DeanRx

sorry douplicate post(This message has been edited by deanrx)

I think we are missing a vary valid point here. How many scout scholarships are there? How many professional scouters making millions of dollars per year? None. My thought is, scouts doesn't potentially pay for college or turn into a lucritive pro career, thus it takes a back seat to those activities that have the big payday potential. No matter how realistic or unrealistic that potential nght be. Band and sports, heck even theatre can payoff in scholarship $$ and for a select few, turn into a high paying career w/ fame. I don't see that happening with scouting. Dean

AZMIke- You may be correct about Planned Parenthood... I don't have enough interaction to make an educated judgement on their policies and procedures. However, in the very limited times in my professional life I've been involved in a mandatory report (about 3 total in 15 years - one of which involved suspected sexual abuse), the cops didn't even send someone out the same day. When they did send out a deputy (or social services worker in one case), it was standard interview... who was it, their address (which may or may not be legit), and other contact info, and WHY we suspected abuse wa

Sentinel- No problem, I appreciate your question, and might I add - for being 19, you post some very well thoughtout ideas...so here goes... If I see a crime being committed - YES, I would call 911. If I see a stranger in the street in need of help - YES, I would help. As for the vinette about an underage girl being prostituted... well - IF the gal is willing to make a statement or cry for help - then yes you help. 99% of the time, foklks in abusive situations (this type, elder, spousal abuse, etc...) not only do not say anyting, they defend and stick up for their attackers. Its

I find it quite disturbing that folks can't agree to disagree on the corporal punishment issue... unless you are beating the crap out of a child, I don't see the point. There are plenty of parents that inflict untold psychological abuse on their children... they do it long into adulthood. We don't scream for them to stop or remove the child from the situation. The honest truth is until we remove parents from parenting and raise ALL youth on state mandated communes, there will be HUGE differences in parenting styles and tactics. Just the way it is. Some are right, some are wrong. You are

JoeBob- Terrible, terrible, terrible idea with the health forms !!! As I am in healthcare and my next door neighbor does IT risk management and risk mitigation for several major insurance compaines, I urge you to do the following: 1) Have the FAMILY keep the health form. 2) The scout MUST turn it in to the driver of the vehicle they are riding in (along with the permission slip) when you leave on an outing. 3) When you get back from an outing - GIVE THE HEALTH FORM BACK to the SCOUT !! Go ahead and poo-poo me if you wish, but HIPPA does NOT absolve volunteers from unaut

"It all stops when you can't make the house payment or put food on the table"... Na, it doesn't even stop then. We now have government programs to bail you out of your house payment and EBT / debit cards issued by the state so you can continue to buy groceries because you spent all your "disposable" income on the latest iPhone, tattoos, and cigarettes. Its gotten so bad, we have members of both political parties that openly espouse that you are a bad American if you fail to continue to consume... because to spend money means you are helping stimulate the economy! It used to be

Some of the coolest snow shoes I've seen... PVC pipe for the frames, then 550-cord for the laces, and an old truck inner-tube cut out for the "webbing". The rubber webbing was reinforced with punch-through metal gommets (like for tarp corners) and laced onto the PVC frame with the 550 cord. The troop I saw drilled holes in the PVC tubes to anchor the 550-cord in place on the frame. Looked like they worked pretty darn well and rather cheap in the materials department. Dean

I still stand by my comment on fundraising... even if you can overcome the volume of scouts and difference in leadership, HOW do you overcome infighting over funds? I know some (if not most) LDS units already operate like this. However, do most of these have mandatory funding via the church members? If not - how does the funding work for the LDS units? My hunch would be in a one-unit program... the program with the most adults on the committee would drive both the program and the funding. If committee members have mostly cubs... lots of $ spend on pinewood and entry level camping,

yeah, I understand there is a certain subset of folks out there that view anyone who wants to stick around without a youth in the program as being creepy... we can have a whole thread on the reasons why, but some of these folks are the best leaders, some are the worst... kind of like the adults WITH youth in the program. I agree that a self-imposed "term limit" with secession planning is the best way to go. Then if a CC, SM, or CM... go find something else to do to serve BSA. Two reasons I say this: 1) Even if the "old" leader steps out of the role, but stays with the unit...

I see benefits and dowsides to a one-unit approach... 1) would it mean you MUST have a troop for your pack? Or can multiple packs still feed a given troop? The attrition issue cited would be cause for concern. 2) If you have a well run pack and a poorly run troop, or vice versa... do you have a chance to opt out? to another unit? I wouldn't want to be a CM forced into feeding boys into a failing troop, or a SM trying to pull cubs from a lethargic pack. 3) I don't think this would make unit volunteer positions any easier to fill. You either have an awards chair for 40-50 boys

Did I miss something, or did the OP mention in one of his follow on posts that the DE (or someone from the district) refused to let them recruit at schools without the district's permission? Hmmm, that strikes me a very odd. The DE's salary is directly affected by membership numbers. So, unless you were recruiting OUTSIDE your assigned district, I cannot imagine a DE turning their nose up at recruitment! If this is the case, my next stop would be the SE's office to ask him WHY you DE is undercutting your attmepts to bring more youth into the program. Dean

Not much call for it here in SoCal, but as a lad in the midwest... we would camp once a month, weather be damned. In the winter, we used sleds to haul our gear into camp. We built igloos and even snow caves to sleep in. Had an ASM who's farm we used to camp on. He'd bring out a few bales of hay and each two man snow cave team got a plastic sheet (as ground cloth on the snow) and a bale to break open as a heat layer. Put your zero degree bag on top of that and spend the night in your snow cave... most of the time, I was peeling off layers in the middle of the night from being too w

