CalicoPenn

15 minutes ago, Gwaihir said:

Maybe you don't have to face 100 parents who will be asking this question and expecting an answer, but I'd like to know the answer so I can provide it.  

The program isn't changing, so there really isn't anything to focus on other than "it's not changing" 

I don't understand why you can't provide answers, or if you don't have concrete answers, at the very least acknowledge it's something that some people will want an answer for and just allow for discourse on what the answers may be.  

 

This thread is literally about "names", it's not about program, it's about "names".  Asking about them seems fairly on topic. 

Fair enough question.  The name of the Boy Scout program is changing to Scouts BSA.  No one is going to call themselves a Scout BSA.  Boys are likely to continue to call themselves Boy Scouts in a more formal discussion - but girls will likely just call themselves Scouts (since Girl Scout is actually trademarked).

That being said - it is highly likely that everyone here has used the term Scout or Scouts to refer to the boys many times before.  In all my years, I have never, ever heard a Scoutmaster, an SPL, a camp staffer, a Patrol Leader, etc. ever try to gather a group of scouts by hollering out "OK, Boy Scouts - Gather Around".  What do they say (if it's not something like "hey guys) is OK, Scouts - gather around.  We've all been calling groups of our Scouts as Scouts all along.  And Packs?  Most will just say Cubs and not Cub Scouts.

I'd tell the parents that they'll be called Scouts - but if they want to call themselves a Boy Scout, no one will stop them.

1 minute ago, cyphertext said:

So if a chartering organization and troop wish to continue with a boys only program, that is inane and childish?

No silly - printing up the t-shirts out of spite is inane and childish.

If your chartering organization wants to continue with a boys only program and call yourselves Boy Scouts, go ahead - you'll still be in the Scouts BSA program regardless of what you call yourselves.

34 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

If the name is Scouts BSA, then what does the 'S" in BSA stand for ?  don't want to be redundant

It stands for Scouts, just like always.  Its use in this case is to differentiate Scouts in the BSA from Scouts in the GSUSA. 

59 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

Out troop is busy printing shirts...

• We are the BOY Scouts of America
• Viva la resistance!!

They will be on sale soon....

How inane and childish.

3 minutes ago, Saltface said:

In the absence of real information, what else are we supposed to do?

Just chill out and wait for official information?  Or is that too much of a grown-up concept for scout leaders?

Wonder which Scout has the kind of sense of humor that he would hoax his own Troop like that.

1 hour ago, scoutldr said:

Good question.  But then, I don't think it is the function of Government to be funding private organizations with taxpayer dollars.  I agree with Rep. DeVillier.

I disagree - many times government funding of private organizations meets the governments objectives with far more efficiency and cost reductions.  Its usually much more efficient for the government to fund private organizations providing mental health services than providing it themselves, for instance.

In the girl scout camp situation, the spillway in the manmade lake is in poor shape and if it fails will cause sever flooding downstream - it seems to me that government has an interest in preventing that and it would be much more efficient to pay the girl scouts for the repairs.

11 hours ago, sri_oa161 said:

If the name does change to Scouts, what happens to the Congressional Charter for Boy Scouts of America?

The corporate name will still remain The Boy Scouts of America, even if they don't call themselves that in public - so the congressional charter would remain as is.

Are you sure they were saying Cub Scouts should not carry their own water and not that Cub Scouts should not do water skits at a campfire?  Maybe they just got that confused.

As I think about this more, I like the concept but Instead of doing readings from the Scout Handbook as if it were a reading of the Bible, how about challenging each scout to research and find either an inspirational or educational passage from non-Scout related books that are outdoor related - could be something from an outdoor recreation perspective or something from an environmental/conservation perspective.  They could take turns every week - no more than 5 minutes per week.  Maybe someone reads something from John Muir one week, and someone else reads something from Colin Fletcher the next.  Someone who is interested in fishing might read something from John Gierach, and maybe someone reads something from My Side of the Mountain. 

6 hours ago, skeptic said:

The thought was that we would over time read the entire book, sort of like going through the Bible book by book.  Certainly, in relation to a specific subject, it might not be a bad idea to preface a work on session with doing a reading from the handbook.

 

What happens when you get new Scouts coming in - do you start over?  Read to them separately until they get caught up?  Instead of reading aloud from the book at every meeting (which does sound too much like school), why not plan your meetings around the book.  Choose a section and develop activities around it.  Then announce it in advance so that the Scouts can read that section of the handbook in advance.

54 minutes ago, David CO said:

Is it a contest?

 

Depends - did I win? 

29 minutes ago, cocomax said:

Meanwhile. . .

http://theweek.com/articles/759527/rise-womenonly-coworking-spaces

Women only spaces are becoming more popular. 

Yeah - Feminism spent decades excoriating men for having men-only spaces and now here we are, almost 50 years later and women now want their women-only spaces.  I'm sure I have a reputation as one of the most liberal people in this forum but I have to say, what's good for the goose is good for the gander - open up those women only spaces or you're no better than the men you criticized for years.

This is the comment that struck me:

"Why not have the activities girls are asking for in the girl scouts?"

