BrotherhoodWWW

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Marketing/Resources/SocialMedia.aspx

Not sure how many others have found this. It seems to be a break from policy of the past. Parts that do not make sense to me is that email, IM, and I would guess texting now possibly violate the no one on one provision unless three or more folks are included. Seems to make the job of being an adult leader that much harder. Next we will not be able to call Scouts on the phone without setting up a conference call.I would think that BSA would be interested in serving kids by meeting them with their choice of media. Email and other elctronic forms of communication are safer than traditional forms such as a telephone precisily because there is a record of them, enabling checks at both ends to ensure appropriateness. Am I the only one that thinks this? At some point youth leaders and their parents need to be able to trust the "capable selected adults" that serve as their leaders and mentors. If that is not the case then perhaps it is time to remove the adult association and leadership methods from the program.

I do not see it as my responsiblility as an adult leader to monitor my Scouts social networking, computer,and cell phone use in their home. I choose to use those mediums because they work. It is up to the boys parents to monitor their use of such things to ensure their safety. I surely watch over what my children are doing online and with the cell phone. I would hope that my Scouts share my conversations with their parents, but the onus seems to be on them not me or us (BSA).

My District covers most of two counties, Farthest units are about an hour and half apart. My council spans from the Canadian border on the north, Oregon border on the south, crest of the Cascades on the west and three counties wide in places. North to south is about a 5 hour drive, and east to west about two hours.

Last I heard it was out of print. I am not sure when a new one will be available. You might give neighboring Council's a call to see if they have one.

Interesting, I just heard from a Council VP this last weekend that National is backing away from required training or "trained" leader status as a condition of recharter. The first thought was to roll back the date a year but instead they choose to abandon the idea all together. Although I advocate training I am bothered by the quality and need for much of the materials presented. I believe that we are not teaching the right topics in our training. SM/ASM misses so much IMHO of what new leaders need to know.

BP, you are partly correct in your guess that my opinion is based on my prejudice, yup PARTLY. As an 18yo senior in high school I was a member of an explorer post for business. My reasons were three fold: I needed to be registered to maintain lodge membership (Iwas at the time a Chapter Chief), I was generally interested in business as a career path, One of my fellow explorers happend to be a hot daughter of a very famous Deputy Prosecutor in my city that also happend to attend my HS. Hey it was fun, it was not Scouting, and it was less work than JA (Junior Achievement). When I moved away to college I searched for a Troop that needed an ASM to maintain OA membership, although that also involved a Lodge transfer. I was fairly mature when I first took the Obligation, I was even more so when I became Brotherhood, which i remained for nearly 30 years until last weekend. I took seriously my obligations to not only my service to Scouting and the OA but the welfare of others.

V, V, and E do have their place. They are a way to add opportunities beyond Boy Scouting. Is it wrong to think that they should be stand alone programs? Our record of retention between program steps sure does not give me confidence that they are sustainable if they are not stand alone. That said we need to serve kids with our primary program and the best way to do that is meet their needs. The OA is part of that. This thread is about the misnomer of the description of what the Order is. Cange that to reflect what it should be and it might help spur V&E to come up with their own honor society more fitting with their program. As far as the other V varsity, if it is working in its niche market leave it be.

BP beyond those thoughts I also think that Venturing has a weak oath and sign. Meanwhile the BS Oath is like music and has great meaning IMHO. Add to that that Venturing is also just not producing the numbers despite being coed. It does not seem to be meeting the needs of youth either. Do not misunderstand that I am opposed to it. I think it is a good program and hopefully it will grow.

SP the problem with Cubs is that first it is too long and burns kids out. Second kids and families that are not into the art and crafts and silliness have the mistaken belief that Boy Scouting is just more of the same and will not give it a chance. Interesting thing about TC is that it was tested by LDS who choose to not adopt it into their program. You know and I know that Cubs is a great program and gives us good numbers, I think I've heard that Cubs out number other programs. My point is that despite the numbers in Cubs we are not retaining them into Boy Scout years, which is our Charter objective.

Cub Scout parents and leaders generally do not make great Boy Scout adult leaders without much training and breaking of bad habits that are counterproductive to a boy lead program. IMHO we are left with third year Webelos troops, advancement mill troops, renegade troops that otherwise do not follow the program, and a few good traditional units that focus on Scouting, and this goes for all charter orgs. Scouting focuses on outdoors, boy leadership, and providing opportunity to achieve First Class. Arrowmen that are active seem to come from this last type of troop.

