DuctTape

28 minutes ago, Eagle1970 said:

Any victim can go to town on this forum, as far as I am concerned.  There will be little justice in this case.  And to those who were tortured by leaders, or in my case, BSA employed camp counselor, and are in a closed or grey state, working through this is about all they are going to get.

 

I hear you, and in general agree. Where I draw the line is when it targets other members here.

Attributing motive to others or describing them in prejudicial terms when they have differing opinions or are making decisions one doesn't agree with is wholly unfair IMO. I understand  principals in the case have personal and passionate attachments to the outcomes which can lead to personal and emotional attributions of motive etc... of the other side and of others not involved. This But this is a negotiation of a legal case. As stated by Aristotle, "the law is reason, free from from passion." Of course this has the result of fueling the attribution of others by those passionate folks who are personally affected. 

16 hours ago, T2Eagle said:

I don't want to belabor this point too much, but kids can be registered as scouts for upwards of 12 years.  Attend a pack campout when your kid is in second grade, 6PM Friday night through noon on Sunday is 42 hours.  So if you want to go on the same campout next year you're over the 72 hours and need to register.  Finesse the hours a little and maybe you don't have to register until your kid is in fourth grade, but at that point you need to remain a registered leader for another eight years, or never camp with your kid again.  

Even if you reset when you crossover to ScoutsBSA, you're talking about 1 1/2 campouts and then you're obligated to remain registered for more than half a decade.  So for instance, you're a big skier, and you're really only interested in helping the troop for the annual ski trip, that's 7 years worth of registration, fees, and training, for one campout a year.

The reset is per event.

1 hour ago, johnsch322 said:

No one has said they have billions in hidden assets but the do have billions in assets that are in the open. 

Source?

3 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

In my  36 years being involved with Boy Scouts/Scouts BSA, only 1, again ONLY 1, has ever said the Outdoor Code as a part of their opening and/or closing ceremony. They do keep the Scout Sign up for it.

Years ago one of my scouts, in uniform, was at a restaurant with his father before our meeting. An elderly gentleman as he was leaving said "If you can recite the Outdoor Code, I will pay for your dinner"  The scout stood up and proudly recited the OC. It has been part of the opening  in the troop for generations.

Sounds awesome. I am not familiar with cubs and webelos requirements, so it is awesome to see that one. Sad that it doesn't continue as ever increasing requirements for upper ranks. One would think that a first class scout should have done this and more. I suppose it is implied as a result of serving as a PL or such, but sadly this is not necessarily true.

20 hours ago, Armymutt said:

That's the thing.  Where do you draw the line between parent observation and parent interaction?  If a parent can observe any event, to me that means they would have to not engage with the Scouts, unless there was a problem.  I don't know of any parents who would go on a camping trip, stay off by themselves, and not get involved, whether it's helping set up camp, eating dinner with the troop, etc.

I agree that observing would mean not engaging in the scouts' program. The adult does not need to be by themselves though. They should be with the other adults, separate from the scouts anyway. This time is best spent in educating the observing adults in the hows and whys of scouting. Explaining to the witnesses what they are observing and how the perceived chaos is actually the patrol method in action and how it helps fulfill the aims of scouting.

Recognition and handing out a patch to adults, ok.

A ceremony, no. 

If the time exceeds that which is provided for a scout to recieve his awards, it was too long.

On 11/7/2021 at 10:40 AM, Navybone said:

I don’t think posting a very biased attack on the MB from some very conservative website is very helpful to the conversation, especially when most of the article is based on supposition about MB could and how it could be manipulated rather than how it is actually written.  

Not surprisingly the article headlines with "critical race theory" to rile up its readers without even defining it, nor attempt to explain how the mB embraces it. I doubt the author or most of it readers even know what CRT really is. 

And for the record, while I support the principles embodied by the mB, I do not support the creation of a new additional (not forgetting to mention required) citizenship mB. IMO the existing mBs should be rewritten to include the principles and include more "doing". For example a "Do one of the following: a. attend a rally or speech in support of rights for historically marginalized citizens. or b. interview a person from a... or c. or or or" Something like that.

A copy/paste of an advertisement or solicitation even with a preface of, "Have you seen this..."  or similar is generally lumped into the No Advertising category regardless of poster's intentions.

I have both of Cave's books. Being over 100 years old, they are not in the greatest of condition. 

I always loved how back in the day, folks like Cave would write books to "fill the gaps"  and/or give more detail with information/techniques not included in the handbook. Of course these pre-dated the Fieldbook.

11 hours ago, ThenNow said:

 

So, I can be on it? Any of you other fellas get an invite?? 

I think you would be a fantastic person for the group. 

7 hours ago, Muttsy said:

Mods, I’m mad. You killed the brightest star in this forum’s constellation. I don’t care what you have to do. Groveling is a start. Get him back. Or maybe it was your intention all along to snuff out his voice. 
No disrespect to the other posters but I think I speak for everyone. 
 

This time is critical and desperately needs high altitude analysis. 

No disrespect. You do not speak for me. 

blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2018/01/19/whats-the-difference-between-two-deep-leadership-and-no-one-on-one-contact/amp/

1 hour ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Have them check their library to see if anyone on staff is a notary. They usually will notorize for free.

Often a secretary in the schools will be notaries too.

