John-in-KC

Whatever happened to Tom Peter's management concept "Train and retrain constantly?" Advantages to re-taking WB: - New friends. - Different perspectives - Chance to revisit leadership skills We all have to make choices; sometimes they are tough choices. Allocating time amongst family, work, and Scouting is one of those sets of choices. To me, the two (silver) Beavers are asking for some cheese with their whine. Life isn't always fair. Deal with it. Some, perhaps most of us may never get a chance to staff a WB cycle. Each course, 48 ideally enter, hopefully 48 leave, give service to Scouting, and get beaded. Is there room the next cycle for 48 Scouters to work staff? Don't think so.

CA_Scouter, Heavens yes! ELSP's our Troop has done for our Chartere Partner include: - Renovated the exterior of the Chartered Partner's building (taken out single pane glass, inserted wall compartments, insultated them, sheathed them, and painted them. - Renovated the "Community Serving Activities" area of the Chartered Partner's building (the space they let churches, museums, and the CAP borrow for free) by tearing out old wallboard, reinsulating, resheathing, installing new electrical/phone/cable/data lines, and repainting (two separate but concurrent projects), as well as tear out existing lighting, install a dropped ceiling, wire it, and install lighting. - Build two 500 sq ft storage outbuildings for the Chartered Partner. There are all kinds of examples out there. You just have to follow the rule that the project isn't directly supportive of the BSA program.

Lisa, Agree with Trevorum. Make him scrape up the funds for the book. In the meantime, have him get a TM dump and have him ask the SM if that's a worthy substitute until he can afford the new book. BTW, there's nothing in this universe which says a Scout must have his signoffs only in his Scout handbook that I know of? Anyone seen that in Advancement Policies and Practices??? Is a rule "it must be signed off IN THE HANDBOOK" adding to requirements??? Now, should his book wear out from Fair Wear and Tear (as my sons' did), that's a different story. RANT: Why does National use cheap printing and binding methods for the Boy Scout Handbook? Mine is almost 40 years old and in pretty good shape, all things considered. My almost 18 year old has gone through 3 in his seven years in Boy Scouts...

Agree with all that the District and Council Advancement Committees have, by National Council Policy, to approve an Eagle Leadership Service Project before it goes forward. Does a blood drive pass muster? Depends on what the local Council Advancement Committee tells the districts it's willing to accept. I'd advise Eagle1984 to sit down with the District Advancement or Council Advancement Chairman or the professional staff member responsible for advancement and have a quiet talk. As to EagleinKY's comment, Irving is turning around Eagle Packages in less than a week. There's no approval down there; they're receiving the app, processing the paperwork, and pushing a business certificate sized envelope out the door. The EBOR, from my recent experience, is the final check and balance for most youth. The ones for whom it's not the final are: - Those who are entering an appeal process because they were rejected by the EBOR - Those who need an extension to obtain an EBOR after their 18th birthday. Again, my observations.

Tom: Congratulations!!!!! :-) Good job!!! John C-40-05 I used to be an Owl...

National Council keeps a master roster of Eagles. The "New Eagle" package from National includes directions on how to obtain duplicate credentials. A visit with your District Executive might be in order. BTW, when I needed to buy an Eagle medal for my sons' frame (given him by his grandparents), my Scout Shop (Supply Corporation regional shop) didn't bat an eye. Sold me just the medal, had me sign their roster, and thanks for the transaction. For PRAY, hit their website, www.praypub.org, then give them a call. I suspect they'll be very prompt in sending out a similar medal to what you earned. CAUTION: The medals have changed a bit over time; don't expect what you get today to be identical to what you earned back then. BTW, for most of your uniform needs, the Eagle and the Religious Award knots (as well as the Arrow of Light knot, if you earned that) should answer the mail.

One point to amplify within SWScouter's post: If the BOR finds a systemic advancement issue, the Committee Chairman has the duty to sit down with the Scoutmaster. Together, they should come up with a reasonable solution. Then, it's the SM's job to sit down with the PLC and lead them through the thought process to the same reasonable solution. Having been a COR, I assess implmentation of the Advancement Method of Scouting to be adult in nature, vice youth in nature.