The reasons for the decline are many and varried. IMHO poorly done ceremonies are worse than no ceremony at all. It should be the most memorable part of ones Ordeal. BSA and the National OA committee have revised the mission of the OA and the Lodge. It seems that one of the main objectives is leadership and choosen capable adult mentors for each youth- I see problems with this in regards to youth protection guidelines. I believe the OP is correct and we need to go back to being honor CAMPERS!

OT but I think the problem with BSA is numbers v quality. The middle school model works against us. Our cornerstone program has peer and public perception problems. Cub Scouts chases many away due to emphasis on arts and crafts and advancement task oriented. Venturing, Varsity, and Explorers are about adding to our numbers. If the purpose was serving youth then why do we on purpose underpay summer camp staff? Are not they part of our target audience? Elsewhere Bob White has posted possible reasons why we are losing youth. His conclusions deal with meeting thier needs. If Troops are not meeting the needs of youth until age 18 then we are doing something wrong. It is not the fumes at fault it is us, the guardians of the program. I say scrap Tiger, go to a three year cub program with an outdoor focus. Spend most of our resource on the Boy Scout programk and start meeting their needs. If we do not get them involved by 7th grade chances are we will not. Venturing and Explorers are fine as long as they are stand alone programs and not merchandised as the next step.

Return to the days where being an Arrowman was special. Kids do like playing indian once they try it and get the ego boost that comes from looks of wonderment from younger scouts.

I don't pretend to have all the answers. I was elected as a youth in 1980. Sealed Brotherhood 1981. Served as a Lodge Dance Team Chief, Chapter Chief of two different chapters in 2 different lodges, and attended NLS. The year I was Dance Team Chief we took first at our section conclave. Right after my Ordeal ceremony our lodge had a cracker barrel. I inquired about ceremony team at that time and was advised that the ceremony team was full but the lodge was looking for more dance team members. I think I was different than a lot of the youth then and now. I was in 10th grade when I was elected. I was exposed to the OA in my preschool years at a camporee when my dad was a Scoutmaster. This was back in the day of Saturday westerns and real Tapouts. For a rather young kid to watch "indians" by fire light was impressive to say the least. Once I was in Boy Scouts the Arrowmen in my first Troop were only the much older Scouts that I hardly knew. There were none in my Patrol. The lodge flap they wore looked cool and they "were" IMHO cool, guys I looked up to. We shortly moved and the next time I was in a Troop with an OA member was when I was elected. However the Arrowmen I met along the way after the move were all the "cool" camp staff members. The OA was a huge part of my experience as a youth and kept me involved into my college years when life took over. I find it sad that youth today do not have the same experience. I can see the same happening today.

I think it will take out of the box thinking to energize the OA to the point where Aroowmen stand in line for camp staff jobs. I think Councils need to make that happen. The youth staff are part of our target audience are they not. Out of the box thinking seeks donations etc to set up an endowment account to pay staff fees for youth members. Could be a win-win deal.

In my Lodge the active membership problems IMHO stem from poor ceremonies. If the new members see that the existing members do not take the order seriously why should they.

Yup BadenP you are so right I should just withdraw my opinion. No reason to try anything new. No reason to hire quality people to staff our camps. Parents and Scouts will just keep going elsewhere and paying much higher prices. Have you priced sports camps? They have those for grade school kids. I do not think anyone was advocating someone making $10 an hour making multi thousand dollar decisions, not sure where that was coming from. The OA may be in sharp decline but I see more youth at our Conclave than I did 30 years ago and the section is smaller, has fewer lodges. OA membership has peaks and valleys as does every thing else. Why play the blame game at all? How about just fixing it! To me that includes paying youth staff a reasonable wage for their service.

The facts are in my council using DE's for camp staff jobs has resulted in less service to units. I do not see this helping to fill camps or increase FOS contributions. I think it has resulted in a net loss when compared to hiring outside folks to do those jobs.

In the council, since merged, I grew up in the SE was the Camp Director. The DEs did not work at camp. In my present Council the ASE and DE's staff our camps as both CD and PD so the districts are left hanging during camp season. Last year our quite capable DE was assigned to all our Council's day camps. Our unit service fell to none for over two months, at the end of which it was announced he was moving on to a new council. I think they need to seriously look at the qualifications of the pro staff to fill camp jobs. If the pro staff are not excellent at camp jobs units will be better served by hiring folks to do those specific jobs that do excel. Wise choices in staffing camps brings profit or at least revenue the same as good unit service from a DE. No service from a DE because he's playing camp director and doing poorly at it is a lose lose deal. Yet they wonder why FOS numbers are down!

