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 about "boys" they mean Boy Scouts, boys from 11-17, and really focused on the older set, 14-17. Therefore, a homosexual man would find those "boys" within the range of people to whom they are attracted. So we have a divide. The world sees us as calling homosexual men pedophiles, because they interact with the Cub Scout program of 6-10 year olds. Perhaps if we switched to the term, young men for Troop, and reserved boy for Cub Scouts (which is the modern American vernacular), we'd have less confusion. In modern American vernacular, boy = pre-pubescent, young-man = puberty aged, man = post-puberty age. GSUSA doesn't permit men to be the sole leader for Girl Scouts. When dealing with the bulk of their members (Daisy, Brownie, and Juniors), girls ages 6-11, this seems preposterous. When you deal with Seniors/Ambassadors (high school age), it makes total sense. However, because as a culture we view protecting "young women" as virtuous and "young men" as coddling, we look like weirdos in BSA. If BSA adopted the policy of: Local Units interpret reverence and role models based upon the values of their CO Openly homosexual men serving as Scout leaders may not attend a campout unless the campout is also attended by a heterosexual man or woman. You'd shut this down quickly. If GLAAD demanded the right for gay men to accompany 17 year olds alone on camp outs, they'd look ridiculous. The number of openly gay men looking to be Scouters is trivial and religious COs won't allow, so the whole thing is dumb. And if a Gay-friendly Church/Synagogue opens a troop and allows Gay Leaders, why on earth do we care? If the parents join knowing that, then that's between the parents and the Church. Let's go back to serving our country.

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 protect. Now, there are plenty that break the stereotype, so no need to gender discriminate, but a new Cubmaster that doesn't know the leaders might fall back on gender stereotypes which is bad. You need to nuture the Tigers/Wolves through the program, encourage them to stretch as Bears, but you really need to back off and let the boys figure out more as Webelos, which moms struggle with more than dads. I'd way rather have a female leader that is trained, understands the program, etc., than a male leader that doesn't. If both are trained and understand the program, gender is irrelevant. HOWEVER, if I'm dealing with parents that don't get the program, I'll take an uninformed male leader over an uninformed female leader, though neither choice is ideal. If the female leader is in uniform and filling the leadership role, it's great. However, if the leader (of either gender) is going to show up in Class B, be uncomfortable with regimentation and other Scout-like things, then the boys react poorly to female leaders. So a good leader is a good leader regardless of gender. For a crappy leader, it's going to be crappy regardless, but crappy female leaders are worse.

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/or get picnic tables and other gear. My parents whine about fundraising, but I have boys that can afford to pay whatever and boys for whom annual dues are a stretch. This year we're moving toward a give/get model, either you fundraise, or you'll pay a re-charter fee. Either you volunteer, or you "sponsor Blue and Gold" -- this will let us have nice things for the pack and let the free-rider parents pony up.

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? Stop mucking with the Cub program because of problems in the Boy Scout program, and fix the boy scout program, including the fact that you make it a pain in the butt to run a good transition.

We launched a GSUSA program for the sisters that wanted a scouting program. They loved doing stuff with our pack, but it was lame that they couldn't o achievements together. It helps that the Cubmaster and Committee Chair's daughters were amongst the first signups, and one of the leaders was the wife of the Key 3.

However, needing to process double paperwork, track two sets of calendars, etc., is a real PITA, and for no reason.

Also, with 2 BSA fundraisers a year and 2 GSUSA fundraisers/year, I'm burning out my parents that have both genders. And it's suffering.

In terms of BSA's ability to create a girls program. Grab the pre-1970s GSUSA handbooks off Ebay and do the same thing you did to bring BSA's programming up to speed. No need to use any GSUSA copyrighted material, but the information is in there.

Pack18Alex' date=' thanks for the correction. "wait it out" sounds harsher than I meant. I do the exact same coaching with the Jewish scouts in my troop.[/quote']

 

Yeah, I didn't think that you meant it the way it sounded, but since this is an Internet forum, and for better or for worse the 3 or 4 Jewish Scouters here seem to be the spokespeople for the entire Hebraic people, I feel it is best that we clarify things.

 

And in fairness, depending on where you are in the country (i.e. unless you live in the "young professional" part of the city you live in, or the one or two suburbs that Jews congregate in, most people in the country won't encounter that many Jews, period. We cluster.

 

That being said, one of my side projects for my pack has been to try to get an "invocation" for our Pack Meetings. Only Orthodox Jews don't do "invocations," we do D'var Torah (word of Torah), basically an insight from the weekly Torah Portion. In a "Sermon-like" setting, it's a stepping off to a values discussion. In a Yeshiva setting, it's a stepping off point for an analysis of the commentary. We'd want the former.

