T2Eagle

Can't follow your post TAHAWK. Codes of military justice aren't really applicable to anything here, and the bit about appropriate isn't in the section you cited.

Sorry TAHAWK, but you're getting everyone wound up here for nothing. The "mens rea" of theft requires that the deprivation of the property be intended to be permanent or near permanent. From the same Ohio Code: Chapter 2913: THEFT AND FRAUD 2913.01 Theft and fraud general definitions. As used in this chapter, unless the context requires that a term be given a different meaning: (C) "Deprive" means to do any of the following: (1) Withhold property of another permanently, or for a period that appropriates a substantial portion of its value or use, or with purpose to restore it only upon payment of a reward or other consideration; If you see a kid snapping pictures in a bath house take the phone. If you want to have a rule that says no phones (bad rule IMO) and you want to take the phone until you get home, don't worry, the local gendarmes will not be knocking on your door.

Our troop went through several iterations of views on electronics, from absolutely none, to OK to use them in a car on the ride there, to our current policy that phones are a tool, and like all tools need to be used correctly. As with most things, it was the adults who had the hardest time adjusting to the evolution of this practice. There is no one right way to experience the outdoors, and there is certainly no one way to prevent or treat homesickness. I've had kids for whom having contact was a good thing, and some for whom the contact didn't help. Most often setting limits and expectations seems to provide the most consistent results: call home once or twice a day, maybe after dinner, maybe last thing before bed. But there is no one size fits all, the most important thing is communication between the leader and the parent to work together to help the scout manage his distress. I feel strongly that our troop, our leaders, and our scouts are in a better position to decide this than some blanket decision by a camp director or council Camping Committee. One example I use to illustrate for other scouters why our troop has the practice that we do comes from a Philmont trip a couple years ago. A handful of scouts and two adults from our troop were set to go to Philmont as part of our council contingent. The trek leader was going to be a scouter from another troop who pretty much makes the trip every year. During the shakeout phase he told the scouts that they absolutely would not be allowed to have phones with them on the trek. They would need to get cameras for pictures, wouldn't be allowed to contact anyone outside the trek, etc. Why? Because that's just the way you should do Philmont. I know this scouter, and for all his virtues, he does often espouse the view that there is only one right way to do things. By the time the actual trip came my troop's scouts were part of a different crew led by one of our adults and fleshed out by a couple of scouts and an adult from a third troop. During the trek, soon after summitting Baldy, my scouts managed to find just enough of a signal to text me a photo of them from the top and a long heartfelt thanks for having been instrumental in preparing them for the great adventure they were on. It brought tears to my eyes when I received it, and I since have printed and framed both the note and the picture. Any argument that their doing that was somehow wrong, given the pleasure it brought both me and them, seems totally absurd to me.

What's most needed I think is a lot more transparency about finances from both councils and national. There may have been a time when corporate and community donations funded a good part of the council costs, but I suspect that for many if not most councils those days are past. Absent donations what other revenues does a council have? There's whatever they charge for summer camp, which for most councils is probably going to be a break even operation at best, if they're lucky summer camp will fund the camp for the whole year. After that there's maybe a meager profit from a scout shop plus some tack on fees for activities like camporees, training sessions, etc. But all of that together would barely keep the lights on let alone par for staff to do recruiting, unit service, organizational work et al. If I understand the article correctly, the change that's being made in that council is that each unit has to come up with $125 per scout but will now keep all of their popcorn profits. Since popcorn revenue is generally 1/3 to the company and 2/3 profit that would mean that if you want to fund this simply through popcorn each scout would need to sell about $187 in popcorn each year. I suspect the SE is correct that this will be a problem for the 20% of units that don't currently participate in council fundraising, but most other units will be OK. I don't know that this is the best way to handle this, but I've always thought that most councils not charging a per scout fee that stayed in house was probably short sighted, and it's the shock of this transition that is going to be the biggest problem. There's no such thing as a free lunch, and the money has to come from somewhere. One thing not clear here is whether FOS funds raised in the units will also count towards the $125 fee.

There's never an exact number of patches produced. Email or call the headquarters in Irving TX, somebody will be able to scare one up for you.

If you have a goal to have x number of eagles or if you measure your success by the number or percentage of scouts who make eagle, then you're probably an "eagle mill" that's overly focused on rank. The troop in the article sounds pretty unique. The troop members appear to be all or almost all from the same private K-12 school and their activities seem to be an integral part of their curriculum. That provides a level of support, continuity, and homogeneity that probably couldn't be duplicated anywhere else.

Treatises have been written about why litigation costs are high. These days litigation costs are going to be high for everyone. It is a truism that Defendants want to pay later and Plaintiffs want to get paid sooner. To the extent that a prolonging litigation is going to benefit anyone it would be employed by someone defending against a lawsuit not by someone seeking to collect for negligence.

