Leaderboard

We missed the backpacking trip back in November due to a family trip, and December they didn't camp due to scheduling. We were able to do a service project one weekend, and a museum visit the next weekend. So we have been busy.But this weekend was the first camping trip and it was awesome. SM is a cooking MBC, and that was the primary emphasis. having fun was the second. I developed some bad habits in my old troop because I had a hard time just sitting in my chair, drinking coffee, and staying out of the Scouts' way. Everyone had a good time. But what made it awesome is that my boys were

If a volunteer asked me I'd say yes. Well, wait a minute. What does the council training committee do? (and that is pretty much how I get involved in everything, jump in and then start asking questions.) I'm already on a council committee (camping) and I never go to the meetings because they're always the same night as my troop's meetings. As far as I can tell they don't really have much of an impact because they can't control any money. They create lists of things to be fixed at camp and lists of fantastic ways to spend all the money the council doesn't have.

To everyone on scouter.com, Now that girls are already in the cub program and they are about to enter the scout program it's time to welcome them. That's a nice way of saying stop complaining about girls in the BSA. Every thread that is about girls entering troops has gone off the rails. There have been complaints about how the decision was made, the negative impact on boys, what's wrong with the BSA, and just a lot of anger. I understand that people want to complain in general but we can't have complaints about the decision to include girls any more. The reason is simple. No scout should

As our council training chair, I guess I would say "yes" 😉 I would say that this is no different than any other position or request. Use your leadership skills to truly recruit - which means give them a reason to join that is important to them, provide whatever support they need, set clear expectations, respect their time and efforts, and show your appreciation for what they do. To @RememberSchiff comment about worker bees and a fixed script versus authority - my response would be that we have an obligation to teach the material as provided by national, but also to "make it our o

Because it would make great news if something happens. I don't know these boy but I think they did a great job at handling the situation, they did some high school spirit chants to the drum beat, they didnt show anger and they arent looking for a lawsuit. There is nothing wrong with showing support for any president and the first amendment provides this freedom. I saw nothing but peace and patience from these boys and only saw provocavation from the indians.

I'd rather the Districts/Council not have an inquisitorial staff. Rather this shouldn't be something adversarial in nature. It shouldn't be a performance review like at work. Rather, the BSA requires the basics (YPT, SM Specific, IOLS). Those need to be made stronger and more impactful. Beyond that, the leadership of a troop should desire self improvement. The resources are honestly in place in many places. Wood Badge can be part of that. Participating in Round tables if your district has ones that are useful. Participating in forums like these. There a number of wonderful books to read about

Maybe. I have now looked at a couple other videos of the incident. and who did what when is becoming less clear. Apparently there were more than two groups protesting/representing different causes.

David, you and I have often disagreed in the past but in this I think you are absolutely spot on. There are a number of different vids of this on line. Some 20 minutes long some only 2 or 3. If you piece them together there is over 30 minutes of coverage. We all need to see as much of the entire picture as possible before passing judgement.

Maybe the Omaha Tribe should send out a letter of apology to let us know that Philips is not representative of most members of their Tribe. A better title for this thread might have been, Omaha Tribe elder harasses youth visiting the Washington Memorial.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the councils are very active in giving scouts the opportunity to work towards their shooting sports badge(s). As a certified CA Hunter Safety Instructor, a BSA Merit Badge Counselor for rifle, shotgun and pistol (Venture), I have been developing a two day Hunter Safety Course for scouts that will allow them to be signed off on the Rifle Merit Badge and receive partial for Fish and Wildlife Management. My local council was initially not very receptive to the idea but there may be some appreciation for it developing. Scotty

I started reading this forum last year, as a parent of a girl who wants to join BSA, with the idea of learning more about the BSA as I prepare to become a volunteer. It has been extremely helpful to read the range of opinions. I have been impressed by the number of people (too many for me to remember all their names) who, even though preferring for Boy Scouts to remain single gender, have been kind and courteous to answer my questions and give good advice as to how to have a good program for the girls. And I have been encouraged by the number of people who are obviously genuinely enthusiast

I was asked by a guy I met at BALOO (who is our council training director) for names of folks who might want to be on the council training committee. I gave him the names of everybody I know. (Not really, but I gave him a lot of names of people I know from Wood Badge and then I gave him the names of all the "old-time" scouters from our Troop (basically people whose kids have graduated from scouting a few yeas ago.) I told him to "butter them up", meaning, appreciate the scouters! Here's my question for you, Scouters -- if you were asked to participate on your Council training com

Amen

Like all committees and organizations, the quality of performance is only as good as its leaders. An example of what the committee can do is how we approached teaching the new SM Specific course in 2000. Council presented the course when it was introduced to see how well it was written. It was terrible. Roughly a 9 hr course divided in three parts that had no flow and often contradicted each other. (I had learned later that the three parts were written by three different “volunteers “ authors who never met each other. They sent their parts to National who wrote the final syllabus.)

