allangr1024

If I were doing this, I would have each boy submit in writting a plan and script for the COH or campfire. I would then let the two of them bring their plans and work them into the program. Then that joint plan and script would be used to run the ceremony.

This requirement is a bit vaugely worded, and open to interpretation. It does not say you must do a ceremoney from start to finish. It says to plan one, write the script, and prepare a program. Then it says to be an emcee. It does not say for the scout to use his plan for the ceremony. There is a lot of wiggle room here, that you could do a joint ceremony with. It sounds like it is up to the MB counselor's judgement.

In our troop, the PLC in the past has had little to do with the COH. The preveous scoutmasters have done this. This goes back to the question, to what degree is the boy let troop boy led?

As I read this discussion, I see that there is something that needs clarification. The scout is 14 and does not have the leadership skills to carry on an Eagle Project.

Just what leadership skills does he lack?

Can he make a plan for a project?

Can he recruit people for a project?

Can he find the resources he will need?

Can he contact the people he needs to contact to get approvals?

Can he hold a reasonable discussion with the projects beneficiary?

Can he schedule the work that will be involved?

Can he encourage his volunteers to come to a workday or do a job?

Can he finish the paperwork involved?

Just what is he not prepared to do?

AND, If you can identify the skills he is deficient in, what is the plan to get him these skills?

If he cannot lead a flag ceremony, should he lead 10 ceremonies before he is ready?

If he is too shy to talk to adults, should he talk to 20 adults before he is ready?

If he is afraid to direct scouts, should he give 15 specific directions to scouts before he is ready?

If he cannot write a project plan, will you make him write plans for 10 campouts before he is ready?

The definition of the problem is vague, and so are the solutions. If I were so inclined, I could keep a boy from ever getting his Eagle project done. Just to say "you are not doing well, so do better" is no good. You must be prepared to give the kid a list of things to do to get himself ready for the project.

OR, let him go ahead with the project, and let the process teach him some leadership skills. I think he will learn it by doing it. I can lecture about the leadership skills of staffing, planning, directing, and controlling, but the kid will not learn until he puts together a staff, makes a plan, schedules the activity, gives directions to the workers, and all the rest.

I wore one when I was a scout, but today they are seen by the boys as stupid. The reason: There is no one else wearing them. The army does not use them. No other civilian group uses them. In BP's time they were common.

In 2005 I took our troop to Philmont where I got an appreciation for the neckerchief. I went to the Philmont store and bought a bandana, which I wore around my neck for the trek. It kept my neck from getting sunburned during the day and acted as a scarf in the wee hours (Cold hours, as I remember) of the morning. I used it to wipe the sweat off my forhead and to wrap the stuff in my pockets a night. I still have it.

We are at the point in the BSA of having a formal dress uniform and a practial BDU (sorry for references to the military, but when it comes to uniforms, what can you do?) or activity uniform. As a kid, our uniform was made of heavy material that could be worn on camping trips. The shirt was the same kind made for the soldiers. We had flat garrison hats which no one wore, and the web belts that were just like the army belts of the time. The hats are gone, and the belts will disappear when the switchback pants become the only pants we use. The neckerchief and the campaign hat are throughbacks to the calvary soldiers of pre WWI. The thing to do with neckerchiefs is to make them part of the activity uniform and emphasize the way they protect the skin. Some kids will wear it on their head, and that is ok when camping.

One day I was looking thru the salvation army thrift store and found a prize.

I was the leader of the last Philmont trip, and was wondering how I was going to afford the gear my son and I needed. Finances were fearfully low. At the thrift store I found a pair of Asolo boots that had been worn a few time, and were badly scratched on the outside. They looked bad. I tried them on, and they fit me perfectly. The souls showed they had not been worn much. And best of all the price: five dollars. I wore these for the 10 day Philmont trek, the 3 practice treks and 5 day hikes we had in preparation, and 3 weekend backpacking treks since with the troop. I still am floored by my find.

