Leaderboard

My proposal, DT, is to entirely eliminate the new rule, root and branch. The Merit Badge Counselor and any other Scout, much less a parent, is adequate, as is meeting in a public place, such as a library or police station. The objective is supposedly to make the contact with the merit badge candidates "transparent" so both the Scout and the counselor is protected, and registration of an adult does nothing to assure greater transparency. Your new rule, Richard, means I cannot meet a candidate at FBI headquarters with the Special Agent in Charge present - unless he is registered, of c

My proposal is to entirely eliminate the new rule, root and branch. The Merit Badge Counselor and any other Scout, much less a parent, is adequate, as is meeting in a public place, such as a library or police station. The objective is that "light" shine on the contact, and registration of an adult does nothing to assure greater transparency. Your new rule means I cannot meet a candidate at FBI headquarters with the Special Agent in Charge present - unless he is registered, of course. Would Christ do, if not registered? Buddha? And the entire notion of adults present and "supe

Our 25-girl Troop had an enjoyable Saturday hiking in Rock Creek Park in DC. The three patrols split up and practiced their map reading and compass skills, at trail lunches together and finished their fire building advancement requirements is a patrol competition. Our advancement co-chairs are enjoying our unusual “all-beginner” Scout membership by assuring our meeting and events are getting the girls through Scout and Tenderfoot requirements before summer camp. Please share simple things working with girl units you are aware of.

Well, then if the "Barriers to Abuse" are to stand and be considered rules, they should change to FAQ to read: Yes, 2 registered adults over the age of 21 are required at ALL activities. A stupid rule that is consistent is better than a stupid rule that's inconsistent with arbitrary exceptions. And at least with a consistent rule people can stop arguing about what the rule means, and start just deciding when they are going to obey it, and when the stupidity of it means that it will get ignored. The unfortunate thing about the stupidity of issuing rules that can't be obeyed is th

If you make something a rule, all of the other aspects of your program need to take into account maintaining that rule. If your program needs require making exceptions to a rule (unless it's an emergency) than you have very good evidence that the rule is a problem in the first place. In this case, the FAQ is telling us that regardless of the actual rule, 2 registered leaders aren't a requirement for merit badge meetings or fund raisers. But how can "whatever reason they had" that necessitated mandating 2 registered leaders not apply in just those circumstances? What they should have d

Qwazse, I like and agree with your "different ways." Lot's of common sense there. A great way to get to the goal. But I really liked your last statement; " Uniforming ...it's not just about the cloth." Kind of like the old, "orange juice, it's not just for breakfast." sst3rd

Simple? No, but I agree with your second sentence. Summer camp deposits are coming in and the annual health form, etc. paper chase will begin in a couple days, after April 15 Tax Day.

Yes. In different ways. For a while we would not honor the signature of an ASM if it was in the book of his son or nephew. Then once we trained boys in sign-offs, we effectively revoked sign-offs of all adults. Then when we merged troops, we learned that the other troop's SM had revoked PL sign-offs because they were passing boys who barely showed any skill (if at all). His scouts were young and didn't have enough mature natural leaders to set the tone. After we merged, the SPL brought me a scout, explaining that a requirement was completed. I asked him if he saw the scout c

I never said " a parent" is adequate. National council, citing legal council for some reason, responded to my question about meeting with merit badge candidates as follows: "National legal counsel stated that 1 person must be registered (Merit Badge Counselor) and the 2nd ["registered"] adult does not have to be registered but must be over 21 – suggestion is a parent. ...Mandy Nora Member Care Contact Center Boy Scouts of America 972.580.2489 " Worried about risk management? That was once one of my jobs at AT&T when it had over 1,000,000 employees. The are issues grea

My proposed wording would be to simplify, and get rid of the "registered" and 21+, all the exceptions, and weird iterations, age, gender, blah blah. Just make it "no one on one contact", that is it.

@TAHAWKin your embedded example (multiple youth) , a parent is not adequate. So what is your proposed wording?

Well, you got me there. My troop guide, or whoever signed off on my ticket items, didn't really care. He was actually the one staff member I wasn't too impressed with. In hindsight the ticket items could have been more related to what I was hoping to learn but, as the saying goes, we don't know what we don't know. I could see how the ticket could make the program. I have always been at the stage where 3 meals a day is appealing.

Years ago Matt and I agreed in a discussion that Scoutmastering is 50% with the scouts, and 50% with the adults. If the Scoutmaster wants to keep these kinds of struggles to a minimum (minimum can still be a lot), they may eventually have to assume the bad guy role of gatekeeper for the program values and process. Sometimes they have to be authoritative (flex their position of leadership muscle) to force a specific direction. Right or wrong, the program has to move forward. Of course the SM may find their decision was wrong down the road. They take comfort in knowing that humility is the

What is the advancement program/model you use? If it's just the written list of requirements in the handbook then it's easy for a new ASM to say just sign it off and move on. On the other hand, if the list of requirements is part of something larger then that's what the new ASM needs to read. In this case ensuring that the older scouts will be teaching the younger scouts the skills will end up solving a lot of these problems. If you have to teach other scouts how to tie a bowline or start a fire you really have to know it. Starting off there are no older scouts so the scouters have to prime th

@Treflienne I can think two strategies 1. drills and competitions on the material that was signed off. This could be on a campout where the prize for demonstrated mastery is dessert. To make it interesting, score the scouts (on a 0 to 5 scale or something simple) on each skill you tested, but then, assign that score, not to the scout, but to the leader who sign off on her requirement. The leader who has the highest score gets recognized for producing quality scouts at the next CoH. The leader in last place gets a "Sign it when you see it" totem (maybe to wear around his/

Nothing is out there yet on a matter like this, and certainly nothing specific to the advancement start-up of all-girl troops. What I am going to do is post good examples of how an well run all-girl Troops are proceeding right now with their advancement. I have been talking to a lot of people over the last 1.5 years about family Scouting (including being involved at the granular level for an entire year with a Webelos II group) and have yet to come across a single person who exhibited any tendency to generally "go easy" on girls with individual advancement or encourage such a practice b

This is our nearest troop. Our Venture Crew (all girl) shares a CO and meeting location, so on the one night a month the crew meets and the scouts are there, we tend to peek our heads in and see what's up. The troop is continuing to have girls sign up, with a reported two additional in March. I think they're over 20 now, but would have to double-check on that. In any case, they sure put 100% effort into the Klondike, with a few of the older scouts training ahead of time, even though the charter wasn't official yet. https://rennamedia.com/new-bsa-troop-280-places-high-in-regional-r

Troop 15 Attends Inaugural All-Female Scout Camporee in Middle Tennessee https://williamsonsource.com/troop-15-attends-inaugural-female-scout-camporee-middle-tennessee/