KA6BSA

The boys must be "in uniform" to do the Cub salute, otherwise they just put their hand over heart like a civilian would. I put "in uniform" in quotation marks because you need to use some judgement whether the boys have enough of the official stuff on to constitute a uniform. If the person leading the ceremony is a Scout in uniform then follow their lead on the salute and hold it until they say "To" or until you are sure they are done. It is just as well the boys don't have to hold the salute too long while singing because a young lads arm can get mighty heavy during a poorly planned ceremony!

You have some really good answers here. One last piece of advice might be to make sure the boys know they need to be quiet and respectful BEFORE and AFTER the color guard event. I am sure they will be fine when they are center-stage and all eyes on them, but before and after they will be bored looking for something to amuse themselves with... the normal noisy Scout pushing and shoving, stealing hats etc. which we all know and love, but would be unappropriate behavior at this kind of service.

This is a favorite Eagle BOR topic here in San Diego too. We generally save it for that rather than have the younger ranks "figure it out ahead of time" but it can make a good discussion with any Scout.

What many of my boys have come up with is that we don't really need the "Clean" that much in modern times (They are also often asked which of the 12 could be eliminated). By that I mean in 1910 when B-P was setting priorities families were taking baths once a week on the farm with cold water and sharing the tub in sequence. Yes we want our Scouts to keep clean, but in modern life in the United States everyone takes a shower each day, and washes hands before eating as a given of proper sanitation and hygiene. It is just not something that needs to be raised to the level of 12 laws anymore. And when we expect Scouts at summer camp to get real dirty we just make sure they take a dip in the swimming pool every day!

My favorite 13th (or 12th if you replace the Scout is Clean) law is "A Scout is DEPENDABLE." Another word pretty close is "RELIABLE" and the meaning is actually different than any of the other laws. In our busy modern lives we are overscheduled and often late for appointments, or may even miss something important because of a conflict on the calendar. The kids are scheduled for all kinds of serious sports, for lessons, for all kinds of stuff that leaves them with hardly any free time. And the Scout Leaders are working late, working at home after dinner, both parents working and busy driving the kids to and from all their activities. So all of our Scouts at one time or another have been disappointed because an ASM didn't show up for patrol meeting, or their ride to a campout forgot to pick them up, or failed to allow for heavy traffic and are late, or forgot to check the gear and arrived missing something like the stove, or the essential trip planing didn't get done right because everyone was just too busy.

I think in society of B-P's day RELIABILITY and DEPENDABILITY were commonly assumed, but today it is something everyone must trade-off for just getting through the demands of our busy days.(This message has been edited by KA6BSA)

I have seen the Ashley book for sale on the shelf at the Borders Books here in San Diego. It is also available as I mentioned through Amazon.com for $52.50, and I think it might qualify for free shipping if that promotion is still going on.

There is nothing else like the Ashley book... it took him eleven years to write it. He was a well-off kid who liked to do oil paintings of boats, and eventually became a well respected artist, but the exposure at the harbor led him to continue compiling notes on knots for 40 years in preparation for writing the book, and it really is his life's work with more than 7000 of his own illustrations. Being first printed in 1944 three years before he died (Clifford W. Ashley 1881-1947) it has an old-world charm and is full of colorful anecdotes and humorous drawings. There are many "trick" methods presented that are easier to remember than the standard approach, but they are usually hidden in the pages among hundreds of other little-known or never-needed kinds of knots. I bought my first copy in 1970 for $16. But being the ultimate reference it is not for everyone... the Geoffrey Budworth books are much more straightforward and practical.

Choose the Scouts who have the best complete uniforms and can do the ceremony right. Go for quality not just quantity, and pay attention to the details like real Scout pants, socks, and hats. No bright colored tennis shoes. It isn't so important that the merit badge sashes be worn (they fall off easily) but that the whole group of boys be uniformed fully (no missing neckerchief slides) and lined up straight all marching in the same direction at the same time. Do a rehersal with the flags the day before and work out all the "I didn't know what to do" questions the boys will have.