Often, when people use the word liability, they're not really understanding the word itself. Here's a definition from a law dictionary: Liabiity--The state of being bound or obliged in law or justice to do, pay, or make good something; legal responsibility. This isn't a complete definition, but it's a good start. What I think you're asking about is risk. What risk am I taking on by being a scout leader? More specifically what financial risk am I taking on by being a scout leader? The answer is actually probably not much, but it's worth walking through it. Let's look at a hypothetical situation where a scout in your care gets hurt. The main question that will arise is whether you were negligent, that is, did you exercise the same care that a reasonable and prudent person in the same circumstances would have done. Let's be honest, we have all failed this test, but the vast majority of the time it doesn't matter because nothing bad happens as a result. But let's say this time it did. You're going to be sued, it's going to be astoundingly annoying and exasperating, and time consuming. But the good news is that in the end it probably won't cost you more than that because the BSA actually provides good insurance coverage protecting you against your own negligence. I've never been able to get a definitive figure, but the coverage is in the millions and is going to cover almost anything you can think of, and it includes all the legal costs of defending you. As Qwasze mentioned, many volunteers carry their own insurance policy in addition to whatever BSA provides. I do this in the form of a million dollar "umbrella" policy, the cost is relatively low and the peace of mind is high. As with most things, driving a car poses a much greater financial risk than any scouting activity ever will. The worst thing that's going to happen to you if a kid gets hurt is that you're going to feel absolutely terrible that that scout got hurt. Only you can decide if the joy of helping young people build good lives is worth the risk that one of them may be hurt or worse while in your care.

From that website: "Please use caution and carry a map. Those planning to hike the longer trails should carry at least two to three quarts of water per person and wear proper footwear. Please remember that summer temperatures often exceed 100° F" It's a terrible tragedy, but a reminder to everyone, if you're out of water you turn around, and you should have turned around sooner.

Maybe it's because I don't recognize the initials/acronyms you used, but I'm puzzled by why a church would a) have families attending who don't believe in God, and b) have a problem with intransigence towards atheists.

I think it matters a lot how the activity or time is being billed. If a camp has Catholic Mass and I attend than I expect Catholicism. If a camp says there's going to be a protestant service than I expect some version of Protestantism and y'all can fight about what that means. The trouble comes when something is billed as nonsectarian or non denominational and it is not. Our summer camp has a Sunday night vespers that is supposed to be non denominational, but they've had the same preacher doing it for years and it is distinctly protetstant/Christian. I've spoken up about it without any change occurring. I stopped going and told my scouts they can go if they want. No scout should be compelled to, even by insinuation, attend a service that their parents wouldn't want them to attend.

We used to have gray t-shirts. A few years ago the PLC switched designs and also chose safety orange. I understand the LNT idea, but we don't have any real wilderness around here where that would really be a consideration.

Although being an outdoor focused program is an advantage BSA has over GSUSA for girls interested in the outdoors, I think the real advantage BSA has that you're exploiting is structural. It's always seemed to me that GSUSA' s failure to build institutional knowledge and experience into its units was its real weakness. For most BSA units, hopefully including your linked troop, there is a cadre of leaders who have been with the program past the time when their own sons, and soon daughters, have aged out, and that experience is passed on and used by new leaders coming up. No leader coming up with their kids through the Cub program thinks they need to be THE person who understands how to take their troop into the outdoors a couple weeks after crossover. GSUSA's unit structure, at least as I've seen it from the outside, just doesn't provide anything like this. And this would matter whether you wanted to have an outdoors focused program or any other program focus..

Out of curiosity, you say in BSA we wear a uniform for a reason, what is the reason you would give for that? It's surely not because the uniform is a superior way to dress for outdoor activities. The uniform can be appropriate attire, but it can also be incorrect depending on the activity and the uni. In our troop we preach no cotton on winter outings, but there are certainly cotton uniforms, even the poly ones are good but not superior to other clothing. I still believe in the uniform, but just to push back a little, did your players wear their baseball uniform every time they met as a team? For practice, for banquets? And why did they have uniforms? In sports it distinguishes between opposing teams, but in scouts we don't have an opposing team and the better we're doing scouting the better chance there's nobody around but us. Our troop does a lot in uniforms, but we never send a scout home because he doesn't have one.

Our troop is planning on starting an Ad Altare Dei program, the BSA religious award for Roman Catholic scouts, for interested scouts in our troop and a couple other local troops. The materials say the program could take 6-8 months but it doesn't seem at irst brush that it should take that long to compete. Has anyone run this program or seen it run recently? How long did it take? How often did you meet? Any starting tips you'd like to pass along?

