FireStone

Not interested anymore. She and her dad kept pushing the BSA every step, nothing was ever good enough, no matter what the BSA did to try and make them happy. Her dad is quoted in that article singing the praises of the BSA, while on Twitter he's still yelling about discrimination. I'm over it. She's not "the first", there is no "first", that was entirely by design. I congratulate her on being among the inaugural class, but as far as I'm concerned she tarnished her achievement. All of that yelling and pushing the BSA to recognize her previous BoRs (she's had more than one), and in the end

I've been digging for an answer to a question and can't find it: What's the BSA's stance on multi-unit events/activities currently? For example 2 Packs, 1 or 2 Troops, 1 Crew getting together for an outdoor activity. I've been comfortable with den and pack meetings, but this one has me hesitating, bringing kids together from different units, both pack and troop level, different schools, and during a week when we've some positive covid tests in local schools.

Get rid of all of the badges for doing things that are part of other badges/belt loops. The entire "generic emblems" section on the scout shop website could be eliminated. My cubs don't need a police station visit badge, they get the belt loop that includes that as a requirement. They the generic hiking badge, they do Webelos Walkabout and get the pin for that. They have a parade badge, a flag ceremony badge, a campfire badge. Some stuff doesn't need a badge, it's just part of scouting and could very easily go un-badged. Also, stop making different stuff for every cub rank. One

For anyone familiar with Virtus, do you know if there is an online course option? The CO is saying we all have to take the course in-person.

Not my church, my CO, and they're asking all of our unit volunteers to sign it, which includes folks of other faiths. So I guess in this CO, if you're not Catholic, either you can't volunteer or you can and just have th sign the form without really meaning it.

The Declaration of Religious Principle is fairly broad, though, and not specific to any one faith. The document I'm being asked to sign speaks directly to Christian standards and the teachings of the Catholic church. To me that seems too specific for a BSA volunteer, with the BSA being non-sectarian.

Follow-up question: Can a CO require volunteers to sign a document that states that volunteers agree to exhibit Christian ethical standards and conduct themselves in a manner that is consistent with the discipline, norms, and teachings of the Cathollic Church? I'm struggling with this one and how it potentially impacts volunteers who follow other faiths. Or gay volunteers.

Thanks, folks. I had a feeling that was the case, just wanted to confirm.

Our CO is requiring us to attend a church-sponsored child protection program, in addition to BSA YPT. If we don't attend, we cannot be BSA adult volunteers. As a broad and general question, are COs allowed to do this?

The game we always have to play is ask for the goods, not the money, but then we can accept any money offered to buy the goods. It's all about how you say it. Or at least how you start the conversation. We can't ask for money but asking for the goods right away can be off-putting. The strategy that has worked for me has been to just put out the word that we're looking to get something and just seeing what people come back with, whether that's in the form of donated goods, funds, access to discounts, or any other assistance. When I needed to purchase things for a service project, I pu

I would suggest just re-writing it if you can remember any of it. That's what I've been doing for various ceremonies and scripts. I just did the Webelos Tribe story at a den meeting, and I took what i found online and modified the heck out of it. A lot of this stuff was never official BSA programming, and was just written and/or edited by various scouters over the years. I use those documents as a starting point, but I re-write stuff as needed. Not just for cultural significance but also just to get the right kind of story, ceremony, or script for what I'm trying to do. I even edit c

Have you bought your adult uniform yet? Might as well, it's just a matter of time if the Pack finds out you're an Eagle Scout, you'll find yourself "volunteered" for a uniformed position real soon. 😄 Welcome back!

As it relates to the scout in the news segment, we don't know that she did anything less than show leadership throughout the project. We don't know the logistics of the location, the required approvals, permits, organizational aspects required to get the work crews together, how she managed the project on-site, etc. We certainly don't know that it only took "a couple of hours". How much time was spent planning it, getting materials (donated or otherwise), etc. I understand there are issues with some projects and how they hold up in terms of the requisite leadership skills displayed during

Holy moly... That is either a woefully uninformed parent who thinks the BSA is somehow connected to their public school system, or an informed but still incredibly ballsy parent to demand that a mostly volunteer-run organization provide that kind support for their child. I want to believe it's the former, but suspect it's the latter.

