Eagle1993

@Pselb

I guess I’m more worried about the next Jerry Sandusky or Larry Nassar.  Both were accused and their accusers were ignored for years.  

1 hour ago, Pselb said:

 

I would think that as this dynamic impacts other organizations, they too will feel the effects.  Face-to-face contact is becoming less frequent and it is most obvious between male and female,

What dynamic?  I understand the concern of false accusations but I haven’t see waves of men fired unjustifiedly.  I have seen bad men finally loosing their jobs and  freedom after years of ignoring their previous accusers.  

I haven’t seen any changes at my workplace; however, we have had a rigorous sexual harassment program along with a great omsbud system.  Over the last 20 years, I know of three people accused.  Two were fired, and rightly so.  One was exonerated with no impact to his career.  We still have one on one meetings with females, no issues.  It’s been really difficult, but I’ve managed to keep my pants on for all of my meetings with my female coworkers.  The general discussions at our workplace is the shock in how out of control some workplaces must have been to allow this behavior to continue as long as it did.  

3 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

Was it they just wanted to focus on FOS?  (and popcorn and camp cards and golf tournaments and and and)

Not clear.  It was just the fact that I saw no engagement from council on several matters other than FOS (and other fundraisers).

I just came back from one of the most depressing District meetings I had been to in years.  There was a proposal to create a council wide camporee for Cubs through Boy Scouts, with a goal of 1,000 Scouts .  The council voted it down as it was not in their best interest.  Now the Districts are left hoping they can pull something together.  Another topic came up regarding councilwide service project... no support from council.  FOS ... well, that is the focus for them this year.

From my limited experience, the order should be Program - Recruiting - Fundraising.  If you put on great council events, it will improve your ability to recruit and then you have more people and excitement to donate. Putting all your focus on squeezing that last bit of juice from your current membership is not a great long term play.

I always liked Churchill’s quote “Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.”

 OR Tyson...”Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth.”

To be fair, the complexity is jumping up on YPT and overnight requirements.  I think a BSA sponsored YPT playbook armband should be coming out soon.

31 minutes ago, NJCubScouter said:

It is my understanding that, at least in the current early-adopter program, the pack leaders are making an express commitment to the council to keep the boy dens separate from the girl dens.  Is that incorrect?

Assuming that is the case, I would question the comment that the pack wouldn't have to pretend.  The pack would be making a direct promise not to do something, and then do it anyway.

Update:  Well, here is the agreement, at least in my council: https://ppcbsa.org/wp-content/uploads/SUS-2018-Family-Scouting-unit-application-final.pdf.   I suppose it isn't as crystal-clear as I thought, but it does imply that the girls are in their own den.  I think I have seen a document that is more explicit than this, but I guess this is what the pack and den leaders actually sign.

This was much more formal than our arrangement however the rules are consistent.  I have heard of some Packs taking in paper applications and others accepting 5th grade girls.  I’m sure some have already combined dens.

The separate sleeping arrangements was an area of widespread agreement  ... but I expect some Packs to screw that up.

One of the moms, current GSUSA leader asked “what grade do you earn that coveted Eagle”.  I explained that it has nothing to do with age or grade as there are some *shudder* 12 year olds that have earned the rank. I went through the requirements and we talked about all of the Eagle projects around town.  I then explained EBOR and she said it sounded like defending a dissertation.  

I also agree explained (a bit) about the patrol method.

The more the GSUSA members learned about the BSA program the more they saw the benefits.  

Had first parents meeting last night and there was a lot of pushback regarding separate dens.  The general consensus was that why is BSA adding girls to only keep them segregated.  Why wouldn’t the girls just go to Girl Scouts.  We got through the discussion but I have a feeling the separate den wall will fall in the future.

We also have several current GSUSA scouts coming on board and it is clear that this decision will cause loss in the ranks of GSUSA.  Not only are scouts but leaders are looking to transition.  I dug in a bit and the two comments I heard were GSUSA program can be boring at times and BSA seems more grass roots.  Im not sure if that is BSA’s intention or simply how we run our Pack.

First Girl den meeting next week and I expect to see several applications in over the weekend.  

1 minute ago, EmberMike said:

 I hope people aren't doing this just to make a statement or for self-serving publicity. 

To be honest, when I read this story and saw they person who created the Pack was a deputy DA I thought.... political move.  

We had a meeting with parents of some of our new girl members last night.  One of the biggest complaints and questions was regarding separate dens.  The comments were all similar ... why should any girl join if this won’t be coed, why shouldn’t all girls then simply stay in Girl Scouts.  We explained that the Pack would be coed and that seemed like to help a bit.  I wonder what families and supporters of GSUSA will think of all Girl Packs.  Clearly that doesn’t help families go to one organization in terms of planning their time.  I don’t understand how creating a girl Pack is family scouting, and given some of the comments I got regarding separate dens I can only imagine what current GSUSA supporters would think about it.