Be honest, be sincere. Know how much it takes to do the year round facilities stuff at the camp. Ditto the amount it takes to "turn on the lights" at Council.

Deliberately choosing to go out-of-council for mine. I see Carole, Cecil, Don, Judy, Steve, Jeff, John, Dan ... regularly throughout the program year. Unit stuff, district stuff, council stuff... Going to WB in another Council gave me a different perspective on ways to to things!

Very true in policy, not quite so true in practice. Local Council camp will honor only previous years partials. Council Advancement Committee and Council Commissioner appear to be quite accepting of this, both having publicly concurred with the practice. Sometimes, you have to pick your battles, else you end up being Sisyphus pushing that bloody rock up the hill!

Looking from a large suburban metro... My District alone has 10K kids in various high schools, public and private. A lot of the young men in these schools have a primary interest in varsity contact sports: Wrestling, Football, Basketball, Soccer. Many are hoping (sometimes wishfully thinking) for college scholarships, and they are putting incredible time and energy into their sport. We can't have varsity contact sports based Venturing Crews, based on my understanding of the G2SS; Varsity football teams and interscholastic or club football competition and activities are unauthorized activities. Now, there's not an explicit prohibition against wrestling, basketball, and soccer, but... if you comply with the spirit of the Guide... and these kids don't want to do other things. They are laser lighted on athletics! There's also the issue of time: HS kids who are committed to any field of endeavor (theater, band, athletics, forensics) are already busy folk. The successful leader has to figure out how to make the bureaucracy of Scouting (apps, charter, fees, training, leader selection practices) make sense with the established institutional program. Further, many parental groups within the HS extracurricular programs are loosely organized. Beyond that, they are short-cycled: The faculty member is the continuity, save for the parent who has two or more children with the same interest passing through. Of the parents in my sons' HS band, I expect a 50% turnover next year ... their kids will be out and gone. Scouting ideally relies on long-term adult associations to the movement. Just random thoughts; take them for whatever they may be worth.(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

JKevin, Welcome to our campfire Remember, WB is a leadership development course, not a policies and procedures course. If you have a good grounding in Troop operations, you'll do OK ... for the troop meetings and campouts are vehicles to communicate the course content. Have fun staffering.

Even as a Commissioner, you have to re-app (pun and spelling intended) every year. DC has a window of opportunity annually to say "Thank you for your service to Scouting, perhaps this job may be more to your suiting?" I've seen my DC ask a person or two to find other Scouting jobs from his staff in his current tenure.

Over and above the anecdotal evidence, Scouters need to get out their own personal Boy Scout Handbooks from their youth (mine is the 7th edition, 1965), and compare them with todays version. The fact of the matter is, the National Council has redesigned the advancement program to Star, Life, and Eagle. It's designed to help a Scout have success on the upper portion of the advancement trail. Then: 1 Eagle required merit badge to Star Now: 4 Eagle required merit badges. Then: +4 (total 5) Eagle required merit badges to Life. Now: +3 (total 7) Eagle required merit badges. The requirements as they were structured for the 11th Edition (and the years since) support success. The youth who makes Life Scout is looking downhill to Eagle. With the way our LT camps are structured, many kids have the elective MBs they need long before they make Eagle. That's not a bad thing. BSA has to compete for the young man with many other options now. Designing some "due course efficiency" into the program is a good thing.

Welcome to dye lot quality control in the 1920s and 30s. May we also note there was much less ornamentation on uniforms of yore than there is today.