I understand the arguement of, "Not all the older boys WANT to interact with the younger ones...." However, there is a big different in WANT TO and SHOULD. Sometimes as an adult leader, I don't WANT to put up with an older scout's attitude, but I do. Sometimes I don't WANT to hand hold a younger scout who should have already mastered a skill, but I do. Most of the time, I don't WANT to have a discussion with a helicopter parent about letting Johnny figure it out on his own and that failure is also a teaching method, but I do. Why? Beacuse I am a leader. If good citizens

While I agree that we are a values based organization, I disagree that you can disconnect those values from other issues such as membership, funding, and corporate branding. BSA is a business... its a non-profit business, but a business just the same. If it fails as a business, then you can discuss values all you want, but you will no longer have a program to deliver said values. A business thrives by responding to market demands. It gains and retains customers by understanding those customer's needs. The battleground for BSA seems to be WHO are the customers they are wanting to s

Yeah Barry makes a pretty darn good point there... The idea of age based patrols is really NOT a boy-led troop. You must have age integration to have any type of youth-led unit. A couple things that might help: 1) Put the challenge to the PLC... see what solutions they come up with. 2) Mentor the older scouts with ASM's and the SM. Make the idea of being a 'trainer' to a younger scout the best thing a scout can be. Gently remind them that others taught them scout skills, so now its their turn to pay-it-forward... that's what true servant leadership is all about. If we f

As a post script... If you or a DL speaks with the families and they state their son is still going to be active... do NOT float them at recharter time. We (I) made this mistake the 1st year I was involved with recharter and we had 3 families that had yet to pay, but all said yes they were still going to be active and would pay at the next month pack meeting. Well, unit paid for the boy's registration and Boy's Life subscription to the tune of $25 per boy (if I remember correctly), the next month, all three stated they were not going to be in scouts anymore and stopped showing up...

Sorry, I don't have a form letter, but unfortunately have delt with this issue in the past as well... A short, certified letter stating: Mr. / Ms. XXXX, The Cub Scout Pack ### has tried multiple times to engage you regarding your son's, XXXX, dues for scouting activities. Our correspondence has been ignored up until this point. We are in the process of unit recharter and must have payment of $xxx.xx no later than (date), or the committee will have no choice but to suspend your son's scouting account and activities with the unit. If you would like to apply for a scout sch

OGE- I think the thought is because the single longest lasting impact a president can make is the appointment of a federal judge, then term limits might provide some type of regulator on the situation. I'm not sure that is the case. Both parties have and will continue to appoint right or left leaning judges based upon which party is in power at the time of the appointments. I'm not sure how you go about fixing that, especially when the appointment is ratified by the senate and in recent history, the same party has held sway in both the senate and the white hosue. It makes confirma

So Sentinel, the next logical question is... How do we (volunteers at the local level) keep the issue from being a dead horse? There HAS to be some way to convey the message to national and at least have them hear what the masses are saying? To leave it to outsiders (i.e. disgruntled ex-scouts turning in their awards, and LBGT organizations) seems like a no-win situation. These outside influences would rather see BSA destroyed than changed, and I fear they may see their efforts come to fuition. Its an issue I struggle with almost daily. How to associate with an organization I

The EC as I understand it has served two purposes: 1) An easy way to collect the votes of one state and convey that vote to DC in a time before mass communication and rapid transit. The state elections officals would count the vote, total it, and then send the electors to Washington to cast that state's vote for the republic. Kind of out of touch with reality now since we have every major news organization calling the election results before poles close on the west coast! 2) To balance the large population states with the less populated states. Ok, I can understand this one. Not

I'm with scoutingagain on this one... Along with the sea of corporate donors starting to dry up, I fear whether my 11 y/o accomplishments in scouting (if he does make it to Eagle) will carry the same weight / prestige as in generations past. It seems a good amount of folks outside of scouting do NOT make the distinction between national's membership policy and the scouts in the local units. At what point does the Eagle rank begin to be viewed by outsiders as the "top" echelon of a bigoted organization? Yeah, you may have worked hard to get to that rank, but so did the Grand Wizard

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/11/13/ups-ends-grants-to-boy-scouts-over-discrimination/ Not sure why this is a dead horse... 85K last year from UPS... The writings on the wall if other corporate donors follow suit.

jblake - you write that if BSA wants to be like everyone else, what is the point of continuing in scouting? Does that mean you believe the ONLY thing that sets BSA apart from other youth camping / outdoors programs (such as Campfire, Mik-o-say, and Indian Guides) is the membership policies with regards to gays and atheists? I'd like to think the membership policy issues (while a big issue) is not the ONLY thing that makes our organization unique. P.S. - Appreciate the feedback, and thanks to everyone for keeping an emotionally charged issue on point. Doing a good job with the 4

Seattle- I agree BSA has a constitutional right to their membership policy. What I am asking is if the outcome(s) of the elections show that the tide has turned and BSA's policy is sqaurely in the minority view now as it pertains to secular society? Prior to Tuesday night, one could argue that gay marriage was a pretty even 50/50 split in this country with half for and half against. It had been put to the voters multiple times in multiple states and was rejected. The states that DID recognize the unions did so by judgical mandates, not the vote of the populace. CNN and other news