Smithgall

i would have handled it just as you did. if the alternative worked for you then just take the alternative site and go with it. Frustating as it may be. We had a very similar experience. We were doing a kayak trip and at our half way point was a camp with "cabins" (which were really just screened in 10x10 rooms) we had about 13 people with us, kids and adults. When we go to the site there was a troop that had about 50 people camping. They claimed they had the cabins (still not sure who screwed up) and we could use the primitive campsite. problem was we didnt bring any tents as we were kay

i defnitely would not want to wear knee high socks. I know they do serve a function but not only do they look silly (today they do. 25 years ago i wore knee high tube sock, go figure) but they are hot and my legs are hairy so its makes then itch.

Le Voyageur, the organization you mentioned is where we started. One of our parents is retired navy and he was the first one to recognize some thing that were clearly wrong. we all suspected but none of us were in the navy so it was a suspicion. the other parent contacted the orginization and they gave him questions to ask like his swim buddy, class number, etc. It worked just like they said. He claimed classified for all of it and left the room. since then the orginization pulled his record and confirmed his job and rank as not a seal. whats really bad is that he needed no hype. No one cares.

Eagle- we thought the same thing. We assumed the council would be all over it. Since then we have learned that the council is relatively hands off. In some respects i see that they choose to allow the charter to handle it but at the same time, what if your charter doesnt really value what we are doing? Its seems some charters have good intentions but really dont know much about scouts or take to heart what we are all about. When something like a merit badge is forged they may not see it as an insult to all the boys who work hard to actually earn it. its been a learning process thats for sure.

people such as the original poster and some of his more fervant supporters never cease to amaze me. I haver never understood this utter outrage towards gay people. i know so many gay people i could not even count them all. I probabaly no more than that because many people are closeted and would never let on that they were gay. even with such exposure I go to bed everynight with the same woman i started dating when we were 16 and never once think that my marriage or our worls is being threatened by two guys living sharing a life together. you may not like gays and that is your right. in fact i

WOW! thats incredible. I cant imagine anyone making much of a distinction between step and bio parent. I wish i had your problem. i went 6 months as the only father in the troop besides the scoutmaster who was a step father. No other fathers at all. i woudl have welcomes any father, step fathers, older brothers, uncles. Just some other men. Not that i dont like women but it would be nice to see some adults that know what its like to have been a boy. If you are truly interested in the wellbeing of this boy and you and he have a good relationship then to heck with what they think.

we have about 5 troops in our middle school area and one is a "no women" troop. We joke with them that they are the "he man - women haters club". I dont agree with it and think its bit out dated. If this were leave it to beaver and everyone had a mom and dad at home that would be one thing but there are simply too many single moms that have a right to experience scouting with their sons. As for the younger sister. no way. Its a boyscout campout. If its family weekend sure but of not then its only scouts. One of our local SM's makes all attending adults be registered and fully train

i dont think the uniform itself drives kids away. however what it stands for may not appeal to them. I have never known a kid that dropped out of little league or pop warner because of the uniform. They are usually quite proud to wear their jersey because it tells the world they are ball players. Unfortunately the squeaky clean image of the boyscout just doesnt fit what many kids think is cool so they avoid it. That being said, i do think the new looser, longer cargo style shorts is more appealing to the kids that are in today.

we lawys do. The boys typically dont complain. I have been to truck stops an the like when i have traveled and run across a bunch of boyscouts. There is something neat about seeing boyscouts in their uniform. Assuming they are acting like scouts its a great way to show the world that we are proud to be scouts. When we get where we are going the shirts normally come off and the class b's are what we wear all weekend. thats not bad either because if you had a particularly grubby camp that weekend you can throw on the class A that was hanging up nice and clean.

I like the new one especially the new material. We live in florida where we joke that we have two seasons, summer and february. the heat and humidity makes the new material ideal. it also dries very quickly. I do however that the material doesnt look as neat. you can pull it out of the dryer, throw it on and within 5 minutes it looks like you have been wearing all weekend. its a more rugged look than the old one. I also like the muted color scheme and the baseball hat. however i do know that nearly every woman i have spoken to hates the chest pockets. My only realy complaint is the fit o

have been a mortgage broker for the past many years but thinking its time for a change. Is it too late to be a rock star?

I ran across the site for patchtown.com and they have all sorts of fun patrol patches. they state that they are not official patches. are there "official" patrol patches or can we use some of these fun ones. I think we have about 12 boys on the roster but really only 5 show up on any regular basis and they are all between 11-13. Thought these young guys might like to consider some of these fun patrol names and patches but didnt want to present it if its not allowed. cant find anything in the handbook on this one way or another