A neighbor council has a I believe senior DE serve as CD and they hire qualified PD's and a business manager for each camp. They do not have problems it seems filling their camps.

Councils would IMHO be much better served to start providing a quality experience for camps with good quality staff that they pay fairly. Do that and you would see a return to the days of waiting lists of OA members wanting to serve. There would likely no longer be a need to hire teen and young adult women to staff our camps. I mentioned this to my DE who was to be this years CD. His answer was that there is no way they could afford to do that. I replied that is the problem with the pros; don't tell me there is no way, find the way to do it. He has since found other employment. Sheesh need to train another.

The begining of the end was the "update" early summer 2009 when much of the usability disappeared. That was followed by bug chasing half heartedly by folks that should have been employed IMHO in jobs other than IT. It did not help that their programming choice did not play well with their needed security and other software. In the midst of this Linda F. who was the project manager for SC was re-assigned to other tasks. I learned this morning that she is no longer with BSA if any of you care. Since losing Linda and BSA's either unwillingness or inability to fix the problems the community crumbled. The bickering I'm sure did not help.

In a lot of ways SC was vastly better than Scouter.com. In some ways it was not as good. If Scouter.com would adopt a better forum software package with features that are common elsewhere there would be no need for any other.

Good job Gary! The OA is so important to the makeup of our organization that Each Lodge Chief is by default a member of the council board. Each Chapter Chief should be a member of theif District Committee. Handing out awards such as Silver Beaver and Vigil Honor for monetary reasons is very wrong, makes me sick to my stomach actually. We have the James E. West knot for that.

Fold and roll. Funny how shirts do not wear out at the creases but at the edges. Apples and oranges, perhaps. The more important issue to me is that tents are aired out and dried prior to storage.

drats delayed double post(This message has been edited by BrotherhoodWWW)

They add flavoring to a goeduck bake other than that they are tough and taste like madrona bark. Except the ones that survive in the pacific yew stands, hear-tell that there is some medicinal purposes for them. However the info on the Sasquatch is false. You see the Bigfoot is a southern and eastern slope cascade critter and happens to be the totem for my lodge Tataliya 614! Many sightings have been within 50 miles of Camp Fife.

SP I'm confused about what you are saying. Compared to other councils around you you are small geographically. Your Council has 4 camps that I can identify. Parsons is closer to Seattle than Scout-a-Vista is to Yakima. My Council is charging $255 per spot these days and it must be fair given all the out of council troops we have attending. I think we offer a bargain when compared to other week long camps aimed at kids. I see the need to keep it affordable. I also see that the professional staff keeps saying that there is not enough money to pay youth staff a fair wage. Perhaps if we dramatically raised the cost, increased the availability of camperships and started paying the youth staff a fair wage many of our summer camp problems would go away.

Acco40 I see where you are coming from. What does backpacking have to do with a day hike? There is a whole bunch of difference between a backpacking trip at elevation and a long day hike at near sea level.

I do not fit the limits. For years I thought that I should not be a SM because of that fact. Today I have a choice between giving the boys in my Troop the opportunity to have a Troop that follows the program or one that does not. I choose the former and am the SM. My CO supports that decision. I've thought about stepping down about as long as it takes me to remember that the CSE and Commish. Tico are shaped just like me. So is my SE. That leads me to believe the height/ weight issue to be just more bureaucratic feel good double speak. It is a fine thing to have a standard and for Philmont the standard makes some sense in that they have a standard, and exception range and they stick to it.

Sorry error caused me to double post.(This message has been edited by BrotherhoodWWW)

'42 try all lower case with the correct spelling.

Scoutrev, if you still are needing to know ask another member of your Lodge for it, a Lodge or Chapter officier or Advisor.

If you have been an athiest since age 13 you should do the right thing and surrender your Eagle award. If you believed yourself to be gay at any time of your involvement you should have and should do the right thing and walk away. So blunt answer is NO and still NO. A Scout is obiedient! BSA requires a belief in God; yet you profess a disbelief. BSA has a no GAY policy; yet you try to buck the system from within. Obidience tells us to work peacefully to get changes to laws and policys you object to.

