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CalicoPenn

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Everything posted by CalicoPenn

  1. Short Ridge - I know I'm coming in late on this but I have to take exception to your statement that no one deserves a Court of Honor. Every Scout - at every level - deserves a Court of Honor if they have moved up in rank. A Tenderfoot earning Second Class deserves a court of honor. An Eagle Scout? Definitely deserves a Court of Honor. That's a big part of the program - and should never be ignored.
  2. Oliver Perry also served on and commanded boats in the Mediterranean Sea, the West Indies and the Caribbean - I think he earned his sea chops. It could also be said that Lake Erie is an arm of the sea. Back in 1987, as part of the America's Cup competitions, the Heart of America, sponsored by the Chicago Yacht Club and practicing on Lake Michigan, competed in the Louis Vuitton Cup. The rules of the America's Cup required all boats to practice on the sea. The Heart of America went to the New York Supreme Court and got the court to agree that because of it's connection to the St. Law
  3. You may have oversight and control of the Troop's accounts but that is not the same as having significant responsibility to control, manage or direct the legal entity, which is what is required under these rules. The Troop is not a legal entity. Your CO is the legal entity that you operate under. Getting an EIN number for your Troop doesn't necessarily solve the legal entity conundrum either. EIN numbers do not confer legal status to anyone that holds them - to be a legal entity, you would likely also have to incorporate the Troop within the Commonwealth (yeah - I payed attention to where
  4. Scout accounts: I agree with Qwazse on only one of his takeaways. The others I partially agree with. My takeaway? low risk, potentially illegal and potentially inappropriate. Is it illegal for individual scout accounts? The IRS has not yet made that clear (in other words, there have been no test cases), however the IRS did send a letter in response to a unit that asked them about it (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/02-0041.pdf) and while the IRS wouldn't come right out and say it (hmmm - kind of like National perhaps?), they strongly hint that it is probably not ok for a Scout to
  5. Who do you want National to be held accountable to? National Staff is held accountable by the National Board. The BSA is a business - non-profit granted - but still a business. If you're thinking National needs to be held accountable to the volunteers and the Scouts, then you've got our roles wrong. We're the customers - our only recourse is to stop being a customer. The problem with that is that for everyone who doesn't like a BSA policy, there are far more that are either ok with a BSA policy or are apathetic and don't care either way.
  6. I know its popular to blame National for any and everything but in defense of National on this so-called failure of management - the BSA issued a press release that was covered by just about everyone in the media - ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR, Fox, MSNBC, CNN - and pretty much every newspaper - large and small - covered this Time magazine covered this . Conservative blogs covered this. Liberal blogs covered this. Progressive blogs covered this. Short of the BSA sending out some kind of campaign style postcard to every house in the USA, the news was pretty much all over the place. It's not N
  7. Barry's story about an unsatisfying interaction he had with a National staff member has me thinking. Perhaps the conflicts we're seeing is a matter of perception due to size differences. To use Barry's example of the problems with the Tiger program, there are folks at the local level who are not having good experiences with the Tiger program. When they mention it "up the chain", the response they get it unsatisfactory - it feels as if their concerns are not being taken seriously and that the people at National/Council just don't care and are out of touch. I wonder though if they don't
  8. That's some mighty fine investigative work Lou.
  9. Change management is one of those MBA buzzwords that MBAs use to justify their basketry degrees.
  10. I watched that video. Not impressed. In fact, it's a bit disturbing to me. Nothing in the practice shooting (which isn't much different than many of the shooting games in a video arcade) suggests hunting at all. Instead, it looks more like an assault course for law enforcement set in a "rural" environment.
