SeattlePioneer

Thirty years ago when I was Scoutmaster, I asked a parent/attorney to review our Troop permission slip. She basically said that it gave permission by parents but placed all the liability for anything that went wrong on leaders, the Troop, CFhartered Organization, Council and BSA. She wrote up a permission slips that warned parents that the activity --- any activity, could lead to death or injury and that in exchange for taking the youth along on the activity, the parents and the child and family agreed to hold the leaders, Troop, Chartered Organization, Council and BSA harmless for any injuries, illness or death that might occur. We never had occasion to test such a release because of an injury, but no parent ever refused to sign the permission slip because of the language in it that I'm aware of. Should we have permission slips designed to protect BSA and Chartered Organizations like this, or should BSA and Chartered organizations accept liability when Bad things happen?

Why would you be surprised if Scouts and Scouters expected to have their values informed by religion?

I'm reminded of liberals who suggested that making divorce easier was no threat to the family --- it would just make it easier to end failed marriages. Of course they were wrong. Liberalized divorce laws have brought on a plague of divorce which has devastated families and profoundly changed society. Legitimizing homosexuality is already imposing further burdens of society, and no doubt that will get worse. The weaknesses of homosexual "families" will result in continued further demands for subsidies and special policies to try to make the unequal equal. Fathers will continue to be ever more marginalized, and in Cub Scouts there will be less and less male influence as multiple mother households increasingly predominate --- something that single mother households has already made bad enough. Boy Scouts will see ever fewer men available to provide leadership as multiple mother households fail to find even one mother interested in doing fifty milers and other high adventure activities. Hard to say the long term impact of multiple mother households. Certainly the unanticipated effects of greatly expanded single mother families have been profound for society.

The main purposes of this: 1) Sell more newspapers (not many people are buying them these days) 2) Help plaintiff's lawyers find new clients. Frankly, I don't think raking up incidents that occurred 25 years ago or more serves much in the way of public purposes.

> I doubt very much if Is changed into Es. But I think Scouting helps Is adapt to and understand an E dominated environment, and be able to deal with it better. That doesn't change an I to an E though. Seattle Pioneer

I think you are likely to find yourself out of the program if you acknowledge being a homosexual as a Boy Scout, and especially if you are going for Eagle.

I am a very introverted person. Probably an Asperger's kid had such a diagnosis even existed in decades ago. Scouting teaches that leadership is a collection of learned behaviors, and anyone who learns those behaviors can be a competent leader. I'm about as big a ham bone as you get as a Cubmaster, but as others note I need time by myself as well.

Hello acco, I believe the $1.00 fee is for a transfer between units. I don't believe there is a charge to file a application to change positions within you current unit. Also, no charge to add a position. So you can add a position with your district at no charge if you are currently registered with a unit.

I tend to disagree about "free time." Boys are perfectly capable of making their own entertainment, which usually involves low quality "play" like fighting and mischief of one kind or another. My bias is to keep boys busy with program. Boys busy with quality program only infrequently have behavior issues in my experience.

Looks like a great program to me. Have you cooked foil dinners before? They are rather tricky to do properly. Inexperience tends to produce burned or raw dinners. Have you practiced methods for folding your foil pouch? If you have time, I'd practice making a couple of foil dinners at home to gain some experience. My personal bias is to avoid foil dinners in favor of other simple meals with which Webelos are likely to have more success. Tacos, baking potatoes in foil and then adding toppings or spaghetti and meat sauce or sauce and frozen prepared meat balls are good choices. But taking Webelos Scouts camping is one of the MOST IMPORTANT things you can do! It's the core of a great program and I'll suggest that you can't help but be a winner with the program you describe.

> As acco suggested, this is the usual issue with paying attention in my experience. Boys who are interested and engaged with the program will be paying attention to the program. Those who are bored will be making up their own entertainment. You may have program that older Scouts find engaging but not for younger Scouts. Probably the most universal of enlightening experiences is when a Scout first becomes a Patrol Leader. After taking orders from Patrol Leaders they naturally suppose that their leadership will be respected. Usually they have experiences such as what you are suffering through, and need to learn other ways of leading other than giving orders and expecting them to be followed. Frustrating, isn't it? I'd talk to your Scoutmaster about this issue since you haven't gotten any help from your SPL.

That looks like a fun idea. I would really like to read the cards before they were mailed out --- I suppose that would be a no go. Good idea though ---one I never thought of when I was going to camp as a SM or adult leader. I wonder how many parents are anxious to get a card, and how many are happy to get none?

Lots of people WANT to use government to control social institutions. In New York, Bloomberg wants government to supervise how large of a soda you can buy. In Seattle, liberal leaders want to control whether you can get a plastic bag to take your groceries home (no, you can't). Those who don't favor government power in controlling and defining marriage should oppose gay marriage, because right now government doesn't control that. But of course, liberals DO want to control that. They want homosexuals to join the exclusive club of those permitted legal marriage. Amusingly enough, in Washington State homosexuals aren't legally permitted to marry, but they do need to go through legal divorce proceedings when they split up. The courts decided they could impose that on their own initiative a few years ago. Try asking liberal white women if they'd like to get government out of the business of deciding how MANY people someone can marry at on time. You will usually discover that they are anxious to keep government in the business of regulating how many people are allowed to love each other and be married at the same time. While liberals like to talk expansively about a RIGHT to marry, bring up polygamy and they will usually offer up excuses to continue to prohibit that.