The council must have kicked off this story as a recruiting message.  Drum up some support in prep for launch.  Most seem focused on the Cub Scout program when working with the media, not sure why this council led with 1,600 girls ready to join and then got all the media tied in with a fake BSA girl Troop.   Seems like this can only cause confusion.

I’d recognized not reading comments at the end of articles.  It’s not clear if they are trolls or simply disgusting human beings.  

Great ideas, thanks.  I agree, the $600 amount caused me to push back.   We are planning on thanking him during our Blue and Gold and I’m trying to get several Boy Scouts who were Cubs under him to attend as well.  I love the flag idea and several others.  I’ll continue to push back on the gift card, and it will definitely not come out of the Pack budget.

Does this impact both hands?  What if he just used his left hand instead?  

Thanks for the suggestions. I should note that he was talking about a $600 gift card.

Our long term Cubmaster is stepping down this April when his son crosses over, so we are working on a send off.  Our Pack financial status is in good shape so our new Cubmaster suggested using some of those funds for a gift card.  I’m pushing back as I don’t think it is appropriate and it feels like it would be against policy.

First... is there anyone who thinks this would be appropriate?  I think he was just throwing out ideas (he is a good leader), but it didn’t strike me as right.

Second... any good examples of gifts/sendoffs for Cub Masters?  I definitely want to give him something, but from a dedicated collection from the Pack’s families.

The Germans I worked with were near France/Switzerland.  They told me that after the war, the American and German leaders made peace and that all levels of American soldiers treated the Germans well.  The French and German leaders also made peace but the Germans I talked to said that didn’t trickle down.  Even German kids who had nothing to do with the war were mistreated by the French soldiers.   I didn’t ask for specifics.  To this day, they said that most Germans pick Spanish or Italian as their foreign language vs French.     Many Germans will still not vacation in France either.  I told them that I thought English was their number one foreign language... the guy laughed and said English is not considered a foreign language anymore (it is required for all German school children).  That was about the end of the conversation... I didn’t point out that Germany invaded France twice in 30 years and perhaps that was why they were a little pissed.

Oh, and many of them still dislike the French... at least those 40 and older.

I had an engineering team that used to work for me out of Germany.  One of them told me of the time he told his son about WWII.  He got through telling his son the history and his son asked...”dad, we were on the good side, right”.   “Well son, as a matter of fact....”  it was a tough conversation to have.

I’m hoping they most if not all come through... so far a lot of verbal interest.  

56 minutes ago, swilliams said:

Following.  One of our Troop ASMs told me last night that our "council" is an early adopter.  His use of the word.  As of now, I'm not aware of any girls that have asked to join our Pack. (I have boys who are Webelos and Tenderfoot, and a daughter who will be joining Venturers in the fall.)  As I'm not involved at the council level, I'm not sure what level of interest they've received or what their plans are, but will keep an eye on this should it arise for us.

One of our biggest Pack issues is in not having an adequate number of adults who want to be leaders.  It was a huge struggle to get a Tiger den leader this year, so they got a very late start, and we only found a replacement for our Bear leader (who quit last year) two months ago.  It will be interesting to see if 1) we get an interest from girls and 2) if so, how many of their parents care enough to pitch in.

What I am starting to see is several dads who only had daughters volunteer to be leaders. One was a former ASM, Eagle Scout and OA member.  He only had girls so stopped his involvement if BSA and is now interested in volunteering as his girls are getting involved.  We are also seeing other parents volunteer as they are talking of having their daughters join.

Right now we have the possibility of adding 26 scouts to our pack of 71 over the next 2 weeks. 4 are boys and 22 girls (2 boys joined along with their sisters).  7 of the girls are from a separate school who’s Pack is not adding girls at this time. So far, there are 5 new parents volunteering to be leaders in our Pack along with these 22 potential scouts.

I don’t expect all to join right now, but it does seem that there are parents out there willing to volunteer along with having their daughters join.

I will say adding this program midstream has been a lot of work, but I think it is helping us understand how we should add girls to our Pack   Early on I was one concerned that we couldn’t do separate girl only dens due to volunteers.  What I am seeing is that we should be able to maintain separate dens (with the additional volunteers I am seeing) and there are benefits.  So, going into the fall we will be enforcing separate Girl/boy dens. 

2 hours ago, EmberMike said:

The one I know of personally is Pharma, many of my clients are in that industry.

Certifications and degree acronyms are mostly seen after names in the quality assurance area, regulatory affairs, and some specialty sciences and research areas. 

I’m in the med device industry and I’ve seen this with PMP (project management professional) and various nursing certifications (CNA, RN, etc.). However, I do agree some can go overboard.  Generally it’s a red flag if the characters in your degree and certification list exceed your name length. 😀

As far as eagle candidate on your resume I’d keep it to Life Scout for now.  At 15 that is a great accomplishment.