I've had several full day first aid courses over the years. I learned more about first aid as a Scout. As a Scout in the early 80's I went with my Troop to a local fire station for two evening sessions in CPR. I think a refresher would be good. I agree that a basic first aid course should be part of every direct contact leaders training. Offering it at summer camp is a great idea and one that I will be presenting to my Council.

IMHO the required training we have now is not nearly as important as first aid. YPT once and then a test every two years should be enough, yet it is not. Weather hazards was a total waste of my time. Safe swim and safety afloat was ok but the emphasis on some parts I did not care for. I would much rather volunteers spend the time learning first aid.

Moose you might read it again it appears to me to say "When conducting the following activities outside of council or district events: " which means that units do not need to submit a plan for these events because the District or Council is hosting and providing supervision and planning for them hence the use of the word outside.

So if a Council does not require one for an event or outing sponsored by the district or council and one of the activities listed under 6d then the unit still does not need to fill one out for that event. If a unit wants to do one of those activities on their own then yes one would be required.

What seems to be remaining the same is that it is a planning and communication document that should help units to plan safe outings. It should also remind units that certain high risk activities require additional planning or training. To me it only makes sense that National permits are now going to be processed by Council given last years closing of the region offices.

Wow a bunch of really good posts. Richard even shows that he might have a sense of humor.

Two things:

A Patrol outing in my opinion is one in which the Patrol plans it and is up to and including being dropped off by parents for an overnight camping excursion. Under some conditions swimming might even be reasonable and prudent. All subject to Scoutmaster approval.

I think it is fair to remember why we are here....... The Scout

His patrol supports him

The Troop supports the patrol

The district supports the Troop (or any unit)

The council supports the districts

The region supports the councils

National supports the regions.

The key is support. If our expectation is anything short of boys growing to the point where we can trust them to not only take care of themselves but also each other without our interference then we need to change our name.

I do not see our mission as one of providing supervision of boys until they drive away on their first date. Rules solely based on liability reduction, paperwork to make us feel or look better, and or required training for the sake of saying we have trained volunteers seem to be aimed towards adult control rather than empowering youth to learn and grow.

By the way the five mile hikes IIRC was part of the Hiking Skill Award, too lazy to look.

Richard thanks for taking the time to listen to us.

I wish to share the message of living the ideals with more youth; seems like roadblocks keep piling up. It needs to be about the Boy not the paperwork.

Yessir, Beavah nailed it again IMHO. I've had heat stroke. I've also had lots of first aid training. I earned FAMB as a youth and led my patrol to a first place in our district FA Contest. Trained medical folks make mistakes too.

When i had my heat stroke one of my co-workers was a Paramedic. He and I had just spent the entire morning in a service pickup in 70ish temps. After lunch when my symptoms presented it was far worse than even he thought. Had my wife drive me to a clinic that was an hour away where they gave me several liters of saline only to release me. On the way out to the car I started vomiting again. I then was taken to the local hospital for over night care and watching. Yeah you could say that several trained medical people under estimated the severity of a heat related illness that day. To this day I have a long term issue that simply persists that I think is caused by my heat illness.

You can believe that I pay close attention to hydration of myself and those around me. You can believe that I know the symptoms of heat illness since that day however they also are common with other illnesses or conditions.

I'm willing to give the SM and his ASM the benefit of doubt based on what I've read and heard concerning this tragic loss. It is possible that it took an hour for a cell phone to find a signal; mine sure drops coverage for no good reason.

Richard B. sure was poorly presented in the video, could just be crafty editing. Sadly we need someone doing what Richard does for us. Sadly He and those doing the same thing in industry just seem to think differently than I do.

Seems like the first thing you are supposed to do to avoid heat illness beyond proper hydration is acclimate your self to it. I would guess that the deceased was such at the time of his death. Without autopsy his cause of death I doubt could be established as more likely than not to be heatstroke due to negligence. Sadly the reality of this is the likely least costly option is a settlement.

Sadly the outcome of this will cost us all more money. More training might even become required. The training we have now that is needed to be considered trained is not enough IMHO to with any certainty know that all leaders will recognize and correctly diagnose heat illness each and every time it happens. I think it is fair to trust that others will have and keep the welfare, health, and safety of the boys in their thoughts and do the best their training allows.

4 1/2 first set 5 second set. Those were really tough for me as well.