Trevorum

I agree with Mr. Fernandez. In general, the fellows in my son's troop are much more accepting of social diversity than their parents. Eventually the exclusionary policies of BSA will be a closed chapter to which our grandsons will look back on with curiosity. Today, my son's are amazed when I tell them that when I was a Scout, BSA was racially segregated.

hops, I'm confused. In that other thread, you said, "I'm a First Class Scout so I am also a student in the 8th grade."

Awesome writes, " So you don't believe that ACLU and other organizations ... [are] not trying to shut us down?" No, I don't think anyone is trying to shut down the BSA. That is just silly and alarmist. If you look more carefully, the ACLU and others are merely ensuring that BSA - having declared itself to be a religious organization - fairly operates by the rules governing religious organizations. "I can't see how the diversion of funds from the program to fight court battles is helping us..." I agree. The answer is simple. BSA must operate by the rules governing religious organizations. No foul, no penalty. "I certainly believe that these organizations and their members have every right to associate with those who share the same values as they do but don't I have the same rights?" Absolutely. I guess this means you don't want to associate with me. "And as far as the argument about changing with the times, I have to say no thank you." That's your right. Personally, I much prefer todays morality over the past when we made some people sit at the back of the bus because of their skin color, or forbade other people from voting because of they lacked a Y chromosome, or restricted the employment and housing of other people because they had the wrong religion. (I guess I'm a glass-half-full guy.) I also think we still have a long ways to go in matters of civil rights, but we'll get there.

Again, I haven't heard that anyone wants to "shut us down". Rather, I think that many people believe that BSA simply has exclusionary membership policies which are out of touch with today's America. Even those people, when pressed, will readily admit the value of Scouting in developing character in youth.

I don't know that we are "under attack". I've certainly never been attacked. Perhaps you mean "criticized". That would seem to fit better. The word "attack" does connote some kind of violence. I do know of many people who have criticized the BSA - not for the programs we offer but for our membership policies which exclude many fellows from participating in those programs. IMHO, that's a shame. I believe that every boy deserves an opportunity to be a Scout, even those whose parent(s) do not believe in a god, and even those who discover they are gay.

Lisa, your observations are spot-on. Clearly, you have been to Cub Scout roundups and Boy Scout recruiting events recently and have taken the time to talk with limited income families.

Bob, I think you may be a bit out of touch with Cub Scout roundups and Boy Scout recruiting among lower income families.

GW & BW, You may well be right about overall quality and the amortized cost of the shirt over 8 years. However, that is thin news to the limited means parent who is considering the up-front cost of a shirt for their son who wants to join, and for whom there is no assurance that he will even need the shirt after one year, much less 5 years. IMHO, the cost of the uniform can be an impediment to joining. Sure, there are uniform closets and the rest, and yes I agree that other youth activities have a much more expensive buy-in than Scouting. But, still. And we haven't even mentioned the trousers!

Of the 10 to 15 or so active leaders in our troop, I can't think of a single one who is noticeably overweight. The Scouts do enjoy the skit about the fat, coffee-drinking Scoutmasters, but it seems to be more of a stereotype than reality around here.

I just bought a 100% cotton, long sleeve khaki shirt at WalMart for $8. Except for the shape of the pocket flaps it's pretty identical to a BSA long sleeve uniform shirt which sells for $40. That's FIVE times the price! Even counting the cost of the flag emblem ($2) and the BSA strip ($1), that's a pretty hefty markup by BSA. One could buy EIGHT shirts from Walmart, sew on the patches and give them to an inner city troop for the cost of TWO BSA shirts. But of course they wouldn't have the nifty collar tag marking them "official". Sigh.

Welcome to our campfire, Knight!

Welcome to the forums, hamer82! We hope you'll stick around and share your experiences as a 20-year Scouter. To be sure, some of the discussion threads toss around controversial ideas (especally in the issues and politics forum). However, this is a also place to be helpful to lots of folks who are new to scouting. I've been involved in scouting since 1954 and I'm still learning things from these forums.

One of our favorite campouts in recent years has been the "shoebox campout", which was originally described to me by our friend on these boards, Semper Paratus. The idea is that each scout takes only what he can fit in a shoebox - food, shelter, everything. We typically do this in the late spring when the weather is mild. Funny story: The first time we did this, we had a lot of shelters made of plastic sheeting and nylon twine and the fellows wore rain gear made of trash bags. We ended up camping near another troop who were more conventionally equipped. A couple of those fellows kindly offered to share their gear with us because we were clearly underprivileged!

FireKat, I suppose my beautiful bride would be considered a 'tomboy'. She feeds and waters the horses before breakfast, lifts 50 lb bags of grain, wears a ball cap and doesn't even own a dress. (Obviously, I think that's a good thing)

Thannk youuu ... thannk you vurrry muchh ...

I wonder if manly-girls are as bad as girly-men?

I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK.

At the last EBoR I sat in on, near the end of the discussions, the district Eagle Advisor looked at the candidate and asked him, "You know that our decision to award you the Eagle tonight must be unanimous. What would you do if one of us votes 'no' "? Startled, the fellow loked back and forth from one member of the board to another, and asked, "Which one?" We almost fell off our chairs!

Answer: NO

Our troop does it the same way as Scott's. It works well.

That entire argument can be reduced to: Might makes right. (sigh) As I said, there are lots of people with this mindset. I know some. They are often good folks to have a beer with, or swap stories over a campfire, or watch the big game on TV. However, I am sincerely glad we no longer have the likes of James Watt leading our nation.

I know that there adults out there who truly believe that humans have a right (obligation?) to dominate and control our environment. I shudder to think that those adults may be teaching the next generation.

Anne, Excellent question! We are planning on proposing this idea to the PLC next month. If they like the idea, we'd urge some of the older scouts who have already earned the EP MB to lead some planning sessions during a couple of troop meetings, prepare some handouts for the families, and then hold a recap / reflections afterwards.

Several years ago we had great success with a yard sale. Held on Saturday morning at the church parking lot. We collected stuff for 2 months ahead of time and stashed it all in a rented locker (the fee was donated!). Unloaded the locker on Friday night and had Scouts camp out on the church lawn that night for security. We netted about $1900 as I recall. By noon we were picked clean and the traffic had dried up. We took all the leftovers to the local Goodwill and re-donated them. Win-win!

Maybe Pappy is Rooster, reincarnated as a papist.