David CO

27 minutes ago, FireStone said:

So a kid gets kicked out of a troop and the CC is annoyed to answer questions from the parent of the boy? That's absurd. What did they expect you to do? Just say, "Oh, thanks for kicking out my son. Have fun on the next outing!". 🙄

We don't know that the unit had anything to do with it. The letter came from the council. It is entirely possible that the complaint was made directly to the council, or to the BSA hotline. The CC's annoyance might be the result of being left out of the loop and not having any information to share with the parents.

I have been considering the discussion on a recent topic about Star Wars and feminism. I don't think the SW movies have become a springboard for feminism so much as they have become an attack on organized religion.

The original trilogy presented the fictional Jedi religion as a good and civilizing influence on the SW universe. The prequel trilogy presented it as clumsy, ineffective, and morally ambiguous. The sequel trilogy discredited it and burnt its temple to the ground. Luke went from being an idealistic young man, eager to become a Jedi master, only to become a despondent old hermit who has lost all faith in the institution he once loved.

On ‎5‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 7:02 PM, ScoutMama43 said:

I will call again on Tuesday after the holiday. 

I wonder if we will be hearing from ScoutMama43 about the phone call. It's possible that the SE read her the riot act, insisting that she not talk about the incident on social media. 

13 minutes ago, Chadamus said:

Mods it matter be time to lock this one up. We're not being very Scout-like.

Au contraire, nerdy sci-fi arguments are very scout like. 

4 hours ago, Oldscout448 said:

 Here is hoping there is some sort of grandfather clause.

Yes. It's about time we grandfathers get our own clause.

1 hour ago, Kryten said:

 

I can see where they are going with this. But i do not take kindly with national telling me what to do outside of scouting activities. am i now to ask all youth i encounter if they are a scout?  And have to alter my interaction with them based on the G2SS?.  I do like to follow the rules🙄

 

So do I.

I also like to teach my scouts to follow the rules, but that becomes almost impossible when BSA creates ridiculous rules that are totally impractical to follow. I am a teacher. We don't have two deep leadership in the classroom, so it isn't possible for me to follow the BSA guidelines 24/7. It just can't be done.

My concern is that BSA is creating rules that it knows we will have to break. By doing so, it is teaching boys to not respect the rules.

41 minutes ago, FireStone said:

In my pack the CM actually comes in fairly low in terms of authority on policy and procedure. The committee has, on occasion, voted to override a CM decision. Not sure if that is standard BSA procedure or not, though. 

This can happen if the COR (Chartered Organization Representative) is also a member of the unit committee, creating a sort of super-committee.

I don't think this is a good idea because, as you mentioned, it tends to undermine the authority of the Scoutmaster/Cubmaster.

12 minutes ago, scoutmom86 said:

Can the CM do whatever he or she wants t? It’s a chartered organization. She doesn’t own it. There is a committee. And a company that sponsors the Pack.

With that being said, in any instance of any ingrievance anyone has, does she truly have the authority to make decisions that affect the Pack on her own without committee approval?

That is an excellent question. I think you are asking if the Chartered Organization can over-rule the unit leaders. Yes, it can.

I have never been under the false illusion that virtue sells better than sin. Violence and sex are popular and profitable themes in Hollywood movies.  If the Disney studio decides to take the course of greatest profitability, my guess is that is this is the direction they will be going.

1 hour ago, ScoutMama43 said:

My son still seems in shock and is maintaining his innocence. We have questioned him about anything he could have said or done that could have been misconstrued. So far, nothing other than what I have previously mentioned.

Count your blessings. If this had been a girl making an accusation, things would be much worse.

2 hours ago, shortridge said:

This new generation of Scouts is going to be great and put us older folks to shame. 

I'll take it. It's better than being shameless.

7 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

The days of a CO using scouting to provide their youth program are closing.

...and we are seeing a steady drop in youth participation as a result.

1 hour ago, RememberSchiff said:

Will Troop Committee become Conference of Families?  Will there be any scout-run troops?  Maybe this will force out volunteers with no children ?

The unit committee and other unit leadership are chosen by the CO. I doubt that this will change. 

RememberSchiff,

That was a lot to say in one post. You covered a lot of territory, but you seemed to have forgotten that scout units are owned and operated by Chartered Organizations. You never even mentioned the CO's.