I don't know about satin hats or bonnets, whatever the heck that means. But I've looked pretty rough when dropping my kids off at school, and once or twice when I noticed they left something important on the back seat, say lunch or some paper that needed to be turned in that morning I turned around and took it into school --- I didn't care that I hadn't showered, shaved, dressed for work yet, etc. Of course I wasn't the only one. One cold morning on the way to school I noticed a car on the side of the road on an otherwise deserted stretch. On the way back about a mile further along I saw a gentleman dressed in cartoon print pajama bottoms, a hoody, and a pair of crocs. I pulled over and said "I bet you need a ride somewhere." Yup, his car died on the way home from dropping his own kids off.

I second Fred that for you and the Troop focus on having a good program and advancement will flow for anyone who wants it. If I was counseling these scouts, and this advice is for scouts who are 16,17, 18 and would not be the advice I would give to younger scouts, I would tell them the requirements for Eagle can be broken down to three categories: outdoor skills, leadership and service to your fellow scouts, merit badges. A good deal of this is going to be about their time management. They need to set themselves some interim goal points --- 1stClass AND five or six mbs in four months. I would emphasize to them to read through all the requirements and all the mb requirements, both right away and several more times in the future, the same way you do with a class syllabus. That way you know when an activity is part of competing and requirement and you can be sure to add the extra touches necessary in real time to make sure your getting the whole requirement complete on your first possibility. This is a doable time table for anyone who is this age and motivated. if you look at some of the things that challenge or trip up younger scouts, like Enviro Sci or Communications, those are no more than a good night's or at least a good weekend's homework for a high school senior or college student.. best of luck to them.

Unless things have changed since last year, you can't use electronic enrollment for crossing over Webelos to Scouts, which for our troop is the bulk of our new members. How are you not using paper applications.

It's not, even by their own admission: From Troopleader.org "The Scouting program has specific objectives, commonly referred to as the “Aims of Scouting.” They are character development, leadership development, citizenship training, and personal fitness. Leadership development is also one of Scoutings eight methods contributing to both good character and good citizenship."

Any report is only ever a snapshot and therefore does not necessarily tell you anything without more context. Those membership numbers look terrible, but what they really mean might be more obvious if you look at a couple past years. Is this a trend? Is it a steep decline after a steep increase? You need more information to truly understand them.

I think all councils have them, they're provided to CORs and Board members at a minimum. You can probably get a copy if you ask, but it's generally not something you'll find on a website.

I think it's under appropriate attire. It's never OK to be out in public in just your underwear. But I think the skit can still be done . Wear very obvious underwear over top of gym shorts or a bathing suit. Invest 5 bucks in XXXL size tighty whiteys, roll the shorts up to be completely covered by the underwear, and what you have is a costume over appropriate clothing.

here are common examples of adult participants "fit" to participate in a weekend campout, but whose medical information it's necessary for the troop and the adult in charge of the trip to know about: food allergies and allergies to insects and the carrying of an epi-pen, asthma and inhalers, etc. This is certainly private medical information, but if the other adults on the trip don't know about it they can't be prepared to render aid if it's needed. If someone goes into anaphylactic shock there is no time to find and open a sealed envelope with medical information.

Here's the Mayo Clinic directions for helping someone else with an object in the eye. How many folks have actually had a scout flush another person's eye? Make another person drink to demonstrate how to treat dehydration? The latter, maybe, the former is a bad idea. Wash your hands with soap and water. Seat the person in a well-lighted area. Gently examine the eye to find the object. Pull the lower lid down and ask the person to look up. Then hold the upper lid while the person looks down. If the object is floating in the tear film on the surface of the eye, try using a medicine dropper filled with clean, warm water to flush it out. Or tilt the head back and irrigate the surface of the eye with clean water from a drinking glass or a gentle stream of tap water. The difference in these two requirements isn't the verb it's the nature of the different illness or injury and understanding their severity and urgency. Specifically describe what you think "show" treatment for shock would be compared to "demonstrate" treatment for shock.

6a. Demonstrate first aid for the following: Object in the eye Bite of a warm-blooded animal Puncture wounds from a splinter, nail, and fishhook Serious burns (partial thickness, or second-degree) Heat exhaustion Shock Heatstroke, dehydration, hypothermia, and hyperventilation 6b. Show what to do for “hurry” cases of stopped breathing, stroke, severe bleeding, and ingested poisoning. These are the First Aid requirements for Second Class, for the life of me I cannot think of any reason you couldn't substitute Demonstrate for Show, and vice versa, and end up with any different actions for completing it. The difference in verbiage is probably not purposeful and is most likely a reflection of different committees making slight variations in requirements, iteration after iteration. What does your scouter friend think is the difference?