Lisabob

Sometimes city gov'ts will conduct emergency preparedness drills where they run a mock disaster & response scenario. I know that some of our scouts (both webelos and boy scouts) have participated in those and usually they have a lot of fun while also learning a great deal. You could see if your local gov't has anything like that planned. You should also definitely contact local troops (plural!). Most should be able to offer you assistance, either in the form of sending a couple of older boys to your meeting to teach basic 1st aid, or in terms of inviting you to their upcoming first aid-related activities. This is a common activity for many troops in the springtime, as they have a bunch of brand new scouts who need to learn first aid essentials for their early ranks anyway.

We had a "macho man" cake bake. Due to a high percentage of kids in situations where "dad" wasn't available we simply requested that the boys make the cake with a male relative or family friend. That gave enough latitude that everybody could fit in. In all the years we did this, and with a wide variety of reasons for absent dads (everything from prison to divorce to death to military service and more), we never once had any problem with this. Had we made it explicitly "dad and lad" then we probably would have had more difficulties, given the family backgrounds of many boys in the pack. I am not one to stick to rigidly defined gender roles, and the last thing I would want to do is embarrass a mom who is on her own, or make her and her child feel unwelcome at a scout event. Still though, there's something to the idea of helping boys develop relationships with male role models, whether it is dad or grandpa, or an uncle, or the neighbor. Having another positive adult in their lives to do fun things with is seldom a bad thing for any kid. So that was the focus of our "macho man" cake bake - an opportunity to do something together. Just like pinewood derby really isn't so much about the car, the cake bake really isn't about the cake.

Sounds like he has some rose-tinted memories of his youth experience. Often people criticize what they do not understand. Invite this guy to take on a volunteer position, help him get proper leader training, and see what happens. That may open his eyes to reality a bit. On the other hand, you may quickly discover that he wants no part of helping to lead, and only wants to snipe from the sidelines. In that case, calling the bluff (hey, we could use your assistance as a registered leader...) may quiet him down too. Depending on your relationship with his mom, maybe you can encourage her to have a bit of an eye-opener chat with her son. Often boys do not know what was happening outside their own immediate experience. I bet that things were not nearly as placid as he seems to recall.

What Annie describes was what I witnessed in cub scouting too, both when it came to parental/family involvement, and when it came to the mix of people who served as leaders. There's nothing saying women can't or shouldn't be involved in scouting (and some of the most outdoor-savvy people I've met in scouting have been women, by the way). And equally, there's nothing saying that boys can't find good male role models, other than family members, in scouting too. If your pack thinks otherwise, you might want to look around and see if there are other packs in your area. In most places, women being involved in scouting is the norm, not the exception.

This business about delivery is often the sticking point. I have found that with larger troops, sometimes it is even a division WITHIN the troop. For example, I know one troop that has had a rather successful recruiting effort in recent years because they have a couple of people who are very committed to getting the word out. These folks believe in the program and want to see it done right. They also make phone calls and send emails (and flyers) to local Webelos DLs, invite the webelos dens to troop activities, and follow up with them. Retention, though, is about delivering the promise, and in larger troops that is often not in the hands of those who do the recruiting. In one case at least, I've watched the great recruiting and communication efforts result in a big influx of new scouts, only to also watch the unit lose half or better of those new scouts on a pretty regular basis, because the folks in charge of actual program, don't deliver on the promises others in the troop made while recruiting. I think that's a sad statement on a troop, when it gets to the point where half the leaders don't seem to know (or maybe agree with?) what the other half are saying and doing. And I've seen people who helped with recruitment become angry and bitter with other adults in the troop too, after they busted their butts to get the kids in the door, and then the program folks lost them in the space of a few months. Not a good thing.

Thanks for the feedback. I was thinking about some of the high adventure programs I've seen out there. Some require insurance info and (so they tell me) won't process registration paperwork without it. Now that's not something I've had to test yet, but as we do currently have a couple of uninsured boys who are likely to participate in high adventure trips in the future, I can see it coming up. I wouldn't want to deny kids access to activities on the basis of family wealth (or, perhaps, on the basis of their parents' level of risk acceptance, as I know at least one family in scouting who think that insurance is for the birds and it isn't a matter of expense). I just wasn't sure if this business of barring participation in BSA high adventure activities is typical, or even logical.

