Eagledad

>>Does he believe, in his heart, that he has performed his best in the various aspects of scouting

>>American society has over-emphasized self esteem at the expense of self motiviation. The question for BSA is: should it change how merit badges are incorporated into the program?

>>The success of the merit badge program is entirely dependent on the quality of the counselors.

Hi All >>A list of counselors was posted, with the MBs they were counseling, and the scouts (not the parents) had to call the counselor to sign up.

I don't understand how your program works, but could you instead plan the same patrol activities as required in the badges without making it a badge activity. Then the scouts could sign off the requirements if the choose. This is how I did my Webelos program. My scouts were getting pins like crazy and most of the time they didn't even know how they earned them. Barry

Hi All We have eight very nice patrol boxes that we quit using about seven years ago. It's funny, the adults had them made with love and care. Seven years ago we decided I wanted to move to a backpacking troop because that forces more personal responsibility on scouts. The PLC and adult decided to experiment and ask the patrols to not use patrol boxes every other campout. After the first campout without the boxes, the patrols siad good by to the boxes and never looked back. Our patrols put all their patrol gear in a milk crate. That includes a two burner backpacking stove, lightweig

Hi All >>I don't like this arrangement but it is the way it is at the District Level.

Happy Scouting All Everyone is giving great advice. I only want to add one quiet unassuming demand that works quite well for both the parents and their son in this age group; "Please go sit with your parents the rest of the meeting". Everyone gets the point and the behavoir will change after the first couple of incidents if you hold your ground. Barry

OK, I stepped way out of bounds. I got the CC from your first post I guess. As for the rest, I dont understand we got to a verdict from the NJ Supreme Court, or whatever. Your last few posts also confused me. It sounds like you want the adults to be included with the scouts, provided all is fair, but have justified in your mind good arguments against it. Is that right? I have watched too many programs cut themselves short from the fears of what could happen. I know of several Cub Packs that dont do any kind of competitions like Pinewood Derby or games because they fear boys will get

Hi All My opinion is your CC is the main problem. What is the DE going to do? The White Stag paragraph is intended to protect the adult incase physical contact has some appearance of being inappropriate. Football has certain boundaries where contact is appropriate, even in touch football. But even with that, who cares! Because using White Stag to enforce a BSA policy is a stretch and not official. Your unit adults need to use and interpret the G2SS because that is what the BSA expects you to use. I love the White Stag program but the program is being used out of context here with yo

Hi Laurie What you are actually talking about is the best suggestion for breaking pack tradition. The only policy the BSA suggests is to recognize each scout as soon as possible. I've always thought it a little funny that we point that policy out on one hand and then hold back AOLs until all the scouts have earned the badge or until a month of year traditionally done by the pack. I had several scouts earn their AOL several months before they left the pack. I would first for just a moment, ignore polices and traditions and ask yourself as the CM what is best here for the scout? Then

Hi Eagleinky Actually now its two hours followed by a lock in for only the PLC. The first hour is spent giving a quick explanation of the Troop leadership chart staring from the Chartering Representative all the way down to the Patrol positions. The SPL explains and discusses the expectations of each PLC leadership position and finishes with his set of goals for the troop. The SM usually spends just a few minutes talking about Aims and Methods making sure that both the adults and scouts understand that the adults responsibility are the aims, the scouts are responsible for the methods.

>>I have read this article with great interest and I am somewhat perplexed and amazed that anyone can argue that BSA should not be allowed in a "public" school without first attacking the government itself.

>>I imagine that after a culture is established and you have several 15-16-17 year old youth leaders demonstrating the way, JLTC probably has less of an impact

Hi All >>but allowing a few adult leaders to 'ride along' and in the process retrain them or start most of them re-thinking (at least) what the real program is all about!

>>Let me ask you, how good would a youth group have to be for you to turn a blind eye to government agencies running these youth groups if anyone could join as long as they weren't Jewish?

>>No, it wouldn't be fair to say that.

So it's fair to say you really don't have a clue about the program and how it contributes to our youth and society. If you were personally given the ability to kill the BSA completely or leave it alone as it is presently, what would choose? Barry

My apologies, I left out the question mark. That last post was a question, not a statement. So you are not presently and have not been involved in scouting since Cub Scouts 35 years ago? Barry

Hi All Great Question. I worked a little different. If the cubs are unruly to the point that I need a whistle or hold my sign up until my arm turns blue, I use that as a flag than probably it was me doing something wrong. Every time I had problems with scouts like this, I changed my program because boys hate to miss anything fun. I learned what boys liked and didnt like. I created little tricks like moving most of the announcements, that bore the daylight out of the boys, to a newsletter. I might take one announcement and entertain the boys like roll out on roller blades to announce our a

So you are not presently and have not been involved in scouting since Cub Scouts 35 years ago. Barry

So, is Merlyn a scouter or been involved in scouting? Barry

I've not heard of the camp, but it sounds like the same kind of camp as the Spanish Peaks camp and Camp Isabel where the Troops do their own cooking. That is the main difference from Camp Frank Rand which also uses the Pecos Wilderness for week long High Adventure treks. Our Troop has done Frank Rand and rated it pretty good overall.

>>The strange part is now they generated LOTS of ideas. The problem is that at least 1/2 of the ideas are not practical. At least not for us at this time (California, Colorado, Hawaii, etc.). Lots of good long term ideas, but it was hard to reel them in to think about what was practical for next year.

Hi All Just like it takes practice for the brain to get good at math, being creative and thinking out of the box takes practice and exercise as well. Dont assume that letting them go that they will come up with new ideas. Believe it or not, scouting is the youth program where the idea of letting the youth create the program is the norm. Its no wonder our youth arent good at it at first. You just need to prime the pump a little. I like the analogy of leading them to water than holding their heads underwater. Get some copies of annual programs from a dozen different troops and give the