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The Turtles are happy to announce the birth of their 5' -11" 120 pound Eagle Scout. Gave great interview I hear. Survived despite leaving 'gag patches' on his uniform ("I Speak English" and a Klingon Interpreter Strip). Likes to live dangerously--when questioned about if that was his attitude toward a serious interview--he said "I am a Scout and a Scout is all about having fun. If I can't have some fun with my uniform I should join the military". He was having a pretty good time. Came out wanting to plan some high adventure outings for the guys still in the Troop; I am most pleased t

I'm thinking BSA lost control of quality a long time ago. Just my opinion.

Here's the rub with LDS units pushing their 14 year olds to Eagle: Most LDS units that manage their Scout-to-First Class boys have ZERO clue on how to manage Star-to-Eagle. Why? Because S-to-FC is one distinct LDS unit type with leaders trained in managing that segment. The Star-to-Eagle guys are managed by a different set of leaders who know the whole Eagle process. Unless the LDS units send those leaders experienced in navigating the road to Eagle, those leaders who don't have the experience will make things up as they go along. We have gotten a few transfers from LDS units over r

As an at-home CPAP user, I have to agree that providing the ability to use the devices at summer camp is ill advised. If you TRULY feel that your health would be compromised by not using the machine for the duration of your stay at camp, don't go. Many leaders don't subject themselves to potentially dangerous situations for a variety of limitations and health reasons, you can be in that group. No shame in that. If you are so acclimated to its presence that you cannot sleep comfortably without it, that's on you. You don't bring the adjustable frame Tempurpedic either, do you?

Must admit, from this distance, merit badge factories sound...not my cup of tea let's say.

I'll be blunt - if an adult can't go to summer camp for a week, or camp out for a weekend, without using a CPAP machine, then they don't belong in the woods with the Scouts in the first place. These machines are being used to treat something the doctors like to call "obstructive sleep apnea" and I like to call snoring. The medical community has come up with a new way to separate people/insurance companies from their money by declaring something that has been happening for millennia a "severe health problem". Severe? Deaths by sleep apnea are extremely rare - like immeasurably rare.

Col. Flagg - Thank you again. Our troop is doing a "final push" for any boys that fall into the 14+ age group. They were told that they need to finish up Eagle by January, period. Of course this means that several of them are wink-winking it when non-councilors sign off on cards. In our Ward (probably like most other LDS pack/troops), Webelos is 1 year long then the 11 years old's cross over and fall into their own group of being scouts - but not really part of the troop. I was told that this has to do with being the age to receive the Priesthood - forgive me if this isn't totally correct

The Guide to Advancement, page 52 (7.0.4.7 Limited Recourse for Unearned Merit Badges) lays out what you can do. Forget your district. They don't want to help obviously. If it is like my district it is run by LDS folks, so they may not want to make waves for their LDS units. Call Council. Talk to the advancement chairman. What this unit's adults are doing is essentially giving way Eagle like it's a rec sports participation trophy. Council needs to know what is going on.

To be fair it takes a special boy to pull some it off sometimes; usually a guy with some real skills who is 'pretty chill'. Some boys are a little too much drama--they just make it worse. The boy sense of fair play is a little off: (True story. Older boy puts assembled tent 20' off the ground, younger boys a short kid finds it and raises hell) S: "Hey Tim, sorry man, about putting your tent up in the tree. It seemed pretty funny" T: "Knock it off, you tore a hole it was a new tent" S:"You can set fire to my tent if you want?" T:{thinking) "No...gotta any duct tape?"

Right off the bat I want to say that I have already called our district officer about my 'issue' and was told us that we need to deal with it internally. That is a particular problem since our troop is an 'old boys club' where women / those that don't hold scout calling are dismissed or ignored. My concern: There is a huge push to get LDS boys to Eagle quickly due to the church dropping the program for older boys. A skilled trade member of the church "taught" his perspective on a MB subject then signed cards. He isn't a MB councilor but the council just auto signed the cards

@Tampa Turtle, just for you...;) FYI, Alice is WB trained.

