Leaderboard

When I was active as the District Membership chair 15 years ago, the average longevity of a crew was three years before they started breaking down. I would say three out of five crews die within 5 years of their start date. I did quite a bit of research on this and it comes down to the adults, or should I say adult. While Troops typically hand down adult leadership from one generation to the next, crews suffer from a much smaller pool of replacement adults. I also want to add that many of the crews started in our district were a reaction to a troop trying to provide a more adventurou

Had our first Crew meeting yesterday. Enthusiastic group of youth. Excited to get started and Lead the Adventure!

Just noting that as I say this, I have the official moderator stun-gun in my hand, metaphorically speaking. This thread has devolved into name-calling of a 16-year-old girl. That has to stop, now. You can disagree with what she has said, or asks for, as others have done, including me. That's sufficient for the discussion. The name-calling crosses the line. I'm putting down my stun-gun now (for now), but I don't think it's appropriate to be calling her father names, either.

^^^^^^ This a 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times!!! Why would you take away something that gets him outdoors, teaches him things and builds character. Take away all screen time. No phone, computer, laptop, game console or anything else until grades are up. Take away sleep overs, sports or even something special (no Halloween or special trip) if he isn't performing. My kid missed trick or treat one year because he had zeros in English class. Another time we had a stay-cation because my daughter decided to openly fail a class. No Disney, we stayed home. Recently I took my teena

Well, he said much more than that if you quote the full context. Let's be clear, it is much different to say things here in a semi-anonymous forum than to be quoted directly when you want something from national. I am sure we all would hold our tongues much more if we were being quoted in the press, so you can imagine what the father is saying privately.

This family is BSA's version of the Kardashians or the Balls (for any NBA fans). Young girl just keeps asking to be a Boy Scout (and now Eagle Scout) while father continues to bad mouth BSA--all the while orchestrating a steady stream of photo ops and interviews. She could go to Jambo as a Venturer--with no drama. But, no, now she wants to go to Jambo as a Boy Scout.

Take away his video games and his phone before taking away Scouting.

I was being purposely obtuse. I KNOW I can ask. The POINT was that I know better. I live by the rules. I read them and I abide by them. Since BSA is a membership organization and can make their own rules, I don't openly ask them to change them just to accommodate me. Why? Because I believe in allowing organizations -- even ones I disagree with -- to do what they like, how they like. I don't ask to cut in line at Whataburger because I am hungrier than the people in front of me, I wait my turn. If you read the article she goes on to say how she cannot go to the world jamboree? "Her primary

I couldn't stand seeing it that way every time.

Does anyone know if folks from National follow this site? Here's the deal: It is time for BSA to seriously consider reformatting the Eagle Project Workbook. As an English major, a professional writer and an ex-Journalism teacher, I would give this form a D if someone turned it into me. It's confusing, muddled, lacks clarity and is difficult for many Scouts to fill out. Much of it is repetitive. It looks to me like a document that was simply added to over the years. Something put together by a committee with people chiming in "Let's add this...." For such an important part of

Did I miss an installment?

While my wife's threat of divorce after 6 weeks of marriage was what finally took the blinders off my eyes, I can tell you I could not support a family on a DE's salary. Fine and dandy when single. But no way i could support my family. And one thing to think about is the hours. DEs are on call 24/7. Yes I had calls as early as 4:30 AM and as late as 12:30 AM. My volunteers gave me the best wedding gift: they would not disturb me between 10PM and 6AM for the first year of marriage. Job is stressful. I've seen folks have nervous breakdown. I know folks who got ulcers and other m

@Eagle94-A1, welcome to the dark side! Although the challenge with "hooldums" in your situation that I've seen is that that they've been helicoptered so much that the leadership skills they need to start a crew have not developed. I'd be happy if they phased out allowing venturers to advance to Eagle in their crews. I'd refer any disgruntled customers to NESA to petition that they promote the Summit award as much as they do their traditional shibboleth-of-bling.

My council isn't saying anything about Venturing either, and yet National continues to ask us to go to Summit the Venturing birthday bash

@BrerFox welcome to scouter.com

I have no doubt most positions will be filled. I also agree that the BSA may luck into some great people willing to work hard and stay on board with a low salary. My concern is that generally you will not see consistent strong long term employees if you cut pay and benefits. My wife’s food pantry is prime example. They found a guy. He isn’t innovative, sometimes misses deadlines, doesn’t fundraise well, etc. However he shows up, the pantry functions and isn’t a drunk (all of which have been issues in the past). They really want a better leader but cannot find one willing to work for

I think DE's are like many church Youth Ministers; a very important job that is chronically underpaid so that even the most dedicated will tend to be driven from it out of necessity.

I think She has been courteous and respectful the dad less so. At least that is what it reads like.

We had a very active Patrol frustrated by the lack of backpacking plan a 3-day trip on their own (a good sign). They were actively discouraged by a worried CC who said it looked like they were being 'exclusionary'. So they didn't go on their backpacking trip and the Troop didn't either. That was last year. This year I would just scrounge up the two adults, fire up the minivan and go.

