T2Eagle

In the years prior to the membership change people who heard me speak enthusiastically about my own and my sons’ involvement in scouting would occasionally ask me how I could be a part of an organization that discriminated in the way BSA did. My response was always that I thought the policy was mistaken and I hoped it would change. I would then add that I have never been a member of any organization, including my own marriage and family, with which I always 100% agreed, and that although this was a policy it had so little to do with what actually happened in scouting that the benefits of b

I went to Pin Settings and still cannot find it. I did have to chose two security questions when I tried to sign in. My guess Bad Wolf is that something is glitchy with that and hence your problem. I have never encountered any set of IT systems as consistently abysmal as BSA's.

I spent 15 years in HR in Fortune 100 companies. Here's my general advice about resumes. A resume is a persuasive piece of writing with a unique form -- not a recitation of your jobs. You have a thesis, this is what most people label as an objective, which is what kind of job you want to be hired for. Everything else on the resume should be a direct supporting argument for that thesis -- why someone should hire you for that job. So the question to ask yourself is does your BSA experience make a direct strong argument for you to be hired for that job. If it does, put it on. The seco

First, Troop Committees can't really officially remove you from the Troop. Troops are actually dictatorships not democracies. Each Troop is sponsored, or Chartered, by a Chartering Organization (CO). The CO has an Institutional Head (IH), for instance a pastor, and then there is a Chartered Organization Rep (COR) who actually is is charge of everything scouts for the CO, sometimes the IH and COR are the same, sometimes not. Only the COR and/or the IH can actually remove a scout from a Troop, that is go to the Council and say "scout A can no longer be a member of our troop." The Troop Commi

This person is probably suffering some type of emotional/psychological deficit. A conversation with her about the substance of what she said will almost certainly not be fruitful. It is possible, but actually probably unlikely, that you could explain to her that it was inappropriate to have said those things in front of the boys. The most important thing is explaining to the boys the absolute untruth of what she claimed to know, and if you're so inclined use it as a teachable moment about what to do when people act so inappropriately and bizarrely.

Same with us, if we're not traveling outside of the Council we do not have to fill out plans.

One thing to be aware of if you have inexperienced canoeists is to not get overly ambitious in how far you can travel in a day. Scouts. or anyone else, who aren't proficient will travel twice the listed distance because they will not keep the boat heading straight and will be back and forth across the water constantly, especially if there is any wind.

In partial answer to the OP's question: in our troop we don't bother giving out service stars. No one has ever really expressed an interest in them.

No, that's not quite right. There will be times after the initial application where a person can and will be asked about a conviction. You can never lie about it. The idea is that current practice on most employment applications is to ask everyone if they have ever been convicted of a crime. The result is that almost anyone who says yes gets tossed in the "no" pile without regard to what the conviction was for, whether it would have any bearing on the job, or what other qualifications a person has. So a person who was one of three people caught "joy riding" in a car when they we

First, there's a rule, I forget the wording, but basically if you're not married you don't sleep in the same tent. I started to think that you should explore why she wants to come along, but I don't think that's a fair initial question. The better question would be: what is the reason each adult is attending? Every adult on the trip should be there because their presence is somehow beneficial to the scouts, even if the benefit is just transportation. If her presence is as justified as someone else's than there shouldn't be an issue. The second question I would ask is what the com

Yes, he should remove his Webelos badge, but regarding the list of things E94A1 gave, first ask the troop what if anything they provide and what their expectations are. Our troop provides the shoulder loops, book, numbers, and troop neckerchief as part of our crossover or bridging ceremony. We don't wear a uniform hat except for the ball cap issued by summer camp, and many of the scout pants have a web belting sewn in.

debbi821, The YPT rules basically breakdown this way: 1) Never be alone with a kid! 2) If the activity is an overnight outing you must have two adults, and there are specific rules about who the adults can be. 3) For non overnight activities, you can have one adult accompanying two or more scouts so long as the situation never puts you in violation of #1. For an easy example of #3 think of a merit badge counseling session. Johnny scout wants to work with Committee Member Jane on a Citizenship badge. Johnny scout contacts CM Jane to meet with her, CM Jane who will be at h

