acco40

First off, my background. I grew up dirt poor - parents didn't have any money but I did live in suburbia so I was a rare case. Now, I'm flush so no monetary issues. Second, folks don't pay for a multitude of reasons - not being able to afford is only one of those reasons. If your unit sells popcorn - the way it should be handled is that it is an opportunity for the boy and his family to raise funds for the Scout to afford Scouting. If the primary purpose is to raise pack funds, give families who may be cash rich and time poor the opportunity to just write a check. Give families that may be cash poor and time rich a chance to sell product. If the parents won't write a check or sell popcorn, work with the Scout (if Boy Scout age) or cut your losses as "cruel" as it seems.

Basementdweller - we would do something similar. When "regular" camping, we would cook by patrol most of the time. On backpacking trips, we'd usually carry our own food and sometimes water and team up with a buddy for cooking. Some meals were one person meals but we tended to go with Jet Boil and a good rule of thumb is a one Jet Boil for every two Scouts/Scouters. Now, when we went to Philmont and Double H, the food was in one big bag so essentially, we cooked in as a patrol depending on the size/portion of the food. When we did Gettysburg - a Scouter would go get fast food due time constraints!

Folks - "blue" cards are not official anything. Yes, they are an "item" that may be purchased by from the BSA (Merit Badge Application #34124) however, councils are not required to recognize, nor use them. Therefore, all this talk about who should keep what is more of a common sense debate, not "rules" debate. As a Scoutmaster, I told the boys to always keep a copy because if bumbling adults - MBC, Unit, or Council screwed up, they were out of luck. In our troop, the Scout kept a copy, the MBC was encouraged to keep a copy and the troop advancement chair was encouragee to keep a copy.

Whoa Nelly! Eagle92 and Twocubdad - riddle me this. How on Earth could you not approve these Scouts who met the first class rank? To earn first class doesn't the scout have to demonstrate scout spirit? Doesn't he need to perform service for 2nd Class? So are you going to arbitrarily say you don't care about rank reqs but you do for OA? Or, you have a higher bar for OA? This is a pet peeve of mind. I've seen so many Scouters lower the bar and then when an OA election or Eagle comes around all of a sudden they start taking the requirements seriously or start re-evaluating what it means to demonstrate scout spirit, etc. Why? Don't you think this is extremely confusing and picked up on by teens super sensitive hypocrisy meters? For myself, I always err on the side of letting the youth advance. Sometimes, when a child become an OA member or Eagle Scout, they start living up to the expectations. Also, what is the downside? Not much in my estimation.

Our youth leaders remind us that our primary function is to stay out of the way. My primary purpose, while I was a Scoutmaster, was to publicize the OA, approve scouts for elections and hold said elections. Oh yeah, since OA meetings were the same time and place as roundtable, I was a taxi service as well occasionally.

Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers. - Socrates (according to Plato)

Two-deep leadership on all outings required. Two registered adult leaders, or one registered leader and a parent of a participating Scout or other adult, one of whom must be 21 years of age or older, are required for all trips and outings. There are a few instances, such as patrol activities, when the presence of adult leaders is not required and adult leadership may be limited to training and guidance of the patrol leadership. With the proper training, guidance, and approval by the troop leaders, the patrol can conduct day hikes and service projects. Appropriate adult leadership must be present for all overnight Scouting activities; coed overnight activitieseven those including parent and childrequire male and female adult leaders, both of whom must be 21 years of age or older, and one of whom must be a registered member of the BSA. The chartered organization is responsible for ensuring that sufficient leadership is provided for all activities. -G2SS Now, be prepared to get follow-up posts about what is "required" and what is "guidelines." IMO, your charter organization would find what occurred as unacceptable.

