FireStone

Progressives don't "hate what the BSA stood for." I'm what you might call a "progressive", and I love the BSA, always have, always will. I also don't agree that "we've sacrificed the quality of Eagle, which used to be the standard for Excellence." I think it still is a standard of excellence. And last I checked, duty to god was still part of the program at all levels, so your idea that "we've given up on God", I'm in strong disagreement with that as well. Not much else to say, I just find those comments of yours extremely disagreeable.

If my Scout Shop has red, I'm going with that. I heard yellow would be used up until stock was gone. Which in the BSA means we'll be using yellow for about 18 more years. 😁

I like that, thanks. I had been kicking around an idea to call out the "5", but I was trying to do it with color. The size difference looks cool, it still reads as "365" but it also emphasizes "5" nicely.

That is definitely a part of the negativity towards the new number that I've seen. Going to a 3-digit number seems like a major downgrade for some folks. I like our 3-digit number. I think regardless of the number, it's all about what you do with it and how you show pride in it that determines how people will feel about it. Unfortunately a lot of folks in my unit won't even try to embrace the official number so it will never be accepted by some.

Several years ago my Pack went through a consolidation of local units and as a result was forced to take on a new pack number. Not sure of the details exactly, just that we were one number and became a new one, apparently not by choice. There are some in the Pack that embrace the new number, and some that refuse to even acknowledge it, and varying opinions in between. I prefer to keep some anonymity online but for the sake of simplifying this discussion, let's pretend the old pack number was Pack 5, and the new one is Pack 365. Our Pack 5 charter goes back over 50 years, so it's a number deep in local tradition, and thus the main reason the number is held on to. Officially we're Pack 365. On beascout.org we're listed as 365. Our Pack flag says 365. Here's where it gets confusing... Our website says "Pack 365" at the top of the homepage, but the URL says "ourtownpack5.org". Our various banners and decorations we hang up for PWD say "Pack 5". Most scouts and scouters wear just the "5" numeral badge on the uniform. We have t-shirts that say "Pack 5". When we put out flyers for recruiting, they say "Pack 365". When we register for camping, depending on which leader registers us it can be under either "Pack 5" or "Pack 365", which has caused some confusion for more than a few camp directors/rangers when people check in at camp under 2 different unit numbers. My dilema now is that I'm getting involved in recruiting efforts for the fall, and we're producing new Pack materials. New flyers, car magnet decals, banners, etc. And there is debate on the committee and among leaders about which Pack number we should go with. Part of me says to just go with the official number. But I'm also a Tiger DL, new to the pack, and the tradition of "Pack 5" hasn't really sunk in with me. I respect that the number means a lot to people. Our town Troop has the same issue, they were "Troop 5", now "Troop 365". And I get that at that level, there is probably even more consideration for tradition, with scouts and scouters who have a longer vested interest in the old number. But as it relates to recruiting and promoting the Pack, I'm struggling with where to draw the line on tradition vs. practicality. To me, it doesn't make a lot of sense to spend money getting new stuff made with the old pack number. If people want to wear the old number on the uniform, as far as I'm concerned, go for it. But I'm struggling with the idea that I should put in an order for car decals/magnets with "Pack 5" on them where the idea is to promote the Pack and show pride in our local unit, and then confuse the heck out of anyone who goes home and tries to find any info online about a "Pack 5" only to find that it doesn't exist on the beascout.org website. Anyone ever dealt with a unit number change before? How did you handle it? Is it common for units to hang on to the old number like this?

It's interesting, I just saw in another thread that the average age of Eagle Scouts in the 1940s was 14. Has the program always been tailored to "peak" at 14 and it just never really adapted to the longer timeline we put scouts on these days by encouraging them to stretch out their Scouting careers an extra 3 years? Has there ever been a concerted effort to address this 14-17 year old program gap? Is that what Venturing was supposed to do?