Lets make this relative then - I always tell my scouts (who are boys) that they need to always act like a scout when wearing the uniform because people are watching ( I know they should always act like a scout). Someone is always watching and everyone has a camera. These Catholic boys did a good job being respectful and wondering how many are scouts.

If you have the time, yes! It is very satisfying offering knowledge to new leaders eager to learn and knowing in some small part you are making scouting better for possibly hundreds of youth.

Due to personal belief and history, we will not have fire arms in our household. That said, I favored the knowledge of safe use and respect of firearms and so I insisted Scoutson earn the Rifle and Shotgun Merit Badges when they were available. He easily earned them. Surprisingly, he had a "natural eye", came close to being invited to join the Skeet team at the local Isaac Walton Club. I am a RSO for archery here abouts.

Oh yes. My Fearless Leader in IOLS, said "definitely" when I suggested adding copied pages from my 1958 vintage "Scout Fieldbook" for Knife and Axe pages. Well worth the copy fees....

Powerpoint and me? That'll be the day. Good point about asking who else is on the committee and their mindset.

Having seen a council committee in action, I would want to know who else was on the committee. Is it going to be a group that does actual work, or just an assortment of individuals who want to sit around and tell war stories? I would join the former. I don’t have time for the latter.

You have the most leverage to make changes at the council level. But you have to have the respect of the committee.

Is Council interested in what I can bring to training scouters or do they want worker bees who will stick to a fixed script? I would want to know the details and what decision-making authority I would have. My $0.02

I would participate, definitely. Two years ago, I was asked to serve on a council committee. I said yes. I like the idea of asking the old timers. They know a lot and are often overlooked. Requirements may have changed since they were in the game, but they can learn the new ones quickly enough. The qualities that made them successful leaders in the past still translate to today.

Eagle94-A1, I'm very happy that your sons had a great time. Yes on the cooking, but even more yes on the fun. I know you enjoyed yourself as well. You deserve it. I know it's hard to let the old troop go, but you did your best, and that's all any of us can do. Many trails to go. Take care, sst3rd

This isn't the root of the problem. The root of the problem is unit quality. Many units out there just don't have the combination of desire/skills/talent to have quality programs. BSA rules and regulations have little to do with it. It's a strength of the BSA system that units are independent of the BSA. There's a secondary problem observed here in dysfunctional relationship that exists in many parts between unit and district. Districts shouldn't have let the relationships get so poor that it's considered sport to dislike the district folks. Similarly units have exasperated the prob

We purchased a 13th edition Boy Scout Handbook at our camp this fall. They were selling them for $5.00 That is what my daughter will be using on February 1st. ccjj

I will encourage you to keep up the push for your course. As I stated in my post, our council had adults who saw the importance of gun education in the 70s and proved that it could be a great benefit to the youth if we'll done. It was only at my first National Camping School in the early 80s that I saw National bring out the first demo of a gun range and how to teach it to the youth. At the same school one of the school instructors 👍pulled me to the side after the demo and asked me how our leaders were doing with the program. Based on what I saw they had used our successful program to teac

I think we should always continue teaching our youth about gun safety. At our local cub scout day camp we started doing so since the mid 70s. We felt that exposing the cubs and webelos at an early age to a BB gun was extremely important. They needed to see adults treat the guns with respect and see that an unloaded gun by itself is not dangerous. It is what the handler intends to do with it that can be the dangerous part. We did not have shooting issues in the schools at that time period but it was more of an issue of a child finding a gun for the first time and the curiosity it can bring

Feedback is a gift, they tell us in Wood Badge. This is about the youth in our programs, and whether they are getting what the Boy Scouts of America has promised them -- what we, as the unit Scouters who signed them up, promised them. With keeping our promise on the line, what unit Scouter would not want to receive objective feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of their unit program? I'm for any system or process that motivates or inspires Scouters to focus on improving the quality of unit programs. How do we fix the failure to properly implement the systems already in place to ass

Personally, I'd rather see couples get engaged before they become parents.