  11. I'm going to defend the dad in this instance, and this instance only. Yes - he committed to running an event at the camporee. Then circumstances changed - the district/council announced that there would be a Cub Scout fishing derby that same day in the same place and dad has a Cub Scout age son. Dad made a decision to spend the day with his younger son at the fishing derby. Knowing he had a conflict, he did the responsible thing and found a replacement to run the event. I think that point is being missed - he found a replacement - he didn't leave you in the lurch floundering around lookin
  12. I do get your point - and I agree, a warning of the danger would be a reasonable explanation, for a reasonable adult with common sense. Alas, these rules aren't being written for reasonable adults with common sense - they're being written for the adults that hold fireworks in their hands while lighting them, or who pour charcoal lighter fluid on a lit fire in order to make it burn faster. I agree that holding a Cub Scout upside down doesn't reach the level of hazing but I'll give the BSA the benefit of the doubt that they're just being over-emphatic about it to reach those folks that ju
  13. I think this just might be the issue in a nutshell. The BSA isn't creating "rules" in the Guide to Safe Scouting for reasonable adults with common sense. They're creating them for the adults that almost every other warning out there is for. We may roll our eyes at the warning labels on the top steps of ladders that warn not to stand there, and on the sides of ladders saying don't use near power lines, but they are there because there are adult who stand on the top of ladders and reach beyond their limits that tumble and break their legs, or arms, or heads. There are adults that lack the co
  14. Are you looking for guided or can you put something together yourselves? Contrary to popular belief, the Midwest does have a small mountain range in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and a very large state park called the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park. Some of the Wisconsin BSA summer camps would offer treks to the Porkies (not sure if they do so anymore). The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is about a 10 hour drive from the Chicago area. The Appalachian Trail runs through it. For another set of Midwest mountains, that might be more like Philmont, there's the Bla
  15. Yes, the CO chooses the Scout Leaders, but if parents, in these hyper-aware times, are not happy with the CO choosing a single man to be the Den Leader, or Scoutmaster, the CO will get an earful. Yes, the CO owns the unit - but the parents are as much customers as the Scouts themselves.
  16. Kind of a conundrum - Leave No Trace and all - but TP decomposes in about 6 weeks on the ground and since its a paper product, it adds nutrients to the soil (granted - in miniscule amounts) after being broken down.
  17. They're called water blasters or water cannons and they are not in the shape of a gun. Let's clear something up (using this as a platform - not meant to single you out). The G2SS does NOT ban water pistols, or paintball guns, or laser tag guns. What the G2SS bans is pointing and shooting at people or targets in the shape of people. You can use water guns, paintball guns or laser tag guns to shoot at targets that are not people or representative of people. This rule is not in place because National thinks squirt gun battles are more dangerous than water balloon battles or wet spong
  18. I must be reading the wrong blogs!
  19. Do you have anything to back up this contention that it's because of females that we have no water guns, no laser tag and no pioneering projects over 6 feet? I've never heard this before.
  20. Poison Ivy (and Oak and Sumac) are native plants to North America, not imported to the US like Japanese Honeysuckle. I can understand why it would be treated differently than an invasive.
  21. It seems to me that Leave No Trace has either jumped the shark because they've fulfilled their mission and are now just flailing around looking for things to comment on or are admitting that they are an elitist group whose real mission is to keep everyone away from the wilderness. I read these guidelines - I'm laughing at the suggestion that if one really has to geo-tag a location they've found particularly impressive to just tag the state. Yeah - that certainly will work to keep those locations a secret - "Hey - check out this pond I found in Illinois - I'm just going to tell you its in
  22. I now have the image of Calvin and Hobbes flying down a hill in their Radio Flyer - thanks for the pleasant image.
  23. I keep running in to the same phrase: The hand-over-heart salute should be used when not in uniform". So, you can tell the Scout that they should use the hand-over-heart salute when not in uniform. The real question though is are Scouts wrong to use the hand salute when not in uniform - and you're not going to like my answer because it relies very much on words meaning things. Specifically, the word SHOULD. It isn't shall, it isn't must - it is should - and that word leaves a lot of wriggle room. For myself, I'm not going to ever tell a Scout wearing a uniform shirt and blue je
  24. I don't know about the Righteous Gentiles of WW2 but the overall goal of the Underground Railroad was to help slaves escape to northern states and to Canada. It was not to end slavery - it was to allow slaves to escape to freedom. I would suggest that the Underground Railroad was very effective in meeting the goal. It had the added bonus of galvanizing and solidifying anti-slavery sentiments in the northern states - making the opposition to slavery real as opposed to theoretical - turning citizens to action rather than just nodding in agreement to editorials in newspapers. Illinois has
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