I own two different editions of Ashley's book and think it is very interesting, but it is also very expensive ($52.50 on Amazon) and has many chapters with so much detail that only the most diligent knot tyer (like me... I have more than 20 books on knots) would really want to own it. If you are trying to learn practical knots it isn't a good reference because the knots are arranged by their structure and with 3900 knots illustrated there are just too many of them.

An alternative book that I highly recommend is by Geoffrey Budworth (who updated and revised the latest edition of Ashley's book) titled "The Complete Book of Knots." It is less than $20 and has excellent clear pictures of the knots arranged by function, such as boating, caving, climbing, camping, fishing etc. He also gives an interesting history of each knot so you feel like you have gotten the best interesting parts of reading Ashley's 640 pages. Budworth's book comes in paperback or hardcover, and it really is much better than any of the others on my shelf for practical uses.

Our Crew does have activities in conjunction with Boy Scouts but not directly with our troop (which has the same Chartered Organization). It was clear that the younger boys did not want the girls from the crew going on their troop campouts. So the activities I am talking about are things like having the crew take staff positions to help run the district Camporee events. In fact this activity could not be put on without all the crews helping do it. Another one is having the crews on staff (along with adult scouters) at the annual Webelos Woods event, which is an introduction for Cubs to Boy Scouting at the local summer camp location... a whole day of activities like building monkey bridges, signaling with flags, cooking with dutch ovens, and other fun things to interest them in going on to become Tenderfeet. The crew members get to take responsibility but still have fun too in a Scouting activity, camping out the night before until the day after. This kind of activity avoids any friction directly with out troop, because they are there with many others at the event, and the crews can be a vital resource in putting on the programs.

Our Council has had rules limiting the number of "Eagle required" merit badges earned by a boy from counselors within his own troop. The limit was 5 badges, but that rule has recently been discontinued. It seemed to have the purpose of encouraging Scouts to take the initiative to go find counselors, rather than have them readily at hand at every troop meeting. I am not sure why the rule was dropped, but we still try to motivate the boys if they are interested in a badge to go seek out the counselor on their own, and have the satisfaction of learning how to work on the badges without having the "troop parents" handing the necessary resources to them on a silver platter. But we also take advantage of the troop's outings and campouts for boys to work on badges like camping, cooking, hiking or backpacking... since they are there doing the activity anyway. We also make sure the new Scouts at least get Swimming MB and Canoeing MB at summer camp their first year so they can participate in troop outings requiring those abilities.(This message has been edited by KA6BSA)

As a merit badge counselor I get calls from boys asking to have a meeting to work on or get signed-off on a badge. I always ask them to find a buddy Scout to bring along that is doing the same badge. So they have to go convince another Scout to work on a badge they probably would not have started on... and the result is twice as much advancement!

As long as you are talking about the changes for the Tiger patch it is worth mentioning the new options Cubs have for wearing the single oval (Boy Scout style) rank patch on the tan shirt when they are Webelos. These choices can be individual or by den, and often can prevent needing to buy a new larger blue shirt just about the time the boy is going to bridge to Boy Scouts. At that time just change the loops to red and change to putting on Boy Scout rank patches. My son's den has even adopted a "patrol" animal patch as Webelos 2s which will carry over to their Boy Scout patrol.

The mom doing the sewing for that Cub might have put it there simply because it is much more difficult to sew stuff onto the pocket rather than below it. Getting your fingers into those little Cub sized pockets with a needle and thread is not easy!