ScoutNut. thank you for finally stating what i have been asking all along "Trust that if a person was denied membership for any extremely serious reason, your CO would have also taken steps to restrict this person's contact with their youth. If you have any questions about that, once again, CONTACT YOUR CO." This is exactly what i have been asking. If the problem is serious would we be notified. Short of notification having the persons contact be limited is a fine solution. that is all i have ever asked. I will assume because of the nature of your responses that you are a long time s

i have always wondered where the sheath knife got such a bad rap. I really dont know the safety difference between a 3 inch lock blade and a 3 inch fixed blade. When being used its just as safe or dangerous as the user handling it. The only thing i can see is that its some holdover from boys trying to bring rambo knives so the sheath knife got labeled as bad and not the length as it should have been. although you could argue that a long fixed blade is still not dangerous in and of itself as for the banning of the any knives dont be suprised if that does come up some day. We live in a soci

Scoutnut. im have reread your post a few times as i do not want to make the mistake you seem to have made and jump to conclusions that are not supported by what was written. you ask why i am trying to set policy since i am relatively new (1.5 years as an ASM. Exactly how many years does one need to put in before their opinion is warranted. How many years do i need to be involved before i am allowed to pose a hypothetical question? thats kind of asinine logic isnt it? If you do in fact beleive that i should have more years experience before i should be allowed to ask questions then how far do y

It is reasonable to have background checks done on campout parents. As i state it would not have uncovered the parent with no arrests in his background but it will either disuade someone with a background issue or bring an issue to light. Think of it this way. If you dont do a background check on a campout parent you are then in the weird position of making the comitee secretary a more thoroughly investigated position that that of a person going along with the boys. Does that make sense? Again until this issue with the molested boy came up I never really thought about it and then when we had t

I wonder the same thing. i knwo some other people have said its too much but really most law enforcement info is oublic knowledge anyway. If you have been arested it will show up if you know where to look. the cops have all that data in a nice easy to use database and they also have the info you dont know. Like if the cops were called to your house but you were not arrested. Its a fine line for two resons. one the cop really isnt supposed to to tell you this info so you run a problem for the cop. however at the same time the facts are the facts. In my case some people have said you "snoop" int

Hal - you are right that I may not have all the facts. i didnt find the information to begin with so you are right there may be more i dont know. I guess to be more accurate i coudl say she was denied AND she has domestic violence issue. I cant say that the denial was directly related because council does not tell you these things. But my question comes from this lack of information. If someone is denied a leadership/comittee role due to a background check is there a responsibility on the part of council to caution parents. After all its not like they are denied for bad credit.

That is funny. I can see where it is a gateway to the outdoors but come on. We started out in weblos with the big taj mahal tent and the i quickly got tired of the weight and the setup. Now my wife and i sleep in the two man tent and my son has a one man. I guess its different strokes for different folks. But when our Scoutmaster and his Comitee chair wife show up with their taj mahal with seperate screened in patio area and portable toilet that she keeps in the tent (YUCK!!!) i can help but laugh. My brother is the same way when he goes "camping" with his 5th wheel trailer parked in an asphal

Mostly the boys call all the adults Mr or Mrs XXXX. We also have the uniquely southern tradition of calling women by their first name with miss in front such as Miss Jenny... i never understood why we do that since i am a yankee transplant but if you are from the south its as natural as grits and cornbread

I am late reading this but i will be sending the link to my 12 year old son. As an ASM this is my worst nightmare. As a unrelated party i see it as a terrible accident that was tragic but not criminal. This one of those situations where its avoidable only if you can count on every boy to do the right thing at all times. it goes to show we should always be safety minded and never take for granted that an older boy knows better and only the younger boys need safety talks.

This question came up and i am really curious about the answer. We have a parent that was denied being a comitee member due to her background check. Because many records are public it was discovered that there had been some domestic violance issues between she and her husband. My question is since this information is not disclosed (by council) is it ever appropriate to let parents know? Im really torn because it doesnt make sense to pulicize this womans dirty laundry but at the same time if we dont know there is an issue then we run the risk of sending boys over to a parents house that m

ScoutLDR- you are right. the mission may be classified but not the fact that they belong to the seals. Whats funny is that his brother actually accidently outed him but we didnt realize. At camp last year some boys mentioned that the scoutmaster was a seal and his brother (who was attending the trip) told the boys that the scoutmaster wasnt a seal and that he fuled jets. At the time we hadnt really come to the conclusion he was lying yet so we just thought the brother was ribbing the scoutmaster. now of course we look back and realize that he was actually telling the truth and just thought the

I wanted to give an example of why scouts works and the value there is to be gained. We joined scouts as weblos and have now been in boyscouts since march of last year. Our troop is not a hiking/backpacking troop but after having spoken to other troop leaders that are into that, i have been working on my son to slim down his gear and focus on the weight and utility of what we bring to a campout. He got to the point where he brought a back pack that held all he needed and could pack and go in 15 minutes or so while other boys were litterally bringing 2-3 bags and one even brings a queen s

our troop struggled with this and quite frankly im not sure what the good answer is. There were a few boys that had similar problems and the troop paid for their summer camp. In actuality it was a few parents that donated the money anonymously. The issue that came up is you have some parents that cant afford it and other parents that just dont care so dont pay and would just let the kid not go to summer camp or anything else. How do you know the difference? The one kid that we paid for was sent to summer camp without even $10 for spending money. how can you not find $10 bucks in the year betwe