JoeBob

Whoa hoss! I think you need to consider who you're asking to do the training. The QUALITY of the training most everywhere is woefully inadequate. So you're thinking about giving the same boobs a bigger role? Come up with some mechanism to enforce the content transfer of the current training and you'll have come a long way. Instead of lecturing from a Powerpoint about getting lost or running out of water, drop your ITOLs class in the woods with minimal water 2 miles from somewhere. No phones or GPS. Give them a topo map and a compass, so that they can learn the IMPORTANCE of knowing where you are, or how to find where you are, and having enough water.

Devils advocate here. 1- Removing him can be difficult: In a canoe? In a raft? Caving? On a hike where the troop has to hold up with dark approaching? 2- How long does calming down take? At least one person has to re-direct whatever they had planned for their time to keep an eye on your son. 3- Does going back to whatever the issue was stimulate another meltdown? Is resolution eventually reached? I would suggest that in your new troop you hover in the background like some of the other parents have written about. Scouting is not like school, where the changes come at a slow steady pace. Scouting is about challenges. The more difficult the challenge, the more the boys grow. If you continue to hope that your boy will be okay in your absence, and he isn't; then your new troop make begin to resent babysitting your boy at the expense of the other troop members, too. Good luck, JoeBob

It would be interesting to see if the units that disappeared had decent numbers (ie - added to Trail Life's 20,000) or shrank to oblivion.

You guys make me realized how blessed I am. We don't recruit. Catholic CO, we're a ministry of the parish. Catholic school, K-8, neatly moves boys up from the pack to the troop. About half the boys in each class are cubs. We get 6 to 8 every year in the troop. About 1/3 of our troop are walk-ins from outside, in addition to the 6-8 regulars We're too busy concentrating on having fun to recruit (Is recruiting fun?) Boys hear of their friends having fun, and want to play.

Irving's KP procedure for cooking a HotDawg on a stick: Meat: 1- Turkey franks are encouraged. Low fat hot dogs are allowed. All beef, extra plump, and ballpark franks are discouraged. Bun-sized wieners are NOT allowed as their name violates YPT guidelines. Heat: 2- Propane gas stoves are recommended for their low environmental impact. (No white gas. Danger!!!) Charcoal fires are allowed. Wood fires are frowned upon for LNT points. Utensils: 3- Shish kabob skewers with wooden handles to protect your hand from heat are best. Metal coat hangers may be used provided that all the paint has been stripped and cleaned. Sticks are a last resort if you use only dead wood and dip the ends into boiling water first for sanitation. Under NO circumstances will you cut a green limb to get a stick to cook your dinner! Eat dirt first! All the other tree limbs would miss their buddy... Procedure: 4- One adult safety marshal shall hover behind each scout cooking a wiener. Adults should keep an eye on the scouts to either side of their cooker as well, in case they are needed to help snatch a boy from the fire who has dived in to retrieve a burning tube-steak. Training: COFFIN training (Cooking Over Fires For Irving Nitwits) is required for every adult safety marshal. COFFIN certification must be renewed every 2 years, or immediately if someone eats a bit of char.

I disallow lighters, and road flares are just big matches. Here's a laugh: http://www.primitiveways.com/firestarter.html If you had electricity to run the drill, why not just short the wires?

Woodbadge brainwashing... Numbers decline has many inherent challenges: Sports Electronics Over-scheduled parents More urban living Lawyers Irving is making it worse.

Silver lining? The 2 badmouthers are ruining their own reputation. 95% of the feedback you've gotten from this mixed bag of forum attitudes agrees with you. (Not knowing the other side.) What do you believe the ASM's peers are thinking when they hear them demean a scout?

I like that. My WildSurv class for the summer has already done one fire. Some used battery and steel wool, and some used a striker. If they have as much trouble with friction as I'm anticipating, I'll change the requirement to starting 3 of 4 one match fires in the wild. If you're gonna have dryer lint, a battery, steel wool, a magnifying glass and/or a striker; surely you'll have a match! *** Somones knockin' at my door? Somebody's ringin' a bell. What's that siren I hear? Merit Badge P'lice after me! Do me a favor; open the door; let 'em in!