I have zero statistical evidence to back up what I'm about to say, it's based purely on my own observations and conversation. I kind of think things are changing on the competition issue. Sports will always be a bit of a competitor to scouting. I just put out an email about a late-addition to my Den calendar for an event this Saturday and of course the replies are already coming in about sports conflicts. But I also talk to a lot of local parents, both in and out of Scouting, and there seems to be much more willingness to encourage kids to participate in things other than sports, and even give them equal (or greater) preference over sports participation. In my day as a kid (in high school 94-98) you went for sports first, and if you weren't athletically inclined you did other things almost as a "plan B". Now those other things are sometimes "plan A" for many kids. To be frank, nowadays it's quite a bit "cooler" to do some things that would have made your social life a bit more challenging 20 or 30 years ago. We had a popular tv show just a few years back about a Glee club that made the kids look like rockstars in their high school. That kind of social status for anything other than a sport would have been unthinkable just a couple of decades earlier. Maybe we're coming back around to increased social acceptance (and hopefully increased popularity) of these non-sports activities. I don't expect that being a Scout will ever supplant the social status that being a starter on the football team would afford a kid, but I kind of think the balance of that social power might be shifting slightly. Even among parents, there seems to be more of a desire for kids to do things other than sports, or in place of sports entirely. Or to hear a parent say, "I'd really rather Johnny not play football," because of all the discussion about injuries. It's probably too soon to say for sure, but maybe the competition with Scouting is going to become less of a problem in the years to come.

I'm all for some healthy debate on things we can actually debate. This, however, is not one of those things. There's no going back now. Stopping this, or keeping the Boy Scouts Boy Scouts as you suggest, would in all likelihood, kill the organization. Imagine the BSA actually kicking girls back out. Heck, even I'd be tempted to quit if they did that. The PR fallout would be horrific.

We had a similar discussion at last week's committee meeting, with pretty much an identical outcome. We're not going to recruit girls, definitely not from GSUSA and not really even from the general public. The most we're going to do is just ammend our recruiting flyers to say "Open to boys & girls in grades 1-5." Basically the committee seems content to go with whatever happens. If we get a lot of girls expressing interest, great. If nothing happens, it's business as usual for the pack.

The neckerchief (and the whole uniform for that matter, but that's another topic) seems to be in kind of a weird place in Scouting history right now. Today it's smaller and less useful than ever, and frankly I think in some cases it looks silly. I saw a photo of some scouts in uniform recently and their neckerchiefs didn't even come halfway down the front of the shirt. I wish US scouts wore the neckerchief more often and especially when out of uniform, but that doesn't even seem practical when the neckers are so small.

Actually from what @Eagle94-A1 said, mathematically it could work out to August 2020 for the first girl Eagle Scout. Even if National is saying December 2020, for sure someone will push that August possibility and try for it.

We don't care, and I doubt many girls will either. But for sure there will be some extremely "motivated" parents out there gunning for their daughter to be the first ever Eagle Scout.

I'm assuming that date was chosen as the earliest possible time that a girl could have joined and then completed the requirements. Is that really possible? If a girl can only register with a Troop February 1, 2019, can she really make Eagle in 22 months? I wonder if it's sort of warning to Troops: Don't even bother trying to submit applications for girls before December 2020, we'll know that you started too early, cut corners, etc.

I'm well-aware of all of them, as I was as a kid. I hated shorts as a kid, still do as an adult, I almost always wear long pants, and always when in the woods. I use bug sprays, and also treat my clothes with permethrim. I've used DEET sprays, and as a kid I remember my mother spraying my clothes with a heavy-duty DEET spray. I still got bit at some point, despite many efforts at prevention. And I didn't get the bullseye rash or other typical symptoms to indicate infection and prompt early treatment, which is why I live with some side-effects of Lyme to this day. Not everyone gets the rash or early symptoms. Unfortunately there is no 100% effective prevention. My family isn't leaving Scouting any time soon. We'll do our best to prevent tick bites, and just hope for the best. But there are times when this subject does give me pause to consider if this is all worth the risk. I think it is, but like any parent, I'm always inclined to question the risks and benefits of anything our kids do.