In our council (Desert Pacific) in San Diego the Eagle Project plan must be signed off by 1)a religious institution, school, or community representative 2) a unit committee member 3) a Scoutmaster (troop), Coach (team), or Advisor (crew) and 4) a council or district advancement committee member. This last person is also the Eagle Counselor (or Advisor), and they simply review the project and counsel or advise the Scout to make sure the project is substantial enough for Eagle. They don't do any part of the project or work for the Scout, in fact they are usually doing just the opposite by making sure the parents aren't doing everything for the boy. Of course the Eagle Counselor is just one person giving approval and the project is eventually judged by the Eagle Board for its completeness and merit. My point is that if the Scout had an Eagle Counselor such a trivial project as "donating blood and giving away T-shirts" would be immediately improved or revised to actually contain some elements of detailed planning, leadership, and project management, as well as a lasting benefit to some aspect of the community... worthy of an Eagle.

SPL_T15 seems to know nothing about the need for having an Eagle Counselor. The troop and committee must sign-off on the Eagle Service Project but only after the initial steps have been taken presenting his project to the Eagle Counselor. Every Scoutmaster should know this and any Boy Scout at Life working on his Eagle should know it too. The way SPL_15 never seems to get anything quite right, and comes back posting even more rediculous situations regularly, makes me very suspicious that he is actually someone quite a bit older than an SPL with Scouter experience that is pulling you guys legs, or in this case your arms for donating blood!

I am reading directly from the Venturing Leader Manual on page 325 "Any male Venturer who has achieved the 1st Class rank as a Boy Scout in a troop may continue working toward the Star, Life and Eagle awards while a Venturer up to his 18th birthday. He must meet the requirements as prescribed in the Boy Scout Handbook and the current Boy Scout Requirements. Leadership requirements may be met by the Venturer serving as president, vice president, secretary, or treasurer in his crew. The Scoutmaster conference will be conducted by the Advisor of the crew. As the Venturer meets the requirements for the Star and Life ranks, a board of review is conducted by the crew committee. The Eagle board of review follows the procedure established by the local council." I can add that usually the boy will wear the full uniform of the crew (or whaterver they decided to use as a uniform) at his Eagle board of review. What all this means is that he can earn his Eagle and not even register with the troop or attend any of the troop meetings. Or if he wants to still register (no additional fee) with the troop to participate in outings he can ignore the Scoutmaster for advancement and do it all in his crew. That would be an unusual situation but it illustrates that the two units are not dependent on each other for leadership, advancement, or anything else.

- KA6BSA (Venturing Roundtable Commissioner, Desert Pacific Council, San Diego, CA)(This message has been edited by KA6BSA)

The only problem I have with my campaign hat is when I am getting into a car I forget I have it on and get the edge of the brim wacked on the side of the door sill! Good thing it is hard enough to take that abuse.

Is there any truth to calling these hats "Lemmon Squeezers" from the shape of the top looking like the old glass kitchen gadget? (cut the lemmon or orange in half and push down while rotating) Or is it from the way your head feels after wearing a new one all day long?

At first I thought this was just a really scary example of SPL_T15 knowing only bits and pieces of how to run a real BSA program and then improvising the rest with no real supervision... making it up as they go along and not knowing any better. A completely bottomless pit of needing endless help and advice from Scouters Who Know. But as I reflect on it I have started suspecting that Senior_Patrol_Leader_T15 is not actually a young Boy Scout, but an adult with quite some BSA experience who thinks this is a really fun way to get everyone going around the mulberry bush with the rules and regs. I am especially impressed SPL_T15 keeps responding to the posts and amping up the issues and questions to an even more ridiculous level. Any normal kid would not be interested or make the effort spending that much time typing to a bunch of adults. Anybody else think this is a setup identity?

Of course we know the SM can't ban the women, but you still have to work with him while he is in place. So why not ask a few of the more eager women to go to Leader Specific training for Assistant Scoutmaster (ASM) and have them register as ASMs? It only takes a weekend at most. We have women ASMs (my wife is one!) in our troop and some are even trained as High Adventure trek leaders! It would be very difficlut for the SM to refuse their help on any outing, and I think the ladies would have lots of fun participating with their sons as Scouters rather than just Moms. My own experience is that the boys get plenty of the "Mom role" at home and will really like the new identy a mother can have as an ASM.