I think the stakes are a bit higher here because of the MB in question. I agree that the call is up to you as the MBC for that badge, but considering that the Lifesaving MB means a scout should be capable of (you know...) actually saving someone, I'd hope you would be sure he can actually do it. With no signatures from the summer camp MBC, how can you tell whether he met the requirements, or merely attempted to meet the requirements but needed additional work? If it were me, I think I'd be inclined to take the boys at their word that this scout participated right along side them, but that doesn't necessarily mean he got all the same sign offs that they did. Life lessons about not losing important documents aside, I think the decision would be a little different if we were discussing the basketry merit badge.

Reading through the thread on the new med forms, and talking with some folks locally, has made me wonder what we do in cases where a scout's family does not have health insurance and yet also does not qualify for various state-run programs like SCHIP. We have at least one such family in our troop. Are there BSA restrictions on what sorts of activities a boy (or adult) without insurance can participate in? Does the BSA mandate health insurance coverage for participation in high adventure-type trips?

OK... you guys are scary.... (backing away slowly from the camp fire) Since we're talking dissections though - my son was given links to some virtual dissection sites for frogs, in prep for his biology class next week. I'm curious if these are realistic, or if any studies have been done on student learning outcomes? I know the "feel" of things is different, but I wonder how well these virtual sites do in terms of presenting the basic anatomy? (I remember dissecting a bunch of things in bio class, but that was a long time ago) Here's an example: http://frog.edschool.virginia.edu/Frog2/home.html As an even further aside - I wonder how many frogs get dissected in the name of high school science each year?

I agree, 4 1/2 hours is nuts. I think it is time to politely lay the cards on the table and let the CM and CC know that you don't intend to participate in a marathon B&G. Either they can kindly schedule your tigers first and not be upset when the den (such as it is, using the word loosely) all leaves upon finishing their part, or they can figure out a better way to do this. Help them out a bit. Go online and find some examples of B&G schedules in the 1 1/2-2 hour range and offer to share them with the organizers. But nope, a 4 1/2 hour B&G should not happen. I'm curious though. What does she have planned for that whole time??

I don't know that I'd make a big deal about it, nor would I see it as an "award" - more of an acknowledgment of a bad situation that (it sounds like) ended ok. But geez, if people are truly worried about this being an "award" that other boys can't earn? Then those people do not have their heads screwed on properly! Maybe, if you are intent upon public recognition, you might provide the boy with something like a box of band aids for his first aid kit (not saying band aids would have been appropriate in the situation, but they're 1st aid-related and cheap and you'll probably get a smile from the kid), and take a moment to mention to all the boys how important it is to learn basic first aid skills and how scouting helps to teach those. Make it a cubmaster's moment more than an "award" situation.

Best wishes to him for a quick recovery and please pass on my deep gratitude to him for his service.

In the past we have held our UoS in November and in January. Around here, a Nov. weekend might be glorious, or it could be 33 degrees and spitting freezing rain (ick). January probably means snow, though even there you can't be sure. Today I see grass and sunshine when I look out the window, even though it is in the low 20s. My council's UoS does include some outdoor classes and some would be rather difficult to hold in the dead of winter (plant ID, for example, is harder to do when plants are dead and/or covered with 3 feet of snow). Others could still be held outdoors but can be more challenging in bad weather (campfire cooking is a good example). Not impossible though. The larger problems are finding appropriate staff to teach the courses at UoS, and ensuring adequate participation. If council and the districts and OA are holding competing activities that are supposed to draw from the same pool of people, that's not going to work so well, unless they're designed that way on purpose (maybe the webelos activities take place in the afternoon at the same location where the UoS classes of interest are being held in the morning?). I know we've expected OA to do various presentations as part of our UoS programs in the past so hopefully at least some of them could attend. The best thing I can recommend is that you pick up the phone and call your district chair and your UoS chair and your OA folks, and maybe your DE. Tell them in regretful terms how much you'd like to participate in all of their activities (if in fact, that's the case), but that you can't because they scheduled everything at the same time. Express the hope that maybe they'll do something to work around that next year. Ask if they have plans along those lines. Even better, volunteer to be on staff for one (or more) of those events next year! That way, you'll be included in the planning process and can alert them to this problem, should it happen again.

