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 she had to play by their rules anyway. And still insists on changing the narrative and declaring herself "first". It's a shame.

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 neckerchief, one belt buckle, if you want to distinguish rank with something visual, keep the rank hats, that's all.

My Pack got our own custom neckerchiefs, scouts use one neckerchief all through cub scouts. We (leaders and parents) got tired of the new-rank-neckerchief-every-year madness.

On 10/1/2020 at 2:07 PM, CynicalScouter said:

Some Catholic Dioceses or individual churches, for example, will require Virtus in addition to YPT.
 

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.

4 minutes ago, SSScout said:

Your church is asking YOU to agree to it, not someone else. 

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 put out a community announcement about what we needed and the public came to me either with a donation of the actual items we needed or offering to help with funds to make the purchase. I didn't solicit money, I simply informed the local public about what we were trying to do and let the public help however they chose to.

My Pack did stop me at the point of wanting to make an Amazon wishlist for items, they viewed that as solicitation. I'm not sure how exactly. We can ask people to buy popcorn to fund projects and activities, but I guess we can't ask people to buy stuff directly for those projects or activities?

In the end we still got what we needed, technically without soliciting anything. It's just a silly game we have to play to get from point A to point B, even if the end result is the same as just asking for B from the start.

On 9/25/2020 at 9:15 PM, Liz said:

... I wouldn't necessarily mind NA references if it was done well, but to avoid even the appearance of cultural appropriation I'd prefer a face painting ceremony script that is culturally neutral. That is what we had - no references to or copies of any specific cultural face painting that I recall...

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 campfire skits, songs, and stories. Not too much that it changes the story, just to personalize it or to get it into a flow or tone that I'm more comfortable with so it sounds more natural. Or to add local flare. When I do the Horrible Pirate story and the narrator says they were down by the docks, I say "down by the [Your Town] Docks" to give it a local reference (and as a bit of added comedy since because we have no bodies of water in or near our town).

My point is, scripts in scouting don't need to be adhered to exactly. These aren't exactly sacred documents, they have already been edited and revised numerous times over the years. Take what you like, remove what you don't, add whatever makes it work better for you.

Same for the face painting. Don't worry about how close it is to whatever your remember being done previously. Ultimately what you want with the face painting is a color that matches rank. Put a couple of bars of the rank color on each kid's face and you're good to go.

1 hour ago, BlueandSilverBear said:

Old Eagle Scout and new Lion Dad here... I’m jumping back into scouting with a kindergarten daughter...

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!

On 9/24/2020 at 2:29 PM, mashmaster said:

They don't have to build a barn but they should be working with the benefactor to understand the project goals and limitations.  Make a plan based on that and execute and lead.

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 the project. But this project might not be one of them, and we can't judge the merit of the project based on what the final product is. There's a world of difference between a 2-hour bench and a 20-hour bench, and from the brief look we got at the one here, it's not the 2-hour variety.

And still, once again on this forum, and topic veers off into an unfair criticism of a chosen path of advancement when really this topic should just be about congratulating a scout on her accomplishment and being happy that the BSA got some positive air time on national tv.

Sorry for the rant, think I'm just reaching my lifetime limit on patience for criticism of scouts doing things by the book, advancing as fast or as slow as they want within the rules, earning Eagle at whatever age they want (again, within the rules), doing service projects of whatever size or scope they want within the rules, and then getting criticized for it by adults.

Don't like the requirements? The rules? The service project approvals and process? The book? Change the book. The scouts don't deserve the criticism.

5 hours ago, Momleader said:

...This year the parent say our pack needs to supply a mentor scout like a den chief or adult leader for him because the school provides a para educator daily...

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.

18 minutes ago, SSScout said:

I don't think you can copyright a color.  Otherwise, all the Walmart cargo pants would be an infringement.  The BSA buttons with the BSA Eagle Fleur de Lis are a copyright issue, but the GSUSA gets past that with their GS Trefoil...

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.

1 hour ago, sri_oa161 said:

I stand corrected.  My comment had nothing to do with male/female only timing.  

I messed up the timing.  This year has had me all messed up.

 

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 family, dad (Eagle scout), brother (Eagle scout), and mom (volunteer). Makes it even more likely (in my opinion) that her family traditions in scouting would make her inclined to follow proper procedure.

But because she's a girl it immediately calls her integrity into question? Ridiculous.

Let me do what we all should have done and just say congrats to this Eagle candidate, we applaud all of your hard work and dedication.

1 hour ago, sri_oa161 said:

I have no problem with a female Eagle Scout.  My concern is that if a female only became a member of a Troop in January, how is it even possible to make Eagle this fast.  That would not allow for the proper time between ranks.  

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.

On 5/6/2020 at 10:32 PM, HelpfulTracks said:

This one of those post that makes me shake my head in bewilderment.

1. How does it equate to endorsement because  National took a photo of youth wearing neckerchiefs using friendship knots?

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 replaced a lot of functionality with non-functional cartoon graphics.

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?? 😅

1 hour ago, Eagledad said:

Scouting is local for local scouters. When I read that change is overdue without a substance of reason, the author is typically applying a local frustration to a national level.

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 about average, which I consider a "win" in these strange times we're dealing with. But I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that some Packs see an uptick in new membership. In some areas we might be the only game in town offering an outdoor activity for kids to participate in.

21 hours ago, Troop75Eagle said:

...Scouts will have to appeal to many people to earn respect and compete against forces that have a life of their own.  It will have to earn the respect of those (many)  who would like to help and participate but feel so alienated that their time and commitments elsewhere make it easy to ignore an organization that no longer maintains its historical credibility (to them)...

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 has been long overdue for major change for decades. I think they're trying to change things now, But maybe it's too late.