The proof that racism is still rampant is the fact that folks who have no way of knowing the facts still try to glean the "truth" from the various media snippets to try and "prove" their belief. I have no idea who was at fault but best guess is both. Our society (USA) is so caught up in race and no wonder. Give a stack of photos to a child, say a four year old. The photos are of adult and children's faces and ask them to sort them in to two piles. Some will sort by gender. Some will sort by race. Some, by age. Some will sort by what appears to be "random" by the observer. What is the adult reaction to this? The four year old gets "vibes" by the adults that for some reason sorting by race is wrong. So, what they process is that somehow something must be wrong or mysterious about race. How many of you have had your young son or daughter notice something different about someone and utter something embarrassing? Heck, I remember my son pointing to someone in a grocery store and exclaiming loudly to me, "Dad that lady is really fat!" My son had no malice in his statement (and she was really fat) and did not have the social graces to know that society frowned on such exclamations. I don't remember the fact myself but my mother told me the story about when we moved from Baltimore to Denver. The time period was the late 50s (less racial mixing back then) and as a three year old I had never seen a black person before. One of the gentleman from the moving company was very dark skinned black and I saw him and stated (without malice but out of complete ignorance) to my mother, look mom, a monkey. Well, you can guess my mother's response. She was quite embarrassed but took the opportunity to explain to me and my brother (mom, my brother and I are all red heads) that, "Some people are pink like us and some people are brown like that man." Well, that satisfied my curiosity and that was that. The mover, on the other hand, got a big kick out of the fact that my mother used pink and brown as opposed to white and black to describe us. To a child, pink and brown was more correct. Fast forward a few years later (I was 5 and it was the early 60s and we lived in Arizona) and one of my friends was black. We mostly played outside but one day for some reason, I went inside his house with him. I was amazed (again, 5 yr old perspective but a future engineer with an analytical mindset) to find out that not only was my friend black, a rare occurrence from my vantage point, so was his mother, father, brothers and sisters! What were the odds of that?!! Yes, sometimes ignorance is bliss. To get back on topic, why did this murder generate so much publicity? IMO, it is simple, it sells.(This message has been edited by acco40)

SeattlePioneer - I was jesting. I have loads of squareknots, Wood Badge paraphernalia, district recognition, council recognition, . . . The recognition is nice, but believe me, the goal wasn't prestige. In fact, I'd say out of the normal Scouting crowd of Cubs, Boy Scouts, Scouters and parents 50% have no clue what any of it means, 20% are curious, 10% have respect for it and 20% show disdain toward it (you must be in it for self-aggrandizement, you put more value in your awards than the boys, etc.). One of the reasons Scouters involved with Boy Scouts may appear to get more prestige is that most of them have gone through the Cub Scout program where the majority of Cub Scout leaders have not gone through the Boy Scout program as leaders. Also, for someone like me whose boys have already aged out of the youth end of Boy Scouts, signing up as a den leader or Cubmaster may raise more eyebrows than acting as a Scoutmaster or Assistant Scoutmaster. Not saying it should, but it does.

An outings chair? Now, this anti-gay bias of the BSA has now gone way to far. :-)

Methods of Scouting are guidelines to help develop your troop program they are NOT mandates from Mt. Sinai so get over yourselves already. Incorrect. The methods are the tools we've signed up to use to reach the aims of Scouting that we agreed to strive to accomplish. If you choose to reach for different aims or to reach the same aims a different way, feel free but please do it outside the auspices of the BSA. Advancement is one of those methods. How come nobody puts forth the red herring to those when asked if they employ the advancement method - so are you telling me that if I don't spend every waking minute checking to see if a scout has completed a requirement or working toward advancement that I have a bad unit? Are you going turn away a scout who is not interested in advancement? The BSA has aims and laid out the methods we are to use to meet those aims. We've signed up to deliver that program. Why don't we use it?

A good Scoutmaster will educate his SPL and other leaders. I've been in heavy rain in the New Mexico desert - get the heck out of the dry riverbed - and in Michigan, Canada, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, etc. I've had a tornado go by within 500 yards of our campsite when only thunderstorms were predicted. They key is proper planning and then taking appropriate actions based on that planning. I tend to think of the decisions we made as alterations, not cancellations. And when we did such a thing, the youth were involved.

Numbers are not the issue. If adults attend, a good Scoutmaster would give them assignments. If many attend, some of the assignments may be "go take a hike", "go scout out a good patrol location a few miles down the road", etc. Adults who attend and do not comply with the Scoutmasters wishes are problematic, regardless of number.

I don't see any organization as purely black or white, good or bad, etc. I supported my sons when they wanted to join the BSA. I supported my daughter when she wanted to join the GSUSA. Both organization has their supporters and detractors as indicated here. From a local point of view - I found out that if I got involved I could emphasize what I thought were the good points and de-emphasize what I thought were the bad points. Overall, I think both programs were beneficial to my children. Pick a school, religion, fraternal organization, youth organization, etc. and I bet you I could find some flaw with it. The problem with so many folks is they quickly gravitate toward polarization. Ask a Tiger Cub or Brownie what they think about abortion, contraception, etc. and if they have any opinion it is proof of brainwashing parents in my view.

There's prestige involved in being a Scout leader?

I'm not sure of the source (W.C. Fields?) but someone one actor once said, never work with animals or children. You will always get upstaged. Something for politicians to think about.

There are times when a modified uniform can be worn, and there are time when they cannot be worn. Please enlighten me when a modified uniform should be worn.

To perform the duties assigned to them by the Scoutmaster. So, if you feel you need more of an explanation, ask the Scoutmaster what they have in mind and be sure to let the Scoutmaster know what you are and are not comfortable doing. When my oldest crossed over, I volunteered to be an SA but I told the Scoutmaster that I was also a Webelos Den Leader and that that would take priority for the next year and a half. He understood and my assignments in the troop were rather limited during that time.

