qwazse

It would be interesting to find out how well informed the Eagle scout who testified was during his youth. Was he shown "A Time to Tell"? Did someone challenge his thinking like BrentAllen suggested? Here's another harsh reality, folks. Even with the best education, it may take years for an abused youth to take a stand against what's happening (or happened). So educate, but don't expect it to be like a light bulb turning on and exposing the predator in the corner. A skilled perpetrator has learned to hide in plain sight making sure that those around him are unwilling or afraid to

Niel_b, Jesus was always getting accused of breaking rules like working on the Sabbath or eating with gentiles. I guess if he was a scout he might get his advancement denied for not being reverent enough. Jesus always asserted that he was acting in accordance with his own beliefs. As a youth he was, by all but the most partisan accounts, a good Jewish boy. He might get docked for not getting a parental release to hang back at Temple. (After all boy scouts love paperwork. ) But he's pass on Reverent. Not saying you shouldn't tell a boy that breaking the 3rd Commandment in your

NielB - There is no mention of not taking God's name in vain ... Scouting is non-sectarian, ... If the boy feels he is doing his best to satisfy his personal religious obligations and demonstrates that in tangible ways (like attending church) it is not for you to impose your personal religious beliefs on him as a Scouter. I was not referring to my own personal anything. I was referring to a practice common to young scouts where they violate the tenants of the religion they claim as their own. Is there a religion where the needless spouting the name of a deity (especially one that is

Minimize the drama. Focus on the one issue you're being asked to attest to: the project. Was it completed as planned? Did the boy show some leadership? Then sign. If not, don't sign. There's no need to resign. If there are issues that will come up at his board of review: make sure you yourself are focusing on the boy's tenure while at Life rank. If your concerns apply to that period, let the boy know which ones you will be bringing up at the board of review and expect him to have honest and thoughtful replies to each of them. If he is concerned that he may not, he should as

I am reading from my fellow scouters that they ignore these when it comes to advancement. ... Not so. If a boy says he believes in God, attends church twice as often as his religion requires, keeps fasts, prays, reads scripture, etc ... But routinely takes the Lord's name (yours, mine, or his, it doesn't matter) in vain. He is irreverent. He does not advance until he can go a day without sputtering "OMGs."

You should define your regular meeting place to include the lake. Talk to your scout executive. Assuming that meetings always include adequate supervision, 20 plans for mostly paddling in a controlled area is excessive. The tour plans should be for the real trips 1+ miles.

I'm sure you can split hairs all the way down through every sect of every religion, but here are some broad pejorative categories that I've heard bantied about ... Clearly folks who have no religious life and mock everyone else who does are irreverent. Folks who promote their religion to the exclusion of others are overzealous. (Unless they're right, then they're just zealous.) By definition, folks who hold themselves up as religious yet live their life in opposition to their religion are hippocrites. Folks who think religion is above or beyond them, so they just stay home and muddle thr

BD: Should it be measured? How is it measured? As soon as I pull this log out of my eye, I'll let you know how to measure the speck in my young scout brother's! Is a scouter qualified to measure it? I think that misses the point. The goal is to get the boy, over time, to measure it. It may be that his theology will line up perfectly with yours. It may be not. A higher authority is, well, higher than that. But, we want our young men to reflect on this question early in their life. Because not reflecting on it until after you're guarding some enemy POW's and some cra

BD - not to speak for CP, but ... This all hinges on what the SM's idea of duty to God is. Some people think if you don't have your "head in the game" the rest is all fluff. They accord a lot of respect to the kid who says "I pray in my own way." Others think that if you are showing due respect while harbouring profound doubts, you are at the very least giving God a chance to believe in you (even though the feeling's not mutual). There is no litmus test to hand to an SM and say these are "in" and those are "out". The best you can do is help a kid discover if he can be hon

Yep. You're coming up against an Eastern vs. Western definition of "belief." The Western is all intelectuall. So you give props to the unchurched kid who confesses this inward spiritual life. The Eastern is more (not all) behavioral. So the guy who acts the faith ("goes through the motions" as we judgementally call it) in the face of profound doubts gets credited as a believer. Obviously you should let the parents know as mentioned above. Right now, his actions are lining up with the oath and law, so you can count that. You don't have to bring this up with him right now, but

And, if you stay, for the love of all that is beautiful about summer don't have pack meetings. Have pack picnics, pack participation in parades, pack flag retirement ceremony (see if there's a boy scout troop that can help with that), pack wiffle ball, hikes, fishing. Maybe even go cheer and your CC's son's ball game. (Ask if the boys could sell treats there.) Do things where you don't have to be up front like you do for the fall dog-and-pony show. Sneak your other adults to the fore. See if that attracts some other kids to join. Point is, while you have a small pack, have fun

Yep. Your stuck. The CC's job is to rally adult leaders. It is possible for CM and CC to not have a good relationship and still do their jobs. BUT the CC needs parents on committee to help him make wise decisions and you need DL's to dive into these boys' lives. If nobody's budging to lend a hand you'll never have that 5 den model with the Byzantine heirarchy the rest of us have come to love. The alternative: switch to the one room school model. T, W, B, W1's and W2's meet in one room together every week. Ask the parents to take a turn on a topic/project each week (start with t

