fred8033

Had a scout who liked to bring metal working equipment and brought a hatchet to camp. It's not that he brought the hatchet. It's that we didn't take it away when we returned at 1am from the ER. On the positive side, we had ice and clean cloth.

Dry ice. Don't pack Friday's COH ice cream in dry ice. You will have concrete and not be able to eat it. Bicycle. Scout disassembled and had each of his friends pack a piece of it in their gear. Then it was reassembled at camp. Hard to hide.

I agree trailer has more issues, but COs are reluctant to let scouting units build sheds. Some are very supportive. Most are not. It's something about treating charter orgs as the church doing a good deed for the community. That the scouting unit is more of a community group than an integrated part of the church. Perhaps other units are more lucky. My experience is churches are willing to let the trailer be chained up in the parking lot, but not willing to build a shed. ... but that's my experience.

A shed is a great solution. Our troop proposed one. Our troop had the money. The CO said no. Even if we built one, I suspect it would be quickly filled with church stuff. The challenge is a shed is a permanent structure that requires someone to take serious ownership. Charter Orgs are often only someone involved with the troop. When the troop asks to build a structure, the alarms go off and eyes open.

For me, it was a scout from our troop. Reviewers met monthly to review submitted proposals. He got bounced five times. Five months to get the proposal approved. They lost the project book one time. Fifth time it was bounced because they wanted a map to the nearest hospital added. Project was organizing an usher closet and adding shelving. Of everything I value the most in Eagle projects, it's the hand-drawings and items that help convince me that the scout was in charge of his own project. If you require CAD, you get adults doing the project.

I'm not sure what it makes us look like, but the intention is not to limit the scout or make his job harder. The intention was to put more constraints on the adults that approve the projects. The workbook was created to enable the scout to focus on doing his project and less so on the paperwork. For example, ... if we didn't have the workbook ... I could easily see a return to the past where adults only approved project proposals with multi-page descriptions and detailed plans and detailed cost and .... The constraint / inferences was never meant to be a constraint on the scout.

So ... not to be the slow guy but ... I'm assuming you're joking. ... I'm asking because it would be really cool to regularly camp with horses.

Reasonable answer with caveats. #1 Uses the same outline. The delivered result should be easily recognizable as what is expected. #2 It looks like a quality product that reflects the quality in the scout and the quality in the project. One benefit of the form is that it constrains the adults involved in coaching the scout or approving the proposal. Another benefit is it promotes the scout seeing his writing as a quality product. I fear plain ASCII document would cause scouts to deliver a shoddy product that would not promote pride in the scout or confidence in the EBOR.

I'm a fan of the 2011+ era Eagle Service Project Workbook, but lately I'm seeing a lot of issues. Confused about saving the PDF to the hard drive before they can see the form. Many scouts have chromebooks that can't run Adobe Acrobat Reader and thus can't edit the PDFs. Many scouts find web sites that cache PDF files and end up using those old instead PDFs instead of the current workbook. Some scout families don't want to run Adobe Acrobat reader due to security concerns. I'm not sure those are currently valid concerns. There may have been security concerns with old

Very true. Focus on the intention of the rule. IMHO, rounding issues are noise. ... Also ... ever use a one person tent? Nothing bad happens in a one person tent. A two person tent or three person tent, yes. One person. No ... because two people don't fit in a one person tent.

Keep it simple. One method, ask the year they were born. If two or less different, fine. If more than two, see if it's a minor difference such as Dec 2016 to Jan 2019. Another method is that everyone brings a single person tent. Our troop doesn't worry about this much as they camp by patrol and the patrols are close in age as they were formed when the scouts joined. Scouts move around, but it's easy to track one or two situations versus the whole troop. I should note this our troop always watched the age of scouts sharing a tent (or at least for the last sixteen years). We viewed

Ours too. And it can sit in the rain without warping and keeps everything dry inside. Biggest benefit is the smallest scout can carry it.

The lawyer in that article is a well known ambulance chaser. He's chasing money. He stirs the pot looking for victims from decades ago causing people of today to be damaged. I've seen no good in what he does.

If that is what you need to make a meaningful MB experience, then I agree. Others might with help be able to do something else and make it meaningful.