Okay. We are talking about the very first one, and it was an experiment. Of course, you likely are simply pushing buttons.

Ok, I know I made the camporee Webelos Friendly. Heck all the events save one were based upon Wilderness Survival MB, and Castaway Adventure Badge is Wilderness Survival MB lite. So it was natural. Plus events were optional for the Webelos. Their 'camporee" comes in March. The purpose of Webelos attending is to A) get them use to their potential troop and help with Recruiting B) Show them what to expect as Boy Scouts, and C ) HAVE FUN! But "Cub Friendly?" An aside, we had one local camp ground reopen, and one new parents is happy b/c it is 500' from city limits. I have a fee

I think it stands for Uninvolved Chimera (chimera in the sense of being mythical.) I do not believe our troop has had a UC in the 14 years I have been on the committee. In theory there is an ADC assigned to our unit along with a lot of others, but I don't know who the current one is and have never seen him/her (or any of his/her's predecessors) at any of our meetings. We do have one ASM who, for awhile at least, was UC for a few other nearby units, but not ours. Which, in my opinion, is probably just well. When we have needed help from outside the unit, it is usually not the commissio

Theoretically, that's the purpose of the UC tools and ratings on every visit. Check the boxes on JTE but evaluate effectiveness by UC visits. Yeah, I know, UCs aren't really UCs as long as they are pushing FOS and popcorn, and it assumes some experience, but, I did said theoretically at the beginning :).

I think what Col. Flagg is trying to point out is that national's marketing and publishing folks are pushing articles and merchandise in an attempt to get us use to the changes that are coming before they happen. And I do agree with him. It seems as if national is trying to get us acclimated to the idea before they announce it. And in addition to the family camping articles with Boy Scout age youth, has anyone seen some of the PSAs aout Scouting for the whole family that have the Boy Scouts camping and doing things with Cub Scouts? If I can find the link, i'll post

We're talking about parents here, not girls. We have at least 100 recent threads about girls. Ok, it's probably only about 10-12, but that's still a lot. As for the Great Pink T-shirt Conspiracy, my response is probably the same as it was a couple of months ago when you brought up the exact same point. (Though wasn't the shirt purple then? Maybe it was both, like tie-dye.) Maybe you're right, they added a pink t-shirt to their catalog because they already knew they were going to have more girls in the BSA. Or maybe they started selling a pink t-shirt because they thought they could

And a very timely Brady Bunch episode...literally ripped from today's headlines http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0531140/

And Dad was gay so everything is cool. Personally I always had a thing for Jan over Marcia.

I think you need time; it is not a drop in for 10 minute things. And really only a few boys at a time. But almost everyone I know who has done it has liked it.

My recommendation would be to: Set up an area of camp where people requiring any type of electrical connection for medical devices can bunk. That way you have them all in one area. To keep noise pollution down I would try to set up this area as far away from other campers as possible. If required, have a men's and women's area. I saw a set up like this at a camp on the east coast. The tent camp was behind the dinning hall, near the health lodge. The drone of the CPAP machines at night was drowned out by the A/C units and ice machines at the dinning hall. Our camp was abou

I'm a little concerned that if snoring becomes a medical concern and one becomes required to address it in order to attend camp, my fellow scouters will banish me to the camp CPAP station! Actually, my observations parallel those of @scotteg83. I think a lot of scouters use summer camp as a way to figure out how to extend their camping envelope given the conditions that they have accumulated. They do that in consultation with their doctors and us. I'm not sure that electricity to the camp site would keep them from innovating, but it would certainly not encourage them to use the week

