scoutingagain

"Since they are also a local government agency, they also require that we sign a statement declaring all workers be legal US citizens or registered aliens." They're not workers, they're volunteers. If they were workers, they'd be subject to OSHA regulations, state and federal child labor laws as well. Not that you shouldn't observe standard safety precaution or work them 80 hours week. That's what summer camp staffs are for. SA

Congradulations. Well deserved and a proud moment. Hoping to be able to post the same in a little while. Son just submitted his application and workbook. SA

I'm with Lisabob. Politicians from either party do scouting a disservice when they attack or defend the organization based their political point of view. It further politizes the movement and one way or the other turns off 50% of the adults and their children towards scouting. I wanted my son to join and enjoy scouting so he could develop character, fitness and citizenship. It certainly wasn't to make a political statement one way or the other. This book does not help scouting at all. SA

What we consider "activities". MB Colleges - We usually attend as a unit. Camping trips Day outings, such as hikes, non-Eagle service projects done as a troop or patrol, Parades, Memorial Day & Veterans Day SA

"Of the sixty plus registered adults " who seem to like it the way it is, versus you. If your thinking of "gradual change" think in terms of geologic time. SA

Some good insight and thought provocation in this thread. All I can add as an adult who participated in scouting as a youth is, when I run into another adult for whom scouting was a big part of their youth, I don't ask, and rarely does the conversation turn to "what rank were you?". More often than not it revolves around, where did you camp? What was the best adventure you had? And dozens of the individual stories that usually start with " On one campout we...., or ... such and such happened... or in our troop we had this kid that ..could really cook,... was really funny... told grea

Never mind.(This message has been edited by scoutingagain)

"We had it at a well-known and centrally located venue." It''s hard to tell, but if you expected non-scouting families to take time out of their weekday schedule to come to you I''m not suprised at the response. Anyway, you deserve credit for the time, effort and dedication to put on an event. We have had limited success with open house type events by having scout units in the town set up displays and activities in the center of town near the central shopping area on a Saturday. It is a high traffic area and highly visible from the major intersection in town. Go to where the peopl

True, And what happens when one of these boys completes their Engineering degree, MBA, Law degree, choose to work on a construction site, or whereever and they walk into a job interview with their prospective boss to find out she''s female if a significant portion of their lives they''ve witnessed men treating women in authority with a lack of respect? Ask when do they get to talk to the real boss not his secretary? That will certainly help in their career development and being able to be the best kind of citizen. Units that arbitrarily limit the role of women do a disservice to t

Well I read this morning Congress''s overall approval rating is somewhere in the mid to low 20''s, interms of percentage of those asked. Seems quite a few of us have a relative low opinion of legislators. And you have the President with approval ratings about as low as they have ever been for any President since they''ve been taking poles. I can''t believe this level of dissatifaction among the populace of it''s leaders is health for a society or a democracy. I don''t know what it means in the long run, but I find myself sharing the opinion of the majority. SA

Voting? Don''t people know adult volunteers have no votes in scouting? Crewmomma, your institutional head (IH) of the chartering organization essentially owns the Troop. He/She can arbitrarily tell the unit I want this person to be able to camp with the unit. And so it shall be. Unless of course their gay, but that issue has been beaten to death 10 fold in other threads. The downside is they can also arbitrarily say I don''t want this person to be associated with the unit. And so it is. But there is no voting. Voting is for democracies and scouting is not a democracy. N

I''ll admit my preference would be to have qualified men provide male role models for scouts. Having said that, women should be able to hold any office and serve in any capacity for which they are qualified. Those units that arbitrarily limit certain positions by gender, are most likely not making the best available leadership to their youth members. In fact I would argue to prepare today''s male youth to be better citizens, they had better be prepared to deal with women in authority. Given the current male to female ratio in our colleges and universities most are likely have a female

"But coming back to performance as an executive in a major emergency, would you agree that Jeb Bush''''s record is pretty good? " But does he know anything about horses? Who''s campaign has he worked for? Who has he endorsed? How many votes can he bring in? Realistically these are the primary consideration of job "qualifications" for most political appointees for either party. Well, except for knowledge of horses, that may only apply to the current administration. SA

I don''t mean to hijack this but is something that has caused me to give pause, whatever that really means. Has anyone else noticed the security forces of Myanmar wear neckerchiefs? Is there any other modern military or law enforcement group that wears them? SA