If MBUs were the only way, then yes I'd be against. I'm okay with MBUs if there is a distribution of different MB opportunities. Some where the scout reached out to the counselor and drove it. Some where the troop ran a MB session Some where they are done at summer camp Some where it's a MB university. Some where the scout has a family member who's an expert or able to cover it. In my mind, every MB opportunity needs to bring something to the table. I've seen PhD Oceanographers and Navy submarine captains jointly teach Oceanography at a MBU. Cool. I've se

I really meant this thread to be discussion on the assertion that we could eliminate the Eagle application. It's just not needed anymore. But ... you wrote "no text in the G2A showed hat it had to be completed and so we deemed it optional". I fear this is a stretch interpretation. The G2A flexibility is dealing with scouts that don't follow the required process and go off on a tangent. My interpretation is your district is using the BSA G2A remedy for a Eagle application defective situation as your district normal. (defective in that the scout does not submit a project workbook wi

I'm sad when I see that happen. Our current EBOR chair does a great job as keeping the focus on getting to know the scout. It's great to see that. I have seen previous EBORs have the wrong tone that really alienated people.

I don't view the PDF workbook as a preparation for the real world. I view it as a constraint to control previous paperwork process abuses. Though it has hoops, the three page proposal s about as short as I've seen. The plan and report are pretty short too. The key point is the workbook is not the learning objective. The key is that the developing, planning and leading a project is the requirement. The paperwork is an enabler to the process, but not the requirement itself or even the core learning objective. I'd agree that an online system would be better. I'd be glad if we could

I wasn't trying to comment on the project workbook. There's lots of good and bad in any choice. I'm glad to have the workbook constrains the hoops scouts have to jump. The past had too many paperwork abuses. Plus, the workbook is hardly a waterfall structure. It more just solicits the basic questions that come with any project.

In our council, the eagle app is dropped off at the council office. Then it's triage by council staff (who are experts in the process and very supportive ... but it takes time). Then it's sent to the district via mail or district picks up. At that point, two to three weeks have elapsed. Then EBOR is considered for scheduling. Sometimes it's a week. Most of the time it's another several weeks. The average to EBOR done right now is eight to nine weeks. I'd be supportive if we could directly deliver the Eagle apps to the district advancement chairs. That would save at least two we

I'm not quoting anything at all about the EBOR. I'm saying the backend paperwork done by unit, district and council should be expedited. Currently, it takes way too long and there are too many people touching the application with no value added. The EBOR should continue as now. If anything, the scout could take more responsibility for his EBOR by bringing his presentation materials with him into the EBOR. Thus, making it more his EBOR that he actively drives than an EBOR that he just sits through.

I agree. When I look at the individual advancement report, it's already there. It shows the dates for each eagle requirement, etc. It evaluates whether the records indicate the scout completed each of the requirements. Here is what I think is needed. Manual step still ... A "Ready for EBOR" review queue and screen .... Council staff would have access to unit data and an ability to push "approved for Eagle board of review". That approval should automatically email the contacts setup for in the troop (scoutmaster, committee chair, advancement admin), scout family (mom, dad, sco

While doing advancement at the district and council level, I've met many wonderful scouters, both professional and volunteer. These scouters are dedicated and do an outstanding job. With that said, I suspect our council is fairly common about processing Eagle paperwork. From the time the scout gives his application to his scoutmaster, and the scoutmaster drives it into the council office ... and then it gets reviewed by the council ... and then it is sent to the EBOR ... and the EBOR is scheduled ... and the EBOR occurs ... and the paperwork is returned to the council ... and the scout

Wow!!! That's a beast. Cool and fun to have, but still a beast. How well does it do getting pulled ?

Good choice. Of course, I'm laughing. Sometimes column advice doesn't match the needs of the original poster. I was far off. Of course, now your troop will require new scoutmasters to own a 3/4 ton pickup. Your choice is fine and makes sense. With a 80 person troop, I'd be tempted to have two trailers to support multiple events or allow people with smaller vehicles to help pull the trailer. I've always thought some months might be nice to split the troop (when we were larger). Those interested (younger patrols ??) could go to the district camporee and the more adventurous patro