While my family is a traditional nuclear family (Mom, Dad, 2 boys all living in same home, no divorces, special arrangements etc) it is not the majority in my Troop. And I have seen various parental figure step in at times so I imagine a concept of 'Family Camping' could lead to some interesting situations. Maybe Timmy (or Tammy now) camps with her patrol and bio-mom with her new blended family comes along and bio-dad with his new blended family does too. And former step parent with the half sister drops by just for the day and brings buster the dog because it is too short a time to board and

In the previous software, when writing/editing a post there was a way to toggle back and forth between, and I really don't know what to call them, so I will call them "source code mode" and "preview mode." For example, in source code mode you would see things like [.quote] and [.i] (the periods are not there in real life, I just wanted to make sure the software did not see those as actual commands.) Obviously those would not be visible in preview mode, you would only see the effects of the command. Now everything seems to be in preview mode and there doesn't seem to be a way to change it.

I thought it was a general moral panic in Victorian England about "kids these days" being "too soft", and yes, I guess not ready to defend the empire. Unsurprising really, you take a bunch of city boys off to war in the african veldt and they get their backsides handed to them on a plate by the rufty tufty guys who had grown up there. Apparently one of my ancestors managed to survive a couple of particularly heavy defeats, but anyway... He did very much want scouting to become an international movement for peace, so as well as being pleased we're still lighting fires and playing games in

Given all the issues discussed about Scouting that seem to ruffle feathers of both Scouters and non-Scouters, I wonder which would be the ones that would concern B-P the most. I would not call myself a B-P historian, but I have read a decent amount by and about him, and in my opinion topics that seem to get the most attention wouldn’t be at the top of his list of concerns. My guess is less emphasis on outdoor programs, poor use of patrol method, interference of youth-led philosophy and decline in membership, among other things, would be a bigger concern to B-P than gay Scouts/Scouter

It's a good list but it's missing two things: Having fun and being in the outdoors. If you show that list to a scout they might not be so interested, so number one should be having fun. Also, we all know how important the outdoors are. Fresh air, away from electronics, ....

@RememberSchiff, I think you should also add STEM (or STEAM, since agriculture is now one of the electives?) as a topic tag. It seems to me that any council who promoted STEM Scouts should have herded all of those program participants to JOTA.

I was glad advancement was not on the list as well. I have had to sit on quite a few boy-led summer camp selection committees; here are the most common reasons I have heard for Boy Scouts selecting a summer camp. Their reasons, not mine: - Staff. Were they friendly? Did they know their stuff or were they bored kids. - Nostalgia. Troop has gone there before. Known quality. - Newness. Desire to do something different (take a train, out west, water program) - Topography, Climate. Boys from Tampa do not want to go to another hot, flat place during the summer. This almost always

Exactly what does the word family mean? everywhere I look it includes Mom, Dad, brothers and sisters. Where does that fit into the patrol method? It doesn't! The only way I can imagine is the Smith Patrol or Jones Patrol, and that is exactly what BP would find an abomination to the program. Nothing I could imagine can destroy the program faster than family scouts, it is the death knell of the patrol method.

Hi ItsBrian, I am responding to your post, as I see from your bio that you are entering the Nursing Profession. I have been an RN (CCU, Telemetry, ED) and Paramedic for over 25 years, and this may be a good opportunity for professional development. Talk to someone in your program's Respiratory Therapy/Pulmonology Department about the diagnosis of Obstructive Sleep Apnea. They will give you a better understanding of the pathophysiology. Good luck in your studies!

Remember why he created the Boy Scouts in the first place - he was disillusioned on the battlefield by the lack of preparedness his soldiers had for basic outdoor skills needed by soldiers. Orienteering, cooking outdoors, first aid, signalling, setting up camps, etc. So keeping that in mind, and that one of his goals was to better prepare boys to be better prepared to become soldiers, I think if he were around now, with the military we now have, he would be insisting girls be part of the program since women are now soldiers so both boys and girls should be better prepared for that, and t

In all honesty, if the adult can’t provide it for himself or pay for it himself to “rent” something, then he shouldn’t be using the camps limited funding for it which will take away from others and it’s not selfish, it’s just don’t go if you know the camp can’t accomdate.

