Kristian

Remove the fundraising goals.....Make their goals purely recruiting boys and running district level boy events.

Some of them are going hiking and camping with their buddies and no adult.

use a proper real knife. something comfortable in size for each individual scout to actually use.

those plastic knife and soap demonstrations aren't teaching anything useful and will not represent real world needs for a knife.

Any scoutmaster should be fine.

Some might possibly be made in the states but the vast majority of things sold in the scout shop are made in china. For any of the groups i have worked with we order from companies that produce in china when we expect the lowest price and have sufficient lead time to order them and in the states when we are more pressed for time and don't mind around double the price. I personally order patches produced in Canada or the uk but in those cases i need something very specific and willing to pay a significant premium.

Once the project is done, its done. It sounds like he did raise all the money, some came from fundraising and the rest is absolutely a donation from the parents. If the scout wasn't going to be accepting of family donations the project should have been delayed until other funding sources could be found.

In many organizations those leading the fundraising or the board will personally make up any difference between what was raised and what might be necessary to fulfill some task if they can afford it.

I believe they have something like this around here too though not certain about it yet. It does sound like another complete waste of time and money. The eagle workbook explains all of this already and if you have a question after actually reading it talking to your sm is free. I find it hard to believe that no one in your troop would have enough knowledge to be able to assist a scout needing help.

"we'll deal with that when we get there"

Hey! Guess where we are!

 

I get this from time to time at the venturing level. (Not every campsite is after miles of rocks and bogs, and some younger sibs are veritable "Venturers in Training.") In those situations, I insist that a parent (who isn't one of my designated adults for the trip) come along to attend to whatever needs the younger brother or sister might have. If you were to do something of the sort, for example, you would need a parent/guardian for your Webelo and another parent for little brother/sister(s). They would have to set their site up at some distance from the Webelos, and program doesn't stop just because the youngsters don't think it's fun anymore.

 

If they are indeed good parents, they'll work with you on this.

From Chicago Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-utah-rock-20131018,0,6795012.story

 

A Boy Scouts of America spokesman said the organization was also reviewing the matter and would take appropriate action.

 

"We are shocked and disappointed by this reprehensible behavior. For more than a century, the Boy Scouts of America has been a leader in conservation - from stewardship to sustainability," Boy Scouts spokesman Deron Smith said.

 

"The isolated actions of these individuals are absolutely counter to our beliefs and what we teach," he said.

 

Yeah right, that's the talk. National should have removed them from the BSA in time for the evening news last night.

 

My $0.02,

if this is true why are their significantly more cases of bsa properties being sold off to developers to be turned into office parks, housing developments, and golf courses then preserved as open space.

Yeah, like that's going to do any good. They say they have to have a FULL uniform and you know how much traction that got.

 

Stosh

All the Venturing Awards are VOLUNTARY and are NOT considered advancement awards like in boy scouts. In our crew the teens choose whether or not what they want to earn all or none. Crews can organize around any activity allowed by the BSA and should not be run like a troop. It is NOT a matter of badges earned since their is NO advancement in rank in Venturing. National's pencil pushers has NEVER really gotten a hold of what Venturing is all about, maybe they should try reading the Venturing manuals for a change instead of just making sweeping changes to the program, without rhyme or reason.

of course this would conflict directly with the corporate types that see the lack of advancement and awards as contrary to their JTE statistical disaster.

What I am seeing is the Adults are over thinking it....

 

What do the boys want???? Why is this a troop and not a Patrol activity?

 

Young scouts aren't going to plan a 30 mile weekend trip..... Fluffy body type scouts aren't going to go backpacking at all if they have a choice.

 

I attended a Backpacking district camporee in a neighboring council....The camporee was in April so you had lots of new crossovers along. It was 10 miles along a river to the camp ground.....We passed more than a few very young scouts broken down in tears along the trail. Then it was 10 more miles then next day back to the parking lot, It was more rugged. Lots more boys broken down in tears completely exhausted with way too much gear on their backs for their size.

 

I learned from the experience and what I witnessed. I would never take the average new crossover on a trek like that, most of them simply don't have the physical strength to do it. Shakedown everyones gear ever trip..... watch the weight.

 

​I wonder how many boys that camporee cost scouting.

having witnessed a troop hike where several of the scouts weren't truly successful in hiking just 5-8 miles on a good day carrying just water/food i dont have much hope for them ever doing a 3 day backing trip.

