KC9DDI

I think part of the general problem around the 18-21 year range in the Venturing program could be solved by just switching terminology around.

You're a legal adult when you turn 18. The BSA has no say in that. You're not "a youth in the BSA's eyes," - you're a legal adult. Period.

In the Venturing program, you can have member status (not "youth" status) until age 21. Members in the program are eligible for the various awards, leadership positions, etc, which are currently available to "youth." After age 21, you're no longer eligible to be a member, and instead must register as an adviser if you wish to remain active in the unit.

Base all the YP rules (one-on-one contact, tenting/sleeping arrangements, etc) on legal adult status - not on program, registered position, etc. If you're over 18, then you're an adult, regardless of whether or not you're a Venturer. Base all program-specific rules (advancement, eligibility for awards or leadership positions) on whatever criteria you want, age being one of them.

Just an idea....

BD - Can't comment on AHG's membership policies, but I suspect that, like the BSA, there's some discrepancy between what the official guidelines are, and what the public perception is, and what actually happens in real life.

The Boy Scouts and Heritage Girls appreciate, respect and support each other.

If that were the extent of the relationship, I'd have no problem with that. I'd hope the BSA would have the same relationship with any other Scouting organization (that's not a direct competitor of the BSA). But the BSA goes beyond that by actively promoting the AHG to it's chartered partners. That's beyond appreciating, respecting and supporting. The PDF from Scouting.org uses some pretty strong language to advertise and advocate for CO's to start up AHG units, and I can understand why that might set off some alarm bells.

BD - Mutual support is good. But it seems like the AHG is evolving into the BSA's preferred, semi-official program for girls. It seems like the extent of "mutual support" the BSA is provided to AHG is beyond that of many other organizations it supports.

Speaking only for myself, I'm not at all upset to see AHG launching what will hopefully be a successful Scouting program. My concern is the extent of the relationship between AHG and the BSA.

Regardless of anyone's opinion of the AHG's mission and aims, of whether or not Jesus Christ is your personal savior, or anything else - the objective fact is that the AHG's mission and values aren't quite consistent with the BSA's mission and values. And I think some folks are legitimately concerned with the extent of the partnership between the BSA and AHG, given their differing mission and membership policy.

A Christian-focused Scouting program? No problem. Developing a close relationship between that program and the BSA? That has me a bit concerned.

What type of summer camp is it then?

The guidelines that my units have used have been something like:

Funds may be used for:

* Payment for annual troop dues

* Payment towards any official troop or patrol activity (camp outs, summer camp)

* Payment towards uniform items (including the troop t-shirt)

To the best of my knowledge, the BSA does not have any policies on individual scout accounts. That's up the the unit committee and the CO.

Biggest problems I've run into with these types of plans are:

1) School vacation dates don't line up across all schools

2) Families reluctant to give up "family time" over the holidays

Maybe those aren't issues for you and your troop - but I'd definitely pitch the idea to your scouts and their parents before getting too involved with planning.

Hopefully you'll be able to pull something off - long term cold-weather camping isn't something that many units get to experience.

I had to Google the Silver Fawn award to figure out what it is. Apparently, the Silver Beaver used to only be available to men, and the Silver Fawn was the equivalent award for women. In the 1970's, the Silver Fawn was discontinued, and the Silver Beaver started being awarded to both men and women. According to Wikipedia anyway, only a few thousand Silver Fawns were awarded, so I guess the medal might be worth something to collectors.

It seems like most districts and councils have monthly or bi-monthly email newsletters that they use to promote these types of events. I bet many districts and councils will let you subscribe to these email lists from their website. Failing that, I'd shoot a quick email to a DE of a neighboring district or council asking to be kept informed of any upcoming activities or events.

Out of curiosity, assuming this is a Boy Scout troop, why not task various members of your PLC (or even non-PL youth leaders) with tracking down this information. Youth tend to be skilled at being able to find things on the Internets :-).

Eagledad makes some interesting points...

Experts say boys and girls dont mix well during the boy scout age years

That's a pretty broad statement - what do we mean by "mix well"? Boys and girls seem to "mix" just fine in the majority of our country's schools, and the majority of other countries' Scouting programs. So what's the specific concern here?