Bring your own battery box and solar panels would be a reasonable alternative........

Three camps that I am aware of do not provide anything, nor do they allow running of cords for safety reasons. It was the same for Jamboree. Adults that require CPAPs are on their own to manage their needs. Frankly, I would not be in favor of camps redirecting funds away from programming for youth to these type accommodations.

You are expecting BSA to be specific, purposeful and direct in their communications? You know better. Mike S. and his band of merry men/women are channeling Mr. Subliminal in most of what they are peddling. But if you look at a few issues of Scouting there are articles and pictures depicting families doing non-Cub stuff. Their last 3-4 covers haven family camping, family hiking, family canoeing, etc. Great. For Cubs I love it. But what are the chances of 5-6 covers in ANY given year being dedicated to family stuff? Just a quick perusal of the past several years and I can find 2 fro

Disagree. In all the social media posts and magazines they manage, they had pictures of families doing Scout stuff together...and not just at Cub-like events. Go back and look at BL and Scouting magazine for the last 6-8 months. Go back and look at their social media pics and posts. If BSA didn't mean to make Boy Scouts more family-oriented, their publishing group did not get the memo.

On literally every high adventure or summer camp I have staffed over the years there has been at least a handful of Scouts who have remarked how nice it was to be away from siblings and parents to just "chill". Same with weekend camp outs. When you take the "SM Walk" at night to quietly do bed check, you hear the guys talking about various things. The most consistent topic, besides girls and video games, is how cool it is to be "grown up" and not have family around. I bet @Stosh and others have similar stories. I can tell you I have never heard a kid lament not having his siblings ar

One would hope that's the issue. But looking at the over use of the word "family" in all their social media posts, as well as in BL and Scouting mags, I suspect good old Mike S. wants to do exactly that; make Boy Scouts a one-stop-shop for the family. I don't think his intention is to just make Cubs more family-like. I think his sole purpose for these changes is to make all programs within BSA (Cubs, Boy Scouts, Venturing, etc.) a family experience.

Cub Scouts is a family oriented program. Boy Scouts is NOT a family oriented program. If parents want to join in Boy Scout activities then get trained, become an ASM and help out. Otherwise, stay home and let your boy enjoy his time with his friends, learn from others and experience interaction with adults he's not related to. I am beginning to think "Family Scouting" is just code for giving hopelessly addicted helicopter/lawnmower/bulldozer/drone parents an excuse to fulfill their compulsion for control.

Let me get this straight. We are supposed to be doing the patrol method. How do parents and siblings fit into the patrol method? In my humble opinion, they don't. And then, what's the purpose of a parent/sibling patrol that hangs around 300' away? Is that purpose useful? In my humble opinion, no. My main concern with this whole mixed bag thingy is that it might work when one has an adult run, troop program. Then at least mom can wash the dishes and pick up camp while the boys run around doing nothing but getting into trouble someplace else. I've tried to be open on this whol

B.P. was not stuck in his own time, rather he was a forward thinker. He often challenged scouters and scouts around the world to embrace the new and find ways to weave it into their programs. He was a General who had seen more than his share of gore and the worst of society, having served in the Colonial system. He more than once hope aloud and in print that Scouting could become a movement for world peace. The fact that he turned to his sister Agnes and later his wife as well in regard to the female challenges speaks loudly. He also early on worked to find a way for the younger, as

It is on topic. We have a great list here, and yet there a ton of boys that are focusing on MB's and advancement. I have too many boys spending more time picking out MB's than packing. And how many of limited classes be filled with family? I wouldn't complain one bit if MB's disappeared from the summer camp experience. Stick with the list above!

Laurel Highlands Council contributed to that drop by denying a scouter from setting up his HAM set at Camp Guyasuta, which was quite busy that weekend. He set up at the parking lot at the scout shop. Instead of hundreds, only a dozen participated.