Ok then. We agree to disagree.

Well...except for Daddy Ireland Her father, corporate attorney Gary Ireland, slammed the BSA for this. “It is outrageous and embarrassing that the Scouts will ban local young women from participating, particularly as we are the host country,” he said. “Scouts need to be a certain age and rank to attend a Jamboree. With the Boy Scouts allowing girls into the program very soon, it is unclear why they continue to refuse admission to Sydney.” As has been noted there are a myriad or ways for her to attend the World Jamboree. But that is just the straw man argument

@Col. Flagg Exactly. I say that and folks look like I am crazy. I stopped attending the Committees due to a work conflict and missed 2 PLC's and 'WHAM". I am still hanging out enough to help out a few of 'my' older scouts but I think I will just adopt a policy of avoiding events that will just irritate me. That includes a lot of the neighboring Council Boy Scout events that sure feel like cub-scouting. I think that may be because if you have a Council event and a lot of people show up then it is a success regardless if it really reinforces the principles of the traditional Boy Scout program (

This is Boy Scouts? Oh, I feel for you @Tampa Turtle. I would have tapped out looooong ago if that was the case. That's not Boy Scouting...that's a Pack event.

I think we get a bit cynical between the Talmudic reasoning on requirements on this forum and our experience with parental lawyering on advancement on the local level.

Of course you can ask. Anyone can ask anything they want. The answer is going be (and should be) no, which I believe is the same answer the BSA will (and should) give Ms. Ireland. I actually see nothing wrong with her asking. I think it's great that she wants to be a Something-Scout and do the work required to earn Eagle. That doesn't mean she can, because she was born too soon. She can probably be a Something-Scout for a short period but apparently will not have time to earn Eagle. Maybe she will want to become an ASM in the Something-Scouts when she turns 18. They are going to ne

Oh, I suspect national has no clue what they are doing or going to do about Venturing. From this rather detailed conversation I hear, the plan (at least according to these folks who each tried to out-do each other in how "insider" they were to Irving) is to fold Venturing in to Boy Scouts again. Girls would go to girl troops and boys to boy troops. The thought was that why would girls join Venturing if they really wanted Eagle. One person claimed that Venturing would simply pick up the Boy Scout rank process. Either way, my unit is in limbo. Sure we will continue to have fun like we alway

And that's not asking for special treatment? BSA has already said it will be 2019. Asking to get in earlier *IS* asking for special permission, an exception, special consideration. I'd like to do my BOR from 1981. It was the only thing I didn't do for Eagle. Can I ask for special consideration? I know a handful of Life Scouts that were too involved in high school stuff to complete a few requirements toward Eagle, can they ask for special consideration? BSA has said when they will open Boy Scouts to girls. End of story....unless you are like this girl who wants preferential treatment.

So.... Overheard a conversation in my district recently at a large training event. The leaders of my district, several others, and even council are saying they've effectively "given up" on Venturing since "girls are coming in to Boy Scouts, so what good is Venturing any way?" To test what I heard I arranged to meet with my DE and discuss how Venturing could be really promoted and showcased during 2018. She wouldn't even take the meeting, saying that "future events would dictate what happens to Venturing." So what am I supposed to do with my Crew now? I can't even get support from my

Hobby Lobby has some nice wooden display frames that are made for showing off sports jerseys. You could put it in one of those if you like. I have seen that done in a few houses here in the Lone Star state. One guy has his Cub and Eagle uniform in two different ones his man cave.

No. My post goes exactly to the three parts. It needs to be two. That is really the heart of the matter. That and digital vs paper. Anything that smacks of paper is step backward. Since we submit the proposals digitally in our district, you have people scanning signature pages and then trying to insert them into the PDF document, which I think is impossible unless you have Adobe's paid product. I don't think the free PDF version allows you insert pages. Plus, we require printed copies at the BOR. Just a cluster any way you look at it. And very few Scouts understand how to digitally compress a

I finished my Eagle in 2016. I used the workbook’s proposal section and printed off about four of those for each project idea I had. I used those because they helped me lay out my ideas. I used pencil so I could edit things easier. I met with several possible beneficiaries and discussed my ideas. 3 liked my ideas and one didn’t want me to do a project. I told them that I needed my Eagle coach’s approval on the proposal and that I’d let them know if the project was approved. I worked with my scoutmaster and PLC so that any project not approved for my Eagle would still get done by the troop as a

As someone who recently completed this document I agree it is very bad. The biggest issue not yet mentioned is the process of the three documents the workbook contain. The proposal is straight forward enough but could be refined a bit to capture more key elements of the proposal development process. The project plan should mirror the proposal but should include another signature or validation step. This is the detailed blueprint for doing the project and where kids need the most help. The report should be designed to help kids identify what went well, what didn’t and what they learned as a res