Of course, it's worth noting that there do seem to be some definite advantages to single-gender programs in some areas - while a minority, the number of all-guys or all-girls schools is definitely not negligible - and I'm sure that they offer many advantages over co-ed schools, but there's surely some disadvantages as well. Probably depends a lot on the individual boy or girl. So, while I think I would like to see more of the BSA's program go co-ed, I can definitely see the attraction of a single-gender program as well.

which I discount because thats not a valid reason for diluting a quality program.

I missed how going co-ed would dilute the quality of the BSA's program?

I wonder if it's possible to identify the specific areas of the program that are strong because of the single-gender-ness of the program, and find a way to keep those program areas single-gender, while making the rest of the program co-ed? Just a thought.

Lets face it, the youth arent demanding the programs be mixed, mixing the genders is an adult thing. What is our problem.?

Well, Barry, to be fair, I don't think the youth are exactly clamoring for the Declaration of Religious Principle, the exclusion of homosexuals, or the whole moral/citizenship/leadership development angle either, but we keep those around. So what's our problem? :-)

Mosquitoes?

rain - It would seem to me that that would be like wearing a Cub Scout uniform while in Boy Scouts :-)

I think if you had a second shirt with your camp staff insignia, and wore it occasionally as a "backup" to troop functions, that would be OK. But, technically, you're supposed to wear the correct uniform for your unit and position. So at camp, that would be the staff uniform. In your unit, that would be your unit uniform.

But these are again technicalities. It would be prudent to check with your unit leadership and camp staff leadership to see what the practical uniforming expectations are.

Qwaze - I believe CalicoPenn made that suggestion. Otherwise, excellent point about over-coaching.

Silver loops and unit numbers generally don't go together on any uniform, to the best of my knowledge.

And (again, to the best of my knowledge) the tan uniform is one uniform option that Venturers DON'T have.

But these are both legalistic technicalities. I'd recommend speaking with your camp director and asking what the uniform expectations are for staff.

And congrats on the staff job, hope you have a great time!

Sounds like a ridiculous statement for an SM to make... almost too ridiculous. Makes me wonder what else the SPL said, what else the SM said, what type of situation the unit is in, etc etc. You know, all that stuff that got lost in the game of telephone between what the SM said and what we read about here.

Do we really want to be suggesting that the SM be "removed immediately" based on this flimsy report of a report of a report on one-sentence sound bite, devoid of any context or history?

It's likely that there's a lot of context that's getting lost between the actual conversation and what we see on the forum. Hardly seems appropriate to make any kind of judgement of the SM's or SPL's actions based on 3rd or 4th hand hearsay information.

Got to echo BD's point - this is an adult training course, attended by folks taking time away from work, family and other obligations. The focus should be on delivering a quality training program in an effective, efficient way. Obviously maintaining a cheerful, enjoyable, fun atmosphere is part of that - but focus on presenting the training material, not on goofy skits, songs and slapstick. Be respectful of the investment - of both time and money - that the attendees have made to attend your program.

Just my two cents.

Congrats on the new troop. In general, it sounds like you have a pretty solid plan for the first few months.

Just a bit of feedback: I would say that a 10 mile hike might be a bit much for a first hike - it sounds like a pretty young group without a strong outdoors background. You don't want their first Boy Scouting experience to be equated with the Bataan Death March :-). I'd say maybe look at something around 5 miles, but split it up a bit. For example, a couple miles walk to a lake, spend a few hours fishing, then hike back. Or even just do a picnic lunch in the middle of the hike. Something to give the kids an opportunity to rest, and also split up the day a bit.

You could also do a bit of an introduction into some other outdoor skills. Not necessarily formal instruction or sign offs or anything - but maybe just bring a compass with you and casually demonstrate how it works. Or point out important plants (like poison ivy) that you might come across.

Definitely get into camping early. Like hiking, you don't want your first camping trip to be too ambitious, but see what you can do to avoid "plop n' drop" car camping. If you set the tone early as a backpacking, low-impact type troop, you won't have to worry about breaking bad habits further down the road.

Also try to ease in to youth leadership early on. Even simple stuff like "Jimmy, can you make sure everyone is packed up and ready to go by 2:00?" Or "Joe and John, can you two take a look at this trail map and find us a good route to hike?" Again, set the tone and expectations for the unit early on, rather than needing to do a "paradigm shift" every couple months.

Good luck, and enjoy the ride!

