walk in the woods

I suspect @qwazse's point is using software is good for the adults, but, takes responsibility away from the boy.

Interesting. I suspect if I told prospective parents in my area that it is $35 for your child to join cub scouts, and, $25 for you and any adult that might ever go camping with us for a CBC, they'd walk away shaking their heads.

Did you ask them to fill out an application, write a check, and submit to the CBC as a condition of letting their child join?

At least they'll have a prescription for it, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/20/well/family/let-kids-play.html.

To me that's a problem. The Member Care Contact Center is supposed to be the source for information. Getting your call center scripts up-to-date is part and parcel of rolling out new programs, products, and initiatives.

I only skimmed the transcript, but, I never read her directly mention the BSA. The interviewer seems to have brought up the topic.

This was in my podcast feed from Cato this morning. They're talking about college kids but seems to me there's a pretty direct line to the topic of this thread.

But to the OPs point, it's being interpreted differently than the clear language by the people that wrote the clear language to begin with, National.

As much as I'm enjoying the virtual ritual of burning Wood Badgers at the stake, https://www.scouting.org/scoutsbsa/, seems to make the OP's point. Would it have been too difficult to put a rotating banner on the page, or split the banner to show both boys and girls smiling and enjoying the outdoors?

I can't speak for @cocomax, and I appreciate your teaching baloo, but I can generally say solid unit leaders should focus their time and talents on their units. It isn't the unit leader's job to fix the district. It's the district's job to serve the unit. That is especially true for direct contact leaders.

I love it when I have people with landnav experience in my map and compass sessions. So much nicer to have "assistants" to show folks how to shoot bearings and such. Sigh. Not to mention I always learn something new!

The District JTE is scored with Commissioner visits. I think the minimum used to be 6 visits/year. Well, not even visits really, quality contacts I think is the actual language.

Regardless of how one feels about the topic at hand, this highlights the current problem with academic publishing. PLOS is becoming more accepted as an open-access peer-reviewed journal. In theory this paper was reviewed by at least two or three other academics prior to publishing. Once public however, and after people complained about their feelings being hurt, the methodology suddenly comes into question. But we use peer-review in order to sort out these methodological issues. Unfortunately, instead of somebody who questioned the study's finding publishing a separate study, or, detailing their concerns in a letter to the journal, or publishing a study using the same data but showing it to be non-reproducible, the mob demanded the study be taken down and Brown/PLOS complied. Anybody who challenges the Academy's liberal zeitgeist will be shouted down and destroyed regardless of due process.

That's one possibility. Another is the pack, troop, crew and district have leaders who have no interest in working for, with, or supervising a tyrant. Especially in a volunteer position. To be clear, there's a significant difference between strong leaders and tyrants. Although my experience these days is if you push back on, or disagree with, a female tyrant you're accused of sexism right out of the box.

I've helped plan a lot of Fall Camporees for a fairly small district. If we ruled every homecoming weekend and school break off limits, there would be no camporee.

The early adopter program for Cub Scouts didn't include 5th grade girls....

We were told by our SE, if you didn't have enough girls for a den you could mix ages up to three years difference to maintain the single-gender den model. So combine her with your other girl wolves, etc.

The Chicago Public Schools are a good example....

Interesting. My son attended every parent-teacher conference with us from grade school through HS. It was standard practice. It was his choice on his IEP meetings.

So genuine question here about how this works. Suppose 11 year old Johnny shows up to school the first day, decides he doesn't identify with any gender and wants to be called Pat/they. All the teachers and administrators spend the first quarter calling Johnny by his requested name and pronoun. On the evening of Parent-Teacher conferences, Johnny and his parents show up and the teacher says "Good to see you Pat, come sit down." Is that really the guidance?

My DEs over the years have been barely old enough to shave, with degrees in marketing or communications. SEs used to be DEs. I'd be wary of making that call without strong suspicion of abuse, as it seems to me the most logical outcome is a visit from DCFS. If there hasn't been any drama in the family before the call, there certainly will be after it.

I generally have to agree with @qwazse on this one. I generally dislike the idea of SM conferences at meetings as it requires the scout be pulled out of patrol time or something else going on at the meeting. In short it elevates the Advancement method over the Patrol method. I regularly received pushback when trying to schedule before or after the meeting. Campouts were a good time to hold them once the days activities were wound down. I'd occassionally do them at the local donut shop on a Saturday morning as well. My troop only did BoRs once a month (at the regularly scheduled committee meeting) so I'm not sure it's so different than that.

@Eagledad's advice for patience and allowing the emotion to subside is wise counsel. That said, patterns are patterns. You've related a couple of incidents about this particular SM now. If your son handled things as well as you described, he's learned the lessons he needs to know about dealing with difficult people. If he's only now asked if he can quit the troop then I suspect he's shown the patience suggested. The OA simply isn't that important to put up with the SM's behavior. There are a heck of a lot more arrowmen than there are QMs! If he handles his departure in a quiet, dignified manner, he may find a parade following him.

Video recently posted on the Commissioner's facebook page

Conditional Scouters. We should get t-shirts....