Around here it tends to be May that gets a little hectic. People want to jam everything in before schools let out in early June. I'm with John on this. Our district committee tries very hard not to schedule things in conflict with big council events. If all of the appropriate district folks are touching base with their district chair, then this should be avoidable. Sometimes people goof, or something gets over-looked, but we try. The other thing to keep in mind is that often, you are aiming for different crowds. For example, I have no problem with the council pwd and (most) OA activities being on the same day because you probably aren't going to have that much overlap in terms of audience. As for UoS, well ok, probably best if nothing else is scheduled by district or council on that particular day. But, if this is the first UoS your council has had in a number of years, they are probably still working out the kinks. The UoS folks may not have even had much contact with the OA leaders who scheduled their webelos weekend on the same day. Next year, hopefully they'll know to work that out.

My council is charging $1900 and I think that's with bus transport rather than plane tickets. Our guys will be doing a good bit of fund raising to offset the costs. Rather than sitting back and waiting, I think if I were you I'd find out who is on the council's jambo committee and contact a couple of them now with regard to your concerns. That way, when they meet in January, there's a greater chance that they will address your concerns as a group. Probably they would anyway ($3K is a LOT of money!) but hearing from dedicated scouters about just how much money is a potential barrier might spur them to take a deeper look at how they approach things, as well as to be sure they provide potential participants with lots of info up front about the cost breakdown.

Rooster, Bush might not be the man people think he is, you're right. On the other hand, the fellow has had eight years of being in the national spotlight as the most powerful individual in the country and perhaps the world, six of those eight with his own party supporting him as the majority in Congress. If, in that time and with that kind of a platform and backing, he has been unable to show us what sort of man he really is, then the fault lies with him and nowhere else. As for being conservative - I have no problem with people who espouse conservative ideas, though I frequently disagree. It is very possible to disagree and still respect coherent and thoughtful world views and ideas. I'm just not convinced that GW Bush had very many coherent and thoughtful, let alone what could actually be considered conservative, views and ideas. Not on fiscal matters, not on the size and scope of the federal gov't, and maybe not even on social matters (except perhaps to trot out the right empty phrases every couple of years for electoral purposes). Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and even George HW Bush provided reasonable evidence of being ideologically conservative. George W. Bush, it seems to me, provided clear evidence of merely being willing to do and say whatever was necessary to gain temporary political advantage. Despite not being a conservative, I happen to think conservatism is more, and better, than that.

I agree that, if he is going to join the troop prior to this summer's camp, then he ought to be invited along as a guest on some troop outings before he joins. This allows him (and you, and the SM) to make a more informed judgment about just how ready he is. It may be that he's exceptionally mature for his age, but that he's still not quite ready for the rather different demands and pressures of boy scouting. I've seen that happen on occasion, and in part I think it has to do with the wider age range of boy scouting. Some 10 year olds, mature as they may be, aren't ready to be hanging around with 14-17 year olds, especially if the troop is made up primarily of older boys. Going on a couple of campouts might highlight this and save everyone a lot of grief. Of course, it may also be that he fits right in and is ready to go!

(chiming in behind by a beat) Yes yes, happy Solstice! And boy it sure looked the part here yesterday, pale winter light and a whole lotta snow.

Bob, with all due respect I think the direction you are attempting to steer this discussion is not what the original poster was asking about at all. He was asking how people have handled the religious requirements in the Bear and Webelos program. You are veering off toward the path of religious inquisition of an adult leader. Please give it a break.

Sarge, I hear you. I don't belong to any organized church and when my husband and I were bear and webelos den leaders, we had boys from a variety of backgrounds, ranging from no religious affiliation, to vaguely religious, to attending service 3 times a week. Most, but not all, were some type of Christian. I thought a lot about how we would handle that requirement. One thing that entered into my thoughts was that we were chartered by a PTO and not by a religious organization. Had we been chartered by a church or other religious establishment, I think it would have been appropriate to talk with the Charter Organization Representative about how they viewed that religious requirement, and to seek guidance there, not just for our den, but for the whole pack (bringing the CM and CC into the discussion first, of course, since THEY should be the main contacts with the CO and not every Den Leader for him/herself). I don't know if that is a path that is available to you or not. What we ended up doing was explaining the religious requirements to the parents, and asking them how they felt about it. We kicked around the idea of visiting local ministers from a variety of religious groups, but most parents felt that might be confusing for their kids. So instead, we asked each family to complete the religious requirements for bear and webelos with their child at home. We also explained how to work on the various religious emblems and offered to assist them in arranging with their church to work on those, if they wanted help. The local Lutheran church offered a series of classes and invited boys of all faiths to participate, with their parents. About half of our den chose to do that when the boys were webelos. It worked out pretty well. And in fact, it served as a really nice way to encourage the boys to talk about religion and faith with their families. I know that we had some excellent conversations with our son as a result - it was tough sometimes because kids that age tend to ask penetrating questions and don't take noncommittal shrugs as answers. And although the requirements are really for the boy, it also made me think a lot more about what I believe, and why, and how I communicate my values and beliefs to my child. I figure that's good even if it is tough. And so despite not being terribly excited about organized religion in general, I found it to be a very worthwhile set of requirements. I hope you'll find the same. Just keep in mind, the BSA does not require anybody to be a particular religion, or to belong to a religious establishment at all.