 

if you are doing monthly or so backpacking trips i would say you are doing pretty well as a troop. I agree with the above posters that these trips should be the lead up to things such as winter backpacking, and the more difficult and longer treks.

distance is something that will vary greatly depending on the terrain, weather, elevation and many other things.

i dont believe i ever said 5-8 miles inst enough for anything. i would see this as something most scouts would reasonably be able to do per day.

having witnessed a troop hike where several of the scouts weren't truly successful in hiking just 5-8 miles on a good day carrying just water/food i dont have much hope for them ever doing a 3 day backing trip.

if you are doing monthly or so backpacking trips i would say you are doing pretty well as a troop. I agree with the above posters that these trips should be the lead up to things such as winter backpacking, and the more difficult and longer treks.

Shouldn't raising money from OUTSIDE of the organization be the indispensable skill required of a scouting exec?

It is an official uniform and if its what she wants certainly wear it.

Have thought of doing something like this myself but its quite difficult to get decent examples of older uniforms in the size i actually wear.

LDS as a whole has enormous power over all aspects of bsa. With this power they are able to control or at least attempt to control everyone else. As many also see lds policies as contradictory to their own and likely the oath/law as well conflict will continue to arise.

Locally there really arent all that many lds units and since they seem to stick mainly to themselves to avoid conflicting values with the general public. Dont particularity care what these lds units do at their own meetings as long as they arent trying to hurt anyone else.

What is "bullying"?

It's what the CC was doing to the SM. I would strongly encourage the CC to back off. Save the heavy hand for real bad kids.

havent seen the changes yet either but just like in the past if the co can kick out members of its church for being gay/living gay lifestyle. naturally once these people were out of the church they wouldn't be welcome in any of their churches activities or groups anyway. CO's have had the ability to limit membership in their scout groups to their particular organization since roughly around the beginning of bsa in this country.

For those that start spending significant amounts of time over many years the required training will become a burden. Many of these courses do overlap to the point that the only additional information for the next course might fill only one page or less of new material. other than additional bsa provided forms. Combined with the national level courses as philmont, and other national bases, ncs, the online courses, and the council run mandatory courses your probably getting really close to 100 total. Then of course there are council run courses to teach something specific like their particular climbing wall, or boat area, or similar which isnt at all transferable at least on an acceptance level anywhere else.

I do remember from my iols course several of the participants stated they learned absolutely nothing new (many were long time scouts/scouters) but we really had no real choice on whether or not to take that course. it was required. Testing out is an option in theory but finding a person in council who has that authority and then finding the time to go over everything with them to prove you know it will likely be more of burden than just sitting though a wasteful weekend.

Some of these courses above of course expire requiring retaking it online or some of the courses in person always in full.

for those that seem to enjoy going to training there is the university of scouting which is composed a selection of possibly hundreds of different courses from with you probably can select 4 or so for the day. its likely all information you actually hear there could easily be learned from either reading these forums, your scout books, or from the other training courses you were required to attend already.

If you actually intend a wildly diverse selection of activities at your troop/pack/crew level - hopefully your not serving in 2 or more of those levels. Your probably looking at 5-10 weekends a year every single year going to various training's. I am also including the red cross level training like cpr, first aid, wfa, lifeguard etc as all of these will also require retesting after a set number of years.

I dont see why anyone would think trusting a bsa site with being responsible for things like calenders, contacting members or having accurate information would actually be a good thing. Seems they just want more and more personal information from all the members/parents and really arent providing anything new or particularly useful.

Scouting needs less bureaucracy not more.

Any advice on how to get the national scouting community to step up and put pressure on our council to do the right thing?

"The Cape Cod & Islands Council responded last week with a lawsuit against 10 of Nantucket’s Boy Scouts leaders alleging fraud, conspiracy, unjust enrichment, and stated that the deed transfer was illegal, invalid, and “essentially amounts to stealing the land.†-

I await the day these scout leaders countersue the council for these identical charges, it would seem the only ones who will monetarily benefit from this sale at all are the pro scouters. Thats just the way it always seems to happen just like it happened in my own council with multiple sales of scout property over the years.

The nightmare would be a used bus breaking down in the middle of nowhere on a Friday night headed to an outing

 

 

Same as Any Loaded Vehicle any Trip...Especially ones without Roadside assistance..Car with No Extra seating do not help if ones breaks down any ways

I'm voting crazy.

 

A passenger bus cannot ford a river of make it over "kelly-humps." In fact it can't go a lot of places. Do you really want to limit the boys scouting experience to places with pavement because that's only as far as the bus can go?

i would also have to agree with the fact that buses just aren't conducive to camping. most forest roads are small, winding and some aren't paved. you will go off the road and will not get that bus back on easily.

finding a place to park that buss in the woods isn't going to go well either, trailhead parking lots are notoriously small, oddly shaped and unpaved.