MattR

My impression is a bugle is a trumpet without any valves, same notes if you don't hold down any keys. Not sure what this has to do with anything. Everyone used to have metalwork but then they added some forge requirements and it got dropped. I must admit the forge would be way cool. Maybe a glass making merit badge with a big honkin kiln. I would sign up for that. I could also use cement working. My driveway is cracking and the price to replace it is nuts. If I could just do one slab at a time... or better yet, have some scouts do one slab at a time.

But only in those states where it's legal.

It needs an "Un" rocker to put in front of the "trained" portion, to be put on after their certificate expires. It's great they are taking it. Good luck suing someone that's not making any money off of it.

WFA is good for 2 years, pins are forever. If you can convince your scouts to keep their training up to date, sure, get them some bling. Or, get them bling but tell them they have to return it if they let their training expire. Might be a good way to explain how it works for adults.

Just my two cents: Leadership is part of personal growth in scouts. It was never an aim, until recently. Maybe responsibility rather than leadership. That too could be part of personal growth. An important method that's missing is fun. No calendar works without it. In all honesty, reducing the entire program to 8 or 9 bullets is tough. What could really help would be a better way to explain them and how they are used in day to day scenarios.

And ruthless efficiency. I knew it had to be a Monty Python quote. It took a while. Well, could it be that cookies are an easier sale than popcorn? If the BSA really wants to cross a line they should start selling cookies. Give the rack a turn.

Well, just because one service unit has a bee in their bonnet doesn't mean I still don't like those cookies. I don't buy from tables in front of stores, though. The neighbor kids that ring my doorbell get my money.

This seems rather vague. Youth protection training has nothing to do with interacting with adults. It sounds like there was a youth protection issue and it was addressed. What wasn't addressed was the fact that "the parent was called out" by a scout leader. Am I right about this? If so, that's the point of this thread. To be honest, if I were "called out" and later proven right, as it seems in this case, I'd be fine with knowing I did the right thing. I'd leave it to the troop to decide what to do with the leader.

My mother-in-law is in Dubuque, IA. They are adding a half hour a day to make up the lost time. Sounds like a gimmick to me but it won't mess up calendars too bad (except for all the sports and other after school activities). They should have just assigned homework to be done during the snow storm. Kind of like working from home. I guess you could call it homework.

Great subject, @Eagledad. Thank you. There's another aspect of this I'd like to hear more about. It's about motivation. For the scouts that are internally motivated it's best to get out of their way. But many scouts don't have that. They need to be externally motivated. The question is how to get them to the point where they're internally motivated? Some scouts are motivated by competition, by shiny new things, their imagination. The 4-ings (forming, ....) all depend on everyone being motivated to accept the challenge. I made a challenge for my district to build sleds for klondike. M

I'm actually agreeing with you. Sorry if it didn't read that way.

You could have mentioned that no fire is required to whip a rope. And besides, go outside and fuse the rope. Yep. I'd say it's better to get everything else signed off and then ask the scouts what they want to do about the ropes. Again, not sure how the commissioner should best affect things.

I wonder if changing the rules of nomination will change much. My troop is brutal when it comes to nominations. Someone says pick the best so they do. The top 2 or 3 make it, no matter how many are eligible. And yet my troop doesn't show up at any OA events or meetings any more than any other troop. I really really hate to say this but these scouts don't see why they should join. Being the best at something is similar to going on an adventure to some degree (you have to push yourself) and we see fewer scouts interested in that as well. That's not just my troop but my district. There was a

I think the best way to keep your sanity is to do it for the kids you're working with. If you didn't have siblings tagging along with you when you were a scout then ask these new scouts if they, too, don't want siblings tagging along. Keep them away from the boys if that's what they want. Do it for them, not for anyone else. My council is a wreck, numbers are down, parents struggle to volunteer, there are all sorts of reasons to walk away. But there is one reason to keep at it. The scouts I work with. So have fun with these new scouts.

Okay, everyone. We're going off in a non productive direction, which is a nice way of saying Courteous is waning. The current topic of this thread (!) is how to help @Mom2Scout with the fact that her son's troop is creating a new troop. This is a concrete subject. How about we focus on that. There are good and bad ways to bring up the subject and there are likely good and bad ways of structuring the troops. My troop is talking about a linked troop but we're adamant that there will be minimal resource drain. The SM will not have anything to do with the girl's troop. We expect mom's to

Beascout.scouting.org will tell you where troops are. Yes, ask friends. Also, go visit every troop. They're all different. Any scout that takes this on by themselves would be great to have in any troop. Go for it. And let us know how it works out.

I'll try. Because you're chartered by Acme you are part of Acme. Troop 123 is not an entity. So technically, writing a check to Troop 123 is the same as writing a check to Acme. But to solve your problem, how much money are you talking about per donation? If it's small then there's really no need for receipts. If it's large then have Acme write a receipt to each donor. The donors just need proof of donation for their tax purposes. Or, if donors really want to write a check to someone with a recognized 501c3 name, as you said, have the donors write it to Acme and have acme transfer the mon

Welcome to the forum, @Cburkhardt.

This is really the only question you asked. I think if you dig a bit deeper you can find out where some of this comes from. There are a number of issues with advancement. The ideal model is it's a byproduct of doing fun and adventure, and the scout knows it solidly by the time it's signed off, or at least by the time they age out. All the rest of the rules are based on this and they work fine if this happens. Unfortunately there are things that get in the way and cause problems. Changing the time frame, which I believe is what you're talking about, is a crutch to manage some of thes

The real subject of the thread is whether a new commissioner should step in and say something about how advancement may be happening in a very new troop. I have no idea about what commissioners are supposed to do but asking questions is a good place to start. I'm working with troop guides right now and the point of Scout is to teach the new scouts how advancement is done. It's possible the rank could be done in one meeting but if these scouts came up through cub scouts I'd be suspicious. Again, ask questions. What we don't want is the cub scout advancement model. As for "adventure,

Must be a common theme this time of year, my troop just did this. I sat in with the older scout group. Most of it was see videos and talk about them. It worked but there's something that really helped. The adults had plenty of real stories of scammers and ways they had tried to gain someone's trust online. We didn't need to tell that many but just enough to get the scouts thinking about it. For example, all the Eastern Europeans joining this forum and trying to convince us they're really scouts. Reality is a much better teacher than bullet points. When it came time to do the project we suggest

Didn't read the article but isn't it the same for adults?

What happens when you wash and dry something with 10% wool? All my wool things have a lot and while I can wash them on gentle I just let them dry on a rack like thing. Anyway, is this why they say dry clean? I would never dry clean a scout uniform. Using an iron is hard enough.

My first thought was there are roughly a million kids in scouts doing all sorts of really great stuff and this one kid, and likely his parent, does something off the wall and here we are reading about it in the washington post. When I was 14 or 15 I certainly had it in me to do something like this. I probably wouldn't have done it at scout flag ceremony but I might have. And my reasoning would have been to just get all the adults' dander up. I was pretty good at that and when scouts do similar things now I catch myself. Now, if you ask this kid why he did it I'm sure there would be some altrui

They got rid of all those worthless pockets! Good for they. Now all I need to do is leave off all the patches and it could be useful outdoors. I'd be happy with the floppy shirts while camping. I went and read some of the comments. It sounds like they're all a size too big.