eagle77

Stosh, Had to laugh, some of those things you have listed I was just talking to son about the other day. There is one for me that is not on your list, my parents would be in jail because my brother and I were "spanked" when we were young. Later they found a better way by grounding me or keeping me in the house. One TV, no cable, no internet, no cell phones, no gameboys, just books and your imagination. For some BSA is just another babysitting program, just something else for the kids to do.

Can't have that win win situation. Laws and changes are made I believe based on the necessity and pros and cons of said action. Problem is there are those out there that look at things different ways. Some would tell you that the womans lib thing was a total success and others that might say it didn't go far enough and still others that would blame it for the demise of the family unit. Its all according to where you stand and look at the implications from said actions. The other thing is how society works with and makes the adjustments to said changes.

There are some of us who might say you were lucky that it didn't go the other way, 1 boy passed and the others didn't and those who didn't want to leave scouts too. I think in addition our job as leaders is to also teach our scouts about life. In life there are all kinds rules, laws, and other things that may restrict or even prohibit us from doing what we would choose to do. What about the rules that are set up for safety concerns? I have no problem with cutting the old chord and giving the boys some space, but I refuse to simply turn my back and say do what you want. Do not misunderstand me

I think part of the problem just stems from money. Look at what they did in 1972 when they actually took the "outing" from "scouting". National believed that they were losing money by not being able to attract inner city boys. So let's make it possible to earn Eagle and not have to do too much outdoor or a limited number of outdoor activities. Let's make it more cub scout like and add the skill awards, further expence for troops but a chance for National to make more money. Another part is how long it takes them to fix some of the mistakes that they made. Look how long it took to bring Camping

Arbitrary age restrictions are rather adult oriented contrivance anyway which calls them into question in a program that is supposed to be boy run,led, and decide in the first place. Stosh, I somewhat agree with this remark. All of us can pick boys who can do things before reaching the approved age or those who even though they are within that bracket still would have problems or be unable to complete. It does take the indiviidual aspect out of this. Think in many cases this is set up based on averages, physical size or strength and maturity. I have been the summer camp SM for my tr

I do remember at one time many of the camps in my area had first year scouts do Swimming MB, for those that could not swim they had instructional swimming. I agtree though that Lifesaving does require one to be a strong swimmer not just comfortable in water. I just think that instead of listing all the swimming requirements for second and first class as they do today, the first requirement at one time simply said earn Swimming MB which includes most of the basic water safety rules and rescues. It also gave the boys a little time to muscle up a little and maybe try Lifesaving their second or th

At one time wasn't having Swimming MB a requirement for Lifsaving? I agree why would a parent want her son to work on one before the other?

Bad Wolf, Now I can agree with all that you have put down there. My problem was earlier it seemed to be a name calling type thing and I do find that to be very unscout like. Believe me I am not "thin skinned" , but it just seemed a little too far to the other side for my liking.

I understood what you were saying, just don't agree with it. You do know that there are certain conditions out there that make it hard if not impossible for some of these folks to see there toes? Watched my own mother for years while I was young struggle with a weight problem, she joined clubs, counted calories, took long walks around the block you name it just didn't work. Never in my life though would I refer to her or anyone else like that as being "sub-par".

Would you want a sub-par rifle instructor demonstrating poor firearms protocol teaching your scout? Would you want a climbing instructor who had no clue on how to climb or tie knots belaying your scout? Bad Wolf, None of these things have anything to do with there physical appearence. What only slim and trim leaders know or have any skill in anything? Being overweight means they have less knowledge? All I ask is that they have the required training or certification needed to teach a certain skill. I understand the physically fit idea, I just don't like the idea of pointing the finger

Guess all the slim and trim leaders were home on their Nordictrac or at the gym, good thing these leaders had nothing better to do then help out our youth. You know maybe some of these people could not do High Adventure, but that is not all scouts is about. I like to measure a person by the size of their heart not how tall and wide they are. Just to add I am in shape for my size and weight. I do however have an ASM who isn't and I wouldn't trade him off for anything.

When I was a scout reading Green Bar Bill's articles in Boys Life was required of all PLs, SM would say if you want to know more about having a good patrol program this was the guy to listen to. One year my PL came up with the idea of maybe doing a "patrol merit badge" at summer camp. Nothing hard generally a handicraft, nature or scoutcraft badge that all of us would agree on.For the next four years we did this. It was fun and I think made our patrol even better. Tried to introduce this with the scouts in our troop, but its hard to do with todays merit badge mills.

