elitts

Thank-you for the clear explanation and reasoning behind the way that stuff is handled over on Legal Street. Not to say I love the system, but I do appreciate the explanation.

It's their own team mate. So they stand right behind them and throw through the opening. Mostly it forces them to go slower and work together. But yeah, throwing from a distance would be bad. Plus the game is played with lightish balls. Wiffle balls, foam balls, inflatable balls, thin rubber balls etc.

Depending on the age range, "creating a good game" can often just be taking some existing game and adding a few unnecessarily complications. Cubs in particular tend to love that, but the younger scouts do too. I got a lot of mileage out of game I found somewhere that involves getting lots of different size and shape balls, splitting into teams on opposing sides of a field and telling them they want to throw all the balls into the other team's area. Scoring is 1 point for every ball your opponent has and -3 points if they throw a ball out of bounds on purpose. Next round, you can only throw

#1: I agree generally. I'd feel differently if the uniform shirt didn't suck. When they start making it out of synthetics with 3%-5% lycra and have someone do the measurements that has a brain, I might start feeling differently. #2: I think Ranks serve a purpose of breaking up the progress to Eagle into manageable steps. But if I were in charge, I'd probably get rid of "Scout and Second Class". Make Tenderfoot requirements the basic safety components and 1st class all the basic camping, first aid and other skills. But I'd keep Star and Life and I'd probably add in more stringent "

One of the reasons why I keep reminding our scouts to end every meeting with 30-40 minutes of a game. I've even been tempted to build a snack into the troop budget for the end of meetings. I know getting a treat of some kind does great things for making meetings better in the working world, no reason why it wouldn't work for kids.

Please keep in mind that this forum runs on slightly tighter rules of conduct than some other places. Low value snarky responses such are not acceptable here given the highly emotional nature of the subject-matter. Please consider this an informal warning.

This is one thing I generally agree with. I do think the numbers have and will prove that most of the steps implemented by the BSA in the last 40 years had already done much to mitigate (not eliminate) the problem; but even so, I think there was still a significant feeling of "well, that could never happen here" among active scouters that opened up dangerous holes in the protections for kids. Kosnoff was one of the most frequent and vocal advocates of the idea that the LCs were sitting on massive piles of un-tapped wealth in their camps from the early days of this bankruptcy. He's t

I don't actually disagree with your overall point, but in any troop bringing more than 1 leader to summer camp, the 18-20 year olds are actually really helpful. Unless your camp's sites are really far apart, Two Deep Leadership is maintained by all the other registered leaders present at Summer Camp so those 18-20 year olds do just fine since they can provide more guidance than an adult can without really breaking the concept of "scout led". Or in other words, those young adults can guide without making the scouts feel like "The adults are taking over".

I agree there's a lot to discuss in any gun control regulation, and most of the issues are complex, particularly given the fact that the cat most certainly can't be stuffed back in the bag. I'd just love there to be a reasonable conversation about what kinds of controls make sense and are reasonable without the more hardcore folks sticking their fingers in their ears, shutting their eyes and screaming "God and the 2nd amendment said I get my guns!" over and over until people give up.

At a minimal level I'm good with just establishing a system allowing family or friends to file a report to get the process started. Honestly, I'm not familiar with how the laws are set up everywhere, I'm sure it's a complete mishmash and this isn't an issue that concerns me enough to spend time researching it. I just know that they tried to pass a law along those lines here in Michigan 10-15 years ago and the local NRA came out against it like they were trying to cut the trigger fingers off of everyone under the aegis of "who knows what they'll try to take away next!!" In Michigan the

This has been my contention for as long as I can remember. I'm all good with the 2nd amendment and I have no interest in taking guns in general away from people; but for at least the last 20 years (dunno how much longer) the NRA has stood firm against ANY form of regulation under the "slippery slope" argument. I just can't see things like the option of a court taking guns away from people with diagnosed Dementia or other major psychological disorders as something any rational person should be against. I don't like the idea of someone not taking their pills resulting in weapons being in

I agree, that's certainly not a conversation that should involve all members of the troop. I would think Key 3 and maybe 1-3 more if there are long term committee members with positions who know all the parties involved would be sufficient and appropriate. But, it doesn't sound like the OP actually engaged in any significant dialog with the CC on the issue, so it's hard to know if the CC saying "lets discuss it with everyone" meant literally everyone or if he/she meant it the way my CC would have with just the core Committee members.