It's a big country. As a result, shooting sports training for scouts is strictly optional, albeit very popular. It's a good policy. We aren't obliged to teach our kids firearms use, but if you're in a community who feels that their kids should learn firearm safety and skills, BSA offers a good pathway for it. As for teaching our kids. I did not keep firearms in the house. I did emphasize that before you buy a gun, buy the safe to keep it in. (Which might be a little hypocritical since growing up I kept my .22 in my closet and my ammo in my sock drawer.)

"BSA doesn't have a mechanism for enforcing quality standards in units. For all of its hand-wringing about membership numbers, BSA seems to ignore the direct relationship between unit quality on the one hand and member recruitment and retention on the other. All recruitment is by local units. All retention is by local units. Membership numbers could be improved substantially if the vast majority of those units met quality standards of the kind found in the Commissioner Helps book." 👍

A mantra of mine which may be apropos, "It's not what you are saying, but how you say it."

Thank you for this. I’ve also gotten tired of the constant arguing and trying to turn back the clock. After years of advocacy for girls and gays, we finally have an inclusive program. The decision has been made and these girls - our girls - are going to be Scouts. Let’s give them an amazing welcome!

Amen. A Scout is courteous. 78,000 girls joined Cub Scouting in just a few weeks this fall. In a couple of weeks, it’s likely there will be a lot of troops starting, from what I’ve heard (one council alone has almost 90 troops ready to start with trained leadership, older Venture girls taking key positions, etc.). Guess National found a few out there that actually wanted the program. You are right, Matt, online forums often bring out the worst (and I’ve watched this one for a long time before joining), however, the personal attacks and just constant negativity would certainly fail to insp

Given my tendency to jump to conclusions, I called my 20 year old Venture Daughter and asked her thoughts on the subject. Also sent her the pdf that @Eagle1993supplied for us. Two different handbooks: "Kind of odd, but having two is fine." The pdf with new stuff: "I'm not into fashion but hey, didn't seem all that bad."

Family Life Merit Badge has a requirement about talking what makes an effective father and why. I think the separate gender Troops won’t be followed fully and is doomed to fail, but that was BSA’s decision so separate books align with that bad call. They are being consistent..

Covered in other threads, but based upon some input I have heard, the difference include images of girls, pronoun updates, some minor requirement changes (family life.. you probably ask a girl about being a mother) and hygiene. Rumors only as I haven’t seen the inside of the book yet. I’m sure they could have created one, but given how they are rolling this out it makes sense to release separate books.

Not bad. Every female leader I ever knew to comment on it, universally decried the cut and shape of female leader uniforms. I hope these are better designed in that aspect.

This is an old thread, but I found this sentence to be the crux of the matter. I did the mile swim last summer in the ocean at Emerald Bay Scout Camp. It wasn't for any patch, or for accolades or to prove anything to anybody but me. I did it because I wanted to see if I could do it and I had the chance to do it in the ocean. I'm 51 and out of shape, so it took a long time (1:15 to be exact), but I made it and that's all that matters. You can't keep from aging, but you can keep from getting old. If you do that, living with your self judgements isn't so bad.

As you may know a kidnapped Wisconsin teenager escaped her captor and the first person she found was a retired child social worker Jeanne Nutter walking her dog Henry. Amazing, how at times, there is just the right person or group of people there at the right time when a need arises. She needed to be in a safe place. Safety, Safety, Safety, ... kids need to be safe...ask questions later, talk softly, few questions...dusk off my Child protection skills... no matter what I did that child was going to be safe - Jeanne Nutter. Scout Salute to Jeanne Nutter.

Maybe @LeCastor and @WisconsinMomma can recruit her? I'd like to think that we scouters are supplying more people like her through Scouting - the Scout Oath and Law, YP, character building, good citizenship,... Ms. Nutter kept her head and followed her training while knowingly putting herself between a fleeing teenager and her kidnapper(s) who murdered both the teen's parents. Very Brave. Well done.

I think this post belongs under Council Relations or Wood Badge and Adult Leader Training. These bungles are more common than we would like to think. The paperwork often doesn't keep up with the person. That means that sometimes, someone somewhere is going to fall (creep?) through the cracks. Leaders aren't trained in how to communicate with parents. And parents aren't trained in how to deal with folks who appear on these lists. For my part (and this is from seeing a couple of young adult leaders close to home face accusations), I'd invite someone like that over to Sunday d