Scouter99

Uhhh, right. I can only imagine with what speed we would get kicked out ourselves if we sat the boys down and told them that circle jerks, kissing, show me yours/show you mine, soggy cookie, spin the bottle, 7 minutes in Heaven, and/or masturbating aren't allowed. The insert for parents/sons at the beginning of the book is sufficient, A Time to Tell covers youth-youth abuse.

Not for other awards like the Scouter Key, but I could see how someone would turn down a "purchased" knot. I know BSA says its not (or knot ), but when you donate money and they give you a knot, that's purchased in my book. While we're ragging on the West knot, did anyone else doubletake when they saw it on this freshfaced kid's shirt? From BSA's Facebook

The total cost a a criminal BG check and a check of the child abuse/neglect (which are mutually exclusive in far too many cases) in my state is $25 between two agencies (state police and state DSS); why would anyone need donations to cover that? It's small enough to simply require applicants to cover it themselves.

That sounds like an excellent way to get your charter revoked.

A guy I know threw away his new unit organizer award that was given to him for be the leader of a paper Venture crew. He wasn't in a position to "respectfully decline" it because they didn't give it to him at any kind of public thing, so he just chucked it in the trash where it belonged. I wouldn't really see the point of declining an award unless they were going to present it to you in front of people. If you don't want it, just don't put it on your uniform.

As noted by a few others, my troop will sign for less-than-whole improvement (0 to 1/2, 1/2 to 1, etc) on pullups, situps, and pushups, but the rest of them don't really lend themselves to an incremental approach. I generally despise, in the strongest sense of the word, "fudging" but in an honest case like CaveEagle's where the boy is trying and he has improved in the rest, yeah, if you have to get out your microscope it doesn't say "improve in each" it says "show improvement in the activities listed. But the boys in your case aren't trying, and, no, I wouldn't sign them off until they did.

Physical fitness is not one thing. It is not just strength, but it's not just endurance, either. Fitness has 4 components: Cardio, Strength/Endurance (some people split these, making 5), flexibility, and body composition. A man that can lift 500 pounds, but can't run 100 yds is not fit. A man that can do the splits but can't do 1 pullup is not fit. A man that can run 10 miles but not touch his toes is not fit. It's great that your son is a successful athlete despite his illness, but that doesn't change the definition of physically fit. In either case, the question in the OP isn't about kids with illness, it's about regular kids. BSA accommodates for people with honest issues, the boys in question just aren't trying.

We had a few guys miss tap out for some reason when I was a kid. We just got a few of the OA members from the troop, they took off their shirts and put on their sashes and did the tap out without warning one Monday night. As far as I know, it didn't cause any earthquakes and the lodge didn't disband or anything.

Is this about MozartBrau? I don't really get the left-field rant. Whether you're sleeping under plastic sheets, Litepac home-made tents, or Eureka Timberlines, your unit needs money. If you haven't, I'd suggest you read David Scott's "The Scouting Party" to get some honest history (not the handbook fairytale) about the founders and, yes, the role fundraising/money has played since Day One; DC Beard complained incessantly about his salary, charged troops money to visit, and continued publishing parallel books. Hit Boys' Life's Wayback machine and you'll see the money dynamic at work on every page. High Adventure is what keeps older boys in a troop irrespective of how beautiful the stars are 10 miles down the road as opposed to 1,000--because they're boys, and thank God for that. Tents are what you sleep in and gear is what you camp with; read Dan Beard's "The Book of Camp-Lore and Woodcraft" for his comments, in 1920, of the erroneous mindset about "roughing it" as opposed to being at comfort in the wild. If you're lucky enough to have a troop over 5 scouts and you're lucky enough that you're taking more than 10 of them out camping, yeah, it's going to take more than two drivers' trunks to get the gear there. Does that mean a troop RV? No, certainly not. For some units renting a truck once a month makes the best sense, for some having a trailer makes the best sense. If the boys don't mind their fundraising going to it, and the committee approves it, there's nothing wrong with it. My unit has those $200 tents (we worked out butts off for them), we have that trailer (we worked our butts off for it), we've got a stove and cook kit for every patrol (yep, earned those, too) and guess what? The boys are perfectly happy playing with a $5 Frisbee, which they do incessantly, AND they also enjoy sleeping in a tent. Imagine, having it both ways, wild! There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a troop being financially successful. And there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a financially successful/lucky troop putting that money into good gear. There is no intrinsic conflict between a boy-led/boy-centric program and good finances. There's no argument here, just your jaded PoV, which you're welcome to, but you don't need to spew on anyone else to get the bile out.

I hope by "I" you meant you and your second adult.

