Eagledad

I found that local social pressures drive many of these rules. I know this sounds silly, but the movie Rambo drove a lot of the sheath knife restrictions back in the day because so many scouts were showing up with machete size knives. Many districts and councils were more reasonable with size restrictions. As the popularity of the movie has moved own, so has the popularity of the jumbo camp knives. But the rules are still in print. And with the adult leadership pool growing larger with adults who have little or no camping experience, fewer adults see any reason to remove those rules. What I find ironic with adults today is that most perceive the saw as the safest camping tool when in reality it is the number one cause of basic camping woods tools for visiting the emergency room. The axe and hatchet have the lowest record for emergency room visits with the knife in the middle. I teach at adult training to always always where heavy leather gloves while using the saw. Backpacking saws are the worst because their small appearance gives them a sense of false safety. Barry

Over the years, we had several white gas accidents with our Coleman stoves. We found the tanks wear out over time and leak fuel. We never had an injury from the accidents, but a lot of extra training was required. Eventually they were replaced with propane stoves when we changed to a backpacking troop. We haven't had an accident since in 20 years. Barry

Hmm interesting, I have a hand full of post from the moderators who were directed to discourage my processes of new knowledge in our discussions. I guess not all disagreements rate up to insightful. Barry

LOL, I GUESS SO

Please give an example.

There is a much mutual admiration in OA as there is in a Patrol and Troop adult leaders. The consistent behavior of scouts are a reflection of the troop adults. The BSA program guides scouts to live by a code of the Oath and Law. How the adults interpret the oath and law is what outsiders will observe from the scouts. Barry

Your perspective is backwards, "best of the best" are observations of outsiders looking at the actions of Arrowmen. OA is about selfless service. "I am better than you" doesn't fit the selfless ideal of the OA. Barry

Call it what you will, the statement is accurate. Scouts limitations on the decisions in the program are only limited by the adults. Barry

Hard times are ahead, the economy hasn't improved in the last nine years. Typically the first place that suffers when budgets tighten are donations to non-prophets. Barry

A reality of just about all youth programs in our culture is that the adults drive the vision and activities for the youth. So the activities troop adults allow for their scouts' (lets say OA) are dictated and limited by the adults' biases and prejudices. As for how we felt about Arrowmen, you simply didn't experience the OA program in our area during the 1960s and 70s. Only two scouts per troop (age 14 or older) could be voted each year as a candidate by their peers. Typically those two very experienced scouts were respected equally as much for their humility of servanthood as they were for their leadership and backwoods skills. Hardly self-congratulatory types. Barry

I think that says it best. I remember watching a new scout dragging his sleeping bag trough the mud at a 1995 Ordeal. Arrowmen used to be considered the special forces of scouts. They earned the reputation of being the best of the best and carried a lot more clout than Eagles. My observation of how our lodge lost it luster was the adults, who were elected in the OA while they were adult leaders, became the advisers. They simply took on too much of an active role instead of an adviser role. Kind of the same trend we saw with Patrol Method. Barry

The quartermaster is typically the first staffer to camp for getting it ready (couple weeks) and the last to leave for breaking it down. You are constantly setting up and delivering materials to different classes and activities. Quartermaster uses the delegator skills the most, so line up as many volunteers as you can and train them early. And if you aren't a good organizer, find one and make them your number two. I was never the Quartermaster, but I hang around them because they seem to have the most fun. Barry

Local businessman. Barry

Amusement parks in Orlando. Always a big hit for our troop. Some parks give scouts a discount. Barry

LOL, I used to tell the participants of my SM Specific class that if the scouts wouldn't let you sleep on camp outs, pull out the SM Handbook. I've told this before; I use to poll SMs and ASMs at various courses to learn how much of the SM Handbook they had read. Less than 10% (a lot less) of ASMs read the whole book and less than 30% of Scoutmasters. As a result, I encouraged the participants of my courses to instead read the PL and SPL Handbooks because they could both be read inside an hour and said basically what adults needed to know for a boy run program. The rest was basically administrative and could be used as a reference at a time of need. Still, I hope folks read the new text because there is some value there. Barry

Sorry to here that, the 2005 was the last one I had. Barry

Glad they finally made the change. I'm a big "use the handbook" Scoutmaster because it keeps the adults out of the Patrol Method. I was always annoyed with this part of the book because it required a caveat instruction for proper use. Barry

