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SaintCad

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  1. Not the boys fault so let him advance. Let me explain. All of this is coming from evilramsfan not knowing the rules and regulations. I had to look them up as a new scoutmaster when a scout complained that Eagle Scouts were always allowed to sign off on advancement and I shouldn't overturn that policy. The rule from National is that the person who signs off on rank advancements is the Scoutmaster OR those he/she designates. End of discussion. So the Scoutmaster needs to make it very clear who can sign off on what in a troop and if the Scoutmaster does not feel that it is appropria
  2. First of all, can you counsel your son? Maybe. I'd have to look up the actual rule but I believe the unit leader that opens up the blue card has the ultimate say in who the MBC is. Probably a non-issue in most cases but if I knew for a fact that there were an MBC that was not making the boys do the requirements, I would not allow any scout to work with them. Technically, I did invoke this rule when I invited a presenter to work on emergency preparedness with the boys. As part of it she did the first-aid rank advancement requirements and I signed off on those in their books and she did
  3. I'm a little confused here. Was the boy given accomodated requirements because of the disability and the SM is questioning if they were appropriate? Is the SM questioning that he met the requirements for tenderfoot-2nd class-1st class? Maybe but if that is not taken care at the scoutmaster conference or the BOR (and yes, a BOR can reject advancement if the boy has not met the requirements. It happened once in my troop because of a misunderstanding by the scoutmaster over whether a requirement was completed and was a miror issue corrected within a week. I heard about another troop
  4. One thing I found out in becoming a SM was that my troop had no concept of administration. Part of that was prior practices and part was that we have very few older more experienced scouts. For me the problem is that the Troop sees no problem with agreeing to an outing on Tuesday and with almost no planning expect it to happen on Saturday. There were never any sign-ups and they would go on outings not really knowing who was planned and what was not. And forget about any money management. My interpretation of a boy-led troop is to have the troop through the PLC develop a full annual pl
  5. I agree that the "get approval" is nebulous. If I were a pets MBC, I would interpret the "get approval" as getting the approval of the pet owner. Certainly I don't want some kid looking after my corgi if he has no clue how to feed it or clean up after it. I would also see the point of "get approval" meant the approval of the MBC after they ascertain that the Scout knows what is involved with taking care of the pet. I disagree that "get approval" means the approval of the SM because a Scout cannot begin to work on a merit badge until it is open. If that's the case then "get approval"
  6. There are really two issues in the OP. First, I don't think it is appropriate for a scout to start any merit badge without consulting the unit leader. In over 99% of the cases, it is really a non-issue but there was a case of a scout spend all of his time earning merit badges and not advancement requirements. The SM felt that given the Camporee setting, it would be more valuable for the Scout to work on First Class Trail skills instead so he denied permission to the scout to work on ANY merit badge during that weekend. As for the actual signing, I think that the unit leader should sign
  7. We didn't do CERT but we do have a Troop Emergency Manager that does CPR training, First Aid MB and the BSA Emergency Preparedness program. We also got a county emergency manager out to talk to the Scouts and hopefully they will be invited to the next emergency drill. If you don't have CERT available, I would suggest the BSA Emergency Preparedness Award instead. Both youths and adults can earn it and in my experience there is a lot of pride in wearing the pin on the uniform.
  8. But if every group has their own unit, isn't there a danger like what I see in a lot of cities of a lot of units with most of them very small and unhealthy?
  9. Thanks Eagle92 for the update but I do have one question and it is not a knock on you but rather National having such a decentralized way of communicating important information. The question is how current is your information and did it come before or after my information? The reason I question it is that your quote mentions "This is Scouting" as a requirement which has been specifically taken out as of 2012 as a training requirement (it is now only recommended). The list I pulled off scouting.org confirms that This is Scouting is not required.
  10. Under the guidlines, chartered organization own the scouting unit. In some cases, like the LDS Church, this is because Scouthing units are a fundamental part of their youth organization. I'm in a troop where our CO was an absentee owner for years and I know that many COs are somewhat involved but their units are not really part of the overall community of their CO. Many units get no support from the CO yet if the unit were to ever disband, the CO would own everything the Scouts worked hard for. But in addition to that, I'm reading the charter agreement and to be pedantic, my Troop is e
  11. As someone who minored in Comparative Religion, I'm pretty sure I know the difference between atheism and agnosticism and that they are not necessarily synonymous so believe it or not there is a difference. Since you choose to assume I am ignorant let me point out that the difference between the two is about faith vs. knowledge. Agnostics believe that belief in God is based on faith in that there is no true way to prove God exists within our epistomology. Atheism is the belief that God or any other deity does not exist. I don't believe I ever said the two views were contradictory. I
  12. Getting back to the OP, National has clarified the rules on being Trained while simultaneously making it more confusing. Some Councils require a leader to be trained before taking a leadership position. For this, once trained - always trained so that your Cubmaster/ASM/SM etc. trained 10 years ago is always trained. HOWEVER: In order to ensure that a leader has the most current training, a leader must have completed current training requirements to 1) Wear the "Trained" patch 2) Be considered trained for the purposes of Journey to Excellence
  13. Not exactly the same issue but similar. My Troop (as are most units) is chartered by a religious organization. We want to foster closer ties and with a new pastor, I (as Scoutmaster) want to make him aware of the office of Chaplain and also ask if they would be willing to provide instruction on the generic Protestant youth religious award if any of the Scouts want it. One parent on the committee was upset as they saw that as an encroachment on the scouts' religious freedom. I did not disagree with her, but made it clear as the "owners" of the Troop, the church can play an integral part
  14. I am a committee member and was requested by our SM to wear a uniform, so I pulled out my uniform from my denmaster days and changed the blue epalauts to green and sewed on the new council patch and troop number on my sleeve. I also changed denmaster patch to committee member patch and changed the trained bar from red to green. Before, I didn't wear my uniform because I wasn't a SM/ASM, but the SM said that adults in uniform are an example to the kids - and yes, I wear my 1930's campaign hat just like I did when a denmaster because a hat is part of the uniform. I also kept my denmaster
  15. Is there an official BSA BOR training? Out troop committee chair want all of the committee members to take it and I see that it was available in 2008 because it is recorded for on of our scouters, but I don't see any mention of it and that page on the BSA site is no longer there.
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