I am now a scoutmaster, but I served for 5 years as ASM when MY boy was in the troop. In fact, I had 3 boys, the older two in one troop and the youngest in another (He wanted to be separate from the two brothers, probably a youngest kid thing.) I admit that at first I was in it for MY kids. I also got to have some fun and enjoyment from the camping activities. I guess I got to feel like a kid again myself.

Now the kids are out of scouting. One got Eagle. The troop of my older boys needed a scoutmaster and approached me. I was honored, and took the job. Now, I am interested in seeing that the scouts learn something about life through the program, and that they have fun doing it. It seems I read something about that in Baden-Powell.

In some of my adult leaders I see my old attitudes. They are there for thier kids. Most will leave with their kids. I see that this is a normal state of affairs, and that I use these guys as long as I can. I hope to retain some when their kids are through with scouts, but most will go on. I may be able to rope back in one of our former scoutmasters, as soon as his daughter is out of competitive swimming in high school.

So, since I do not have a vested interest in getting my kid advanced, I am looking at the troop as a whole. I want to do more patrol method than our troop has done. I want to do more boy led stuff than we have done. I want to see that all the boys are motiviated to work the program. I dont want anyone to drop out. It takes a different prospective.

I did this for my first campout as an adult. I froze my tail off.

Suggestions:

Wear lots of layers. Take Tshirts, sweatshirts, sweaters, jackets. Wear them all. Take some off if you get too warm.

Take separate clean clothing to sleep in. On cold campouts I take a separate pair of long underwear for this. Sleep in wool socks and a head covering.

Invest in a good 10 or 15 degree mummy style sleeping bag. If it is made from polarguard or some similar material, it is better. Down filled is ok, but if it gets wet, it won't keep you warm.

Put hand warmers in the bag to heat it up before you get in.

Good luck

I did this for my first campout as an adult. I froze my tail off.

Suggestions:

Wear lots of layers. Take Tshirts, sweatshirts, sweaters, jackets. Wear them all. Take some off if you get too warm.

Take separate clean clothing to sleep in. On cold campouts I take a separate pair of long underwear for this. Sleep in wool socks and a head covering.

Invest in a good 10 or 15 degree mummy style sleeping bag. If it is made from polarguard or some similar material, it is better. Down filled is ok, but if it gets wet, it won't keep you warm.

Put hand warmers in the bag to heat it up before you get in.

Good luck

A few things:

1. The committee advancement guy is definately giving bad advice. Anyone can work on an eagle project as long as your son recruits them and leads them. In our council, this is seen as a plus.

2. If the scout can estimate a reasonable number of hours for the project, it is viable. There is no definition for "not big enough".

3. This is a good eagle project. One of the guys in my sons troop did benches for a school. His dad is a welder, and the scout has learned welding, so he welded the benches in his garage for 3 Saturdays, the other scouts sanded them, and on a Sunday they bolted them to the concrete at the school. They put in 8 benches in various places. Total hours 80 to 100. Project completed to everyones specifications. Eagle earned. I don't know why someone posted that this is not a good eagle project. If the District Advancement committee approves, why not?

Voyageur,

I thought that religion was being handled in the thead about Mormons being Christian.

Whats up?

If our original discussion was the influence of religion in politics, or the influence of a candidates religion on his politics, then we should examine the religious authorities in the candidates chosen religion for a clue to his political outlook and practice.

Although the famous mormon scripture is the book of morman, as I understand it, the real writing that defines the LDS church is a work by Joseph Smith called the "Doctrines and Covenants". This was originally published as "The Book of Commands". This describes the infallable role of the prophet Joseph Smith, and his role to speek the word of God to his followers. The practice of the LDS church is to recieve revelation from the living prophet and impose that revelation and its intrerpreted version, called Doctrine, on the followers. In the LDS, authority flows from the person of the Prophet down to the church leaders, biships and ward leaders (I can't recall their titles) and from there to the church members. My problem is that the LDS church is not a very democratic institution, so any influence it has on a polititian would be to develop anti democracy, authoritarian view and practices into his political underpinnings.

