fred johnson

Mark Hanncock - "Some people think we are competitors." Not a competitor? You're in denial or you're marketing. TL leaders were mainly former BSA leaders and charter orgs replaced (or switched) to chartering trails edge units, you are a competitor. Web site (http://www.traillifeusa.com/who-we-are/) says the program is outdoor adventures, character and leadership with a Christian focus. You are a competitor. The web site also says TL wants to be the "premier national character development organization for young men ... " with a Christian focus. You are a competitor. Th

qwazse ... You need to know the checklist mentality as the starting point. Just as with driving, you need to start with a checklist mentality. As you get comfortable with scouting, then you can go further. But the checklist is still the starting point and the guide to the right method. Plus the checklist mentality exists because of too many leaders that want the discretion so that they can do their own thing, take things a different direction and establish rank requirements not reflected by the BSA program. The way the best SM coaches his SPL and scouts is with open ended questions

Patrol method ... key characteristic ... a set of scouts that want to spend time together and do things together. Our troop is doing patrol method not as well as we did 10 years ago. Fewer scouts. More competition for time. The big change is that leaders restructured patrols and the scouts lost any emotional tie to their own patrol. It's common now for scouts to not know what patrol they are in and that's really sad.

Qwazse ... 50 per troop? I'd be surprised. I'm betting the average is more 15 to 20 per troop. Some may have 30 or 40 but I suspect there are as many 5 or 10 person troops making the membership at best 10,000 by years end ... at best. BSA has two big things going for them. They have the Boy Scouts label and they have the Eagle rank. Nothing else compares in name and stature. In the 1970s, my father and I were in the Indian Guides YMCA program. I am sure no one remembers the recognition program from that and few probably even remember the name Indian Guides. Trail's Life, like 3rd politi

GirlScoutLeader ... I should admit that I would almost NEVER delay a scout because of scout spirit. IMHO, scout spirit is there because we want to promote it and talk about it. Also, the requirement is our safe guard that we can use when we need some excuse that can't be explained elsewhere. Leader ... "I can't sign off on your rank advancement right now. You were just suspended from school for trying to buy pot. That breaks the scout spirit reflected in the oath and law. I know you are dealing with this both at school and at home. So I'm not going to add onto it, but I just ca

Scout spirit is always a judgement call and IMHO decided jointly with a scout during the scoutmaster conference. For anymore detail, read the Guide To Advancement section 4.2.3.2 Demonstrate Scout Spirit. http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/33088.pdf GTA has a very useful quote. "Evaluating Scout spirit will always be a judgment call, but through getting to know a young man and by asking probing questions, we can get a feel for it. We can say however, that we do not measure Scout spirit by counting meetings and outings attended. It is indicated, instead, by the way he live

I'm hoping to learn more and hoping to learn it's different than I see so far. This expanded emphasis seems very reactionary and scares me. I fear it could really alienate many people. I'd say 50% of our families are okay with the current reverent level but would turn away if it became anymore a Sunday school program. I know in our pack, I'll recommend we leave faith to the family and their religious leaders and ignore any expansion. I really fear this could drive away yet more scouts and put us below the membership critical mass.

Qwazse ... well said ... My only comment is the requirement says "prepare to pass", but not actually pass. The receiving scout could fail. There is no tie between the teaching scout's completing the EDGE requirement and the receiving scout passing his requirement. IMHO, we don't tie the advancement of one scout to the advancement of another scout. That would result with the smart scout picking other smart scouts to teach. Why would a scout want to use EDGE with a scout that has challenges learning? Heck, I'd look for a 17 year old tenderfoot scout who is a friend to teach. Also, I'm

Go to bat for this scout. He deserves it. And I can guarantee you that when you succeed this will become one of your own proudest memories of scouting. ----------------------------------- His previous troop leaders dealt with him in bad faith by promoting a culture of slowing up advancement and using old requirements. Then, they went rogue manuvering to transfer the troop to Trail's Life program. Their machinizations damaged kids that had entered a BSA troop. Also, note that adult leaders are there to step in to correct injustice created by other leaders or a messed up sit

SSF - Your numbers are not off. Our troop charges $75 per year for membership (advancement cost and registration cost). Campouts cost about $25 to $30 per scout per month. So you are doing $10 per month fee plus $15 per camp out. That's about $25 per person. That is the camp out expense. They are just reducing cost to attend and increasing membership cost. i.e. They are encouraging camping.

packsaddle ... close it. move it. doesn't matter. This thread isn't adding any value anymore.

Merlyn quoting the Bible? Glad that I'm not near him as he'll probably be hit by a bolt of lightening.