Gern, If your suggestion was made law, how long do you think it would take for Hillary to file for divorce? SA(This message has been edited by scoutingagain)

Pack has a good suggestion. An Urban Hike in NYC. You can cover a lot of ground and see alot of stuff in NYC in 20 miles. "The Bronx is up and the Battery''s down." One local troop here hiked a 20 mile stretch along the beach in Cape Code National Seashore. We had two scouts in the unit I serve spend a whole Saturday walking around our local town to get their 20 miler in. The planned the hike, route etc. and documented the hike with a camera. We are also a beach community and they were able to get 8 - 10 miles of their hike in along the beach. Finally, in your area you may

Hey, I give Gov. Richardson credit for at least actually answering the question. As noted earlier I bet you couldn''t get an answer from any of the other Democratic Candidates. As for pandering to a particular constituency, well it would be hard to top our ex-gov Mr. Romney in the pandering dept. SA

We live on the east coast and the council runs a contingent to Philmont every summer. Cost is around $1800 but, I can''t tell you what it includes. Having been there as a youth I can say a trip to Philmont is a life changing experience. It truly is priceless. Having said that, I''ve been associated with the Troop I serve for six years now and not one scout has participated in the council contingent to Philmont. We live in a middle class town south of Boston, a basic 3-4 bedroom home will go for $400-$500K. Famlies that can afford to live here find the $1800 a little rich for a scouti

"All leadership positions are open to both genders anyway, so I don''''t know how it would matter from a policy perspective. " While this statement is true, all adult leaders serve at the pleasure of their CO and the BSA. Either can reject an adult leader''s application for just about any reason they want. They don''t even have to provide an explanation. Now I know of BSA national policy or position on this issue, so I could imagine that a known or declared transgendered person being accepted by some COs and councils and rejected by others. I would not be suprised though to have N

"It sure is comforting to know that we can skip the paperwork, execute unsafe activities, thumb our noses at BSA, and still be "covered". With all due respect Fred, I think that is exactly what Beaver is saying. It means as a volunteer, you don''t have to be paranoid about all the paper work and get an ulcer if you didn''t file the correct permit if your acting in good faith. That''s not the same as saying lets just do it and the heck with safety planning. It means that as a volunteer you can spend your efforts worrying about conducting a safe outing, and not worry about if all your B

Pack, I will agree with your observations completely with one exception that I will get to. In my position a tend to work with a fair number of young professionals, mostly engineers and scientists. The ratio is about 50/50 with respect to gender and Pack's observations about women in college also tend to carry over into their professional lives. Except, if I need a decision. Someone who can make a call based on limited information, now, I mean right now, without time to research the thing to death. More often than not, it's one of those young males, who have spent countless hour

"then a bit of embarrassed apology to everyone goes a long way toward prevention, eh?" That and receiving a bill for un-necessary search and rescue effort that was undertaken by local agencies on the order of $10K - $20K would do it for most. Or imagine riding home with your scout only to hear on the radio an "Amber Alert" had been called out on a boy scout abducted from the local boy scout camp named.... described as...! As for leaving early, I agree with OGE. There may be times it is necessary, but I would let it known before hand anyone leaving early needs to notify the ac

From Cincinnati you are within a days drive of the Blue Ridge Mountains Scout Reservation operated by the Blue Ridge Mountains Council. See http://www.bsa-brmc.org/high.htm I'm told it's the largest council owned reservation in the county 16,000+ acres. They conduct several high adventure activites at the reservation. Several years ago we did the High Knoll backpacking adventure. A 5 day backpacking trip with activities at each campsite. It's not Philmont, but it is much more accessible and affordable and our guys had a great time. There are also canoeing/river treks available

As noted above, we have dual signature authority on our unit's checking account, but that basically means two individuals can write checks from the same account, the SM and the Treasurer. What's more important is that they both have access to the account statements. That way they can both monitor account activity. If there were a series of say unusual payments or transactions both would know about it and one person could not use the checking account without the knowledge of the other. This transparency keeps the potential for impropiety or more importantly, perceived impropriety, way down.

I am the advancement chair for the unit I serve and periodically will check my record against those of the council. Whenever there has been a descrepancy, I have simply resubmitted a troopmaster report with the dates of awards of badges, and the council has accepted that documentation and updated their records. I have never had to chase down scouts for blue cards. If the scout has a MB award card, (not the blue card, but the card that is issued to the scout with the badge) that should be sufficient documentation as well. I tell my scouts to hang onto to those cards, because if there