I find that the religious institution closest in practice to the LDS church is the Roman Catholic Church. Very similar. Both have a leader(Pope and Prophet) who claims to speak EX-CATHEDRA the revelation of God. They both have an authoritarian hierarchy with the church member down on the recieving end, with a system that can change its message with the advent of a new leader. Both honor a volume of scripture but are not bound by it. Therefore the comparison between John Kennedy and Romney is valid. The reason JFK needed to make his speech was that people were afraid that JFK would have to do what the Pope said. Will the Prophet be able to have undo influence on Romney.

American republican democracy was heavily influenced by the New England Congregational Churches, which had a practice of letting the church members vote on things like the hiring of a new pastor and the management of buildings and the like. John Adams came directly from this tradition, his father being a Congregationalist minister. He definately showed this kind of world view in his battle for the Declaration of Independance and the bill of rights. If he misstepped in his watch as president, then it shows that within the broad background each man brings with him, there are times that he stands on his own.

Mormanism Christian? It is a subject beyond this discussion. Let everyone who worries about this examine the LDS faith and documents, and compare to the major christian denominations. Mormanism valid? It is up to the voters. Let them decide.

I agree with the Beavah.

Our troop moved to the church that is our CO before I brought my boys to the troop. This church opens its doors and gym facilities to lots of sporting teams and such, and they considered us just one more group using their building. The only time we heard fromt them was when they complained to us about our boys breaking something, whether they did or not. They gave us a sunday school room to use, no storage space and no trailer parking. Our COR did not come around and our past SM's did not contact the church that much.

We considered finding another CO, and put together some power point presentations to show to church boards. We came close to moving, but the final vote of the board of elders of the prospective home church was against us.

Then our CC had the bright idea of doing the presentation for the current CO, sort of as a re introduction, since a lot of church personnel had changed. We had a very successful meeting, that resulted in our being given the keys to the very nice youth building with cafe, game room, sound booth, outdoor ampatheater with fire ring; the works. We want to pitch the troop to the youth group, another opportunity we have missed in the past, and will get to do that in the spring.

If I were you, I would make the first move and contact the CO, get a new COR appointed if need be, and stay in the loop.

Getting the idea is one of the tough parts. My son tried to get two projects off the ground before he found one that worked for him.

Here is an idea that I have not heard tried in our area. In our town there is an organization called Blue Star Mothers. This group sends care packages to the troops in Iraq and Afganistan. Contact them or a group like them, and offer to prepare 300 to 500 care packages for the troops. They would be your beneficiary organization. Get a list of the items that go into each care package, or propose one yourself. Once approved, go to every troop and pack in the district and ask for help by having the boys bring items for the packages, like gum, candy, paperback books and magazines, etc. If the scouts you contact actually package the items, so much the better. Contact the pastors of churches in the area, especially if scouts in your troop attend them, and ask for their help in the care package drive. Ask them to have their parishoners bring care package items. On a project workday, you and your troop can package the items and have them ready to ship. The beneficiary organization can usually arrange for shipment. You can list your hours, the hours of the guys in your troop who work on this project, and even the hours of anyone else who may package items for you. The opertunity to do this for Christmas is probably past, but Easter would be a nice target.

It is an idea.

I went to the www.scouting.org site, but did not see any new requirements posted.

Can someone post the link so I can see the official changes?

Thanks.

On scout day at NASCAR the cost is 8 to 10 dollars per head if you come in uniform. The CC who led the trip last year (SM in transition) said the thing the boys liked best was looking at the booths in the parking lot, kind of a NASCAR bizzare. The race was not that interesting to the boys (Sez he).

Thanks for the responses. BTW, how do you guys handle transportation costs for long trips. Do you do special fundraising, or make the boys pay the drivers something extra, or just let the drivers "donate" their gas?

