Pack18Alex

You cannot refuse a celebate gay-oriented scout for being attracted to other men. Once he acts on that inclination, you can refuse membership based upon the religious standards of your charter org. Would you throw out a scout for shoplifting? Would you throw him out for coveting an item and saying he was temped to shoplift?

BSA prohibiting prayer for this wispy washy non sectarian thing is a joke. Here is the deal, for non Christians that are familiar with their faiths, The wording "In your name/in Jesus's name" has no material difference. It is a Christian prayer offered up to the Christian deity. I teach my boys that we stand at attention when prayers are offered at BSA functions but do not participate. The whole thing is stupid. Anyone offended by prayer should not be in BSA, were a religious institution, though our units affiliate with our individual Churches/Houses of Worship.

Last I checked, events are for the youth not the adults. None of our boys can identify and district/council/national personnel. Why is that an issue?

As a non-Christian, I will stay out of the Christian morality discussion on homosexuality. That is at the core of BSA's values issue, and I don't have a dog in the fight. However, MOST peoples interaction with BSA is Cub Scouts (2/3 the program). When they here "boy" they think 6-11 year olds, and think that taking issue with homosexuality for Cub Scout leaders (Den Leaders, etc.) is worrying about pedophilia and confusing pedophiles with homosexual men, which they aren't. Homosexual men are attracted to physically mature men (14+ or so), not "boys." However, when Boy Scout leaders talk a

I think that the problems with female Webelos Leaders isn't that they are female, it's that the baggage that usually comes with them... i.e. they aren't picked for the right reasons. I know some OUTSTANDING female Webelos Leaders and nobody begrudges them for their gender. However, a lot of moms recruited as Den Leader do fine in the Craft oriented Tiger-Wolf years, but struggle as Bears need more physical involvement and Webelos with the pressure for more Scout Craft. The bigger issue is that as the boys need to get outside their comfort zone and stretch, mom is more likely to coddle and p

We Show/Sell order some $10 boxes (last year it was all microwavable, this year we'll get some other inexpensive stuff). The boys then take order forms home, and many sell enough to get prizes, etc. We did a single show/sell for 8 hours, moved about $800 worth that day and sold out, it was glorious. I'm not interested in running a supply chain operation to launch a Scout business. Had a parent that tracked orders and cash, gave it to our treasurer to record, and the orders went out. We used the money to get a trailer this year. This fall, we'll end up with cash to shelve the trailer and/

A budget is one of the most important things your committee can do. A good budget and an annual plan will make executing the program year much easy. Summer programming is good for retention. Great for recruiting. Just don't burn out the parents. When the school year starts, if your parent/volunteers aren't raring to go, you'll suffer.

In the pack and troop we have a bunch of Aspergers, HFA, and other "on the spectrum" kids, plus a bunch of severe ADHD kids. Concerned parents always they whisper "my son has issues." I always respond, "We all have issues, your son has a diagnosis." Scouts can be a good opportunity for someone to learn and grow. They need to grow. HFA is a challenge, but it's a challenge he'll have his entire life. Learning how to grow into an adult that functions is the key here. If you never let them overcome their autism related challenges, it'll be a life sentence.

Add a girls program. Do not allow integrated units (though I'd pilot test it in a few councils and see what's up), but a Boy-Cubs and Girl-Cubs, and a Scouting for Boys and Scouting for Girls program (separate from the Girl Guiding/Leadership program GSUSA offers) at the middle school level that feeds into a Co-ed High School venturing program. Unified Committee for ALL BSA programs. We might need Cub/Boy/Venturing subcommittee chairs, but separate leadership pulls us into different directions, or has anyone noticed that only 25% of Cubs transition to Boy Scouts and hit First Class? St

The Girl Scout cookies sell, but they make crap margins. Popcorn and Camp Cards have great margins (33%, 50%) plus prizes for Popcorn (or 40% if you don't do the prizes)... Girl Scout cookies are 15% margin. Honestly, at $4/box, the local price, and how small the boxes have gotten, it's not a good deal and left people feeling upset despite wanting to support girl scouts and the good will from years where the cookies WERE a good deal. All the money is going to administration and overhead and pensions, very sad.

What's wrong with collapsing councils? Corporate downsizing of the middle management layers happens everywhere. If the local Council can't justify itself to cover the salaries of their personnel, why not merge up the councils? Other than possibly needing to run two Scout Stores, I can't see any reason that we shouldn't reduce the council headcount by 75%. We can communicate over vast differences with email and cell phones now, no need for antiquated middle layers.

