. They will help him correct his behavior. As he gets older, he will find that one those folks may need his help to call him on the carpet.

Every troop is different. But most that keep to a schedule have monthly BOR's. So, although 4 days late for this one he'll be 26 days ahead of schedule. How old is the boy?

Gossip and back-biting were the worst of my woes. Went to the person(s) who were being talked about, set the record straight, and made it clear that I was "Not about to be bothered by the burrs up anyone's butt, including yours." Not entirely sure if what I said was ethical. But it bought me a few years of personal peace, and a shocked laugh from the current SM when I told him what I had said. (He knew right away to whom I said it.) Best way to maintain ethics is have somebody take a critical look (that includes positive as well as negative) over what you are doing. I have a couple of trustworthy adults who help review our units' financial stuff. And a couple of lawyers in our units help make sure any contracts we may make for high adventure trips are reasonable and enforceable. But let me be clear. Other folks still do a lot of things the way I don't like. I know for a fact that I do things in ways that other people don't like. None of that variation should be considered unethical. There are folks who "create drama" about such things to the point that they could sound like ethical dilemmas. Those are the folks for whom I reserve the above quote. Anything else, I have a quiet chat with the SE or his designee. Or the Institutional Head if their property was involved.

If it weren't for venturers having the occasional meeting at my place, I'd be stuck with Mrs Q's rather bland salsa! Obviously with cubs, you need to mix it up. Let that table be a "launching point" for any given activity. Maybe unroll a map and with a deft flip of your carving knife say "to complete this activity we must go ... here". At the end of the year the boys can take the table outside and practice sanding and re-staining. Definitely memorizing things like the oath and law are best done roaming around the yard/neighborhood looking for the clues. If for whatever reason you are stuck at the table for more than a few minutes, you need to figure out how to make that table a different place. Especially for your boys. Den meetings have to feel much different than school, wherever you hold them.

The causal path may be reversed. A driven boy (or two) may motivate a parent to take on leadership roles. For example, I announce HS soccer games and try to coordinate other parents and youth as announcers and spotters. Not because I'm all that into sports, but because all of my kids are passionate about soccer. And thanks to my scouting career, I'm a bit of a ham.

It's kinda sick when you think about it. Most MB's that kids do get at camp they could earn with a local counselor for free. Anyway, I think by way of promoting, you give campers their district's list of MBC's (or maybe a select few who are willing to work with kids who attend your HA) for topics where that your program would partially cover. It would be on the youth to contact and report to the MBC before and after the camp. The blue card never comes to your base at all! Still a tough sell, but it makes it clear to folks that the boys can still be using the week for advancement, just not for administrative busy work that distracts from skills acquisition.

Ditto.

That's the one plus about SM and Advisor being two unrelated adults ... we pass our kids off on the other guy!

Good question. From my observation ... No difference, so long as the parent pushes their kid out the door to meeting during those tough times when it's just easier to stay home and do something else in those couple of hours. It has more to do with the kid's personality. From my "involved" parenting (you know you're involved by the number of complaints from your spouse) ... #1 had a good scouting/venturing experience until 18 in spite of me. #2 had a good venturing experience until 17 because of me. (Sometimes I wonder if it was for me.) #3 is having a good scouting/venturing experience with or without me. But, I think my involvement has helped other scouts who in turn have made it a good experience with my sons and daughter. I've seen similar patterns with other parents.

BD, you really stink at post-modernism. Oaths aren't to be believed. They are only there for dramatic effect. A boy usually does not become outspoken about his identity (that includes preference in religion, mates, vehicles, and beverages ... among other things) until late adolescence. That's about the time he already has Life and is starting to think about his service project. So, no surprise any of this was missed at earlier ranks. Than again, there may be a cadre of Star scouts who've been denied advancement but never made the papers. They would not be as attractive to the media or Momma's indignation.

Bless you, codger, but your hypothetical quote, were it true, would deserve some soap. Scouts are cheerful and friendly. They build bridges -- not block them. Sure this is a whole lot of making the best of a bad situation. But, it's also an opportunity for a council who has managed to stay solvent to put some energy and enthusiasm into some districts who had gotten short-shrift due to their previous council's insolvency. Customs, traditions, practices, are all good, but only if you have youth to hand them down to. Hopefully there will be some more frequent river crossings to do just that!

Scuttlebutt (and I think this was alluded to in one press release last year) was that sexual orientation was not the only issue for this scout. He stated that he he had become an atheist on his BOR. But the verbal report that I got was from someone far outside his council, and that may have been based on the same article I was reading. My experience is that the press can wander far from the truth on these things. Like Stosh said, it would be very irregular to bring up a boy's sexual orientation at all. Given that one result of this whole debate was to make scouters across the nation aware of how scoutmasters in general prefer to handle this situation (i.e., they prefer committees to not dig into issues that are clearly delineated as matters between a boy and his parents), I hope that retroactive reinstatement is applied -- if indeed orientation was the only barrier. But, I suspect that if it is, it will be left up to the boy to go to the press about it. And, I do recall that in the last proper reports, Mr. Anderson stopped taking calls from the media -- understandably so.

Don't apologize for posting new topics. If it weren't for you we'd be stuck dickering over movies! 10 hours in a car is definitely too rough on boys, and resident camp is fun. So it makes sense getting one started. But, you are starting very late for this summer. Parents should be receiving a "save the date" notice about NOW! Unless you have core staff already lined up, you should target for 2015 if turnout really means something. So consider this year a pilot program where 20 cubs attending would be a reasonable goal.

One more thing. Boys pick up on drama more than most of us realize. Probably the hardest thing we adults have to do is model friendliness when we really don't want to.

Yippee. You get to play therapist. A COR that goes to roundtable is a good thing. Remind everyone that they should be grateful. Remind the COR that he's only obligated to represent the CO, so if there is something that bothers him and the IH about (or, for that matter, anyone in the CO says) about how a unit is operating, work on fixing that. Other stuff (the DC's rants, etc ...), well, I guess the bottom line is do folks in the unit think it's worth persevering? If so, grow a thick skin and stay the course -- ignoring outsiders, or make one or two changes to let the DC know you actually care. But ONLY ADDRESS ONE ISSUE AT A TIME. It's real temping when you get outside criticism to try to do a hundred tweaks at once. That only insures nothing changes. I would ask the IH to hold onto your current COR unless he's already been training a replacement over the past year. Time volunteered, be it from a 90 year old or a 40 year old is a precious thing. There's no guarantee you'll continue to have that unless you see a second-in-command actually stepping up.

Oh, okay. So on those grounds, why would you add Neo-Pagan specific Percy Jackson? I guess I like the TC because it does grand cinematography without all the digital special effects that we take for granted anymore. I know making religion into entertainment turns some people off, but I figure this is the kind of thing that would make a boy think "hey we can do a skit of the sort about ___." I get HP's popularity. And, although the protagonist is a "Moses figure" of the decade, I'm not sure if a boy who never sees it is missing out on much. By the way, I liked the book-on-tape version of Percy Jackson. Something about it really sucked me in and gave me a smile every time I had to switch tracks.

Let me start out by saying I'm not big on movies so I may have less skin in the game than others. Why would you drop The Ten Commandments? or add Harry Potter? I know if she were asked, Mrs. Q would drop It's a Wonderful Life. But I've always been a big Jimmy Stewart fan.

I've learned not to let people like that leave the room unopposed. "Excuse me sir, your narrative is skewed with respect to the facts." Then state facts. Of course that requires keeping your blood pressure down.