Ankylus

1. The school officials here are classic. They are going to tell you just enough to put you on the spot but not enough for you to really act. Gutless, spineless wonders, and unfortunately all too exemplary of most "educators" today. OK, rant over... 2. Really, you don't know a whole lot. I personally don't trust these particular school officials given the way the cavalierly are breaching privacy laws and policies. 3. If you can establish to your satisfaction that he is in fact guilty (not necessarily legally) of a second offense, then the scout has burned his second chance. 4. One

Actually, I don't think you are a spokesman for national. If my comments imply such, then I chose poorly and I apologize. And if I ever have to deal with it, I will surely let the forum know.

So, @@NJCubScouter, you seem to believe @@qwazse has answered question 1. I am still curious, however:

1. I understand the sentiment about rules. 2. By "invoking", I mean had to cite the rule in the guise of working with adult conduct. I am curious because @@NJCubScouter thinks no rule is needed about openly gay males tenting together because it so rarely happens and has never happened in his experience. I am interested in how "rare" is "rare", and he seems to think his personal experience is relative to this measure. So I just asked the question. 3. The general fallback, catch-all rule.Yes, it's there, and it's written. It has been my experience that these kinds of rules are written fo

Maybe our adult leader just ignored it then.

We have had our trek assignment for a couple of weeks. But we are on a 2-week trek...might be different.

1. I agree "the BSA expects local leaders, units and CO's to exercise a degree of common sense and discretion when there is no specific rule on a subject". That having been said, they need to put it in writing just so that it's plain and clear. I mean, if it's so rare it doesn't happen, then how is it going to hurt you to put it in writing? 2. There is a rule that unmarried man and women can't share tents. It's in writing. Just curious....have you ever had to invoke that rule? How common is that in your experience? Because it has only ever happened once in mine and I have been active in sc

This was not true in 2010. We started out from Miranda on our layover day, climbed Baldie without checking in with anybody, and then descended down the other side of Baldie to Baldie Town. We even took a side trip to French Henry before going to Baldie Town. Maybe they changed the policy in the last 7 years. Perhaps I will find out in July, although we don't get to hit Baldie.

Mayflower, Puritans, sexually repressed....and so on.

Actually, knots are highly significant in some areas of science and technology. For example, "knot theory" is an important field in mathematics. Some studies indicate that the universe may actually be a large woven "mat" and that knot theory may be a key to unlocking further understanding of the structure of the universe: http://discovermagazine.com/1993/apr/loopsofspace199 One aspect of knot theory is how stresses are transmitted and held in a "knot" or structure including knots, including the filaments of the knot or structure. And, nanotubes and some other emerging technolog

This is a red herring in the U.S. In case you missed it, SCOTUS ruled a couple of years ago that homosexuals have a constitutional right to get married. So, there's no excuses now. Gays can be married or not, according to their desires, just like heterosexual people. And so the rules apply to gays just like heteros...if hetero couple can do it, a gay couple can do it and vice versa. If marital status is determinative for the hetero sexual couple, then it is also for gay couples. The whole "but we're not allowed to marry" excuse is now void and invalid.

There are many ways to skin a cat, but I agree that you are looking at it a bit backwards. At Philmont, there is no substitute for breaking camp early. 4:30 am seems a bit early to me, and you don't necessarily have to breakfast on the trail. But these things depend on your crew. When you breakfast in the campsite there is a strong tendency to congregate around the cooking area instead of breaking down and packing up. But if your crew is sufficiently disciplined, you can still breakfast in camp and get an early start. If your crew is not disciplined--and it takes only one--then you mig

I certainly can live with that, provided you have a sufficiently flexible definition of "active." For example, we conduct that annual district camporee, and we need a lot of those guys who show up only once or twice a year to be able to hold the shooting and climbing events, for example.

Wow, a necrothread. I'll chime in anyway since it seems to be going around. The behavior is inappropriate and sharing the tent is against policy. The SM and the CC ask for a meeting with the two of them. There's no easy way to say it, so the CC just says, "The two of you have been sharing PDA at scout functions in front of the scouts and you even shared a tent on a campout contrary to BSA policy. The tenting arrangement will not happen again or we go to the COR and the CO again and ask them to revoke their consent for your position. According to reports that we are getting from parents, th

We have 1 SM and 42 ASMs, but probably half those ASMs are not particularly active. We don't require CPR/AED for all of them, but some are certified climbing instructors, some are NRA SORs, some are certified for archery....we see most of the less active ones 2 or 3 times a year depending on how often we need their skills. It's the recruiting for the ASMs that we ask to show up every week that gets difficult sometimes.

Stumbled across this today and thought some of our girl scouting friends might be interested. A first step in sharing program and resources: http://www.summitbsa.org/high-adventure-girl-scout-style/

In my experience, the biggest impediment to recruiting adult volunteers is time commitment fro training. We require position appropriate training before registering them. Some won't do anything because they just don't want to be bothered. Some will volunteer only for those positions with minimal online training. A very few will take on the positions tat require training beyond online training. But the fear of the legal allegation is very real. We work really hard to develop techniques to prevent that, including YPT techniques espoused by BSA.

I am still dreading the day I have to figure out tenting arrangements for an openly gay or "transgendered" boy.

Diagnosing boys as ADD/ADHD because they won't behave like girls has been decried as trendy for some time now and yet the pace of diagnosis hasn't slowed.

Howdy! And welcome to the forum, from Texas.

I wish my daughter could have been in your troop. Thank you.

Then they better get busy and find some women who want to take the girls camping. I understand your point, but it ain't happening with the outdoor program.

Is your compass course going to be more of a geocaching kind of thing or just straight orienteering? Is that for a rank advancement? We have a couple of ex-army guys who set up our courses. They do an excellent job, and the boys really learn something. A classic scouting skill, too. Sounds like y'all are gonna have fun.

@@Phrogger, The quick answer to your question is "no". There is the theoretical, and there is the practical. The literal, theoretical answer to your question lies in the MB requirements. Do the requirements for the Cooking MB anywhere in them state that the scout must be a First Class scout before taking the MB? No, they do not. And so the answer to your question is "no". For a counter-example, look at Lifesaving MB which requires a scout to first, "Complete Second Class rank requirements 5a through 5d and First Class rank requirements 6a, 6b, and 6e." Also on the theoretical s

I gather from @@ShootingSports reply that you might not have a choice. I get the feeling that you are beginning to feel like you have more than you can handle because of the size of your troop. Some of the responses from the BSA perspective are glossing over something significant that is different between the two programs that @@bsaggcmom hits on. That difference is the size of the group based on organizational dynamics. Management techniques and styles must change with the size of the organization. A small group can be managed quite well with techniques that will make a medium-sized o