They had climbing walls 100 years ago? Cool.

Well, normally the discussions here don't take this kind of turn until page 3, at the earliest.

To me it seems like a decision for "cost effective for the BSA as a business" vs. "cost effective for the BSA's members." Naturally, the BSA, as a business, is going to look at the most cost effective option for itself. I believe that owning and operating a high adventure base, while probably having a higher initial cost, will be the most cost effective long term. I also like to see land set aside just for Scouting - in short, this is the kind of thing I LIKE to see the BSA spend money on.

But I also get the point that a fixed location makes the Jamboree consistently accessible to a small cross section of the BSA's membership, and consistently inaccessible to a much larger portion of the country. And travel costs are only going to continue to climb year after year.

I dunno. I think there's a lot more infrastructure and preparation that needs to go into a Jamboree site than a generic Executive Meeting, so I don't think that's an apples-to-apples comparison. And I'm sure there's some benefit to not having to worry about identifying locations, building infrastructure, coordinating with local authorities, potentially PAYING for use of the facility, and cleaning everything up afterwards - for each and every Jambo.

It's worth mentioning that councils are not locked in to Trails End (to the best of my knowledge, anyway). Our council for the first time went with a new vendor, and overall I think it was an improvement over Trails End. It was a local manufacturer who supplied the popcorn, which made for an easier sell. Also quality was reported to generally be superior to Trails End, with prices being a bit more reasonable.

Not a silver bullet by any means, but maybe it's at least a step in the right direction.

That's similar to what I'd really like to see.

In my world, the only insignia on the uniform would be:

CSP

Unit Numerals

POR Patch

Patrol

American Flag

World Crest

Rank Patch

Knots, but limit it to 1, MAYBE 2 rows

OA Flap

1 temporary patch on right pocket

Get rid of the epaulets. But if we must keep them, go back to simple solid colors (red for Boy Scouts, blue for Cubs, orange for Varsity, silver/gold for the highers ups). What I'd rather see is that color scheme applied to the unit numeral patches to indicate program level, rather than epaulets.

Get all of the POR patches to a consistent program-based color scheme. (eg, youth patches have a tan background, adult Boy Scouter patches are green, adult Cubs are blue, Venturers red, district/council/national are grey, etc.)

Get rid of most pins and medals - save it for the really important stuff (Eagle Scout, heroism awards). Get rid of most of the patches not listed above (arrows, rings, trained, recruiter, interpreter, etc.)

You get to wear one thing around your neck. Preferably a neckerchief. But no more wearing a neckerchief, a couple bolos, and your beads - just pick one.

Find some other way to display merit badges. It seems like a lot of kids like to fold the sash around their belt, rather than wear it across their chest. I'd say just make a "sash" that can be hooked to the belt, worn only at formal occasions.

I wonder if the uniform method would be an easier sell if it wasn't so easy for the uniform to contain and year's salary worth of patches...

Don't go being reasonable now, CC. 'Round here we either overreact, or don't react at all.

A website's Terms of Service are not "the law."

COPPA applies to what information a website may collect about a minor without a parent's consent. Public or private site - it doesn't matter.

Facebook doesn't get to make the law, regardless of what they put on an FAQ page.

Baden, Baden, Baden

Yes, I've lost some important stuff from time to time. Thing is, there were always consequences. Hopefully the consequences were something simple, like a monetary penalty to replace a missing Drivers License. Other consequences were worse, like losing the trust of people whom I respect.

Sure, the handbook isn't always the most reliable way of tracking advancement, for all those reasons you've mentioned. However, the OP states that his (or her) particular unit requested many times that the Scout copy his records into a more robust format, so that he could Be Prepared for this type of situation. It seems like a reasonable responsibility that this Scout was entrusted with. And, objectively, he did not follow through on that responsibility. This doesn't mean that he's a terrible person, a terrible Scout, or doesn't deserve to advance - but maybe it means there's an opportunity for some mentoring between the adult leadership and the Scout in this particular case.

why should the adults throw roadblocks in his path

Right, so this is the kind of hyperbole that got me a bit frustrated in that thread about uniforming. At no time did I ever suggest throwing roadblocks into his path, (or throwing them anywhere else for that matter). Maybe somebody else made such a suggestion - but it's probably more worthwhile to direct this at that particular person, rather than at me :-).