Leaderboard

For the past few years, I've been teaching the Cyber Chip in our troop. Not necessarily because I like it, not because I think it's a particularly great program, or even because I think I'm uniquely qualified to do it ... I've been doing it simply because nobody else did it. I've taught the class several times --- most often for newly bridged ex-Webelos scouts who wanted to earn Scout rank. A couple times for older scouts working on Star rank or merit badges that required it. THOUGHTS ON MAKING CYBER CHIP WORK FOR A TROOP Here are a few of my experiences and observations:

Reading the article, and some others, possibly the dad encouraged him to do the protest. Certainly the young man and his family have every right to protest in whatever way they care to and wherever they might feel the urge. They have that right as a US citizen. The First amendment is in fact the first for a reason. I many not agree with his protest, but he does have the right to protest. The problem is that the Cub is in fact representing not only his pack, but his Charted organization, his district, his council, and the BSA in general. If he wants to protest the pledge of allegi

I would agree with @HashTagScouts that the Venturing's organizers were playing the "have your cake and eat it too" tune. Their intent was clearly to cajole former boy scouts to pick up where they left off in rank advancement. (This, if I understand scouting history correctly, was a play inherited from the Explorer book.) One side-effect, as some troops began to micromanage every aspect of a scout's career, was that this policy could be used to entice dual-registered scouts in a troop to forget accountability to their troop-method SM's. This did not happen in my crew (my venturers kind of got

I was a UC several times, several locations. The most common response I received from units was shock. Shock that I actually showed up, visited with them, went camping with them (always offered, a few accepted), and that was a fan of their unit. Some units responded to this, others didn't. The latter usually had a longstanding, intense dislike for all commissioners in general, and nothing I did could shake them from that belief. Not that I blamed them. Rather, I sympathized with them. I recalled my days as an ASM and SM, and I felt the same way about most commissioners. Some w

All these years of training classes gives these folks who want to be commissioners something to do...instead of you know....commissioner stuff The commissioner program is great in the abstract. The actual process of a commissioner doing some action to support youth programming at the unit level is often not there. I have worked with 6 different units in 2 different councils. In my 30 plus years on adult leadership I think I have seen a commissioner twice actually in the wild (you know at a unit). I have seen many of them at council events, camps, etc hanging out...commissioning (I

After college I moved out of state for 3 years, and while there took WB in 2015. It was fantastic and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. After moving back, I have discovered how "cliquey" and odd the Woodbadgers are in my home Council. There have been a number of "local traditions" that distract from the course and I have a number of friends my age (late 20s-early 30s) that are so turned off by WB that they have no interest in looking into it. I was asked to be on staff for an upcoming course, and the SM is pretty serious about doing things "by the book" so I'm super excited!

Rather than Woodbadge, lead a second summer camp or a longer term summer experience for the troop

This is the line that troubles me the most. Exclusion is never "natural," it's always a choice. They could have chosen to ignore their perception of what is fair or not, and included him anyway, but they didn't - they chose to treat the boy differently. As soon as that happens, you're starting on a path to trouble. And it would seem that pretty quickly, they reached their destination.