Well kind-of. Certainly the social issues had an impact on membership, but I suspect it's not the lion's share of the issue. A very significant issue has been scope creep in sports combined with the increasing rate of 2 working parents in families. Many of those sports that were once seasonal have become year round or 3-season endeavors. Tennis, Lacross, Baseball, Field Hockey, Soccer, etc.. So where once a kid might do scouts for 9 months and just stop long enough for a sport season, now their whole year is tied up so they just skip scouts entirely. And the reason BSA started movi

It's amazing what billion or trillion dollar endowment funds will do for you when it comes to self-insuring.

That's exactly what the situation is, though most of those parents won't admit it. They want their children to always be completely safe and happy, obediently following the rules and doing only what they are told and not having to bear the responsibility or consequences for anything so they can just "be kids". Somehow they think their kids will magically pick up the ability to cope with life's trials after they are 18. The idea of raising children that question (politely) adults, determine what they think a solution should be on their own and who can function somewhat independently is s

I found a 40s or 50s BSA published book of "Games to play" that included things like "Chicken Fights", and the game where you try and slap your opponent's hand before they can pull it away. I bet the BSA would disavow those too if ever asked about them. Huh. I wonder if Red Rover is still kosher? I loved that game as a kid.

The problem with "Calling National" is that they are only giving you the answer from the perspective of the "official" Youth Protection Violation report policy. So from that perspective they gave you a technically correct answer, but still didn't actually address your issue. Your CC isn't trying to conduct an official "Youth Protection Violation Investigation", they are doing a concurrent examination of the situation to see if immediate troop level action is required. National has only one button to push when it comes to Troop level leadership; they can pull a Scouter's membership. Nat

Yep, I can easily see an exchange going something like: SE: "I can't give you any information at this stage, if you want to know what the complaint entails you'll need to speak with the aggrieved party." Turns into: CC: "The SE can't tell me what happened so you need to tell me what the issue was that got reported so that we can discuss it with the committee and figure out what needs to be done" Turns into: Parent: "The CC is demanding I turn over a copy of my report so they can investigate it"

No, that's not scout led, that's "scout figure-head puppet" and I promise the scouts can see the difference. Even in a brand new troop, the counseling and advice should be coming from adults either before or after the meeting or activity in the form of a "what worked, what didn't" style conversation, unless something is going seriously off the rails of course.

I think that's part of what's really tripping me up here too. I've seen too many instances of parents going to battle for their kids only to find out what the kid told the parent in the first place wasn't exactly or entirely what happened. I don't know if that's the case here or not, but some parts of the story as laid out certainly trip some warning bells saying SOMETHING is missing here.

I just want to make it clear that I never said, nor do I think, that the behavior the OP has described is acceptable. If I were the CC or COR and I became aware of an incident like this it would take an other-wise sterling record, a completely repentant attitude and some serious consideration before I considered anything besides booting the SM from his/her position if not the troop. I just Bullying is certainly reportable, all I said is that not all instances of someone being mean is "bullying", regardless of whether or not there is a power imbalance. It really

I'm going to agree that, on it's face, this wasn't really a YP violation. It may well have been a "Bad Scoutmaster " situation, but not a Youth Protection violation. A single incidence of being mean or rude or unkind isn't "Bullying", it's just being unpleasant. Telling your son "that shirt isn't appropriate for the activity and you need to change" is likewise not bullying. If the Scoutmaster encouraged the other boys to then be unkind to your son, that WOULD be bullying, but if the other boys were just pissed at your son for taking up 45 minutes of their time over not changing

This is correct. Doing that allows you to provide an explaination or comment on the post. You can even create your own reply and then report it with a comment to draw the Moderator's attention to an ongoing problem. Alternately, you can click on a moderator's name and message them directly, though that doesn't go to everyone the way "Report" does.

I've hidden a few posts here because we were moving from arguing on issues to just arguing with each other. Not all of the posts were un-scoutlike, but I also removed those that were responding directly to the offending posts. Let's all just take a breath or two before continuing. If you disagree with the hiding of these posts, please message the moderators in general and if the collective disagrees with me, the posts can be un-hidden.

This isn't a fringe view, you just aren't reading what he wrote in context. He's not saying women are "Neurotic" he's talking about the "Big Five Dimensions of Personality". Neuroticism is a trait, not a mental illness or criticism. Another phrase for Neuroticism is "Emotional Stability". But everyone should alsways keep in mind that not all the moderators read everything every day. If anyone thinks a post is contrary to the forum rules, they should "Report" the post rather than assuming a moderator will be along soon and notice it.