Pack - Methinks qwazse may be tiptoeing (tipsytoeing?) toward a problem? No problems here, I've had enough margin that if I didn't want to go through life stone cold sober, I could have gon off the wagon years ago. What convinced me was working at my dad's beer distributor back when kids were allowed to do that sort of thing. I helped deliver four cases to a guy whose kids I knew couldn't afford shoes on their feet. That settled it for me. I think my brothers came to similar conclusions. Dad knew what he was doing letting us work our summers there. We weren't even allowed to bring so

I'll have to point out to my troop and crew that being able to light a fire without paperwork is a unique privelage of geography and climate. Sounds like an awesome stew -- which I wouldn't share with the boys if I were you!

Our camp provided the hated checklists as well. If my SPL and PL's are not supposed to use them to sign off on things, why give me one more piece of paper? Just give li'll Johnny a woggle kit (rope and instructions for the turk's head knot). Let him figure out what he needs to get signed-off in his book. I would rather have camp staff focus on skills training and instilling pride in patrols. That's why I favor "patrol challenges" over "instructional sessions". They accomplish the same thing, but one sounds a lot less like school.

Big screen vs. big woods. Not sure who the winner is on that one. But, scouting is labor intensive. If parents have thrown all of the xtra's overboard and still need to work evenings and weekends to afford the commute to their day job, our kids have a problem. P.S. (for packsaddle) - The price of juice (because it is essential transporting water in refrigerated trucks) is climbing. There's every reason to expect it to exceed the cost of cheap alcohol. Starting to drink may be a cost-effective solution for some folks.

Thanks for taking on this responsibility. The following comes from the heart of a guy who's finally convinced his troop to do all the training for T2FC in site. I will try to be brief ... The goal is to swim upstream. To foist all of the sign-off responsibility onto the PL's (and, only as a last resort, the SM's.) Consider opening scoutcraft up to "patrol challenges". A different one each day. They could be service projects related to scoutcraft skills. They could be relays for patrols present (e.g. fastest through a knot tying challenge). Offer a totem (simple stuff, like

Don't mean to stir contraversy, but could you send boy with patches and new shirt to dad? Teaching boy to sew is not a bad idea. Of course, even if they do pitch in and help with the patch business, no gaurantee that the boy would remember to bring the shirt home! But, it might help increase the family's effort. Is it worth the price of a shirt?

I have been a strong proponent of local camping, leveraging the good graces of folks who have wooded property or park boards who could use some service project. Then, every few months find a location more than a few hours away. The issue is not so much cost as it was time stuck in a tin can waiting to get somewhere. What is changing is parents have to work an extra couple of hours to pay for fuel to commute. Half of our troop and crew comes from more than a couple miles to get to our meeting place. The boys who commute have to work harder to organize rides. I suspect geography will h

Just asking for volunteers can get you some pretty scattered den chiefs! This isn't like asking little Johnny to go to the office and run off copies on the mimeograph. The troop's reputation with your DL's is on the line, so they'd like to have a say. The common sense way this works: 1. CM informs the troop that he has X dens who need den chiefs. At this point he may inform the SPL or SM which scouts in the troop have siblings in the pack. 2. SPL discusses with SM which boys would be good candidates. This usually works very well because the SPL will have seen how the boys perform wit

Odd! My swim instructor (Women's Air Corps veteran) told me it was for "advancing on the enemy position!" Look boys, there's a reason why we call it "scouting" and not "just yer average youth group."

MItBl -- For those that think Venturing is the answer to retaining these young adults its not ... I wholeheartedly agree with you on this point. And rest assured I jump down DE's cases when they use lines like "Venturing is an open market" or "we can keep our boys longer". Because it simply is not the solution to retention problems. But that doesn't mean it is not a solution. Just like restricting 18-20 y.o.s to ASM is not the solution for all the aprehensions that folks might have about someone just below drinking age being top dawg in a scouting unit. It is still a solution.

I time my water-intake-cut-off at 2 hours before bed time. That keeps gives me enough space between latrine runs for a full nights sleep.

SF, I feel your pain man. I'm an inch taller than you and shrinking slowly. That isn't the real issue, though. I don't stretch regularly like I should ... and all that not doing the physical fit thing catches up to ya on the weekends. A 90% full air mattress can cause your back all manner of grief! I learned from the weeks camping with my wife the trouble it can cause. Try out some thermarest pads. (I'm sure your friends have them). My wife for a while needed a hospital egg-crate foam pad. It took up space, but made a difference. More importantly, my #1 woe is high wind, the soluti

SP: Well, how do you teach adults too? In this case, I'd give them EDGE for several reasons.Many adults are years removed from education and many of them have got on with their jobs/hobbies and have not been challenged to teach anyone a skill. My SM really appreciated learning EDGE because it gave him the confidence he needed to start instructing is PLs and counseling MBs.Many adults have learned to be critical of the written word. I use the manual for assembling new stuff about half the time. I know my father-in-law does less than that. A few of you guys testified that book-learning just