The difficulty here (at least one difficulty) is that this is a bankruptcy case too. While the victims deserve compensation, and while most of us would agree that numbers currently being floated are not nearly enough nor could they ever, this is a bankruptcy case. This point cannot be lost. It really really sucks that the major debtors are CSA victims and they will not recieve just compensation like most (all?) debtors in bankruptcy cases. It really really sucks that even with complete liquidation the victims will recieve significantly less than what they deserve. Perhaps the victims groups (I apologize for not understanding the TCC and other names), should settle with the BSA and then go after the insurance companies separately?  WDIK.

17 hours ago, HelpfulTracks said:

Wow, this thread reminds me that we have not seen some posters in a long time. 

If we can identify them, would that count for the requirement? 😜

8 hours ago, HelpfulTracks said:

I talked to a contractor friend who is a MBC for this merit badge. He let out a muted groan when I asked him about this thread. 

He said there are literally 1000's of good projects that he would allow as a MBC. But he is also a bit cautious telling people to make substitutions as he has seen some less than adequate replacements requested or even approved by other MBCs. 

Including:

• Replacing the toilet paper roller bar (just snapping it into place like you do every time you change a roll).
• Putting rubber chair leg caps on a chair (literally, just pushing a rubber cap on the leg)
• Polishing a door nob (and not even using polish, just a dry rag)
• Putting a folded piece of paper under a table leg to balance a table (really??)

As he stated, his concern is the spirit of the MB is to learn minimal skills to actually learn how to REPAIR something, not just do normal maintenance or cleaning, but is willing to give some allowances for skills and environment. But some folks just don't know what a repair is or how to do them, or they are simply trying to take short cuts. 

Another problem is scouts trying to "do the mB" before actually conferencing with the counselor. The counselors in these instances are just "sign-off people". The scout who just gets signed off is denied the opportunity to engage with an adult expert  to understand the requirements and gain something from that adult association and expertise. These scouts are often (in my experience) going to their parents for help with the requirements instead of the counselor.

23 hours ago, elitts said:

No, probably not.  Most of these camps aren't selling for use as camps, they are selling to be logged and then developed, or even just developed.

 

Eh.. I have to think it's a little bit of both.  Outside of a new dining hall my troop's primary camp was entirely unchanged from the time I was a scout until my son was. (so about 25 years)  That's an awfully long time for a camp to exist with next to zero capital improvements. And even the dining hall only got replaced because a couple trees fell on the old one during a storm. 

But during all that time, summer camp attendance had actually increased as other camps in Michigan had been shut down.

I think part of the problem with many council camps was capital improvements. Buildings need continual maintenance which is costly. These legacy costs are usually under-estimated. Too many camps used funds for capital improvements (read: new buildings) when scout camp should IMO de-emphasize buildings.

Scout Camp vs. summer camp for scouts.

28 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

There is already tons of criticism the Eagle program has been watered down to nothing. Telling scouts that they only need 5 required MBs and then can pick 16 of whatever they want is never  ever going to fly.

 

at that point if all they need is five required. you could probably complete all Eagle MBs in a month between coin collecting, fingerprinting, and a host of 3-4 hour classroom type MBs.

My "if I was in charge..." statement would not exist in a vacuum. There would be a complete overhaul of the system. I think in terms of "systems" not in specific items. I understand acutely the interaction between nodes and thus how the different nodes should be defined and utilized for maximum benefit within and outside the system. Often I forget that most others are thinking about the individual nodes in the system and not how one change impacts others. My statement was unfortunately triggering  due to not referencing the multitude of other system wide changes. Since I am "not in charge" nor will I ever have that power, any idea I suggest is academic at best.

2 hours ago, mrjohns2 said:

They said they are cutting one of the electives. I agree, too much book/classroom MBs. As a nerd, it was great/fine with me. But that isn't the program. The more Scouts is like school, the less Scouts we will have. They get enough school at school.

If I were in charge, there would be at most 5 required mBs. 

13 hours ago, wearrepair said:

Goodness, you can have so much fun! Many good ideas above: getting help from many sources. Remember get the training for your scouts since they lead. Perhaps use the field book - chapter by chapter. Get ideas from round table and ask your unit commissioner. enjoy

I have often said a PL could run their patrol just by following the (older)  Fieldbook in order. 

10 hours ago, skeptic said:

So, what is to disagree?  IF they earned the skill award, then they pretty much did all the rank requirements as well. I believe that is what I noted.  Of course, in the case of most merit badges, they still had more things to do besides the items in the skill awards.  Now, for First Aid for example, they must have completed all the rank rquirement first aid items as a prerequite.  That is the first requirement.  

I apologize, I think I read your post too quickly and honed in on the "it's just bling" theme.

23 minutes ago, skeptic said:

Skill awards simply allowed the scout to earn bling for various types of skill, getting one for first aid meant completing all the first aid requirements for the first three ranks.  If a scout earned all the skill awards, he pretty much also learned all the ranks through first class, with a few additional things added in each level.  Also, the skill award booklets were often very good for covering those various rank parts more easily.  Or at least so I saw it.

 

I disagree. The skill awards each had significantly more expectations than just what is in the rank requirements. Certainly the "meat" is the same. But as I mentioned earlier they (almost) forced the scouts to repeat the requirements that would be done in mBs, while now they just start the mB, do the requirement once and count it for both rank and mB. 

This poster hanging in a school is apropos for the discussion. As adults we could (and is likely it will happen in this thread) debate the language in the poster. But it does at a minimum help students make the distinction that not everything is bullying.