Saltface

If you prefer, you can replace safe with mollycoddled.

...and Scoutmaster Minutes can dispense with the platitudes and instead throw a straight doctrinal punch! "Don’t be too critical of the barrier, it’s the only thing that’s keeping you from being devoured." -Von G. Keech "Brethren, stand close together and lift where you stand." -Dieter F. Uchtdorf "Beware of the evil behind the smiling eyes." -Neil L. Andersen

To be fair, BSA's system isn't exactly state of the art either. I can verify that someone is an Eagle Scout, but I can't get a report of all the Eagle Scouts that have come from my troop.

I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue. -William H. Seward

Now that we have the context, I'm reminded of a joke: There were two white Christian men, Adam and Jack, whose plane crashed in the desert. Luckily, they survived unharmed. As they traveled through the hot desert looking for food and water, they gave up and sat down, thinking of what to do. As the dust in the air settled, they could see a mosque ahead. Jack became very hopeful but Adam said ''Muslims are there. They might help us if we say we are Muslim.'' Jack said ''No way, I won't say I'm Muslim, I'm gonna be honest''. So Adam and Jack went to the Mosque and were greeted by a

If you've got advance knowledge, spill the beans. Will the new program look like the current program for 14-18 year-olds?

The wording on some of these unanimous decisions seems a little vague. It was a special committee that unanimously voted to not change the membership policy in 2012. It was a unanimous decision by the Executive Committee (not the Board) to change the adult policy in 2015.

He's being a little bit disingenuous when he says withholding FOS donations doesn't send a message to National Council. According to his own numbers, Grand Teton Council has up to seven seats at National.

Gentlemen, these are all great ideas for troop communication, but none address my original question. How is this rule going to prevent inappropriate contact or false accusation?

Do I detect sarcasm?

I'm generally opposed to 13 year old Eagles, but I'm going to find myself mentoring a few next year. These boys won't get the chance to lollygag through Star and Life like their brothers did. I'm not going to push anyone through an Eagle mill, but if the boys want it, we're going to have to attack this thing fiercely.

I too would feel awkward emailing a teenage girl without having one of her parents witness the conversation, but this prevents neither inappropriate contact or false accusation. There's no barrier to sending another email that does not include the third party and there's no way to prove another email wasn't sent (unless if one of the accounts is journaled). I'm not saying any of us would do such a despicable thing, I'm just saying this rule is about as useful as a white crayon when it comes to preventing abuse.

Nothing more than what you probably already know: no tenting with an adult unless it is your own parent, two deep, no one-on-one, etc. YPT strongly backs the philosophy of reporting any credible accusation without investigating it yourself. For Irving, this makes a lot of sense: if it's true, they want a professional to deal with it; if it's false, it's no skin off their back what happens to the accused. Either way, BSA can extricate itself from a lawsuit as they followed proper procedure.

It depends on the setup of the cellular provider but most don't archive texts for more than a few days. However, they do keep a metadata record. At any rate, the only metadata that would matter are those of the primaries in the conversation: Nathan wouldn't CC another adult on an incriminating text message and Ivan or Dave simply have to prove the messages they sent match up with all the metadata held by the provider. A second leader makes no difference.

But Ivan (being indolent) never deletes his old messages, he already has a record of what he has sent to Fred. There's no need to include Dave on the messages. The phone records are what I was thinking of when I said he would probably have evidence of his innocence.

I finally took the new Youth Protection Training yesterday. Among other things, this part didn't make much sense to me: Leaders may not have one-on-one private online communications or engage one-on-one in other digital activities (games, social media, etc.) with youth members. Leaders should copy a parent and another leader in digital and online communication, ensuring no one-on-one contact takes place in text, social media, or other forms of online or digital communication. In my mind, I've role-played out how compliance or non-compliance of this rule will play out: Situation

There are more than a few Mormon professional scouters in my council and their jobs will probably be eliminated by 2020. The LDS church doesn't really have paid clergy, so no new jobs will be opening up (maybe one or two at headquarters). We do have a good employment-finding and job skills program. There will undoubtedly be an outdoor component to the new program. The female youth of the Church already have their own camps but there will probably be some new properties purchased/donated. Or we'll just camp on public lands like we frequently do.

That's pretty rough.

From what I've seen, our FOS campaign has been entirely crippled over the last year (and no one seems to care). On the other hand, our district committee is almost fully staffed after having been created about three months ago when my entire council was separated out into LDS and community districts. Rumor has it that our Scout Executive tendered his resignation two days ago (again, just a rumor). That would be understandable, I wouldn't want to deal with all the headaches of losing 80% of your units. These are truly interesting times.

Do you have an online source for that?

I believe that is what the LDS church just did.

You could do a giant V in the background, just don't make it orange.

Well, can you tell us exactly why YOU strive to internalize the standards of the Oath and Law? I can think of lots of real-life stories that end with the protagonist immediately obtaining something good/avoiding something bad as a result of his actions. For example: A young man studying in Japan stands up to his friends (a scout is brave) and leaves a party when others present start to use drugs. The police show up and his friends get arrested then kicked out of the country. He goes on to have a successful career as a result of his international studies. But "Be brave and do the right thi

What does this even mean? My council is 80% LDS and I'm not even in Utah. There's no way three full councils will exist in Utah in 2020.