"Pack18Alex, it sounds like you're doing what I've done for many years, be polite and wait it out. Which implies, along with most of the rest of the opinions here, drop the invocation. There are a lot of good words of wisdom out there I could use in my troop." MattR, you are interpreting my words VERY differently than intended. I am not "waiting it out" -- if I were to wait it out, I'd leave the room, turn around with my back towards it, etc. I am standing At Attention, and my Pack is standing At Attention, an intentional level of respect. We are standing there, respectfully, but n

jblake47, Technically under Jewish law, the Scout that doesn't realize that a strawberry grows on the ground and instead offers the prayer for the fruit of the tree has taken the Lords name in vain offering the wrong blessing. Implying control of the divine wrath is simply silly. Although, in a mixed-faith setting, such a violation could constitute a Chillul Hashem, literally translated as "descretion of the Name" but a catch all when a Jew acts badly and therefore reflects badly upon the Jewish people and therefore the God of Israel.

Since my opinion was asked... What does it mean to me? In a nation with no state religion and no crown, we all come together to serve our one nation together while serving our understanding of God. We can be at a Camporee, and Friday night, the lone Jewish Scout in a nearby Troop/Pack comes over when he hears Kiddush and Hamotzi at our camp site. It means to me that we can do a service project and raise food for the Kosher Food Bank, the group down the street can raise rood for the local Church Food Bank, and we all call it Scouting for Food. The inclusion of reverence is HUGELY impor

What's the financial situation in your town/area? Why are there no dues to cover things and no fundraising? Are you getting advise from comparable packs? My pack is relatively upper income, lots of private school families, lots of professionals, and a few that aren't... When my predecessor ran things, she made the mistake of talking to the lower-income, single-mom pack leaderships, set dues too low, and fundraised for things that the parents were happy to pay for. Parents pulled out of the program after a year, too little stuff, too much aggravation. Last year, I spoke to some pe

From a Pack Financial point of view, Belt Loops are EXPENSIVE, Religious Medallions are EXPENSIVE, everything else is in the noise. I am concerned that BSA still thinks Cub Scouts meet the way we did when I was a cub 30 years ago... 30 years ago, you when to your CO 1/month for a Pack Meeting, and the rest of the time you went to you Den Mother/Leader's house and did your Den Meetings. Because of liability, youth protection, and general social change, not one unit that I know of in the district meet's a leader's house (except for specialty meetings, a parent with a fire ring, wood shop, e

It depends what the purpose of the Council is. If the Council exists to provide a legal umbrella in the state and comply with state laws, one/state is sufficient. If Council exists to actual do something, then I see a purpose of decentralization. That said, with a Council comes a Scout Executive (200k-400k), and several other 100k+ position, plus a number of support positions (40k range). The District Executives seems to be the front line personnel. So consolidating council increases the DE/Council ratio, which means a lower overhead. Obviously this is only true up to the point that

Talk to him outside of the meeting, if it continues, tell him that another adult needs to attend with his son. We have one of those, we're deciding what to do. It is very tedious. In our case, it's a very active volunteer, but doesn't change the fact that it makes the volunteer job painful on everyone else. I don't care of the annoying dad is right, each scout position takes 1-4 hours/week, and if we're not having fun, we don't want to do it. But yeah, they need to understand the program and how it will be delivered, it is not a democracy, we do not discuss "what is best" we inste

We voluntarily associate with BSA, part of which is the outdated and outmoded Council model. I agree they should be eliminated, perhaps you need a state level council-equivalent to handle compliance with state laws, but no need for the mess we have. But until BSA national consolidates them, we either help support our council, or we are free loading off the units that do. But yes, I know I'm being a host to the council parasite, but I believe in the program and council does help run that, in their own inept but well meaning way. They handle the legal and logistics for our Council/Distri

Bingo. Council may be bloated and inefficient, but if you don't want to be a part of a BSA council, go form an independent outdoor club. BSA units are part of their council, and need to kick something up. Now, if you do your own fundraisers and kick 50% to council for Friends of Scouting, well good for you, but you're a liar.

In this case, it's messed up because he abused a scout but is a "corporate wife" in te council. However, in general, the sexual crime lists are useless. We all want to know of a child predator moves in, and instead we get notified of everyone that urinated in public and pled out to indecent exposure and every guy who turned 18 and was reported to tr cops by their girlfriend's dad. It's a generally useless event.

We were self chartered... When the ones with their names on it lost interest, it was a total headache to fix. Didn't keep up legal filings, you lose incorporated status. That doesn't make you not exist, you're now an unincorporated partnership with 100% liability for everything. Get a real CO, it's a huge benefit and gives you a third party to fix parent squabbles.

Oil is primarily for heat transfer. I use 1 Tablespoon regardless of whether I'm popping 1/4 cup or 1/2 cup. Just enough that as the kernels pop, they still have oil to transfer the heat. For flavoring melt butter in a double broiler, not cooking oil.

The only one who knows for certain is the judge in tax court hearing the case. Even the IRS isn't final. We're here trying to hash out solutions that seem to fit within the guidance the IRS has put out, the Forbes article - with decent advice, and BSA's new policies that aren't publicized. Quick point on this, there are two questions here: 1. What is the "right thing to do"? 2. What is the practical reality? The reason that these both matter is that as Scout Leaders, and trustworthy, we have to stay within the letter and spirit of the law (#1). We also have to protect our Ch