Gee - good question - maybe the Girl Scouts can answer that - oh wait, their spokespeople are too busy telling us that the BSA can't possibly understand the needs of girls while they apparently have that all locked up.

1 hour ago, RememberSchiff said:

Forget the wallet. Can we be a little more Helpful here. After all that Boy Scouts card could be a blue card, the one our Harry needed to earn his Eagle in '72!

We need to find our lost scout Harry Larue.

First let's check ScoutNet...er, nevermind that will take too long. Let's search behind every tree instead.

There is a site out there called Spokeo that might be helpful

It lists a Harry Larue, age 57 (so that would be about the right age) living in Bonney Lake, WA that at one time lived in East Wenatchee, WA.

Boy Scout Troops often lead outings to remote areas with poor cell phone coverage with adult leaders that have less experience as the student leaders of the Penn State Outing club - keep that in mind the next time you want to complain about the BSA's risk management folks .

I would really like to see the criteria they used in their risk assessment.  I would particularly be interested if they have statistics about how many students on the Outing, Caving and SCUBA clubs (these are the three clubs affected) were injured on outings with their clubs in the last 10 years and compare that to how many students were injured in the last 10 years playing football, basketball, and field hockey.

If Penn State is going to shut down clubs because of risk to students, then surely the riskiest activity for potential injuries is their football program which should be shut down immediately.

BTW - Penn State has a student Urban Gaming club that runs events where students chase each other all over campus shooting NERF guns at each other - and this isn't considered risky?  

On ‎4‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 7:36 AM, Gwaihir said:

I have been told repeatedly by scouters in favor of this new change, both online and in person, that boys and girls are the same and the program doesn't need to change to meet the needs of girls or boys, because those needs are the same. 

The idea behind this isn't to change the program to meet the needs of girls - the idea behind this is to open the program to girls who want to experience the program the BSA has as it already is.  If we gain 100K girls without "changing the program to meet the needs of girls", aren't we, in fact, actually meeting the needs of 100K girls that the GS were not meeting the needs of?

I consider those arguments from the Girl Scouts spokesperson to be specious at  best.

1 hour ago, bearess said:

Sigh.  Talking more to my son, it seems the issue is he felt CM picked on him all weekend.  Apparently he kept calling him “Mr. Patrol Leader”, which really bothered him.  For example, son forgot to pack a flashlight— which he should have remembered!  So he was asking another boy if he could borrow a flashlight, CM overheard and said “Oh, Mr. Patrol Leader forgot a flashlight.  Well, you won’t borrow mine.”  Now, I’m not defending him forgetting the flashlight— live and learn.  But I can see how, after a weekend of that, you would be frustrated.

What’s challenging here is sorting out what is good advice/helpful from CM vs son’s frustration at feeling picked on/mocked.

This makes it a little different kettle of fish.  Leaving aside whether the CM should have said anything to your son about the dishwashing and his playing catch (most of us are going to tell you the CM was wrong to do so unless it was an imminent safety thing or he was also an ASM but there is room for others to disagree ) - this is actually far worse.  The CM engaged in passive-aggressive bullying of your son.  

I generally agree that most of the time, a Scout should be able to approach their SM and work things out if there is a problem - but in this case my opinion is this is not one of those times.  Now that you have more of the story, you - as the parent - should contact the Scoutmaster and have a friendly discussion about what your son experienced at the camp - and I emphasize friendly.   It is quite possible that the SM and ASM on the trip knew nothing about what transpired.  This isn't a time to demand that they solve it, this isn't the time to be mother bear and growl at the SM a lot.  This is just a friendly chat giving the SM a heads-up of what your son experienced at the campout from this adult.  Then stand back and see how they handle it. 

As I said, I generally agree that Scouts should be able to handle things on their own - but I am also taking in to account that your son is 10.  As much as we would like Scouts to be able to take care of themselves - we're still talking about a 10-year old.

Talk to the Scoutmaster - tonight if possible - if you're bothered enough by this to post on this forum asking for advice, then I would think you would be bothered enough to have that friendly chat with the SM.

1 hour ago, qwazse said:

Who told you that equipment decoration was not a miscellaneous patch?

Typically equipment decoration is sized differently. It's usually too large to neatly fit on a shirt pocket. The classic example is the Philmont Bull. (Does that mascot have an actual name?) It would be stitched on the back of brag vests, on backpacks, some guys even sewed it on the flap of their tent. There's no way it would fit on a sash.

However, that doesn't mean that all equipment decoration should be disallowed on a sash. If the boy is proud of earning it, if it helps tell an important part of his scouting story, and if it fits, sew it!

The best I could find for a name for the Philmont Bull is Black Bull - but that could also just be a description of the patch.

The BSA insignia guide does say which patches are equipment patches (Paul Bunyan, 50-Miler, Historic Trails, Council High Adventure Base patches), which are to be sewn on swimsuits (mile swim, BSA Lifeguard, etc.) and which patches can be worn on uniforms (pretty much everything else - though the did miss saying where the Outdoor Ethics and National Outdoor Award patches can go - something they should correct since they were pretty specific about all the other ones).

