Eagle Candidates wearing uniform at ELSP

[Bob White 20]

Don't let a simple logical discussion scare you away. Posters have tried, personal attacks, personal opinion, even 'uh-uh your'e wrong'. How about trying a conversation?

 

What could it hurt for you to put personal opinion aside and just work through it logically and see where it leads us?

 

Here is the situation again.

 

A young man is leading a project to build a playground area at a local shelter for battered women and their children. The work crew consists of volunteer workers from the shelter and members of the community as well as a few local representatives from the local carpenters union.

 

Which specific BSA Youth Protection rules must be followed and to whom do they apply, and who is the adult responsible for seeing they are followed?

 

 

 

[eagle90 125]

Bob - Your arrogance floors me. If you read my post, it was the Scout Executive I spoke to, not a District Executive. And she has over 20 years in the professional service, as a DE, District Director, Field Director, and the last 12 years as Scout Executive. I'm sure she has the training and experience to know the rules and how to interpret them. Of course, not up to your standards, but then who does???

[Bob White 20]

So what would it take for you to believe someone? Just years the number of years in the program? So does tha mean that someone with more years but a different answer must be right?

 

Take few posts and put your pre-conceptions behind you and just talk about this situation and you can reason through it logically rather than taking a knee jerk reaction because it may turn out differently than you believed.

 

I'll take my chances as to where this might lead why won't you?(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[Vicki 11]

I like pie. I also think that I will go with the interpretation of the policy delivered to my face by people for whom I have an enormous amount of respect, respect given after years of interaction with them. Plus their copious amounts of training - from National and Council sources. Not to mention their own experience as trainers - they trained me to be a trainer, after all. Their interpretation will always prevail over some anonymous opinion opined over the internet. Especially when it has the benefit of making sense. The fact that eagle90 has had the same opinion delivered to him from someone who seems, on the face of it, worthy of his respect, only reinforces it. I'm done with that one.

 

To get back to the original thought, the troops with which I've been associated have recommended "Class B" t-shirt and jeans. When it was below zero for my nephew's Eagle project, that was invisible under my coveralls. Common sense rules.

 

Vicki(This message has been edited by Vicki)

[Bob White 20]

So your troop was wrong about the t-shirts but there is no chance that a professional could be wrong about this, and you are unwilling to apply common sense to a discussion on the topic? Even though applying some common sense exposed the troops error.

 

Doesn't that seem a little contradictary?

 

If you are so sure I'm wrong then walk through this situation and prove it.

[evmori 11]

(This message has been edited by a staff member.)

[evmori 11]

Anyone that wants an explanation for the moderator edit may PM me.

FScouter (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

 

I will respond to PM's, too.

 

Ed(This message has been edited by evmori)

[Vicki 11]

Apple pie. With raisins.

 

Yum.

 

Vicki

[kb6jra 10]

"What could it hurt for you to put personal opinion aside and just work through it logically and see where it leads us?"

 

ROFLMAO

 

Reminds me of a skit I saw on TV...

 

Guy acts like he's dialing a phone, using his hand as a handset...

"Hello Kettle, this is the Pot. Your Black!"

 

This has turned out the be the most hillarious thread.

[Bob White 20]

A young man is leading a project to build a playground area at a local shelter for battered women and their children. The work crew consists of volunteer workers from the shelter and members of the community as well as a few local representatives from the local carpenters union.

 

Which specific BSA Youth Protection rules must be followed and to whom do they apply, and who is the adult responsible for seeing they are followed?

 

[highcountry 13]

I see the phrase "common Sense" being tossed about lately here, thet is what we tend to go by (saftey first of course).

 

Common Sense tells me that the youth is earning his Eagle Award by doing the project so it is part of scouting. It's a requirement for rank, anyone know any Eagle Scouts who made the rank but did not do an Eagle project ? The book could just as easily say that troop meetings are outside the sphere of scouting. Just because some rule book says so, doesn't mean it really is so, at least with someone having common sense.

 

Common sense also tells me that no one is going to get canned out of scouting because they allowed you to wear a class A on an Eagle project. The contrary in fact, based on the positive communication I got from the UC (Silver Beaver recipient over 2 decades in BSA) showing one of my recent Eagles in the local paper doing his Eagle project and giving BSA a positive exposure.

 

As far as I am concerned I am going to continue to focus on providing a good safe program and keep my troop viewed positively in the community, district and council, the boys learning and having fun and the parents of the scouts very pleased. I'll leave it up to others to look for hair splitting rules and try to get in the last word on how they are correct.

[Bob White 20]

No project is diminished by the candidate not being in uniform during the project.

 

No project is diminished by understanding that it is done outside of scouting and so the BSA accident and liability coverage is not in force for anyone working on the project that is not there as part of a scout unit at an official unit activity.

 

And the BSA makes it very clear that the project itself is not a unit activity.

 

Knowing these things does dot diminish the program or the work of the scout in any way.

 

Nor does it preclude anyone from showing a picture of the scout in unifdporm and saying that he did a projecct on behalf of ABC organization for his Eagle Scout Project.

 

You are sying things that no one has claimed or suggested.

 

It is a very easy thing to show that the project is not a scouting activity, even though the work is recognized by the BSA for advancement. activities done outside of scouting activities are used all the time for scout advacnement as well as for adult recognition.

This is not something unique to the Eagle Project.

 

This fact is in now stretch of the imagination an attack on scouts or scouting. The BSA explains that this is done "outside the sphere of scouting" and they are not talking about not being done on BSA property of for the BSa. They mean it is not a unit,council, or national activity. It is an activity held by an outside organization that is lead by a youth and not by the BSA.

 

And there are characteristics of a non-BSA activity that you should be aware of. Just saying that the project is a BSA activity is not enough.

 

It would be easy to see if anyone would put aside their anger and their personal opinion and just walk through a simple excercise. I have given you the policies and the BSA sources of those policies, why not take a few posts and see how they apply?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[evmori 11]

We agree an ELSP is not a unit project. We also agree it must be done for an organization outside the sphere of Scouting. What we are having trouble with is a Scout wearing his uniform while leading a ELSP. Now, someone posted they discussed this with a 20+year professional & they claim this professional told them that an ELSP is a Scouting activity wearing the uniform is OK. I tend to agree with the professional. After all, they are the ones who should know, aren't they?

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[eagle90 125]

(This message has been edited by a staff member.)

[Bob White 20]

If we agree that the Eagle project is not a unit activity, then is it a council activity?