shortridge

In the other thread, you said your lodge is about 50-50 adult/youth. That means you have about 30 youth. That's not a lodge, it's a low-functioning chapter. Forget event patches and display cases. Seriously, forget them. You're a year or two away from dying. PROGRAM and SERVICE should be your watchwords. Focus on a few high-profile big-impact events - a giant inductions/conversion/fellowship/service weekend rather than separate shindigs. Work with the ranger on one or two lasting projects that will be immediately noticed and welcomed by troops this summer at camp. Get your most outgoing youth in charge of elections. Make it clear this is a new day for the lodge, or else you're not going to be around much longer.

I've seen this lots and lots with smaller Cubs. Some are just too small to handle it, and end up waving the barrel around accidentally and making the range master very twitchy. They should have some support there to help out kids in his situation already, as it's fairly common.

Johnponz - I was being sarcastic. This idea is awful. I was trying to articulate a likely reason these folks would use to justify their idiotic idea. Amangi - Again, all the hypotheticals you raise can and should be handled and headed by a youth leader. Adults with nothing to do? The service vice-chief should have a standing list of camp projects he can toss them. Adults aren't handy types? The lodge secretary can direct them to process spare paperwork. Talented with arts and crafts? The ceremonies chairman can enlist them to teach a session on beadwork to his team. All problems solved by the empowerment of youth leaders, not setting up a parallel power structure of adults. If the lodge adviser doesn't appoint you as a formal adviser to a youth, you should still be advising by example - picking up a broom and sweeping the dining hall, adopting a trail to clear, gathering firewood for future campers, cleaning out the rain gutters on the summer staff lodge, mucking out some latrines, repairing a fence, patching the roof of the rifle range shelter, clearing a stopped-up sink at the swimming pool, taking inventory in the trading post, making a new knot board for the first-year camper program, drilling in screws for a replacement buddy board at the waterfront, nailing together some stools for Basketry frames, painting the outside of the nature lodge, routering new directional markers for camp signposts, digging a hole for posts for a new camp gate, taking measurements, bearings and readings on the trail for an updated camp map, offering professional advice on budgeting to the lodge treasurer ... All projects directed or guided by a youth. No one should go to a weekend not knowing what their job is, even if that job is general unskilled labor. I'm left wondering if this committee idea is coming about because these adults you speak of are district and council board members who can't function if they're not on a committee. The OA doesn't work that way. There is just as much honor and significance - more, even - associated with being a cheerfully grimy sweaty anonymous Arrowman as there is being a chief or a chairman.

Oak Tree - Sure, that'd be great, but there's a system for doing that already - go see the youth in charge of a given area. It doesn't sound like the adults in this case are doing extra work, but just the normal things Arrowmen should be doing already. They just want to organize themselves rather than be told what to do by some kid who'll just screw it up and then quit or graduate.

Anyone else who supports the ban on those yucky gays who'd like to explain why a particular brand of conservative Christianity should dictate national policy in an officially non-sectarian organization? Not from a membership POV, not from a financial POV, but from a Scout Law POV. You remember the whole Reverent part, right? Why does your moral code outweigh my moral code? Anyone? Anyone? Yes, I'm being a bit obnoxious. But it should be clear to reasonable people that this policy is indefensible on all but religious grounds. And since we are all brothers under the gaze of the Great Scoutmaster, no one religion should dictate policy. So a local option is the only Scoutlike path forward.(This message has been edited by Shortridge)

No, it wasn't a rhetorical question. Seriously. We're Scouters, supposed to respect other faiths. Yet you believe that your moral code should take precedence over mine. I would like to hear the justification. Which is more important - hating the yucky gays or showing tolerance to other religions? Irving and Salt Lake City say it's the yucky gays. (I know that's not your terminology, but that's what all this talk about immorality and repentance and sin is all about, really.)

My apologies - I misread it. Cubs can use hand saws. Just not wheelbarrows.

They were elangomats and NIMATS, not inmates. Stupid autocorrect.

They were elangomats and NIMATS, not inmates. Stupid autocorrect.