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 not actively participating (because Jewish Law prohibits it, not because we don't respect what they are doing). I don't consider the Reverence component of BSA minor or insignificant, I think that it's VERY significant, and VERY important.

And the way we, as Jews, participate in an "interfaith" or "non-sectarian" or what have you Christian prayer is that we stand, respectfully, while they offer praises to the Almighty.

I'm comfortable enough in my religion, and I have tremendous respect for others that are comfortable in theirs. A friend who was there with his scout child and I were talking, we found it VERY inspiring when the Keynote speaker talked about getting through his son's deployment by reading Psalms (Tehillim in Hebrew, FYI). We saw a new insight into our faith and the works of our bible by seeing how others gained inspiration from it.

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 important to me and the program we're running.

If you are interested in a real discussion of Jewish law and how it would pertain, call your nearest Modern Orthodox affiliated synagogue and the Rabbi there should point you in the right direction regarding an open-minded by halachically valid ruling...

We recently participated in a Memorial Day Service with the BSA. Before we went in, I spoke to my Scouts and told them, if they ask you to remove your hats, if you have a Kippa on under the hat, remove you hat, otherwise, keep your head covered. Christians remove their hats out of respect for their God, we cover ours out of respect for our God. If we are double covered, nothing stops us from uncovering out of respect for what is going on.

When they bow their heads, we stand at attention, we do so respectfully and quietly.

I don't feel qualified to give an opinion on saying Amen at the end. Whenever a prayer is offered to God, whether by Jew or Gentile, it is appropriate to say amen. However, if a prayer is offered in Jesus's name, it's shaky grounds of what Christians call blasphemy (and Jews group under Avodah Zara, the worship of the stars or foreign gods).

Their was an invocation, a keynote speaker (who was very devout and spoke of inspiration from scripture), and a benediction. We were proud to participate, but it was VERY Christian... and I'm 99% certain that the people thought that they were being non-sectarian (talking about Our Father, and God, and no explicit bowing of heads), but it was a VERY Christian prayer, while they didn't realize it.

I'm not sure how I'd handle it in a diverse unit. Our Unit ranges in Jewish theology (about 1/3 are affiliated Orthodox, the others are unaffiliated or affiliated Reform/Conservative), yet we are all able to participate together in these functions. I got into an argument with the head of our Jewish Committee because he didn't want boys in his unit offering prayers to Jesus, the pastor said that they could, and I took the Pastor's side. The Troop is part of the Church, how can you prohibit Christian prayers?

We stand at attention respectfully and silently during the Christian prayers, that are clearly non-denominational Protestant prayers, but certainly sectarian, because their is no such thing as a non-sectarian prayer. If the prayer isn't sectarian, it isn't much of a prayer.

The God of Israel most certainly has a name. When the temple stood, it was uttered in the holy of holies. The Roman persecution wiped out the families responsible for keeping the name known for the third temple era. In common non-prayer speech, Orthodox Jews say Hashem (which translates into The Name), and non-Orthodox Jews normally say God/Lord.

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 people running a pack at a private school, comparable dues to ours, fundraising to cover capital needs, parents ponied up.

Other groups I know parents struggle to pay $10/mo in dues. It all depends on the family and what's going on. If the parents have no money, then you need to fund raise.

We are finding our financial stride as follows:

1. Reasonably high dues to cover the program

2. Charging reasonable rates for campouts, etc.

3. Fundraising for capital needs.

4. Develop a method for letting people fundraise to cover costs

5. Just campership the handful where the parents can't pay or be bothered to fundraise

#5 is VERY critical. If 80% of the parents can pay, and 20% can't, the common Scout solution is to run the program for the 20%... that's wrong... just run it for the 80%, and make sure that your fundraising covers the other 20%. The guys handing you donations and buying the popcorn think it's going for kids that can't afford it, nothing wrong with using it that way.

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, etc), we all meet at our CO. Smaller Packs often all meet at once with little distinction between Den/Pack Meetings. Midsized like ours do Pack Meetings together, with Den Meetings as Break Out Sessions (i.e. we call meeting to order, then break into Dens for the activities). Some bigger Packs all meet at the CO, but each Den schedules their own time.

