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I can relate to them. Scouting has never been my first priority activity. There is nothing wrong with a boy choosing to participate in a scout unit as his second or third favorite activity. We should be glad that the scout has a variety of activities and lots of friends to enjoy.

Thanks for the information. My crew of 20 of us leaves in 2 weeks. We are very excited about it. 3 generations of Scouts will be on this trek.

I wouldn't want to give a misbehaving student an opportunity to lock me out of my classroom with a door stop. The teacher should always be able to unlock and open the classroom door with a key. The administrators should have a master key. A door stop is simply not a good idea. There are plenty of better ways to safely secure a classroom. Most of them require professional installation. Besides that, classroom doors usually open outward towards the hallway. This prevents students from piling up at the door in an emergency (making it impossible to open). This actually happened once at a mov

Deadbolts would be a violation of the school fire codes. The odds of a fire are much greater than a school shooting.

How long does it take to form a patrol? The patrols in our World Jambo troop had two meetings one and one shakedown. Our camp is at a cross roads, and I am seeing and hearing them form and reform daily.

Do or do not. There is no try. = Yoda To do is to be. = Socrates To be, or not to be. = Hamlet Do be do be do. = Sinatra

Agreed. If a youth prioritizes Scouting or not, I'm glad they are involved at whatever level they want to be. We're a broad enough program to accommodate all involvement levels.

I was a soccer coach at the same time as a Scoutmaster, so our troop was open minded with sports, and other outside activities like band and school plays. I would say that on average, we had 60 percent of scouts at meetings and 40 percent on campouts. Just when I started worrying that we weren't as fun a troop as we working toward, we would hit a month between sports and have a 95% attendance at meeting and campouts. If the program is worth doing, youth will fit it in when they can. But, that kind of a program is a challenge and patrols have to be developed with that in mind. We made patrols o

Most of our Scouts hammock, so it's not an issue. We have mixed age patrols. That being said when we have 6 patrols on an outing, they function for cooking, setup, etc as a patrol; but still hang out with friends for camping. As a side note, my observation over the years has been that Scouts that are inseparable in 5th grade may have drifted apart by 8th grade. Have Scouts function as patrols, but also let them associate as they like.

Its isn't quite the same. But yes, done correctly, it can still accomplish a lot of growth. However, we averaged 4 High Adventure Crews a year and my experience is the adults find letting the scouts have that level of independence "EXTREMELY challenging", they fail more often than not. In fact, our scouts come back frustrated because they weren't even allowed the independence they are accustomed with at troop monthly campouts (where the SM can guard the scouts from the adults). Barry

If you could control yourself and another leader (have them there for the YPT requirements) but just follow the scouts (from the rear and far enough back) and just let them make all the steps. If they get you lost, go with it. Just because an adult is present, doesn't take away from the experience. They will try to get answers and directions out of you, but after enough shrugs and blank stares, they will realize they are on their own.

Two-Deep is required at the activity. It doesn't mean 2 adult Scouters must be within arm's-reach at all times. I would see nothing wrong with dropping qualified and competent Scouts at a location a few km away from home base. Of course I'd ensure they were prepared, and had communication devices. Don't really see much difference between this and sending Scouts off to MB classes at summer camp while Scouters stay back at camp. Or if we must be overly protective, who's to say the Scouters couldn't just follow along, not interacting or helping.

You don't really need to give them a compass and map. Just make the destination a video game arcade and let their instincts take over.

My husband and two older sons, ages 14 and 13, were at Ma Ka Ja Wan on the night of the storm. Their Troop sheltered in their vehicles in the East camp. They were lucky to have brought their vehicles to camp and were starting to pack things for Saturday departure because the storm was coming in. Trees fell all over and around the vehicles, and the Troop evacuated on Saturday, going across a lake to where there was road access and our Troop leaders had send up 4 more vehicles with other family members to pick up the boys. Nearly all the gear was left behind, along with all the vehicles. Le