Starting two Jamborees ago, Jere Ratcliff as Chief Scout Executive (CSE), maybe it was Roy Williams, began handing out a patch to Scouts attending the Jamboree that he met. This year Bob Mazucca continued the new tradition with his own CSE patch:

Chief Scout Executive Jambo 2010 patch - front

Handing these patches out to Scouts is a nice touch by the Chief.

Until I turned it over…:

Boy Scouts of America CSE - Made in China

Now I posted last spring about the BSA being at best being insensitive, at worst being out right dumb, by having certain patches relating to the American labor movement made in China. Somehow I’m feeling that this is worse because it indicates our leadership does not get it. The comments are the same; he’s either being insensitive at best or dumb at worst. Now I hope our Chief is too busy to be designing and ordering patches but it means he is not being served well either by the Supply Division or by his assistant (who gets his own badge). But neither did he catch it.  He could at least have had his staff take the sticker off to make it less obvious. But no… they couldn’t even do that much. What message are they sending to our Scouts? What message are they Sending to our volunteers? Has he not looked at unemployment levels by age group (it is much worse for those under 30)?

The number I am hearing is that the Scouts need to raise $175 million to build the new jamboree site, more on that in another blog. How much are they asking for from China? Why should any American employee support Scouting? This patch is bad for our brand. It is bad for our leadership. Same conclusion as before - some heads must roll.

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Due to picking up the Clay estate and subsequent car problems I missed this year’s BSA National Meeting.  Well I’m getting reports back and the one that pops up for patch collectors is that we’re going to three (3) regions down from four. Not sure when and not sure the structure. I’m sure we’ll get filled in soon enough. One may probably want to put away some of the region patches but not too many. This isn’t the hottest area of collecting.

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At the recent Pittsburgh TOR I was going through Joe Klos’s merit badge collection. Joe has a very extensive collection and is passionate about this area of the hobby. Flipping through the recent issues I did a double take. I saw something that was not supposed to exist. Joe was with Ron Oslin who also collects merit badges. After seeing the patch in Joe’s collection, I asked Ron if he had it. He did. See the two patches below.

BSA merit badge Made in China

Now what is wrong with this you might ask? Most of the current BSA merit badges are made in China. Lets look at the front:

This is the American Labor merit badge. It recognizes the contribution of the American labor movement to this country. The Boy Scouts of America are having this patch from China! This is BS (I want this to be a non-R rated blog but it is VERY HARD with this one not to get very coarse.) I am not a “union man” but I respect their impact on this country and to Scouting. Is the BSA asking China for financial contributions? For volunteer leadership? For help in building our camps? The BSA can’t excuse this away as being a fluke. This was two separate collections from two different areas.

What adds insult to injury is that I forewarned the BSA in 2007. In my position in Scouting and as a member of the National Council I am allowed to submit resolutions. I actually submitted the resolution which first runs through my council and then through the Central Region. I received a timely and nice set of exchanges with the then Region Executive Brad Farmer. He checked with the Supply Division and said they were on top of this. Wanting to be a team player and since it had gotten the attention of leadership I withdrew my resolution for submission at the upcoming national meeting.

Well Brad’s been promoted. I don’t fully fault him as this is not his area. It was clear I could have gone ahead with my resolution but I did not want to make waves where they were supposedly not needed. Wrong. I hope this does not get picked up by those who want to attack the BSA. Head(s) should roll on this. This is a slap in the face of all of the American labor supporters of Scouting. I wonder if they have added a new merit badge requirement: “Describe how your job will be shipped overseas? Describe how to sign-up for unemployement. Describe how to get food stamps and get aid from food banks.” Maybe we need to out-source the Supply Division. They can not be any dumber.

If someone knows the union representatives to the BSA Relationships Committee, please pass this on to them. This needs to create some pain in our organization if we are to improve. What did Forrest Gump say? “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Where is the George Meaney Award now made? The knot? The Whitney Young Award and knot? The American Flag patches on our sleeves? If you find any with “Made in China” stickers, please let me know.

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Heard from the folks at Scouts on Stamps Society International (SOSSI) that the design for the Celebrate Scouting Stamp will be unveiled November 12, 2009 at the Smithsonian Postal Museum. We’ll get it posted here after its released. I figured, and am glad, that this is in progress for Scouting’s 100th anniversary in this country.

New Scouting stamp

Frankly, now that the design is out my first reaction is - this is pathetic. Have we become so “politically correct” in this country that we can not salute the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America? The above stamp design does not give me the sense of recognition of this achievement. Here’s the link to the formal press release from the USPS.

There is nothing on the stamp that says we’re celebrating Scouting. There is nothing on the stamp that says we’re celebrating the 100th anniversary of the BSA. There’s nothing on the stamp that talks about the contributions of Scouting to this country. The BSA professional leadership is doing a ‘make nice’, IMHO, but if they’re satisfied with this, then I hope the Executive Board pulls them aside and replaces them. I can’t quite get to the point that this is a slap in the face but that’s the first thought that comes to mind. I’ll see if I can post what has been done in the past when we got some respect.

The first day of issue will be at the 2010 Jamboree. Forget about it.

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Information just out from the Top Hands meeting, the Scouts are on track for a record number of Scouts to earn their Eagle rank award. Fantastic!