You can protect a color if it's is part of the brand and identifies an organization or company among similar companies. You can bet you'd hear from some lawyers if you wanted to start a global package delivery business and had your drivers out in brown uniforms driving brown trucks. Besides, I'm pretty sure there is precedent for this with the BSA and uniform colors. Probably even more so now that there are girls in the BSA wearing tan and green, and now girls in GSUSA wearing the same tan and green. For sure this could cause brand confusion, and that's where lawyers can (and do) step in.

I would be shocked if the BSA didn't pursue this legally. I'm pretty sure they've gone after other groups over uniform similarities. BPSA-US I think was one of them, which is why they stay away from anything tan. The skirt is BSA green, not even GS green. And on their website they're selling uniform cargo pants in the same BSA green. To me, this is copyright infringement. I'm not a lawyer, but from the perspective of someone who works in a design field, this crosses the line of similarity and brand confusion.

Understood. Thank you for clarifying.

I'm really disappointed that the discussion immediately went to the legitimacy of this Eagle candidate's advancement. Unless @sri_oa161 has some other info we don't have based on the episode preview, we don't know that the scout did anything questionable whatsoever. The program has allowed for girls to be in long enough at this point to have completed all requirements by the book. We should trust that they did exactly that unless presented with anything to the contrary. Even more so in this case, considering the scout in question was shown in the episode preview with what i assume is her

Is that the case here? I saw the preview for the episode at the end of the last episode and it didn't say anything about that.

I think the idea of an endorsement has come from a series of nods to the knot style of wear in recent years, from national and the periphery. I believe Bryan has been photographed with a friendship-knot-tied neckerchief. I feel like I recall seeing this several times from national sources in the past couple of years, although at this particular moment I can't recall a specific one to reference. Just saying, I don't think it was really this one thing that has led people to believe the knot is getting a nod from national.

I logged in for the first time today to see the all new Scoutbook for Den Leaders. I'm at a total loss, I can't find anything, I can't edit my calendar, I can't add advancement, all I can do on the calendar is move things around, but I can't delete anything. I can't find the messaging features anymore, that I used to use to send out emails and text notifications. Is this normal? Is it still at all possible to just manually add meeting dates to the calendar or do I have to use the pre-populated meeting schedules? If this is how Scoutbook is now, it's unusable for me. Looks like they r

I don't think it's an y issue to worry about. Certainly not anything that seems to have been elevated to the level of criminality in which anything would show up in a background check. And as already mentioned, even if it did, you would be the victim in the case. The real concern here should be who the heck did you get on the bad side of to make them call in such a false accusation?? 😅

Not at all. Locally for me as a youth, Scouting was thriving. But we still heard the rumors of a unit in the next town shutting down, membership declines across the state, etc. The frustration was very much a national one, and has been for decades. I had no local frustration that influenced my thoughts on the bigger picture of the BSA around the country.

We have a weird opportunity this year with recruiting. While many schools remain virtual-only and a lot of sports are shut down, both parents and kids are anxious to do things to fight the boredom and cabin fever. And here we are, offering an outdoor program that presents opportunities to try new things, explore, play, learn, have fun and go on adventures. It's kind of perfect for us to be recruiting right now, when what we "sell" is exactly what so many families need and are looking for. How that will actually translate into new sign-ups, who knows yet. In my Pack the new sign-ups are ab

This right here is the ongoing struggle of Scouting in America, maybe globally, and it came upon us long before the ills of modern technology, politics, and membership policy changes. Scouting was already struggling when I was a scout (1990s), and some of the issues back then (at least from a youth perspective) I think are the same struggles we have today. How does the program fit into modern society, is it still relevant, do kids still want to do it, etc. We can take all of the political and social issues out of the discussion and the problems of the BSA remain. The BSA has to change, it