Appointing advisers for events and committees is the job of the Lodge Adviser. If they want to help with a specific job, they volunteer to the youth in charge of that job. It's really pretty simple. No adult committee needed. In my youth lodge, adults helped out with service projects like clearing trails and setting fences - no trade skills required (those adult with those skills worked on specific projects). They were elangomats and inmate. They hauled gear, drove trucks, set up ceremony sites, cooked food and processed registration paperwork, all alongside and generally under the direction of youth. Not sure why these board members need a committee to do that.(This message has been edited by Shortridge)

DLChris, You focused on the "yucky" part without answering the actual question. Why does your moral code take precedence over mine within Scouting? --------- As to the point over publicity - if the policy changes, it will be front-page news across the country, if it happens in this decade.

What a horrible idea.

Let's put together a comprehensive list of all activities BSA has restricted or banned with this list: Cubs working on Pinewood Derby cars with saws of any sort. Cubs will encounter difficulty on Wolf Ach. 5e, Bear Ach. 20 and Webelos Craftsman (which requires saw use). Cubs and younger Scouts will be unable to use a 2-wheeled cart at summer camp to haul gear and food to their campsites. CITs at summer camp will be unable to cut the grass or blow away leaves from around the pool, rifle range, etc. (They're under 16.) Young OA members will be unable to dig holes for fences at summer camp. Cub Chariot Races will be prohibited - after all, what are they except wheeled carts?

Scouts of any age can climb on a pioneering tower 5 feet off the ground, but only adults can work on a platform 4 feet off the ground. This must make sense to someone. Appreciate the person on FB who noted that Cubs now can't use hand saws. Insane.

I feel sorry for Bryan. Irving seems to have shoved him out there without any real backup. He's trying to defend a policy he had no input into.

Is that like saying "If Alabama ever changes its segregation laws, I would hate for blacks and civil rights activists to be the cause of it"?

Your problem is not that your moral code is inferior or the BSA's is superior. It is that you wish to participate in BSA activities and want the BSA to change it's moral code to suit your own moral code. ------------------------- DLChris, you utterly misunderstand my point. The BSA, a non-sectarian organization, is using a specific moral code to define a key principle of Scouting. It has taken sides, in effect, selecting one faith's moral code over others' and making that principle inviolate, so much so that it has gone to court over it. So yes, BSA - and you - are telling me - and many others - that our moral code *is* inferior, because you are requiring us to violate our principles by enforcing a national policy. Why is my principle of non discrimination less important than your principle of gay people are yucky?

DLChris: My moral code tells me that discriminating against people based upon who they love is immoral and wrong. The BSA tells me that my moral code is not as important as someone else's moral code which holds that we should judge and ban people based upon who they love. Why is my moral code inferior? It comes from the same basic principles as the other guy's.

As in this broader topic, SP, there's a difference between individual members and an institution's leadership. One can criticize the organizational stance while still having compassion for people. Condemning the LDS church hierarchy for its racist past does not mean anyone is tearing down its members.

Why would someone carry a fork in their pocket? I stopped carrying a knife in college. I was covering courts and cops for the campus paper, and there was no taking it into the courthouse. Nor did I carry after college - same deal when entering many government buildings. But I do have one in my glove compartment.

From a parental perspective: "What are you doing?" (called down the hallway) (loooong pause) "Nothin' " .... (followed by me walking down the hallway to discover a giant mess in the bedroom)

"I do not join a club to protest their rules and insist they change....especially when part of the clubs identity is based on the rules it has." Scoutfish: I would normally agree with you on the first part. However, I'm in the situation of having joined in my youth, before I even knew what sex was, let alone sexual orientation. As an older youth, I realized that the policy was wrong, a belief I hold today. Does that mean I can't speak out about how Irving and the churches putting pressure on Irving are behaving in a stupid and ultimately counterproductive manner? I also loudly disagree with your statement that Scouting's identity is based upon the anti-gay rule. There is nothing in the Oath or Law that can, on its face, be interpreted as opposing homosexuality. The closest thing supporters of the ban can point to is the morally straight clause - and yet we don't also give the boot to adulterers, drunks or thieves.

Richard, Why won't you address specifics? Your document certainly does.

I just got caught up with this thread. Holy crap. I am in awe at Irving's ability to make itself a laughingstock of its volunteers. Just ... Wow. Great job. This discussion also unfortunately highlights someone's inability to craft a coherent internal communications strategy. When the BSA's risk guru refuses to answer some simple, point-blank questions, and instead issues bizarre, confusing, elliptical statements, that's a problem. RichardB, I respect your willingness to come here and post, but if you can't stop being defensive and coming across as arrogant, you're doing yourself no good at all.

If your troop has boys who steal other boys' shirts, you have bigger problems than color coordination.