1 hour ago, NJCubScouter said:

(Sorry, when you post on a forum you never know when another member might be a lawyer and start cross-examining you.    )

I wasn't expecting the Spanish inquisition!

9 minutes ago, ScoutMama43 said:

My son told the other scout that we would kill him (our son) if his new equipment was lost. According to my son he never threatened the other boy. 

Good. Now some over-zealous social worker can come after you for posing a threat to your son. That's much better.

I wonder if the Chartered Organization is a school. There are some new rules in schools relating to students making a terrorist threat. This is a reaction to the recent school shootings. If someone is accusing the scout of making a terrorist threat, this could be a big deal.

47 minutes ago, FireStone said:

This is something you're going to have to probably take up the ladder, contacting your District Executive and Council Exec. 

If this letter is coming from the district/council, it is already going up the ladder. This may be the problem.

If this letter is coming from the unit/Chartered Organization, it really isn't appealable to district/council executives. It's a unit matter.

1 hour ago, ScoutMama43 said:

My son supposedly threatened to kill him. My son says that he got angry and said that his parents would kill him if his new equipment was lost. 

Ambiguous pronouns. Does the highlighted him (in the quote box) refer to your son or the 1st year scout?

1 hour ago, NJCubScouter said:

And (2) if there was a communal shower facility somewhere, it was the adult leaders (men) and Scouts at the same time.  None of this "respect for privacy" stuff.

I don't know how much of these changes are due to youth protection. I think some of it has nothing to do with YP.

Even in a school with a properly run, well-supervised locker room, we get some mothers who object to having their children taking showers after gym class and extra-curricular activities. It is not safety they are concerned about. They object to group showers.

As a boy, I never felt that I needed much privacy. Privacy was a girl thing.

33 minutes ago, walk in the woods said:

Finally, you said "It hasn't been a negative in school classrooms to have boys and girls working together."  I can't begin to express how strongly I disagree with this statement.  Boys are loud, squirmy, and active.  Nobody who has ever actually worked with boys was shocked when taking away the unstructured play of recess, and the jungle gyms and swings, caused problems in the classroom.  But, instead of giving boys the room to be boys, we've chosen to medicate the ones that can't act like their female counterparts.  Scouting used to be a refuge from that mentality.  I fear it will become more of the same, and worse than it is today (MBUs, Citizenship MBs at summer camp, etc.).  

It has had a huge effect on the Physical Education curriculum. Boy's PE used to be a very active rough-and-tumble class. Now it's just like the girl's class used to be.

3 hours ago, scotteg83 said:

 

I can understand canceling your subscription.  But FOS and popcorn goes to your local council for fundraising, that council that had nothing to do with this change.

I disagree. If council actually acted like an independent organization with a charter from BSA, instead of behaving like a wholly owned arm of BSA, you might have a point. But it doesn't. BSA says jump, and the council asks "how high".

Council deserves to share the blame right along with national.

I am separating this from my previous post in order to make it absolutely clear that I am not referring in any way to the CSE.

As a Health/Science teacher, I have taught boys about testicular cancer and how to do self-examinations to detect it. Since this disease often first appears in the teenage years, it is important that boys receive this instruction.

My awareness of this disease makes me mindful of just how intrusive it might be to ask someone why they don't have children. I understand that there might be many other reasons, both medical and social, but this is the first one that comes to mind.

For this reason, I would never ask someone, in either a professional or social situation, why that have not had children. 

2 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

From an interview somewhere, he deliberately had no children in order to focus on his career. That's another negative in my opinion because A) how can you relate to parents if you are not one and  B) How can you relate to modern youth when you have no kids of your own?

This is getting a little too personal. I would never use this as a criteria for hiring a coach or choosing a unit scout leader. I would not want BSA to use parenthood as a basis to discriminate in their hiring or promotions. It's wrong.

8 minutes ago, Gwaihir said:

Voice the displeasure.  We have to be vocal about these changes.   If Scouting could revert some of it's changes in the 70s, it can do so now.  

Don't just voice your displeasure. Cancel your subscription. Stop donating to FoS. Stop selling popcorn. In short, hit em where it hurts.