Belt Loops are great activities because the boys that go to Day Camp come back with a bag of them earned (and the other boys want to go), plus we organize campouts to earn 2-3 of them to get the boys not camping jonsing to camp. I am concerned that the new program is going to remove the Pack-wide programming. On one hand, Tigers + Webelos 2s together makes Pack-wide stuff tough, OTOH, the younger Cubs are super excited to do things with the older ones.

With this journey-style approach, I fear that it will be week-in, week-out Den Meetings, with limited opportunities to earn awards and recognition.

HOWEVER, Current Rank Advancement is utterly broken, as Sidney Porter points out with Webelos and post rank advancement Drop off.

So the boys work for 5 months (10 meetings) plus a few "homework assignments" to Rank Advance. Meanwhile, they get belt loops for an hour of play. If they do electives while rank advancing (or at summer camp), they get no recognition until after the rank patch is awarded. Two boys did two weeks of Day Camp, they earned 40 Electives there... in June. They received their Arrow Heads in February... some instant recognition.

Tiger is TOTALLY broken, the only things electives do for them are beads, and they don't get the beads until after the Tiger Rank, so in all likelihood, they wear the elective beads for 2-3 Pack Meetings and 4-5 Den Meetings, tops?

We decided for next year that we are no longer pushing for Rank Advancement @ Blue and Gold. Rank Advancement should be aimed for by April Pack Meeting, with May being graduation (and backup for anyone missing). If the boys finish earlier, great, present as earned. This way the boys can earn electives and do a variety of Scouting. We had a problem that we ended up scrambling for some Dens to finish rank advancement for Blue and Gold, with no plans for what to do afterward.

We also have a BIG Camporee in February and a Cuboree in April, so we want to have the meetings leading up to them to make decorations for camp sites, etc., which doesn't happen if you are pushing to rank advance in February.

 

I can see consolidating the purchasing departments to get better volume discounts on stuff they need to buy. However, it has been shown that decentralizing is a much better model than centralizing - more responsive to local needs instead of trying to fit the one size fits all decisions from Central City

 

Michigan seems to have gone overboard on consolidating. Has it been nothing but good for them since then?

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 the SE and team can't stay on top of the DE team.

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 instead "do our best" and there is no reason for naysayers. His son is welcome to stay, but he's on probation. Otherwise, you give in to bullying behavior and set a bad example for the scouts.

"Somewhere you have to give back to your council..."

And with regards to this grotesque reasoning: "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."

I'd like to know that you apply that kind of support and camaraderie to your least favorite government agencies as well, when it comes time to pay those taxes.

If an organization is bloated and inefficient, there is little incentive to become anything else as long as we keep 'slopping the hogs'.

When a parasite has infected an organism, there are only two alternatives to death itself, starve the parasite out or continue to live with it. It looks like you guys are perfect hosts: you know you're being parasitized and you want to continue feeding them anyway.

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/District events, and I have made those a part of my programming for our unit. They also enable us to fund our program with two easy fundraisers.

I'm all for streamlining the program, but I leave that to the board/committee that runs council, and I'm involved in my Unit and District, and that's enough. We all have a role to play.

I accept that the good I get from Council out ways the bad, I wish they'd get better at support, and I speak to the management whenever I can, but if we don't all do our part to support the council, the council will implode. Both our council and the next one over are in dire financial straights, and I think that the right thing to do is to consolidate them, but it's not my call. In this case, I think that my obligation is to offer cheerful obedience, even if I shake my head at the silliness.

Somewhere you have to give back to your council and popcorn is really the easiest way to do it. if you do "other" fundraising, yes you seem to make more or as much money as you would with popcorn, but that is usually because you are keeping 100% of the profit, rather than splitting it with council. If you don't do any of the council fundraisers your unit is basically freeloading off council at that point since the registration money you pay a year goes primarily to national for registration.

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 Charter Org from the IRS (#2).

I have no idea what the IRS would say regarding my structure (#2), but I think that the likelihood that they would swoop in, audit the Synagogue, and fight the Synagogues 501c3 because they think my incentives were slightly too large pretty close to 0, so I'm okay. However, I still need to met #1, am I staying within the IRS/BSA guidelines.

As a result of this discussion, I'm revisiting how I'm going to structure my popcorn "sales requirements" for the Pack to cover your attendance. I think we can keep the numbers manageable for parents to not get scared, and let the boys "earn their way", while keeping the incentives in line with normal non-profit operations, and in the "de minims" and "recognition" realm.

Thanks to everyone for the help here.

At our troop level, none of the parents care about costs, whether they pay $30, $35, or $50 for a camp out, they don't care. At our pack level, $15/person vs $35/person is $100/family, that matters.