{"id":1478,"date":"2013-04-02T04:11:08","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T08:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/?p=1478"},"modified":"2013-04-02T04:11:08","modified_gmt":"2013-04-02T08:11:08","slug":"issue-350-april-1-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/2013\/04\/issue-350-april-1-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Issue 350 \u2013 April 1, 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>________________________________________<br \/>\n<strong>THIS JUST IN: SCOUTMASTERS ELIGIBLE FOR THE SENIOR PATROL LEADER POSITION\u2014FOR LIFE!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The BSA has just announced that Scoutmasters are eligible to appoint themselves Senior Patrol Leader, thus acknowledging the superior leadership that comes with age and experience. Concurrent with this acknowledgement, the Scoutmaster-as-Senior Patrol leader position can be held for life, instead of merely six or twelve months.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, men and women who are quite obviously the best leaders of youth can hold the position of permanent superiority over all Scouts, and\u2014resulting from their superior wisdom and Scouting skill set\u2014may either appoint all Patrol Leaders or eliminate these annoying sub-positions altogether.<\/p>\n<p>All Scoutmasters already functioning as the BSA\u2019s oldest youth leaders will be \u201cgrandfathered\u201d for life! They also are cleared by the BSA to be de facto Merit Badge counselors for all merit badges they choose\u2014from Camping and Hiking and Citizenship all the way to Woodworking\u2014thereby making them the effective \u201cBlue Card\u201d gatekeepers for all Boy Scout advancement.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the advantages: Scoutmaster-SPLs can now continue to run all troop meetings from start to finish; select and plan all troop outings; assign all \u201cduty roster\u201d responsibilities, and generally rule all Scouts at all times. Scout skills? SM-SPLs will teach everything; no more hit-or-miss by having Scouts teach Scouts. Leadership requirements? SM-SPLs can appoint any Scout who needs leadership to advance at will, streamlining the entire process by eliminating the need for pesky elections! Patrol composition? No further need to Scouts to decide who they want to enjoy Scouting with\u2014their SM-SPL will tell them which patrols they\u2019ll be in, for how long. Eagle projects? Not a problem\u2014each Life Scout will be assigned his task by the SM-SPL. New-Scout patrols? Similarly, not a problem\u2014The SM-SPL will be their automatic ex officio Patrol Leader as well, thus eliminating the need for Troop Guides to coach new Patrol Leaders (we all know how incompetent brand-new Patrol Leaders can be!).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAhh, the simplicity of it all!\u201d says the BSA. \u201cScoutmasters do this anyway, and we know the stuff in the SCOUMASTER HANDBOOK\u201d is only for \u201cguideline\u201d purposes, so the SM-SPL position is the natural outgrowth of random variations from troop-to-troop. After all, why bother with mere guidelines anyway when so many have paid them no mind for so long, as it is,\u201d BSA officials have gone on to say.<\/p>\n<p>The only possible hiccup\u2014not fully resolved yet\u2014is delivery of the \u201cScoutmaster\u2019s Minute.\u201d The BSA\u2019s on the cusp of deciding that this should be done by a Scout, instead, under the guidance of the SM-SPL, who will tell the kid exactly what to say, and when to say it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSimplicity, efficiency, and elimination of the silly \u2018Scouts lead Scouts\u2019 notion we\u2019ve been bandying about for decades,\u201d says National. \u201cNow, we\u2019ll give these boys what they\u2019ve really wanted\u2014have been crying for, in fact\u2014for decades: Adults in charge of everything!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Troops can put this into operation as quickly as they would like, along with one more change authorized by the BSA: The name, \u201cBoy Scouting\u201d will be dropped entirely, to be replaced with the more accurate designation: WEBELOS III.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Happy Scouting!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Andy<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Have a question? Facing a dilemma? Wondering where to find a BSA policy or guideline? Write to askandybsa@yahoo.com. Please include your name and council. (If you\u2019d prefer to be anonymous, if published, let me know and that\u2019s what we\u2019ll do.)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>[No. 350 \u2013 4\/1\/2013 \u2013 Copyright \u00a9 Andy McCommish 2013]<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>________________________________________ THIS JUST IN: SCOUTMASTERS ELIGIBLE FOR THE SENIOR PATROL LEADER POSITION\u2014FOR LIFE! The BSA has just announced that Scoutmasters are eligible to appoint themselves Senior Patrol Leader, thus acknowledging the superior leadership that comes with age and experience. Concurrent with this acknowledgement, the Scoutmaster-as-Senior Patrol leader position can be held for life, instead of [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1478"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1483,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions\/1483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}