Chief, I agree you do sound like my kind of SM. Problem is there are many more out there that do not know what the job of SM is. I've been to trainings where many have said that their job is to produce Eagle Scouts, and many of those base their entire troop program simply on advancement. Troop meetings are merit badge classes, POR are by patch only, and program is totally run by and chosen by adults. Oh and just to add something here many of them have leaders that have been trained and some even where "ye old beads". So the idea that they simply did not know any better isn't always the tr

mgood777, I don't use the NSP either but I do put them in with mainly middle age patrols. Generally at the Jan. PLC the SPL will discuss with the PLs how many boys are coming and where should we put them. I don't believe that as scouts these boys should be together with boys that they have been with in the same den for 4 years, I only try to at least keep buddies and friends together. I had one parent come up to me after their son had joined our troop and thank me for putting his son in a different patrol, it seems two of the boys that he did cubs with were a royal pain in the butt, wasn't

Actually 4 patrols is what I was looking at first, but in my area the boys are really loaded up with other things to do and would then have to do the ad hoc type of patrol camping and really did not want to do that. With the 8 boy patrol even half of them could be absent and it could still function as a patrol. Believe me the first two years I had at least two ASM's that would question anything and everything that I allowed or expected the scouts to do. I was constantly being told they can't do this they can't do that. Finally I just told them it was not a matter of what they can do but a matt

Stosh, I had 26 boys and selected 1 from each of the age groups. From what I saw as ASM I selected 3 boys that I thought really liked doing scouts. As they chose they would discuss with each other who the next selection would be. Two patrols would have 9 members and the one would have 8. That worked well because the ones with 9 were the 2 older patrols. There was 1 switch or trade but other then that all boys were happy with the selection. This was also done away from the adults, including me. We met inside while I explained what was happening the boys were outside. The former scoutmaster

The first thing I did when I became SM was to completely revamp or reform the patrols. I did this by allowing the scouts to actually select who they wanted in their patrols. I did this like a school yard choose up or draft. Selected a boy from each age group 15 - 17, 13 - 15, and 11 - 12. Yes there is an over lap that just fit with the ages of scouts in the troop. Each group would take a turn selecting from those not chosen. Did not tell them they could only select from certain boys, but from any scout in the troop. Low and behold the biggest age difference was 2 year difference and that was i

MaDDoG, I wouldn't mind if they were done that way either. But for the most part they really are not. Let me give you an example. I had a boy go to one of these things he came back with some partials (which he should have for the badges he was doing) but he handed me a completed card for Coin Collecting. Well I simply asked him what cities are the US mints located? His answer was Seattle, Detriot, and a secret place because that one has no stamp on the coin. Our troop is located just 10 miles from Phila. and he didn't even know that the secret place was there. I then told him that he woul

AZMike, I understand where you are coming from and respect your opinion on it. One point that I would like to make is that as we continue to take away from the ingrediants that made scouting such a great program, we also change the way it tastes too. I live in Pa and have a whole new bunch of rules put in place to prevent or deter the man-boy thing. This will surely chase away any existing members and most likely many future ones as well. I think the one thing that all of us can agree on is the only way to eliminate that problem 100% is to shut down BSA completely. Like it or not some of th

Longtime since I posted here, but this is a very hot topic and I would like to give my 2 cents. I graduated into Boy Scouts in 1970, before the big change of 72 (which also saw some members leave). A few years later a new scoutmaster was assigned to my troop by our CO (Baptist Church) a couple months afterwards this man tried to make some moves on me. For what it's worth nothing happened, by him or by me. If I had a little more idea on how to handle it things may have been very different. One thing I new was if I reported what had happened my father would have been in prison when a graduated h

Just one question. How come we don't hear about this kind of violence in countries that allow gun ownership and also sell and show the videos, movies and music that everbody wants to blame for these type of things happening.

First off I think way too many leaders use the phrase "burn out" way too much. When really all it is is boring for them. When I first stepped up to the position of scoutmaster I felt that the first thing that I needed to do was sit with each group of boys (older, middle, new) scouts seperatly, each of these groups has different expectations and different interests. The last thing I would do is just write these older scouts because the dropped the ball. The way you come across here is just that. Believe me I'd bet these older scouts see or believe it too. You need to sit down with these boys an

Chazz, First off I see no reason why any young boy 11 or 12 would need to be at summer camp with a cell phone. Also I have been doing summer camp for the past 20 years and the first thing you learn is that once the boy has heard mommy or daddy on the phone you have lost him. Now no matter what he is going to want to go home even more. I have never seen a reason or need for cell phones at camp. I carry one for emergencies and have a couple of leaders who do the same, if there is some reason fror them to use it they will go off out of the view of the scouts.

Just collect the money from the neighbor when he places the order, or before he finds out how terrible his team is.

Baden, First off we have not gone to our council camp for 12 years. My observations are from doing summer camp at at least 8 different council camps either in our area (southeast Pa.) or outside. Plus the info I and the scouts have seen for other camps that we have For a long while there were way more out of council troops scheduled for our camp than in council. One of the big things that I have noticed at SM meetings at these camps is how wonderful these SM's think it is to have boys go to camp and walk out with a handful of merit badges.