Tgauchsin_Memsochett

It may have been an ethical question to post their names.

I am not and was not the SM, I am only a 19-year-old alumnus of the troop who was unceremoniously removed. However, my best friend's father was the SM who was removed, and after discussing with them, I am pretty sure that the removal was solely based on the advancement issue.

As for the adult leader, my father was the one who was arrested. The myspace debate could quite possibly have rooted from this, but I still feel that the removal of four leaders was a desperate overreacton

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to get everyone's opinion on a matter. In order to illicit an appropriate response, I feel like I should tell you the whole story from the beginning.

A little over a year ago, our Troop Committee seated a new chairman and a new Chartered Organization Representative (COR). From the beginning, there was always tension between the Committee Chair and the Scoutmaster. This tension eventually culminated to the point where the Committee removed the Scoutmaster on the basis of boys not receiving advancement quickly enough, because they wanted the Scoutmaster to give away rank advancement, regardless of whether or not the boy knew the skills required to advance. They were wanting to turn the troop into an "Eagle factory."

More recently, there emerged on myspace.com a page for all the members of the troop to communicate more effectively. After an argument and a refusal to take down the web page, the following statement was issued:

Ladies/Gentlemen of Troop XXX Committee,

Recent events have illuminated some of the leadership issues that we have in our scouting program. One of the problems I see is the use of young men that recently graduated from the program as adult leaders. Even though these young men have the scouting skills, they lack the judgment that comes with age and the experience/wisdom of being a parent. These boys tend to be peers of boys in the program and not adult leaders in the program. This concern became self evident last week during the web page debate.

Therefore, after some painful conversations with church leaders/elders, the following is the policy of the Chartering Organization

"Adult leaders in the scouting program will be parents of boys in the program." In the event that an exceptional adult leader candidate is available that is not a parent, the policy can be waived if the candidate is at least 25 years of age or at least 8 years older than the oldest boy in the program. Approval of a non-parent candidate meeting the criteria above will use the following process:

1) Open discussion of the troop committee

2) Troop Committee vote to recommend candidate to SJUMC

3) SJUMC COR approval and recommendation to minister

4) SJUMC minister final approval

The use of non-parent adult leaders will be kept to a minimum and will only be considered for exceptional candidates.

Respectfully,

COR

Troop XXX Chartered Organization Representative

The Church sponsoring the Troop

[end]

I understand that the myspace debacle was wrong, but were they overreacting by removing the Scoutmaster, myself, and two other Assistant Scoutmasters, two of which were Eagle scouts, as well as eliminate any possibility of using any more alumni of the troop as leaders? I would like to know where they plan to obtain the personal experience and scouting skills. Am I the only one that feels this way?

P.S. The COR does not have a child in the troop

(Moderaor OGE here, we can talk about this situation if you like, but not with people names and the location of the Troop and name of the CO. I have no idea what you mean by Facebook debacle, but we really dont want a Scouter.Com debacle either

(This message has been edited by a staff member.)