I don't know how else to explain it NJ. I can't apologize, when change is pushed without consideration for the program, I consider it under hostile attack. I feel honored and flattered for the BSA program to hold such high respect that families want all their children to have the experience. But I've said all along in all these discussions that the boys should come first in any consideration of change. And rarely do the boys come first. The program should not be sacrificed for the good of outside interest. It is as simple as that. Qwazse has been very clear that this is all about the girls. He once said something to the effect, "girls joining the program is inevitable, so MOVE ON". That is the tone of someone willing to throw out the baby with the bath water. And quit franking I find it offensive. You are offended by my political correctness term, ok, I'm open to other synonyms. In all these discussion where adults want to change the program, I always try to bring pragmatic reasoning. The arguments for change typically start with: "it will eventually happen, so lets move on", "The good ol boys block it", "there is no honor in the system, so why not change it?". All of which are simplistic condescending strawmen arguments that only denigrate the program. They don't justify any advantages of change for the boys at all. There isn't even the attempt. But as the discussion continues, the justification grew to the same old tired excuse that boys grow into better men of character with girls in the program. Remember, this is a discussion about letting girls earn an eagle. Now it's gone to a self-righteous level of the program needs Girls to improve, without any substantiation to how. This kind of reasoning is used to bully folks into considering alternatives. The supporters of change were tearing down the present BSA program and then leveraging the need for equality to make a positive change. They are using moral equivalence to justify their change of a respected program. When such arguments have to be used without logical pragmatic considerations, that is political correctness. I remember a scout once told me that he liked my style of Scoutmastering because I always stood for the Scouts first. I believe that is what I am still doing. Until somebody can present logical reasoning for change that doesn't lower program quality, then I will stand for the boys. It's obvious just by this discussion that the program is being attacked and needs it's defenders. Barry

There is no issue. It's just another political correctness attack. Barry

And here we get to marginalizing the expectation so everyone can be a winner. Through out history, the strength of a community is set by the level of expectations of the community. I was reading an article that was saying the USA is failing our children today because communities don't hold high expectations for their youth anymore. In fact, the USA pop culture is reaching a point where it has no expectations for youth. Letting the youth set their own expectations is like telling Olympic athletes that there isn't one stand finish line anymore. Instead they just set their own finish line and call it good. Sound ridiculous? How many of our youth get a trophy at the end of the season for just joining a team. This Eagle discussion is tiring because it is being reduced to a few idealist suggesting a reduction of the High Expectations of one award instead of pushing for higher expectations of another award. Once a high set of standards is reduced (dumbed down), no award will have respect. Does anyone here watch American Nija Warrior? It is a competition where athletes have to overcome a series of obstacles to advance to the next level. Last night a girl advanced to a level that females have never advanced before. It is such a big accomplishment that USA Today has an article about her. Here is a small quote from the article. ""My first year doing Ninja Warrior, I didn’t really know what it was about. After that, when so many people were like, 'I didn’t know women could do that,' I thought, 'Then, we better show you," she says. "The main thing is just testing my limits, seeing how much you can do. Seeing how much you’re capable of." The women who are participating in this competition aren't asking for the standards to be lowered so women have an equal chance for the award, they are using the high standards as goals to be reached. It's time that sympathizing idealist start pushing for mediocre standards of Girls programs get raised to give girls a fair chance of high recognition instead of lowering the standards of the other programs. Changing the requirements of the Eagle award won't raise the honor for girls, it will only take it from the boys. Barry

My first year as a Cub Master, I was talking to our Webelos a few minutes before they were crossing over to their new troop. I ask them during our conversation why they chose the troop they were joining. They all looked up at me with smiles and said this troop had the best game of all the meetings they visited. Picking a troop should be team effort. Barry

Change Scoutmasters. We had the same problem and first we considered splitting, but I did a lot of research on troops splitting and typically the troop with a new SM doesn't do well while the other just keeps growing. 80 Percent of split units eventually merge back together. We tried raising the dues, but we found families were willing to pay for our program. Eventually our program stopped at 110 and dropped to about 50 over the next five years after we changed Scoutmasters. The new Scoutmaster was still a boy run Scoutmaster, but he didn't have as good of understanding of older scouts. As the older scouts dropped, so does the younger program. It balanced out at about 50. So to answer your question; other than changing the scoutmaster, we never find a way of slowing growth. And yes big troops are very challenging for a patrol method program. We never found our limit, but I'm sure we were close. Barry

Call the District Advancement Chairman. In some situations scouts have completed EBORs without SMCs. Barry

I have to wonder if part of showing the maturity of an Eagle is initiating the process for finishing MBs. I don't have a problem with MB completion day being as a solution to something like Scouts in Hedgehogs troop looking to finish a single badge. But adults just bringing MB counselors together for any scout needing to complete MBs for Eagle seems a bit "controlling?" of the scouts' responsibility. That's just me. Our troop doesn't work that way. If scouts ask for help after running into walls, we are all for it. But pulling scouts through the process is not our style. Barry