GeorgiaMom ... That's what I've seen too. I never said remove references to God or faith. We can show reverence without shoving it down the throat of others. ----------------------------------- Ya know ... from what I've seen on this board, from BSA and from Robert Gates. ... Scouting is a niche anachronism doomed by dysfunctional stubbornness and structural contradictions. - Depend on public schools for recruiting but we don't honor their values. We can't recruit from them. And, we have no other successful model. - Depend on church based charter organizations but not

scoutergipper ... Get real. People have opinions. People have thoughts. Many evangelicals view Catholics as "cults". Many evangelicals target Catholics. I see it every Christmas at 1:45am as I leave midnight mass and have a person standing across the street using a bullhorn telling us to repent ... as we leave the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Same is true of the opposite side as I attended an evangelical service years and the practices and beliefs were way beyond what I was comfortable and would ever want my kids to see until they were old enough to understand. .... The

Tahawk ... great quotes. Fully agree with them. My oldest son entered with six scouts in his patrol and left with three when he aged out. It was a great experience for him. In those years, the only time patrols were re-organized was when an individual boy wanted to switch and the receiving patrol said sure we'll take ya. I've also been in a troop that switches patrols. Kids with the wrong patch on. Kids that don't know their patrol because it switched last month when they were at a swim meet. As far as I'm concerned, troop leadership (youth and adult) should keep their nose

MB counselors are all over the map as represented in this discussion. Fine. Some counselors want to prove some points not listed in the merit badge requirements. Fine. That's them. You don't have to use them. Go elsewhere. Physical Fitness merit badge was the topic. The only requirement that strictly says to wait to start until the counselor approves it before beginning it is #8 and the requirement is listed at the end of #7. You can't start #8 until #7 is signed off. "Before beginning your exercises, have the program approved by your counselor and parents.". The rest is ju

http://www.bannersonthecheap.com/ We bought one from here recently. Very impressed with price and quality. Funny thing is the stand is way more expensive than the banner. LOL.

Yeah, let the scouts choose their patrols on their own. Don't assign them. Don't even have the SPL assign them. "being stuck with ... not fun, I'm not going." That's what I'd expect out of 50% of the scouts for one camp out and 100% of the scouts if you do it month after month. One big reason scouts do scouting is to be with their friends. Assign the patrols and scouts ditch their patrols to be with their friends. They might cook with them. Might tent with them. But at the first free time they ditch their patrol to be with their friends.

Eagledad .. In my view, this is not a political rant. I am really scared by BSA's coming 2015 changes that escalate the faith component. I am hoping Robert Gates can make big changes. Faith is very important to me, but forcing it more into the program is not a way to be successful.

DCSIMMONS - Boy Scout camps in my area have about 10% female staff. Cub camps have about 40%.

DCSIMMONS... charter org latitude ... that's exactly what I'm suggesting. And it exists now. No scouting unit is forced to take any leader. The leaders are offered up by the charter org. No unit is forced to accept a specific scout as a member. Units can be closed to members of their church. It exists now. I would have zero problem if one scouting unit decided that they wanted to have a boy-only troop. That would be fine with me. I'm sure other units would pick up the slack. KDD - No female leaders or the whole event is canceled. Welcome to the world of venturing... Persona

SCOUTGRIPPER ... I can respect what you are saying and though we share the same scouting universe, our realities are different. Everything I listed is an issue in my area. "go find an atheist organization" ... That attitude is killing BSA. Life is not clean cut. Many families have been alienated from churches and a specific faith. Many teenagers experiment with atheism. BSA was once the pre-eminent youth organization. Now, we can't recruit from schools and BSA is viewed negatively by many. "BSA v. Dale" was properly decided by the US Supreme Court, but triggered by a bad BS

In the fall of 2011, BSA addressed major problems with the release of the new Guide To Advancement and the new Eagle scout workbook and processes. I was extremely impressed. The advancement changes were major. Professionally thought through. Successfully and fairly smoothly rolled out. Most importantly, those changes successfully addressed current major problems in our scouting district. From what I see so far ... the new BSA changes are because BSA recognizes there are major problems and everyone knows changes are needed. I'm just not sure the changes significant enough and I am

What is their "rank" in 5th grade? Is "Arrow of Light" now a rank? ... "Oh my son is an arrow of light" scout. Huh? I'm used to Lion, Tiger, Wolf, Bear or Webelos scout. What happened to parallelism? Most ranks are animals. I could justify Webelos as it is the combination of Wolf, Bear and Lion Scout (WeBeLoS). I've already been dealing with over the years explaining that there is no such rank as "Webelos 2". It's just Webelos. And then explaining that "Webelos" was both the singular and plural form was frustrating. (no such thing as Webelo ... always Webelos). So in their 5

QUESTION ... Is Akela going away? Or is Ethan just a new character for the book? It was not clear to me.