Eh. The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg? Irving is killing it as fast as they can. Could they do a better job destroying Scouting if they were actually trying? Dilute the value of Eagle. Over sell Eagle. Once and done to speed advancement = ignorant scouts. No adventure. Water pistols banned = wussy scouts. Revolving door on membership standards. Next they'll recruit Caitlyn Jenner as our national spokesperson. Poor training. Required. At ridiculous repeated intervals = Volunteer drop out. Sell properties to prop up salaries. Emphasize fund-raising over program. I think that BSA will last at least 2 more years; and that's about how long my boy will be involved. After that, I'm gong to find it hard not to laugh when Irving spirals into the ground and all the bean-counters have to find real jobs. I will regret the death of BSA's reputation, as having been a Scout won't mean as much to my boy as it has meant to me. The saddest thing is that this electronic society that we live in really needs a program like scouting.

Somebody is flaunting: "Tonight's forecast is 78 degrees and Zero chance of rain. So lets wear bathing suits under our Class B tShirts and bring water propulsion devices to practice our Heat Stroke First Aid. Large Super Soakers are difficult to fill up and awkward to run with. Medium sized H2O devices will enable you to relieve the heat to more victims faster. A fill-up bucket will be on the side of the field with a designated safe zone to replenish your First Aid H2O device. If you bring balloons, be prepared to police up the rubber fragment leftovers."

No thinking? Maybe not for you. But since the National Board is composed of volunteer members, it is possible to conceive of the professional staff and assets being severely reduced. "The board is led by the national president, a volunteer elected by the National Council. Board members included regular elected members, regional presidents, and up to five appointed youth members" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America I never suggested it would be easy. Good things seldom are easy. In fact we would probably have to pay out a big lawsuit and lose several CO's before the National Board could be convinced. The only other option that I can see is to sink with the ship...

77, DEs get paid $38k to start. What's your point? How much does the CE get paid? What's the value/mortgage for BSA properties? Think outside the box: NATIONAL makes more problems than they solve. But I believe that the BSA Board is comprised of volunteers? We may as well plan on running BSA without BN (Big National); because that's what the future holds once all the lawsuits from LGBT, Atheists, and feminist groups deplete all the funding.

No. Not unless they are sharing something that they saw on your son's medical form. Their personal observations are their observations, and you have no control over them. But why are you assuming that they are spreading bad things? They might be relating they failures to interact well with your son and encouraging the new SM to work with your boy in a different way.

I don't follow. Why would eliminating millions of salaried positions that mostly thwart the original purpose of Scouting make Scouting more expensive? Three examples: 1 - Uniforms and Badges - One online shop that served the US would be much more efficient than paying to support the staff and physical location in every council. Cost should go down. 2 - Books - Volunteer committees write and upgrade. Published online. Free for Den Leader to print, if needed. No BS Handbook cost, no cost for Merit Badge books. 3 - Summer Camps - A property with lakefront and a few pavilions. You don't need a big dining hall (patrol cooking in your troop site), a gym, or an air-conditioned trading post. Troops would pay a share per boy of what annual upkeep and taxes will be. Troops can co-ordinate what MBCs they'll have at camp, and volunteers at district can recruit and distribute costs for important staff positions like water-front. Summer camp gets cheaper when you're not paying for a bunch of next to useless staffers, and a year-round professional core that puts obstacles in your way in order to justify their existence. Getting rid of the Big National presence would make Scouting cheaper, not more expensive.

If she is the real deal, that's okay. Any actions taken are part of God's plan.

Oooohhhh. Y'all have made me think evil thoughts. Premise: a) BSA is sacrificing adventure (and principles) in order to avoid losing their money to lawyers. b) What if BSA had no money? Would a volunteer Scouting organization that wasn't always bowing to social pressure return to the halcyon good old days of high adventure and testosterone blow outs? By using so much volunteer labor, BSA has made themselves vulnerable. Volunteers can run BSA without national. Policy? Skype meetings by volunteers. Scoutshop? Online. Camps and high adventure? Privatize. Books? Online. Many districts already run with no help from the pro staff. Eliminate the councils. Think back over all the problems addressed in the forums threads for the last few months. Wouldn't most of our problems be solved if National did not exist to mandate silly rules and maneuver to protect their money? I guess we can sell Irving to pay off Bechtel so that Summit can be self sufficient. Re-chartering just got cheaper!