I became SM in April, and made some changes to the troop operation. I felt that the youth leadership positions were not being used to their potential, since most decisions were being made by the adults. I held a campout planning session where I had the boys make the choices of where to go and what to do on outings. I put 20 choices up on a board for camping spots and 20 choices of campout activities (fishing, skiing, backpacking, ect.) and at the end the boys put together a camping schedule for the year. I then told them that the PLC could change the schedule if an opportunity came up for something they wanted to do instead. They have changed it twice so far. I try to stay out of the decisions they make, mostly commenting on advantages and disadvantages of the choices they make.

Our outing for April 08 is set for going to the council camporee at the council camp. This is held every four years in our council, and I have enjoyed it in the past. The boys on the PLC, however, would like to go instead to watch NASCAR on their Scout Day down in the Dallas area. The troop has done this twice in the past, some loving it and some hating it. The adults are also split between loving and hating the event.

I am not a fan of the event, although I have not gone in the past. I hate to see a prime camping month outing not used for camping. April here is perfect weather, not to hot or cold, and before the bugs and poison ivy come out in force. It is the perfect time to do the scouting requirements where you find signs of animals, and where you learn to identify trees and plants.

I am in a quandary now. If the PLC votes at its next meeting to go to the NASCAR event, then they will be exercising their leadership prerogatives, which I am happy for them to do. I will not be happy because we will be missing out on camping, and the council camporee, which I think is important to go to. Oh, this commitment to youth leadership. What shall I do?

We meet in an independant church. They have always considered us an outside group who just use their facilities. We only heard from them when something got broken and they thought one of the boys did it. We started to feel that we should look for a CO that really liked scouting and would partner with us. We pitched our troop to another church, met with their elders, showed Power Point presentations and explained our vision and our mission. Unfortunately they did not choose to bring us in.

Then we decided to do the same presentation of the Scout troop and program for the present church, our CO. We found that some of the personnel had changed, and the attitude is now much different. They have upgraded our meeting room arrangements, and seem interested now in doing more together with the troop.

I guess we did not consider that regular communication is more that talking to the COR every once in a while. I am thinking that we might do a service project for them, like serving the refreshments at a church function, or doing some renovation of the playground equiptment, or something like that. It would generate a lot of goodwill.

My son turned in an Eagle application the day before his birthday, and forgot to get the signature of the rep from the community organization he did his project for. I know what a roller coaster ride that is. He scrambled to get all the I's dotted and T's crossed that day.

My question is this. What is the makeup of the troop committee. Is there a good seperation between the ASM staff and the committee, or is there a small pool of adults and everyone does a bit of everything, regardless of adult position? Is there a troop advancement chair, or Life to Eagle coordinator? Does the troop normally have BOR of its own for its Eagle candidates, or is this just for this case?

To me, it seems that if the SM has signed off on the scout spirit requirement and concluded a successful SM conference, the committee should only be concerned with stuff like correct paperwork, valid merit badge completions, duely registered scout, ect. In my troop the scout does not submit an Eagle application or Eagle project application unless the Life to Eagle coordination looks everything over for completeness, quality, and appearence. But I have not heard of having a formal BOR at the troop level.

The scout spirit thing is a big bugaboo with me too. There are no objective standards for approving, and it is hard to come up with them. You can measure attendance, and participation in the troop, and possibly incidents of bad behavior. In an age of ADD and AD/HD and clinical depression, it is tough to tell what is happening with a kid. If the scout has done everything required for Eagle, I would have to have proof of evil malicious behavior before I denied him his rank.

This sounds about right to me. My son did a nature center project, and he had 20 to 30 hours of planning in it.

The goal here is to learn to lead, and the means is the project he is planning. I like the excersize because it is similar to projects I do in the professional world. And in that world, getting approvals is part of the project. And, any time the scout spends getting ready for the district approval is time to log for the project. He may do 10 to 20 hours of planning getting through the approval, and that is time to log for the project.