Our pack did a pack overnight camp June 2-3, will be hiking in a 4th of July parade and participating in the July Cub Scout Day Camp. In August we are planning a bicycle outing. Very likely this will be on a bicycle trail and dens will decide how far they will go before turning back for a hot dog roast. The Webelos den will probably make it to a light house that offers tours.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court got too big for it's britches a long time ago. It has turned our republic into an aristocracy of unelected judges who think they are entitled to decide for every person and institution what their rights and privileges are. What they do all too often is make political decisions and dress them up in legalistic language. But the real bottom line is that they make laws based on a simple 5-4 majority. That's a weakness of the framers of the constitution, who made the judiciary too independent. It's too bad that the Supreme Court, which claims to be the protector of the constitution, has done more than anything else to corrupt that much abused document.

I use Quicken. I set up an asset account for each person with a Scout Account and transfer a negative balance into it since it represents a liability for the pack. I use Popcorn Account I, Popcorn Account II and so on as the account name to keep them together on reports, and use the account description to record the name of the account owner. I'm emphasizing ease of paying for activities as a reason to sell popcorn. I write out receipts for any charge against a popcorn account and then record the payment for the activity and the charge against the popcorn account. So a list of charges is maintained. (This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

If there were a right to marry, you could marry as many people as you wished of whatever age, define the terms of the marriage and how to dissolve it. Marry anyone you chose regardless of their relationship to you --- cousin, brother, parent or whatever. You can't, because marriage isn't a right. And of course homosexuals can't marry either in most states. Even where homosexuals have won a legal right to marry, that hasn't created a generalized right to marry. It has merely meant that homosexuals have joined the small and exclusive club of privileged social relationships eligible for legal marriage. Even most liberals don't want a generalized right to marry. They want to control who is eligible to marry just like conservatives, but they want homosexuals to join the club. Of course, it's much more satisfying to pontificate about RIGHTS, when what you really want is to join an exclusive club.

> Interesting idea, which I missed seeing here. I'm hearing you say that you offer a second activity as an alternative, something that's probably a lot easier to organize. And I'm guessing that the primary activity probably tends to be more attractive, so you avoid cannibalizing your program by dividing it. Can you give me an example of how many will show up for a main activity and how many for the supplemental hike? Does the Cubmaster typically do that supplemental activity or does that tend to get delegated? May I ask about how many Scouts you have in your pack? Thanks for any additional detail!

> Repeating it doesn't make it so. Every state law decides which very narrow group of human relationships are eligible for legal marriage. How many human relationships have you had in your life? How many of those persons could you have married? Were marriage really a right, you would be able to marry anyone and everyone. Of course, that's not the case. There are only a very few human relationships privileged to be recognized by legal marriage, and homosexuals wish to join that exclusive club.

Perhaps more Scout skills should be like Tote 'Chip. You need to be prepared to use and teach skills upon demand. If you can't a corner of your skills card is cut off. If all four corners go missing, you need to re qualify.

Is there a virtual fire building website? Maybe you could teach fire building without a match by rubbing two virtual sticks together. Boy Scouting could be packaged as a Wii program cartridge? (I'm starting to get into this!) Where is Arthur C Clark when we need a story written about a robotic Scoutmaster?

Oh, dear! Low self esteem! As I said earlier, homosexuals are free to PERSUADE people of their merits as individuals and as a sexual class. Actually, they have made great strides in recent decades doing exactly that. In my opinion, that's the correct and proper method to use and follow. Using government to take away the right of people to hire whom they wish and enroll who they wish in their organizations takes away personal liberty and freedom. > More politics written into law by the Supreme Court. In fact, only a tiny percentage of human relationships are eligible to be recognized as legal marriage. It's an exclusive club to which homosexuals which to join. In my opinion, that's a reasonable political issue and if legislatures and voters wish to extend the privilege of marriage to homosexuals, they are entitled to do so. In Washington State, the legislature recently passed a law authorizing homosexual marriage, which has been referred to voters as a referendum. I will be interested in seeing the result in the November election. If the voters wish to extend the privilege of marriage to Washington State homosexuals, they are certainly entitled to do so. That's what the law making process is for.

I have no idea if the Chief Seattle Council in Seattle is hiring. But it's a well financed and (slowly) growing council. I'd say it would be worth a try.

No different than a Unit Commissioner, really. Of course such a thing could be done well or poorly.

As always, I'm glad to hear from our curly horned African Antelope. He'll be seated 300 feet from the Scoutmaster Specific Training....! We really do need more adventure as part of the program, though. The best experience in Scouting is when a Scout actually NEEDS to use those Scout skills (preferably in an emergency) and discovers 1) he can use them and 2) they WORK!(This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)