Weekender

Cubsrgr8,

My understanding of the "rule" is a boy needs to be 11 or in sixth grade (Mike Long help me out if I got that wrong). The troop I am with is willing to accept boys year round who meet that criteria. This year we had 8 boys come to the troop from 4 different sources at different times. Granted this makes it harder to set up and manage a new boy patrol but we're working it out.

When to do the cross over (IMHO) is up to the pack. If the troop wants the boys they get them then as long as the boys qualify. If the troop feels they'll be too much trouble then there are always other troops.

Personally, I like the idea of having a few months with the new boys before summer camp. This year we are planning on disolving the new boy patrol and integrating th eboys just prior to summer camp.

Thank You again R7,

On that note, I think I will also step away from this portion of the thread. We all have free will, it's a gift. How we use it is a choice and choices have consequences.

God Bless

Senior forum membership occurs at.................... 126 posts!

YEAH!!!!!!!!

If I can't see it it can't be real?

As far as having the same moral standards, I'm afraid that isn't possible. If you use a different source document you will have different standards. The Jews use only the old testament and their standards are far different Christian standards. I know that what I beleive is true because the bible tells me and because there is more ducumentation to support it's acurracy than there is for any other book in history. I know Jesus was resurected because there were more than 500 witnesses.

How do you know that what you beleive is true?

Sctmom,

I can say it because Jesus said it. It's really no different than warning a blind person that they are about to walk in front of a moving bus. If they choose to keep walking that is their choice but they will be no less injured because they refused to believe the bus was real.

Rooster7,

Thanks. You have captured what I was struggling with.

If I have offended anyone, my apologies. God is Real. It is my sincere hope that those of you who have hardened your hearts toward Him will come to know Him before it is too late. Eternity is a long time.

So sctmom, are you saying that truth is nothing more than what each person believes? That there is no absolute, transendant truth in the universe but that everyone gets to pick what is true and what is not?

And, if that is what you are saying, can we ever say anything is wrong? Or is everything acceptable as long as at least one person wants to do it?

My apologies to our forum regulars for the poor formating of my last post. I could not get it to preview and thought that perhaps the problem was in the HTML coding for italics. I changed it to bold and while it still did not preview it did post.

The bolded sections are quotes from NJ.

Question #1: No, I do not and yes I would.

Question #2: The same. The BSA does not ask for reverence to no "living God" but rather that God is a supernatural creative force and higher power that created the Earth, or set its creation in motion at some earlier stage like the Big Bang, and has had no other involvement in the affairs of mankind? (Talk about needing blind faith!!) The BSA requires Reverence to God.

Question #3: I think you have mis-defined the word. I am not trying to convert you or anyone else to Christianity. I am simply telling you the truth (no, not MY truth). Whether or not you choose to seek the Lord is up to you. Jesus will knock at your door (maybe he's knocking now) but he won't come in without your permission.

As I have said in the past, although I do not believe in a "final judgment," if there is one,

Sorry, you can't have it both ways. If you are right then there is no final judgement. Therefore there is no reason for me to have any compassion for homosexuals. Their fate is whatever any other person chooses to do to them and no one can say it is wrong. If I'm right then they are committing a sin and need to be told.

NJ, You're welcome to be an atheist, that is your choice, but I would ask that you be a consistent atheist...No stealing lumber from the Christian pile to support your house. Either there is a final judgement or there is not. Each "possibility" has serious ramifications but you can't mix and match.

If I have a soul (which we all do), It's safe. If I don't, what difference does it make?

What do you base that statement on? I've not once heard a Jew claim Jesus to be an idol.

Sorry, Pascal's wager makes no assumptions. It simply states that if atheists are right then it doesn't matter what you beleive. Where as if Christians are right it does. So atheists should not be at all concerned about what Christians beleive. Unfortunately, without God there is only man, and man is inconsistant. With man, right and wrong are not absolute, they are based on feelings and therefore nothing can be judged as wrong...including my beleives. Of course, Hitler, Stalin, Bin Ladin, Arafat, Sir Han Sir Han, Timothy Mcvey were all perfectly justified in what they did because right and wrong is based on personal morality and their view of morality allowed for what they did.

If there are no absolutes, there are no absolutes!

I don't want it to look like I threw this cat in the middle of a dog show and just stepped back to see what happens. I knew in posting this that there would be strong opinions on both sides. My point in bringing this organization to your attention was not necessarily to promote it (I don't know enough about it for that) but being a christian myself I felt it might be worth investigation by those of you who have daughters and would prefer a christian base in their youth organization. As for the girl scouts, they have never, to my knowledge, claimed to be religeously grounded (As the BSA has). That is their choice. Personally though, I find that the basis for building character MUST be an unchageing, unchangable set of moral standards that do not necessarily conform to societal norms but require an individual to understand that there is absolute truth and that there is right and wrong and that sometimes society is wrong. Short of there being a living God there can be no such standard. If we make the rules at our level then the rules are subject to change and interpretation. So, the Heritage Girls may be a good thing (they seem to be on the surface) or they may be an ill-conceived concept. I think they are trying to do something good and I applaud their effort. I hope they turn out to be what they are trying to be.

As for Christianity, I refer you to Pascal's wager:

If I am wrong then I have lived my life based on a book that teaches love, stiving to do things that improve the lives of others, I have spent my time on this earth involved in service and when I am gone I will turn to dust and all that will remain is the short lived memory of the good works I have done. If I'm wrong then I am no worse off. But what if you're wrong?

If you live your life as though there is no God...you better pray that you're right.

Just so no one can say that they never knew...Jesus is the son of God, he came to earth to pay for your sins and mine, he died on a cross at Golgotha and on the third day he was raised back to life. He now sits at the right hand of God the Father. Salvation is yours for the asking. Jesus said he is the way the truth and the life and that no one comes to the father except through him. He also said that if you deny Him now he will deny you later.