All good answers, but it can get complicated if you serve in more than two positions where you might be expected to "set the good example" for uniform. In my own case I am registered in five positions currently (troop committee, district committee, unit commissioner, venturing roundtable commissioner, and crew associate advisor) and it was kind of a uniform shirt musical-chairs for a while. I already had a troop uniform from being an ASM in the past so wanted to keep wearing the uniform to troop meetings and just changed the patch. I had been Boy Scout RT Commish for 3 years so I converted that shirt for UC with just one patch, but was active at district events enough to feel the need to change my old Wood Badge shirt to that use. As most of the Crew activities don't involve full uniform I only have one dark green shirt with the RT Commish patch since being on display there as an example of correct uniforming. But some people have their own way of "combining" positions and I must say it can look pretty bad... I recently saw a district shirt with silver loops and a RT Staff patch but red/white troop numbers on the same sleeve.(This message has been edited by KA6BSA)

Now that is settled the REAL issue is when the quartermaster forgets to bring the US flag to troop meeting and all the boys have to salute the SPL's little flag on his sleeve... should he salute that one too or one on another Scouts arm? I guess at the Flag Ceremony they had a real flag on a pole so this important question did not come up for the irrate authoritarian VFW guy to dig into.

I think you already have some great answers to the question, but I just wanted to add that when our troop last discussed this issue the committee decided to pay for ASM's as a gesture of thanks (and let them know it is an annual $10 gift) for their service working with the boys, but they also decided not to pay for any committee members fees at all, no matter what their status.

I had another thought after re-reading the original post... if this effort to "undermine the current committee and program" really seems to run against what you think is right as BSA teaches, then get ahold of your Unit Commissioner and invite him to the committee meeting. He can give some perspective and advice on the issue and maybe support the chairperson, or at least evaluate what the problem is and maybe offer some district-level help to settle the case. You never know, once the problem is solved some of those who rushed to sign up might stay around and do some constructive volunteering for the troop!

It is also worth mentioning that the three references on the adult applications must be filled in and checked. Sometimes in the past this was not done rigorously but currently in our council all references are being checked through the telephone numbers filled in there. It could be another reason to reject an application.

Seems like if there is an effort under way to "pack" the committee for a ruling on some hot issue, you need to figure out the root cause of that. Usually troops suffer the opposite case where not enough people take time or energy to attend the committee meetings.

The experience from our troop is that a Multi-tool type gadget is fine if the Scout is older and knows how to use it, but that the younger boys are much more likely to cut themselves accidently with a multi-tool. Usually when they are trying to open or close it is when it slips, as many different designs have difficult locking mechanisms or are not very intuitive on where to hold it and which way the blade will go. The lack of a decent comfortable handle (when the main blade is out) makes just whittling a lot less fun. Also, many multi-tools have a chisel-ground main blade which has a sharpening angle half that of a regular knife and extremely sharp. They make a small slip of the hand cause a really deep wound. But yes, these multi-tools are very cheap and plentiful since the knock-offs of the Leatherman and Gerber are everywhere.

I don't understand why the Webelos would still be learning the Cub Scout Oath... should have already had it memorized from being Wolves and Bears. Also, the post wasn't clear on this but I don't understand why your Webelos are attending Troop meetings regularly. Just because they are the same night? Webelos should only be making some troop visits as part of their AOL requirements and finding a unit to join. One of the principles of BSA training is "age appropriate" learning, both for effectiveness and safety in the subject. That is already difficult enough with the range of age 11 to 18 for Boy Scouts without having Webelos age kids (9 or 10 years old) going to troop meetings too.

I wear a Troop Committee uniform and help at troop meetings too. It is just as valid (and 100% complete) as any ASM's and there is always help needed at troop meetings, so don't worry about what people "may misunderstand." That is why we have all the different position patches for! I also have a District Committee uniform for those functions... there is a need at all levels to set the good example.