The recent issue of Scouting reported that in 2008 Scouts earned 2.3 million merit badges. The top 10 were all Eagle required, no surprise there. The top one was First Aid (103,503) then Swimming (89,580) and Environmental Science (83,845). Think about how much better a country we are for having this many youth learning these valuable skills! Think how much better we would be if more were learning these skills. Where do the youth of our country get such opportunities? How many men got exposed to their eventual avocation through work on a merit badge? When do we open this up to females too? One of the strengths of this country is that we try to empower everyone. Scouting is part of the solution.

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The Scouts now have the Handbook available for download from the Apple iTunes app store. Talk about getting with it. Kudo’s to the Scouts. I just was on the phone with my staff adviser and I could hear the excitement in his voice about some of the technology initiatives coming out of Irving, TX. Still, there’s much more that the Scouts can do. I was asking my Exec, “Can we get cell phone reception at our camps?”. He knew - yes, but spotty but we know where those spots are. It is the future. Scouting was created by responding to what kids were doing, using B-P’s “Aids to Scouting” - a book for adults, and then shaping it. Well, that “customer focus” worked then and will work know. If we, Scouts, do not change then shame on us for membership losses.

I can’t link directly from here to the Scout handbook app. I just had my 13 year-old nephew show me that I first have to download Apple’s iTune computer application and then can get into the store. See… they know. Its us old guys that have to learn.

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Its now official, Detroit Area Council and Clinton Valley Council (Pontiac, MI) have now merged. The new Scout Executive is John LaRoush(sp?) the former Assistant Regional Executive from the Western Region. As I hear more, I’ll be sure to post. The council has not chosen a name yet but I’ve heard mention of “Southeast Michigan Council”, similar to there being a Southwest Michigan Council.

On a somewhat related note, our Area Director just took the position of Scout Executive for Portland, OR. We wish him well. Its been a turbulent year here.

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Robert just passed this on. From National Capital Area Council’s web-site:

National Scout Jamboree Site Selection Withdrawn

We regret to inform you that the Boy Scouts of America has decided to withdraw its interest in Goshen Scout Reservation as the permanent site for the National Scout Jamboree. The BSA identified too many potential obstacles in developing the Goshen site to its fullest and is pursuing other venues.

The National Capital Area Council will continue to support the outstanding outdoor programs offered at Goshen Scout Reservation. This process has identified many areas that offer great potential in strengthening our service to youth. Goshen Scout Reservation will continue to serve as our council’s classroom for character far into the future.

We appreciate your support during this long and interesting process.

While at pre-NOAC I heard from several of my contacts about the problems the Scouts were having getting local zoning approval for the development of Goshen. The numbered varied from different folks but what I was hearing was that about 100 community members were against the development. They like their rustic area and felt the influx of that many Scouts would disrupt their community. Actually, they may have been right in that some were saying this would be every four years but others were pointing out that once we have the camp, it would make sense to use it every year. Others have pointed out that it is not a flat area. Thus our traditional vision of a jamboree being fields of sub-camps with tent cities would need to change (and it well could IMHO.)

So, it must be back to the drawing board. I heard that everything with the West Virginia selection was proceeding and the state was/is wide-open to the development. Actually, the WV site is likely to become an eastern high adventure base.

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Late Update 8/5/09: The OA Committee confirmed at the end of NOAC that the next NOAC is 2012 at MSU. MSU could provide up to 17,000 dorm rooms. The Committee is looking for an attendance of around 9,000 for this NOAC. MSU is also a candidate for the 2015 100th anniverasary NOAC where attendance could be 15,000.

Looks like Michigan State (MSU) is the likely site for the next National Order of the Arrow Conference. The original plans had been to go back to Iowa State but ISU is re-doing a number of dorms, including demolition of existing dorms, such that they could only host 4,200 participants. Clearly not enough.

In re-opening the site selection we heard that Penn State also has a proposal in for consideration. Some of the problems though with PSU is getting there is not easy. It would be a different venue which can be interesting but, having been on the staff side of these events, ease of logistics trumps a LOT of other considerations.

MSU appears to be getting quite aggressive in their bidding. They have a team visiting this conference. They toured the pre-NOAC TOR. The TOR was such a success that they are looking at central facilities on campus. The original thought had been a field house that was two miles away from the main residential halls but now they are trying to find alternatives, and have some, that are right in the heart of where we would have the NOAC.

It appears that MSU, which were ambivalent hosts for the 2006 NOAC, got a strong message from the local community of how great it was to have the Scouts in town. Also, there is new leadership at the university that has gotten more entreprenurial and inviting. Basically they are bending over backwards from what I hear to try and get the conference.

Some might wonder why these mid-west universities. Its because of their size. These campuses typically have 35,000 - 45,000 students and were built on wide open spaces. While I am located near the University of MIchigan it just does not have the extra dorm space nor the required facilities close in to the dorms to make it an easy site.

Unfortunately we’ll be back to a 3 year gap in conferences so as to not land on a jamboree year. There’s talk of another National Indian Seminar to be held in Asheville, NC for one of the intervening years.

The decision on MSU is not final. It probably won’t be made until the December planning conference given that there’s still plenty of lead time. We shall see.

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