My son tried to do three projects. The first two got scraped for one reason or another. Even that is similar to real world project planning. If the original plan does not work, then you have to rethink, retool, replan. We did not include the hours on the first two attempts in the final project log, but I was tempted to.

The district wants to see that a real project exists. Is there a real benefit to the community, and is a real beneficiary organization involved. Has the scout done the footwork preparation to get things rolling. Will he really be leading others in a public service.

My sons plan called for 60 hours in all. The district approval person wanted to see us get over 100 hours. That is the only time I have seen a number of hours put on one of these. I guess he was thinking our project needed more people working to succeed. Fortunately we got more people come out to our workday than we expected.

I tell my scouts to plan a project that 10 teenaged boys can do on a weekend by working 6 to 8 hours. Usually it can not involve power tools unless the project planner recruits an adult who can do the work. I tell them to record every single phone call, meeting with the beneficiary, trip to the hardware store, even meetings with the adult scouters and district coordinators. It is amazing how fast the hours of preparation can add up.

Good luck to your scout. I hope he has a good experience with the project.

I look at behavior like this as coming from two possible causes.

The first is stupid kid stuff. Boys jockey for position in a group, they boast and they make fun of thier rivals, and they make mock threats in an attempt to look tough before their peers. Little harm is intended although much may be communicated, and it goes away from the boys mind rather quickly.

The second is a real propensity for evil. The boy has learned how to hurt others (for whatever resons) and may find he likes it or that he feels the need to inflict pain for survival sake.

The real trick is to discern the root of the behavior. The stupid kid stuff scout can be reproved and admonished to do better, to protect the young and inexperienced, and to see hurt from the other guys point of view (walk in the other guys moccasins). The propensity for evil scout is more serious. The adults must determine if he is a danger to the troop, the scouts, and himself. He may need professional help, and this help is beyond the scope and skills of the volunteer scouters.

I would say the first step is to gather the facts and go to the scoutmaster. The scoutmaster must meet with the offender. He must determine what he is dealing with. Most of the time the stupid kid stuff scout will only need to be spoken to once, apologies will be offered, and the incident can be put behind you.

If the resolution is not forthcoming, then further meetings with the offender need to occur with the scoutmaster, the parents, the committee chairman, and after that, with the district executive.

Unfortunately even eagle scouts succumb to the bandering that takes place in a group. We as adults need to get the scouts through this stuff, and on to other things. It is a boy thing, one to live through, and one to learn from.

I took Woodbadge after a year in the troop. My SM had taken it a few years earlier. I got involved when I brought my boy to the troop. I found that I liked taking a part in the troop instead of standing and gabbing with the other parents in the back of the building.

What Woodbadge gave me was a vision of how an "ideal" troop can be run. (This was the former Woodbadge program, not 21st century). We were patrol centered in that we camped seperately from everyone else as a patrol. I think they tried to balance us out as to our backgrounds, scout service, and personalities. We learned the patrol method from the inside, since we ate, slept, did activities, hiked, did games; all as a patrol.

When I got back to our troop, I saw all the ways the troop failed to do the stuff we did at Woodbadge. We had patrols and patrols leaders, but these often were just in name only. Patrols did not camp seperateley together in our troop, they only prepared patrol meals together. Patrol leaders did not make many decisions and had few responsibilities toward the patrol members.

It seemed as if the SM had forgotten the stuff he had seen.

I am committed to that vision I got for the Patrol Method, but it is hard to bring the troop to it. That will be my main goal as SM.

So, the benefit of Woodbadge for me as showing me an alternative to the way the troop was actually run. It also showed me that we have a pretty wide latitude in bringing the program to the scouts within the BSA guidelines.

I took Woodbadge under the former syllabus. I did not see Woodbadge empahsising anything like what Kudu is saying.

I came back from Woodbadge fired up about the patrol method. I wanted our SM to implement all of the stuff we did. I had a lot of fun being in a patrol, and I did not remember my scouting years in the 70's being this way. I found our present troop to be lacking in soooooo many areas.

