[Philmont]: Re; Need help

My email client is acting up, so I hope this goes through. This is meant to
be a response to the jsampson "Bear/joke" incident.

IMHO, I think the bigger problem is the scoutmaster attitude rather than the
fact that the boys punishment slipped through the cracks. I would tend to
give the boys a chance to come up with an appropriate remedial punishment.

As to the SM, I think there are generally two way to deal with these kinds
of issues - one is "by the books" i.e. going up the chain of command through
committee, UC, DE, etc. I tend to try those after all else fails. The other
is to try and get level-headed adults to get together and act rationally.
Since not all are level headed, and even those that are can often be wrong,
the "by the books" option is sometimes necessary.

If you can get everyone to sit down and discuss, I would focus on the
following:

1. Based on your description of the incident, it sounded like the SM was
part of the group that made the initial decision as to the punishment of the
boys. If that is the case, I would try and get him to see that that was his
time to make any leadership issues known and that now is too late to modify
the punishment.

2. Secondly, I would focus on the fact that the SM's intended action is, in
essence a "death penalty" when it comes to these boys and the scouting
program, and is that an appropriate punishment for this incident? (I might
also try and steer the discussion to consider whether any one person should
have such authority in the program.)

I note that your message said that "due to an emergency not >directly<
(emphasis mine) related to this issue." This made me wonder if there were
other issues involved.

I'll also note that, if you end up in a "by the book" scenario, that it is
my recollection that the boys vote on the SPL position, and that the other
positions are chosen by the SPL with SM input (may be the other way around -
you can check.) In addition I seem to recall that Den Chief qualifies as a
leadership position, and that may be an option. Also, keep in mind that no
leader is allowed to add to or take away from the requirements for rank
advancement.

Best of luck in working out a reasonable alternative.

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Received on Mon Aug 18 16:09:28 2003