I don't know Beavah, I go back and forth on this one. We have a troop that has traditionally had a bunch of older guys involved, and that can be a huge plus when/if those boys are active participants, mentors, role models, and leaders. However, while about a third of our membership consists of boys who are 15-17 years old, they are less and less active in the troop these days. Most of the troop's youth leadership right now are boys in 9th grade or younger. The older boys complain that troop meetings are boring and they don't participate in large numbers in outings, either. Some of that is to be expected of course, since there are so many different draws on their attention and time once high school gets going. Some of that is programmatic, in the sense that we have had a large influx of new scouts in the last two years and so more of the program is directed toward them these days. On the flip side, while we have a small venture patrol dedicated to doing more "high adventure" activity, none of the boys in that patrol are older than 14/9th grade either. So there's a structure available to the oldest boys in the troop to do more/different activities that might challenge them and suit their interests, but they haven't bothered to take advantage of it. What I am seeing is that the troop is increasingly run by, and focused on, boys in grades 6-9. But, since it is also uncommon (not unheard of, but uncommon) for boys to earn Eagle before about 11th grade in our troop, many older boys stick around (sort of) beyond 9th grade to finish up loose ends on their Life and Eagle ranks. They just aren't terribly active as youth leaders after about age 14/15. If that's going to be their approach then they'd be better off not being in the program at all, as far as I'm concerned, and setting a cut-off of 14 sort of makes sense. On the younger end of the spectrum, I'm ambivalent too. I've met a lot of boys who are sooooo ready to be done with cub scouts by the middle of 5th grade when they cross over. I've met about an equal number who are in no way emotionally or mentally prepared to be boy scouts, and who do not do well in the first 6 months with a troop. Those who come back after the summer between 5th/6th grade tend to be just fine (there seems to be a lot of growing up that happens that summer), but there are a lot of boys who are lost in that 5th grade year, either through boredom in cub scouts, or through being ill-prepared for boy scouts. I'm not sure whether the answer is to change the minimum age for entry into boy scouts across the board, or what. I do think that the Webelos II program suffers a lot in the execution (not necessarily in the idea) and often could be done better to truly bridge boys into boy scouting more effectively. One other observation. It seems to me that most of the boys do pretty well with kids who are within about 2 years of them on the age spectrum. So a typical 14 year old can look up to and pal around with the 16 year olds without feeling too removed, and can reach back to the 12 year olds without feeling like they're "little kids." When you get much beyond that 2-year range though, there's such a difference in emotional development, maturity, and interests/life obligations that it seems a lot more challenging to build a sense of common identity.

Don't know about national's deadlines Eamonn, but we got told that the council was paying up front for all the slots.

Ya know this is one time I find myself in agreement with Bob White. Let's not make this harder than it is. Get the boys outdoors. Teach them a thing or two about observation, and get them started. You want to get more technical but you don't know an oak from a maple? Great, encourage their PL to call the local nature center/state park/forestry program, and ask for help! Of all the things to argue and disagree over, this one just seems like a no-brainer to me.

Sounds like it is time for that friendly cup of coffee. Going to the museum might be a good start but not an end to the process. Anyway though, winter can be a really good time to find animal tracks, etc., so maybe he wants to encourage the scouts in question to spend some time outdoors looking for signs in the snow? If he insists on setting it up for the boys, at least steer him toward a state park or nature center where the rangers will be happy to show the boys the real deal, outdoors. Then they can do a hike or something if they want to practice and collect signs while they're there.

Weak. I can't think of any reason that the boy couldn't do this for real, outside, no matter what sort of environment he lives in. The section of the handbook Bob references is all about doing this outdoors as well. In light of that, ask the boy whether this is really his best effort, on his honor. I think he'd be unlikely to say it was.