Piling on: This voice (she believes to be God) that told her you were going to die within a year? What has that voice told her about the boys? Will the voice direct her to "lead them to manhood" or such? In a leadership role in a scout troop, this person is dangerous. "Come on boys! I know the trail ended a few miles back, but God told me that home is just over this clifffffffffffffff." Her erratic behavior has been observed directly by the COR, you. As COR you are responsible for dealing with her; the CO will be liable for any harm she causes, because you know she is a danger. I'm sorry that you're in this position. But once you step up and deal with her (and it sounds like you should have plenty of help), everyone will be in a better position. Crazy Lady can go prophesy for a retirement home.

Ummm... Disagree. An 11 year old student approaches a 16 year old 'victim ' in deep water. Victims are encouraged to struggle as that's an important learning element that encourages rescuers to hone their skills to the point that they are comfortable approaching a victim that is trying to stand on the rescuer's head in the water to get to air. The larger boy, with more years in the camp lake, would surely be able to put a drubbing on the smaller kid. Possibly to the point that the rescuer needs saving and the younger scout may develop a fear of trying to rescue, and become uncomfortable in the water. Waiting is good.

For Lifesaving MB, the scout needs to be a strong swimmer. Not someone who just passed Swimming MB. They don't offer Lifesaving to non-swimmers. Is that adding to the requirements? Then neither is offering Lifesaving only to proven strong swimmers who have enough time in the water to be comfortable, as evidenced by the Swimming merit badge. '10 -In deep water, show how to escape from a victim's grasp on your wrist. Repeat for front and rear holds about the head and shoulders.' Requirement 10 resembles water polo in actuality, and it looks like they have eliminated the 'approach under the surface and spin the victim away from you' attack method of non-voluntary rescue. Lifesaving requires a larger body and maturity to deal with frantic victims. Requiring 'Swimming' is way to age the candidates. And requiring Swimming improves the quality of the graduates. Having Lifesaving imparts some other privileges, and responsibilities.

Insensitivity alert! Don't read this if you're the type to get bent out of shape by reality. Go back up to the photo in post #1. Which Scouter in that photo do you want your son to look like at 55? Which one doesn't snore? Or require special sleeping quarters? Who teaches Personal Fitness, Hiking, Backpacking, Athletics, Swimming, Lifesaving, or Climbing? (Although I would rather have a heavy person as my belay...) Which Scouter will help your son with a broken leg to get out of the woods? (ie.- carry their weight?) Tell me which adult in that photo you want to carry out of the back-country. And which adult is most likely to need carrying. *** I was skimming through posted photos from our council NYLT and got visually slammed by that photo. "Good Gerty! They're ALL fat!" I could not do nothing. So I hid their faces in the photo, and came here to vent. Read the thread title. Be motivated. Please. Political correctness keeps us from addressing the horizontally enhanced, and it's doing them no favor. Our courtesy is giving heavy folks an excuse to eat more chicken. And we're killing them. I fight daily with my dinner plate. Sometimes I win. I'm not trying to offend anyone. I'm not picking on anyone to make them feel bad. Gravity does that without my help. If my comments hurt your feelings, please consider: 1- Be kind to your knees; loose 20 pounds. 2- Be kind to our children. They look to us for a good example.

I see it as the camp trying to do a good job, and protect themselves from getting a poor swimmer into a class where he can't complete the requirements. Since it's a camp 'prerequisite', it's not adding to requirements because the scout was never approved to start the badge. MBCs are not required to teach to every scout. If the scout is a strong swimmer and can prove it, perhaps you can ask the camp to allow him to take Swimming and Lifesaving during the same cycle.

Full disclosure: I'm 6'2" and 220. It's a constant battle. At 61, my cooking has gotten better, but my metabolism has gotten worse.