OGE - I feel your pain. Yes, I too have noticed a prevailing opinion among many that those adults who strive to wear the uniform properly are all in the BSA for self aggrandizement only. Keep in mind that the world has always been populated a few small minded folks whose only real purpose in life seems to be to try and knock down others that they feel inferior too.

I'm a conservative who hates judicial activism - as I'm sure are many other posters here. Therefore, concerning the constitutional requirement to be a "natural born citizen" would disqualify Mitt Romney from consideration as President of the United States. William "Mitt" Romney was not a natural born citizen, he was born by caesarian section - not natural. Heaven help us all.

Yes, some folks have a gut reaction to the BSA and/or to the Girl Scouts. Bob Morris is scared of Girl Scouts. If you are waiting for the punch line, sorry, but there isn't one. Morris, an Indiana state legislator, recently attacked the Scouts in a letter to his colleagues urging them to vote down a nonbinding resolution honoring the group on its centennial. There has never been a safer, more plain-vanilla measure in the history of American politics, but Morris felt the need to warn fellow legislators of the organization's corrupting influence. The Girl Scouts, he wrote, is the "tactical arm" of Planned Parenthood. He called it a "radicalized" group with a homosexual agenda that promotes abortion while seeking "the destruction of traditional American values." That's a lot to lay on little girls whose mission in life seems to be the selling of Thin Mints. But Morris has what he considers sound reasons for believing them a threat. He says he did "a small amount" of online research that revealed to him the true nature of these terroristic cookie pimps. And as everyone knows, if you read it on the web, it has to be true, right? Sigh. Thus does social conservatism skid through the last barriers of basic intellect, simple decency and common sense, hurtling breakneck off the deep end. Next stop: utter incoherence. There is, in a sense, nothing new here. Fear has long been the sine qua non of social conservatism, the fundament of an "us against them" ethos that simultaneously binds social conservatives together in common cause and separates them from the rest of the world. Like the mental patient who is emperor of a self-created universe invisible to sane people, they believe themselves the defenders of a moral North Star from which the rest of the world has deviated - and to which they are determined to return us. It might be easy enough to write Morris off as a podunk legislator of no concern to anyone outside his district. But such sanguinity requires the belief that he is an anomaly. He is not. To the contrary, this brand of fraidy-cat politics where "they" are ever out to get you and the sky is forever falling has become a staple of the Republican Party. You could look to almost any of the GOP's recent presidential aspirants as proof, or you could just use Rick Santorum as one-stop shopping. He is the state of the art. In years past, he called birth control "harmful" and questioned whether it works - something that has been regarded as settled science for decades. Just days ago, he bashed college education as a scheme of "indoctrination" and attacked 49-years-dead John F. Kennedy for a 1960 speech generally regarded as a landmark statement against religious bigotry. Somehow, in Santorum's fevered mind, it became a statement in support of what it opposed. But then, social conservatism is where logic fears to tread. It is a worldview driven by fear of the world beyond its racial, gender, religious, cultural and intellectual borders. Historically, it always has been. Fear the Japanese, they said. They are collaborating with our enemies. Fear the communists, they said. They are hiding behind every bush. Fear the gays, they say. They want to recruit our children to their lifestyle. And now? Fear the Girl Scouts. They are trying to conquer America one cookie at a time. And you have to wonder: How narrow must a man's worldview be, how paranoid his outlook, what a bunker his very life, when he is scared of Girl Scouts? Some of us have argued that social conservatives use fear as a tactic. And there's likely some truth to that. But one senses little of tactical planning in Morris' missive. No, the fact is, he believes what he says. Many of them do. If you want to be scared of something, be scared of that. Now some folks would have a similar reaction to the BSA (opposite political spectrum?). It is sad on both accounts that these organizations get politicized by both some who are and by some who are not members.(This message has been edited by acco40)

SPLs candidates are approved by the Scoutmaster and elected by the Scouts. I think that is a good balance but yes, each could sabotage the election.

Too often I see the "chain of command" being SM -> SPL -> PL -> patrol. I don't see it so much as a chain of command as a communication path.

Assertion #4 The tyranny of the majority scares the bejesus out of me. Conclusion #4 There's good reason the judicial branch should not be responsive to the whims of the electorate.

Um, we are the BSA just as much as the professionals, so I'm not sure what you are asking, Scoutfish (plus, I repeatedly see "bing" which I'm interpreting as being). The question is do we need a paid professional staff? The answer is yes. The problem is that the paid professionals are many and woefully underpaid. I'd like to see the quantity go way down and the quality go way up. (This message has been edited by acco40)