Now, after serving the troop under three Scoutmasters who really did not move beyond an adult dominated troop, I have the job. I am drawing on my Woodbadge experiences to develope the Patrol Leaders and the SPL. I am giving them much more decision making responsibility, and demanding more leadership from them.

What I am finding is that developing a patrol so that it has an identity of its own, with its own character and relationships, takes time. More time than I thought it would take. And just when it seems to start jelling, I find half the guys leaving for basketball season, or summer vacation for 2 months, or just plain leaving.

Woodbadge gave me a vision of the "ideal" troop. Would to God that the majority of scoutmasters start with at least that.

I agree that the SM is the person to deal with the SPL. He is the guy who is training the boy in the leadership position. He is the one to make the call.

AND, I am not sure that an infraction on a school trip, for which he has been disciplined in that setting, is grounds for him being dismissed as SPL.

I would ask this: Has he done something similar in the troop setting? If he brought something inappropriate to a campout or a troop meeting, then that is one thing that will cripple a troop.

Was his school episode a one time act, or a series of violations that ended in the disciplinary action? If I were the SM there, I would ask myself, was this and act of overt evil, or an example of stupid, imature kid stuff. The boy can learn from the latter, not the former.

I would ask, has this boy done a decent job as SPL? Has he actively done the leadership job, or has he coasted through his tenure in office with not much to show for it?

Is he modeling for the troop a wayward penetant who is taking his punishment "like a man", or is he spewing bitterness all around for everyone to see?

Finally, can he bring to the troop the lesson learned to warn the scouts of the consequenses of wrong doing, or will he express self justification lay blame on others.

As Scoutmaster, I would be examining these issues closely with this boy.

I am not too interested in the statistics.

I believe that there may be more eagles now than when I was a scout in the seventies, just because of the changes in the program. The biggest change I attribute this to is the adoption of the two deep leadership policy to the BSA.

In the seventies the BSA looked forward in time and saw a ton of lawsuits coming due to child predators getting into the ranks of adults. In order to no be sued out of existence by the victims, the BSA required two, or preferably more, adults on every outing. As a scout our troop had 20 to 25 boys, one SM and sometimes, one ASM. This was before two deep leadership.

In my troop we regularly have five to eight adults on a campout. Due to a few good recruiting years a while back we got the numbers up to 55 registered boys. This number of adults could now handle that number of boys. Some troops in our council have over 100 boys because they have 20 registered adults.

These adults, looking for something to do, volunteer to teach a merit badge. About half the troops in town have merit badges taught during the troop meeting (for good or ill). A scout can therefore take 10 to 12 merit badges per year. My observation shows that the average scout will finish eight of these. If he takes the water sports badges at summer camp, he can get 12 merit badges in a year. He only has to be in the troop for two years after he gets first class to get the 21 he needs for eagle. In our council the troop is encouraged to get the boy to first class in a year.

I am saying that is is much easier to do the requirements for eagle now than it was when I was a scout. I was told, go find a merit badge councilor, get him to teach you the stuff, bring back the signed blue card, get a badge. There are few 12 to 14 year olds who will do this on their own. I got most of my merit badges at summer camp. I do not recall the existence of merit badge fairs then. In the troop I got first aid, taught by the SM because he wanted everyone to learn it, and hiking, taught by an ASM who was a marine straight back from 'Nam and who really liked going hiking.

The reason the count is not higher for boys reaching eagle is that the competition is so much more intense for the boys time, between sports, band, school clubs, theater, and this is before the age of cars, jobs, and the feminine mystique.

Oak Tree,

Could you repost that web address. I don't think it all got in here.

Thanks

I had the same experience, and sought the ebay solution. My belt buckles sodering came aprart (probobly more like glued metal came apart) and I bought a lot of scout belt buckles on ebay. These too came apart over time, I went through 8 of them in 3 years. Now I use the new switchback pants with the built in buckle, or I use a Philmont belt.

For the boys, I would probobly accept a 2 dollar faceless buckle from the army surplus store.