If I'm wrong...no harm done. If you're wrong it's eternity in the smoking section. Isn't it worth finding out? Ask God to reveal himself to you. Ask him for a glimpse of who he is. He IS waiting for you.

May God bless you all.

I only have sons, but thought that folks with daughters might be interested in this organization.

http://www.afa.net/activism/aa082001.asp

http://www.ahgonline.org/

Our cub pack also used to do the cake raffle but it was only among parents so as Bob White says that is not much of an issue to the council.

A scoutmaster I met at summer camp last had a rather interesting fundraiser that his troop does. For $25 a year the troop will install a flag mount at your business and 6-7 times a year on special occasions the troop will come out and put a flag in the holder in the morning and then take it down again that evening. He said the troop makes around $2000. per year.

It's a long term commitment and you do occassionally lose a flag.

Just a quick word of warning while this thread is still fairly fresh.

A friend of mine filled his stove with coleman fuel. He did not have any major problems other than blackening of his pan but I have read that you should not use anything other than denatured alcohol as other fuels can cause the stove to somehow over-pressurize and rupture. I have no first-hand experience with this but I figure better safe than sorry.

We are trying a hybrid of the new boy patrol program. Our new scouts are currently in a new boys patrol and we plan to have them there at least until summer camp. We are using the older boys as instructors which lets the new scouts get to know them while they work toward their first class. We will have the new scouts to tenderfoot by summer camp and are contimplating integrating them at that point. I agree that when you have a mix of older and younger boys the older normally take the top positions but I don't necessarily think that is a bad thing. As the older boys move up (and out) the next age group will naturally flow into the leadership positions with in the patrol. I joined my patrol (the aardvarks) at age 11 and had a 15 year old patrol leader...I learned alot from him (and yes there was some hazing. I didn't die or lose any hope of developing self-esteem because of it but the program is better off without it) By the time I was 14 I had worked myself up to PL and had 11-14 year olds in "my" patrol. From there I moved to the leadership corp (a repository for older boys that were used as instructors etc) and then to SPL at 16. It was an effective way to "raise" a scout. I picture doing something similar in our troop. One point though...I would still have some activities divided up by age.

We had our "Scout" rally last night. It was a blast. It was the third meeting for our new boys. We took last week to make sure they all knew what we would be doing this week and told them to study all the requirements. We started by going around as a group to each of our 7 stations, introducing the older scout who would be testing them and properly demonstating the activity. After that we placed them in the center of the basketball court, explained the rules of engagement, and said we wanted to see how quickly they could complete all the stations. We did not make it a race specifically. Our times ranged from 17 and 1/2 minutes at the long end down to 4:51 for the fastest scout. When we handed out the badges we started at the slowest score with praise for the fantastic job the scout did in earning the rank so quickly and each boy in succession got cheered for having even faster times. By the time we got to our fastest boy everyone was cheering for him without any of the other boys feelings getting hurt as each got a moment at the top of the heap. I got an email from one of the dads saying one of the boys was so hyped about getting his badge that he asked about wearing his uniform to school (something that they really haven't considered to be cool for a while).

We are going to continue on with the older boys doing most of the teaching and the adults doing the checking as we try to get the new guys to tenderfoot before summer camp.

BTW: Several of the older boys really enjoyed the meeting too. An added bonus was that they got to know each other a little better along the way and hopefully that will make the transition out of our new boy patrol that much easier.

NJScouter,

Have you spoken to the PTA to see if there is a specific black mom or dad who might be able to give you insight into why the situation is as it is? Or, perhaps could even play a large role in changing it.

The difference between knowlege and wisdom is experience.

There are only two types of people in the world...Those who are too important to lie to...and those who aren't important enough to lie to.

I was in our council HQ the other day. During our conversation our CE asked if our troop was planning on attending an upcoming council event. This event had not been scheduled and announced prior to our annual planning meeting so we had not origianlly planned on attending. When we heard about the event we changed our schedule to incorperate it but another opportunity presented itself to us. We went to the scouts and said, "here are your choices. The troop can attend the council event or we can attend this other event, or we can do both if you are willing to do two weekends in the same month." The boys chose the non-council event. When I explained this to the CE he was livid. He said it was wrong for leaders to let the boys decide what activities they will attend and that the reason for the adults is to tell the boys what they are going to do.

All I could do was shake my head. I guess scouting would be a pretty good program if it weren't for all those derned scouts.

BTW: Most folks round here feel the only time they see the professionals is when they want money, time, or both.

Wehinepay Mountain Scout Ranch

Roswell, NM

One of the best promotional items we have is our poster collection. I make sure we have a camera on every outing and when we get back I take 10 or 12 of the pictures and make a poster. I include the dates and name of the activity. Whenever we visit a pack or have a special activity the first thing we do is throw the posters up on the walls. The cubs are usually impressed with the activities as are most of the adults. It's a great recruiting tool. And it lets the parents and cubs know that if they come to our troop they are going to be doing some serious scouting. The boys who come to us are hiped about camping and summer camp. If that's not their thing they go to other troops.

Actually we would change our "routine". Gosh darn editer!

In our troop we have a mix of Catholic and Protestant youth. Heavier on the Protestant side. We do a non-denominational Christian service. We just added 8 new boys to our roster and one of the first things I did was ask the adults about the religious affiliation of the boys and their families. If we had picked a jewish or muslim scout we would try to make arrangements for his religeous needs (whether that means changing our rutine or finding a service in the area we are camping). I personally think it is important for people to attend organized worship services of some type. But, I know that not everyone agrees with that. I would still want the boy involved in some form of active worship time while the others were at services. What this time would consist of would have to be coordinated with the boys parent.