KublaiKen

A surplus water buffalo? When I was a kid someone had one in our District and brought it to Camporees.

What an incredible person! Requiescet in pace, Mrs. Hesselbein.

You seem to be saying that CIS being different from other required merit badges is disqualifying criteria for it being required. I'll wait for the irony to hit.

If the Oath can require duty to country and physical strength, and then we can require Citizenship in the Nation and Personal Fitness, the template has been cast for the overarching things to tell us what to do, and the merit badges to serve as demonstrations of how. Given that BSA allowed segregation until 1974, meaning over half of its existence, I'd argue that perhaps the Oath and Law are insufficient tools to govern good behavior in our shared space. Sometimes we might need some prompting on what good citizenship looks like.

Perhaps its a side note to your story, and perhaps not, but in truth, you probably should have been talking to the Webelos parents and letting the Scouts run the lashings. One of our standards of success is if the Scouts don't hear me speak until the Scoutmaster's Minute.

What happened this past week? Where is Part 2?

Ah, then I would say which weekend to go camping might be the secondary issue: that should be planned by the Scouts in the PLC at an annual planning meeting, not by old men on a message board. Youth-led is on the same level as outdoors in the hierarchy of Scouting, both are methods, right? Solve the problems by solving them together: dump the calendar dilemma on the PLC and let them solve it.

I would maintain that the saddest part of this issue is and will remain the victimization of our youth, and the loss of innocence and mental well-being they suffered and continue to suffer. While I love Scouting, our worst case is that we lose entirely a fantastic youth organization, and that is not likely. And if it happens I am certain the void will be filled. The victims are already facing their worst case scenario. I don't mean to diminish your view of the legal system; tort reform is a conversation to be had. But in this situation, for me, all other pain takes a backseat to the victims.

What did the PLC decide?

Right? Same here. What happened to achievable goals?

I was my Lodge's Unit Elections Committee Chair in my sordid youth, among other offices, and I am more and more agnostic on the whole OA thing, including the selection process. So I won't weigh in on your dilemma, as I fluctuate between a purist who longs for the old days and a realist who thinks this kid belongs in the OA. I only want to add that while I think you are partially correct on the philosophy of the requirement, it is also to show a regular and recurring commitment to the unit's camping program, with the idea that one (theoretically) must attend several camping trips over that period to meet the requirement. That is supposed to help the unit members answer those "Who among you..." questions. At least that was my understanding.

We looked at a similar option as well, but found the insurance costs to likely be prohibitive. Since we found a choice of COs, we didn't explore it too deeply.

I am not a member of the UMC, so am not too familiar with their governance, so take this with a grain of salt, but as I understand it each UMC can ignore the advice of the governing body if they choose. Each congregation is autonomous, or semi-autonomous? In any event, it seems risky to recharter knowing the bodies above you might not have your back if something goes wrong.

Our District Membership Chair sent us this list of what some other units in our District were doing: - one UMC will recharter as before/ traditionally relationship - several looking at new chartering org., but Facility Use Agreement to continue to meet at their respective churches - one looking for complete replacement of chartered org. & meeting location - two looking at Council as chartered org. but Facility Use Agreement to continue to meet at their respective churches.

Very late to this, but I just wanted to post what our Troop (and the "affiliated" Pack) are doing. We have been sponsored by our UMC for 72 years, and the Pack a bit less. We're now dotting the i's and crossing the t's on a new CO agreement with the Episcopalian church a block or so away. We'll have a facilities use agreement with the UMC, though I think we'll be moving physically more and more over to the Episcopalian church in due time. Our Troop is pretty well off for a Troop, I think, and I suspect that if our Council got our bank account we would not see it back if we later found a CO.

If one believes we are trying to fix the past, then I would agree that is impossible. But I don't think that's in the intent or execution of what is happening today; I believe we are taking the lessons of the past and trying to fix the present, which includes quite a bit of downstream impact (intentional and otherwise) of many decades (centuries, societally) of very bad policy and practice. And a valuable tool in identifying and eradicating (or mitigating) those ills is asking the people who suffer from them what they think.

I don't think it's enough to say that following the Scout Oath and Law will resolve these issues. I joined Scouting in 1975. The last segregated council was integrated in 1974. That means that for the first half of its existence, segregation was permissible in the BSA. That means either the Scout Oath and Law permit segregation and are inherently flawed, in my view, or they were ignored/misunderstood across the board by the entire organization for over 60 years. Having affinity groups that can point out such blind spots is a net gain, in my view. Integration doesn't mean homogenization, and having other groups bring cultural/thought elements to a white, straight, male organization isn't bad, in my view.

I'm not sure I see the real harm in that decision being "taken" from the youth; they already don't decide membership requirements. Having said that, I am not at all opposed to keeping single sex units, but I would view them as transitional to where it is obvious BSA is headed.

It seems to me as though BSA is adding a new rule (or propagating it for the first time) that works to further silo units when we should be trying to be more ecumenical, both among the units and programs within BSA and without. I was just discussing a joint camp out with a neighboring Troop and now I wonder if it could even be approved. And it would hardly be competition with corporate, since our District only does one camporee a year. It's knee jerk, but I don't like the rule.

(If this is off topic, please delete it, Moderators!) When I read about the bankruptcy and the chain of events that caused it, I know for certain that if instead of being one of the single greatest parts of my youth, and now my parenthood, Scouting had been the single worst thing to happen to me in my life, I would never be be to able to comport myself with the grace towards the movement that @ThenNowand the other victims demonstrate here. I appreciate that and respect it, and am grateful to them for sharing their perspective.

And if there were a shot (or two shots) that could prevent one from dying (or minimize the danger/damage) from car accidents, lightning strikes, snake bites, or drowning, would anyone be arguing about taking it?

If this topic is inappropriate or in the wrong area, please move/delete it, and I apologize. I have a bunch of bamboo on my property, most contained, but not all. I have read online some of the pros and cons of burning bamboo, but I was hoping for "real world" input from a community of experts. My son, who is one more example of the adage that inside every Scout is a pyromaniac waiting to emerge, has volunteered to burn it when it is dry. He would be burning it in an above-ground, free-standing fire pit, if that matters. Yes? No? I'm crazy? What sayeth this forum?

Upon rereading, I see that. I think what was confusing was the comparison with screening adults; in this context, the only screening we do for adults is to exclude them from the program. It is single sanction.

I think you've jumped in the deep end of victim blaming and then failed to tread water. Blaming a child victim of sexual molestation or rape and saying the antidote is to keep them out of the program instead of fixing the environment is a non-starter across the board, at least for me.

I live in the 7th most diverse city on the U.S. (three of the six ranked above us are our neighboring cities). My son's Troop has a couple of Hispanic/Latino kids (same family), a few Asian kids, three bi-racial kids, and one Black kid (my son, from a transracial family). We are right in downtown, such as it is, and don't come close to matching the racial and ethnic breakdown of the schools, soccer teams, track teams I've coached, etc. Scouting is missing large and growing populations.