I got Lyme as a Scout. I have some minor health effects to this day because of it, although fortunately nothing debilitating. I hate to admit it, but thinking about Lyme sometimes give me doubts about whether I want my son in Scouting at all. We're especially careful with tick checks and take every possible precaution, but it's a really tough thing to protect our kids against. Realistically I also know it's possible to pick it up anywhere when you live in this area (New Jersey). I just saw today on my local community Facebook page a mom posting about finding ticks on her son just from playing in the backyard. But I also know that part of being a Scouting family is accepting some additional risk of tick-related illnesses. It's definitely something that can mess with your head as a parent if you think about it enough. And my personal experience with Lyme definitely makes me think about it.

I have very little experience with the process of getting a new CM or SM, but even still, I know enough to know that it's supposed to be a little more involved than just a "Hey, you should do it," and then wait for an immediate answer. I think it certainly speaks to the state of things at the troop if the decision is taken so lightly.

I'm still not convinced that any of this was written with any less casual a tone than how I use the word "boys" in my Den and Pack. Swap out "boy" and "boyhood" for "child" and "childhood" and it all still works. Someone could show up at my next Den meeting and make the same inferences, that based on the language I use, my program is designed only for boys. In reality, I just have some early habits with how I address a group of Scouts that I will need to evolve out of now. It's not an indication of programatic intent.

That's open to interpretation. I often say "The boys are doing XYZ," or, "Let's get the boys going," or something along those lines just out of convenience (or laziness). It doesn't mean that I think only boys should be doing whatever it is I'm talking about. Nor does it mean that I can't just as easily adapt to saying "Scouts", "kids", or any other general descriptor. I suspect many Scouting materials have been written over the years with the same tone and for the same reason. It's easy to just say "boys", but it doesn't really tell us anything about any possible underlying intent of the person saying it.

You'll have to explain that. I've never heard that any outdoors components of the program were being removed.

All optional areas of the program, no? Are any parts of the character-development and leadership aspects of the program being removed?

Isn't the BSA's core product a youth leadership and character-development program with an outdoor focus? Is that changing?

My son will be a Scout, like I was in the 80s and 90s, at least in how I referred to myself, how my parents and friends referred to us, etc. We were "scouts", our leaders called us "scouts", they addressed us, instructed us, woke us up, yelled at us, got us in line, as "scouts" ("Scouts, gather 'round," "Scouts line up!" "Scouts, attention," "Scouts, rise and shine!"). I don't care if officially he'll never be a "Boy Scout". The name is the least important part of the program for me. All that matters is what he becomes as a result of going through it.

I'm up to date on YPT for leaders, but for parents (not registered as leaders), what's the BSA policy on this? I know there's the 72-hour rule, if an adult is going to be with a scout group more than 72 hours they need to be registered. So this guy isn't going to summer camp. But what about on shorter overnights with the unit? Is he allowed? Are there any obligations to the other parents to inform them of his record?

If law enforcement confirmed the "he was 30, she was 12" story, and yet the CC continues to say saying something different, I would think that neither of them should be serving in any Pack leadership capacity. She's dishonest and is covering for a child-molester, and he, well, his record speaks for itself. He should not be around children. Get your District Exec in on this asap. If this isn't resolved to your satisfaction, switch to another Pack. If this guy was allowed on overnights in my Pack, I'd be moving on down the road to the next Pack immediately.

This feels like a stop-over change to me. The organization is still "Boy Scouts of America," and "BSA" is still in the program name for the girl groups. This doesn't feel like a final solution to the name problem when it comes to addressing this now being a co-ed organization. I suspect there will eventually be another change to step further into this co-ed role.