A couple of misunderstandings in your post debbi1821. First, it is simply not true that two adults are required for all activities. From the G2SS. "There are a few instances, such as patrol activities, when the presence of adult leaders is not required and adult leadership may be limited to training and guidance of the patrol leadership. With the proper training, guidance, and approval by the troop leaders, the patrol can conduct day hikes and service projects." BSA insurance is always secondary insurance, that is it covers what your own medical insurance won't cover, including co-pays an

So now I've read both lesson plans. First, it is not the case that the Common Core lessons prohibit using anything they already know --- that's a misreading of the lesson; what it says is to not give pre-reading context within the lesson. This is one unit in a US History course --- the students will have context. Even the NEH lesson plan makes pre-reading context optional and emphasizes a first cold reading of the text. In fact the NEH plan says that the actual text is first used as context for the criticisms that follow. As to Professor Shanahan’s criticism, he asserts that t

E94A1, this seems to me to be at least in part an exercise in close reading of a text. I'm genuinely curious, how well and how quickly do you think your college students could, given just the text, answer the question "What is meant by the phrase 'any nation so conceived and so dedicated'... My own experience is that knowing to refer back to the previous paragraph for the precise definition of those terms would challenge many college freshmen.

Speaking of context, what grade and what subject is this a directive for? What were the previous topics covered, what is the follow up lesson? The directive seems to be: have students read the text itself alone first, it's a tough read to parse out to get it right, but students need to do things that are hard in order to get better. "Some students may be frustrated, but all students need practice in doing their best to stay with something they do not initially understand." As far as being understood and avoiding privileging background knowledge, that means having to read it careful

Individually find out from each non attendee why they weren't able to come. Most of the answers will be found in the five reasons Qwazse listed. Some of them are easier to overcome than others. But honestly, you're doing well, I don't think you'll get much better. When we've tracked down each non attendee for a reason, family and other extra-curricular conflicts reduce our percentages below yours for any given weekend.

I suspect this is a reasonable decision. My issue is the lack of supporting information to go with it. It's almost certainly true that it wasn't just "Oh, look at what the NHTSA says, we should ban these. Likely there is somewhere either a white paper examining all the issues or a communique from an insurer giving a more detailed explanation. But the BSA (like most large organizations) underestimates the abilities of its members to understand real information, and rather than share the full reasons why it does something says trust us we know what's best, but you poor simpletons couldn't re

Digging a little deeper and thinking about this some more, the real problem is not going to be so much the cost as the number of people required to have the check. As I read it every parent going on an outing will now need to have this level of background checks. It's possible that having to have this certification for so many activities, like chaperoning field trips, that just about every parent will have gone through the process and have the certification as a routine matter.

Our COR is a Catholic Church, we have to get fingerprinted and submit them to a state background check, cost $25. There's no requirement that we renew the background check so it's a one time fee rather than every three years. It doesn't seem to really discourage people from volunteering. I doubt this will have any real affect at all on volunteer numbers.

Isn't there a point of diminishing returns on a program like that. Knock out the Eagle required and a few electives in a year or so and then what do you do?

I have seen banks that required resolution-like paperwork to change signatories on a checking account, and I have seen banks that just say here fill out this card. This was for other small non-profits not Scouts. Since these organizations, similar to our committee, worked by consensus not formal votes, we just wrote up a statement saying we did it and submitted it to the bank.

I think you are asking the wrong question. The question isn't really what is the definition of the word "activity" in this sentence. The question could be what does the BSA intend for us to do in these many varied activities, or what should we do so that as a practical matter we have acted responsibly to ensure the safety of our scouts. Let's look at the first question. Ask yourself what the local Council and District do when they hold an event? If it's a campout they almost certainly want a medical form from everyone staying the night, and often they will check these forms as you che

So there's a printed, bound edition available, but not one up on the web? Only BSA could be so technologically challenged that they could get an electronic file to a publisher but not to their own web site.