Our Troop has done a District dinner ceremony before. IIRC it was the Flags of the US over time, with many Flags presented in terms of where they fell relative to B-P, Boyce's and West's lifetimes. Something which comes to mind is leveraging the development of the older Scouting programs, starting with the British Rovers and working up to today's Venturing. Trust me, the kids will turn off unless finding pre-packaged is their idea. These are older teens, they have a sense of independence. Have you thought of asking the DC to sit down with the Crew leadership, explain his vision, and see if the Crew buys into it? There's lots of info out there. Let your young people go for it. They probably have better multimedia skills than we do!(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

Cooking is ALWAYS an age-appropriate activity for Day Camp, and can be fitted into ANY theme. Making a tropical cold fruit cup (bananas, oranges, limes, a little sugar) is one idea. Hot dogs, foil dinners, biscuit on a stick or Bannock bread. Dutch oven dump cake! If you PM me, I have a NCS formatted cooking activity. Now, it's designed to support our District Day Camp population (800 Cubs), so you may have to scale it back some. KISMIF!

Trev, In meeting the Scouting Aim of Character Development, I think the Cub Scout motto is the most appropo in the movements' development of a personal ethic: "Do your best." I don't want to raise up young men who are absolute conformists. I don't want to raise up young men who live in fear. I want to raise up young men who seek the good and the greater good, and then pursue it through their lives with passion. I want the generation behind mine to be able to use their heads and their hearts ... to know that the right thing is not the convenient thing ... to know that the right thing isn't always the technically correct thing. At the end of the day, giving our best is as much and as little as we can do.

Trev, I agree it should be offered back, with (in order): - Comments on its possible historic significance ... even if it flew over someone's house or sat in the corner of someone's office. - Offers to assist in determining authenticity. - Comments on its possible collectible value. That said, I disagree with you on secretly retaining the flag if the owner gives clear instructions of "I do not care; destroy it," there may well be a reason he/she does not wish us to know. We really don't have an honorable choice but to destroy the flag at that point. Now, if the owner says "Do what you think is right," that's another story. It's one of those times where doing the right thing is not doing the convenient thing.

Not everything fits neatly into a hierarchy. Take B-Ps concepts of the Scout Law. A Scout is... It's not a societal norm he is simply conforming to. I would hope the Scout doesn't obey the Scout Law because rules are needed for society. Instead, I would hope the Scout or Scouter concsiously suscribes to a contract with society: I choose to accept and subscribe to these practices because they provide both a straight path as well as boundaries. The practices contain proven wisdom which I choose to accept. I've been home for a few hours from an Eagle BOR. We asked the candidate an open ended self assessment in terms of the Oath and Law. Then we asked him an open ended "what can you do to address your own perceived weaknesses?" That's the goal we're looking for: Critical thinking, considered use of discretion, but the clear and certain knowledge of what "right looks like." If we take each boy as he comes, look at him as an individual, and help him address those things he needs to change and grow, then we've done the best and most we can do. Good night! (it's 2AM here in Flyover Country)

OGE, Absolutely agree. Retiring a "storm flag" (4'6" x 10') is one thing. Retiring a "Garrison flag" or Perkins flag or Auto Mall flag (19'6" x 40') is quite another, and needs to be done in such a way as it will be destroyed when done. I suspect the best thing to do with these behemoths is not only strip them, but halve the strips.

The other thing: Break them in before stepping on the plane. Walk day-to-day with them; take a couple of day hikes with them. New boots on the trail are AS BAD AS bad boots on the trail!

Agree wholeheartedly with Baden (REI is a great place to get boots, strongly recommend a trip to Atlanta to get her those boots) and with local1400 (do not be pennywise and pound foolish: Get the very best footwear for her you can possibly afford). Twenty years ago, I bought field boots in Germany for my professional life as a Soldier. I've only recently retired those boots. My then fiancee` thought I was nuts to be buying $200 boots. Nahh.

Well... I had my first Flag Retirement Ceremony way back when I was a Tenderfoot Scout... in 1968. Place was Camp Whitsett, of the then San Fernando Valley Council. Now it's the camp for the Western Los Angeles Council. There, I learned the way I still believe is the most effective: Body from the Field, burn in two separate fires.

jkhny, Just how many Councils are you a member of ??? I have enough challenges trying to serve the Scouts and Scouters in my own District!!! Congratulations. You've joined brianbuf (whoops... he's gone now... or is he?) on my "Ignore this user" list. As Ms Robinson used to say: "You are the Weakest Link! GOODbye!"