Indeed the focus on the project should be what you actually are going to do and how to do it NOT the awkward BSA PDF. (I have had some success with boys writing it all out brainstorm style on a white board and taking pictures of it). A recurring issue with the PDF seems to be the fact that you need actual, not digital, signatures while working and reworking in a (buggy) digital document. Sometimes our District contact has wanted the digital package emailed to him for approval (or other times physical notebook) which requires scanning the physical pages and then splicing and combining into

Well, I'm finally shaking this bronchitis I've had for the past few weeks, there's space in the SM's car for me and my gear, and it looks like a weekend worthy of my presence (some rain, temperatures falling back to the teens, and snow in the evening) ... so I'm grabbing my hammock and my tarp and finding two solid trees near where my first SM showed me how to tie a taught line hitch. I asked the bugler to be ready to work his calls. His eyes lit up. Paycheck. I work for smiles. After PLC, I mentioned to the SPL that I'm available to help his older scouts plan an extended activity be

"Preclude" means that, by specifying a class that language includes, one may make straightforward inference about which class is excluded. If the language did address any specific class it would be an exclusion. By stating clearly that the class includes members of foreign scouting organization's who temporarily reside in the US, the language precludes members of foreign scouting organization's who permanently reside in the us. But, suppose there is some other young woman who has been doing a bang up job in the scout association of her homeland. She comes to the US next year, joinin

The really sad part about Social Security is that if I was by law required to invest the SS amount deducted from my pay, I would have 3-4 times as much money as I do now. I could have had a high priced financial consultant working my money and do better than some overpaid SS office flunky and the politicians making the decisions. Nuff said.

I thought we moved past this is in 2015... A male leader, irregardless of their sexual orientation, counts as a male.

Sure, my family has both in-laws and out-laws. You'd fit right in.

Let's blow some minds: why .pdf at all? When we (as in nearly every government-funded research project in the country) does a progress report, we do it free-form, often with a specific page limit, according to an outline decided by skilled bureaucrats and our peers. We number our headings exactly as they are numbered in the outline, and add sub-headings, text, etc ... according to our projects specifics. Then we save it as a .pdf, and upload it. But the only reason we do that online stuff is because we need peers in different parts to read it, and rate it, and we want to save on stamps.

I worked all my life and never qualified for any pension plans. I did my own 401k and investments on my own and was forced to do Social Security. My paltry SS benefit for what I put in is a sham. My 401k and investments, however, allowed me to retire quite comfortably as I wanted to. I am 5 years older than my wife. I turned 65 and retired and I didn't want to spend the first five years of my retirement with the wife working. I took all my finances down to a financial investment service and had them crunch the numbers and determine when the wife could retire. After a week I get a

I'm with you, @Col. Flagg! My old Scout uniforms, handbooks, and other accoutrements are very important to me. I also hold onto my grandfather's 1939 Lone Scout membership ID card, handbooks, jackknife, etc. There are countless totes, like the one you mention, in my upstairs closet and I find myself looking through them often.

Everyone's leaning the same way. Finally, we agree! Let's celebrate! Besides, what's the worst that can happen (to the young PL scenario, not us celebrating)? Nobody will get hurt. Some scouts might get upset. That's a useful problem that can help them all learn. Don't take that opportunity away from them. It just means the adults should pay attention. What's the best that can happen? Stupid question, I know. I think the real question is what do the adults need to do to make her successful?

I'm gonna counter-vent here. When the BSA announced this, with the barest sketch of what they thought would be how things would shake out for the Cub Scout program (and giving no details on what the Boy Scout program might look like), they also made it pretty darn clear that they would be releasing the details later - sometime in 2018 for the Cub Scout program and a stay tuned for the Boy Scout program. Ok - I get it - folks are frustrated by what they see as a lack of communication on the details but my question to everyone is simply - why is it National's and/or your local Council's fa

I actually 3D printed a car. One of our local libraries has 6 or 7 3D printers to use (you pay by weight of what you make). I ran it in the Packs "open class". I preferred using the wood block. The car looked cool but trying to keep the wheels on and straight were way easier with wood than the plastic the 3D printer uses.

I think PINEWOOD Derby Car would make it obvious.

My son left scouting back in the mid 1990's. I have enjoyed working with the boys since. Now that the program is no longer what I signed up for, transitioning out is going to be easy. I've paid my dues for 45+ years. Time to find something with a lot less drama.

Well, according to this one group of folks they'd simply either move youth to their gender-appropriate units or install the Boy Scout rank system in to Venturing. Didn't hear how they'd handle 18-21 year olds who want Eagle.

Yes, as with many things, a happy medium would be best. But I see the chances of the BSA making any significant change to make things LESS bureaucratic as being the proverbial "slim and none."

Change agent? Really? When someone asks for special consideration that is not being a "change agent", that's being a self-absorbed, egotistical manipulator. It's not like she's Rosa Parks here. It would be like me demanding my bank lend to me despite my 330 credit score. They have their own rules as a private bank as to who they lend to. Can I ASK for them to change and make an exception? SURE!! But to EXPECT...and to continue to press the issue...once the answer has been given is not being a "change agent". That's being self-absorbed and expecting special treatment. The way I read