Equipment patches and swimsuit patches can't be worn on the uniform and since the merit badge sash is considered a part of the uniform, they shouldn't be sewn on the back of a merit badge sash.  That being said, I'm not going to play uniform police and point out to a Scout that they shouldn't have their mile swim patch or their Paul Bunyan axe patch sewn on their sash.  I wouldn't even tell a Scout's Scoutmaster that the Scout shouldn't have that mile swim patch on their sash.  I'm simply pointing out what the policy is because someone asked.

Most of the answers are on the page you linked to.  Read the description fro the Nova patch and it states that it is worn as a temporary insignia on the right pocket.  The high adventure bases?  It says that National HA Base patches can be worn as a temporary insignia on the right pocket and Council HA Base patches are not for uniform wear (so its fine for equipment but not for a sash which is considered part of the uniform. 

JTE?  It states that only one can be worn at a time and only the most recently worn so if your unit earned JTE in 2016 and you're wearing a 2014 JTE patch, than you would need to remove the 2014 patch and put on the 2016 patch but if you won in 2014 but not in a later year, then you can keep wearing the 2014.

This page tells us specifically which patches can be worn on uniforms, and where, which are for swimsuits and where, and which are equipment patches - they're in the description of the awards - for most of the awards and patches.  Which ones doesn't it talk about?  The Outdoor Ethics Awards and the National Outdoor Awards.  It turns out those two are considered temporary patches that can be worn on the right pocket but you have to find other BSA sources to know that.  However, that page you linked to is from the insignia guide - and the guide does tell us where most of the patches they list can go so this is the best resource.

But football is still ok, right?  What's the stats on how many people have been hurt in the last ten years in these clubs versus how many have been hurt playing football or basketball?  Apparently risk is ok if you generate  a lot of revenue.

14 minutes ago, Hawkwin said:

I don't think lack of complaints means it is correct.

....

Some scouters would rather stick so hard to this action being right (no one ever complains) that they don't seem to be willing to accept the possibility that their scouts lack the maturity and confidence to recognize that they don't like it and to say anything about it. Perhaps cutting the corner is more about what a scouter want to continue and less about what scouts need to grow.

 

Thank you - you've demonstrated in your post what I've felt about this for a long time now.  I was the victim of hazing in a Troop that went very wrong and ended up with me in the hospital being treated for a serious cut on my leg when the idiot adult used the sharp side of the knife to "pretend" to cut me instead of the dull side.  I almost left Scouts right then and there - but my parents helped me find a new unit - a good unit.

To those folks saying its all harmless fun, or people are taking away their fun, or the boys don't mind, or it builds character - think about how many Scouts have left your units after campouts where they may have been hazed (even "micro-hazed - screw that concept - hazing is hazing - whether its a big production or just something little).  How many of your Scouts have just quietly stopped showing up - have you ever reached out to ask what was up?   I believe that we lose a lot more boys to hazing and bullying that we think we do.  When you have a Scout who has been gung ho about Scouts and is advancing along at a good pace and they suddenly stop showing up - most of the time it means something has happened at the unit level to make the Scout just decide to stop going.  Its up to us as the adults in the room to know and understand what is going on and to put a stop to negative behaviors.   When you're evaluating whether something is hazing or not, consider it under the lens of the Scout Law.

"It's all just harmless fun", "It builds Character", "We've always done it this way", "the Boys don't seem to mind" - is the same kind of language that bullies use to justify their actions and treatment of others.   I'm not saying that the folks in here who are using these kinds of excuses are bullies - I'm just giving you something to think about - a perspective you may not want to hear.  If you do take offense and think I'm calling you a bully?  I can live with that.

17 hours ago, blw2 said:

why hold it at all?  It's just petty and silly, and the scouts would see that too, me thinks....   no different that any of the requirements for a rank, in a way.

Let's pick a Scout rank requirement as an example...tie a taught line hitch

I walk up to a scout rank or higher and ask them to help this young new scout work on his Scout badge.  "he needs help with his taught line hitch"

(this was a bad example for me...I keep wanting to write midshipman's hitch)

Anyway, so he forgot..... what to do...rip that patch off his shirt till he relearns the knot?    no way.  That would be silly, right?

Instead you'd just give the guy a bit of help, coaching him to remind him how to do the knot.... or perhaps pointing him to another scout to do it.  Nobody would pull his rank.

So....he 'forgets' some element of proper 'tote n chipmanship'..... coach the guy and move on with the rest of a great day....

I had a hunch someone would try to compare pulling a Totin Chip until it could be re-earned with pulling rank.  There is a major difference - Totin Chip is not a rank.  The policies about once its earned it remains earned does not apply.  Totin Chip confers a privilege - though I like your idea of just coaching them and moving on.   I'd even suggest that Troops treat the Totin Chip like the Cyber Chip - let them expire every year - and have the Scouts re-earn them.  Someone who earns it at 11 could surely use a refresher at 16.  I also think that adults that are going to use knives, axes and saws in camp should earn the Totin Chip.  It shouldn't be all that difficult and the adults will know the same "rules" as the Scouts - I've seen more adults than youth violate the "rules" taught in Totin Chip.