This isn't a gay issue. It's a teenage boy issue. Along Packsaddle's comment, I really do hope you didn't feel pressured by me; my sarcasm was directed at the process, not at you, Scout_98. Maybe someone with "supermoderator" under their name can delete your post if you want. I can definitely see how the hammer came down hard and swift, but anyone who works with youth and doesn't have scales on their eyes knows this is common (maybe not on camping trips, but in general) and normal, and doesn't indicate homosexuality any more than if the kid wore a salmon-colored shirt one day. The historical and sociological events that have led to this sort of black/white, alarmist, gay/straight attitude about these things is too long to get into. Whoever the sympathetic SM is, that's a virtuous and brave man. I have to agree with BasementD as far as the scope; I certainly hope that your son wasn't singled-out out of 3 actors. And I hope that if you were given assurances re: the psych's statement that they'll be honored now that you have the statement. As far as Kristian's point about money on appeals, I have a feeling that in 4 weeks once they've voted on this membership resolution the whole thing will be a non-issue, anyway. As for those who know anything about the process, I am still confused as to the order of operations that seems to have taken place. If the decision was made by National, could a Regional appeal have mattered in the first place?

Of course by "special crime" I mean whatever he did, and you will see that I did not ask what it was.

Did you try phoning the committee and asking them? Anyway, I'm curious as to how your son got kicked out to begin with if everyone within 500 miles of him thinks he should not have been. You say he was kicked out by "BSA" which I would interpret as National, but under what circumstances besides homosexuality or atheism would National reach down from On High to kick a kid out? If it was anything else, you'd think the troop, district, or council acted on the incident. If it was National, why would the Regional committee hear an appeal; can a region overturn a decision that National made? If the Region and Scout Executive are so supportive, why didn't they just adjourn until you could find a psych that would testify instead of ruling against you and kicking you up to National? If he was just kicked out of his troop, you could join another troop, considering you say that "some scoutmasters" don't think he should have been kicked out. It's understandable that you don't want to broadcast whatever special crime your boy committed, but I don't understand how the process side of things has played out. Who, precisely, kicked him out?

Thanks for all the input!

*poplar -and- oak saplings.

Time will be cut down a lot because we have a set of spars, mostly Bradford Pear branches, with a smattering of poplar oak saplings (chill out, No-Tracers, I got the saplings when the railroad bush-hogged the rail bed). The height really is my concern, the plans call for 16' spars, which places the platform ~13' in the air. I also just don't see how you can hang a ladder off one side and not pull the whole thing over when climbing onto it.

I suppose this belongs in the Program forum, but that's broken, so I've placed it here. We've got a scout show coming up, so I asked one of the boys to take charge of building a tower, and told him to pick a design and lead the boys to build it. He called to say he'd picked one, and emailed me the design. It's the tripod tower. If you're unfamiliar, here's a drawing, taken from the "Scout Engineering" pamphlet, p 14 http://www.truthistreason.net/downloads/Scout_Engineering.pdf: If you ask me, it looks like a death trap. They boys are certainly capable of building it, and I don't plan to stop them, but . . . well it's not the tower I would have picked. I've seen them on paper, but never in practice. Does anyone out there have any experience with these? Are they stable/safe? How long it might take to build? Sundry advice...

Heh, my mind doesn't need to be changed, Spiney. They should do the real training the right way; not doing so produced predictable non-results, but saying so would make me a sourpuss I'm not sure what your council does or what qualifies as "quickly" for you, but NYLT here is a week long.

There are free copies of both the Guide to Awards and Insignia and Uniform Inspection online. Uniforms/Insignia: http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Media/InsigniaGuide.aspx Inspection Sheet: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34283.pdf You can get a paper copy of the Guide for ~$6 if your local scout shop carries them. If not, you can get one for $15 after ScoutStuff.org charges you eleventy-hundred dollars for shipping

Probably because the people in units you serve have no idea what the arrowhead entails. Being trained is part of the Scoutmaster's Key and the Leader's Training Award, but we don't remove the Trained patch after earning those, either. I do wonder if they'll get rid of the Trained strip as 100% training goes into effect as a condition of registration/recharter (but I imagine that's a subject for a new thread).

Welllll, another atheist that knows everything and nothing about religion and respect. Deriding the ignorance of BSA while your own myopia is on full display. Sectarianism does not and has never referred to differences solely "within a single religion" and in fact its usage is almost completely in regards to inter-religious strife. You are confusing "sect" with "sectarian," two words separated by 300 years. Sectarian in this context is an adjective, it describes a kind of strife between adherents of any two faith systems without regard to their relationship (same religion or inter-religious). "Non"-sectarian means just what it sounds like: That it makes no distinction between adherents of any faith system. Beyond that, your acerbic opinions seem to boil down to your disrespect of anyone of any faith as a ridiculous person. I hope your kid is 16 rather than 6, otherwise you've got a long, long road ahead of you being mad about purposefully joining an organization which chafes a cornerstone of your identity.