MattR

The queen faces left on all UK coins. Charles will face right. It changes for every monarch. Assuming the Queens Scout Award has her portrait on something (just an assumption) then maybe the king will be facing the other way. I'm telling you, we get odd bits of news. And we read it because we're tired of our own. At least I am.

Can they at least stop paying everyone's legal fees? Or maybe less of them?

I can't ever get my head around how much history the queen saw up close. While she really wasn't allowed to reflect on it publicly it would have made a great history book. But back to scouts. Will the highest rank be renamed "king's scout?" ... and will face to the right rather than the left. We get some odd bits of news over here.

I've seen lots of reports from the BSA, the US govt. and others of youth activities. That's not to say I can find them again or even want to, but Google is your friend. Just be careful of what friends you choose. Google is a form of purgatory for people looking for "the answer". While it might be nice to see some of this information, will it really help increase interest in your council? We used to have 10% of available youth. I have no idea what it is now but it's dropped a lot. My suggestion is to focus on quality rather than quantity. Kids having fun will lead to more kids. How to

@BetterWithCheddar, welcome to the forum. I really enjoyed scouts with my son. Having never been a cub myself, I was looking forward to the scouts part. I would have been a much better den leader if I had read some of the discussions here. Anyway, it's great to see enthusiastic new parents.

We have a memorial garden at our camp. A tree is planted for those who pretty much dedicated their life to scouts. Unfortunately, few people really know about it other than those that have spent a lot of time volunteering. But that makes sense in a way.

Every year at our district awards ceremony we hand out a list of all the previous District Award of Merit recepients along with all the current year awards and eagle scouts.

@skeptic had posted an article from the sfchronicle that is behind a paywall. Rather than violate copyright laws I'm leaving the link below. If you can read it, great. If you'd like to selectively quote it that would be nice for those that don't have a subscription to that paper. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Boy-Scouts-Chinatown-survival-troop-17378339.php?fbclid=IwAR2iiW3b0mQY2Sc4057JzQZuf0OP3N1SP3-AjRoLp8wtre5JZDNoF1hd1Oc

So what you're saying is get rid of the pamphlets, as there's little need for a pamphlet where the activities are the driving motivation. We've had that discussion and I'm all for it. But it requires changing the requirements for all the MBs and I doubt it will happen.

I hate to say this but few scouts are motivated to read the material. While I think the books are informative the scouts are focused on the few pages with the requirements. I can't blame them because that's how MBs work. Anyway, it seems to be easier for scouts to google or just guess how to explain, describe or discuss something than read the book. If someone has an idea on how to motivate scouts to read the books I'm interested in hearing it. I think it would require really skilled counselors, which is along the lines of "just find more volunteers" - a simple idea that's very hard in pr

To me it read as a survey to understand how to write a fundraising plea. For example, if you have no intent on donating or recommending someone donate then they might ignore your other answers. Given the billions of dollars spent on bankruptcy it doesn't sound nefarious. Yes, there are other problems I'd rather see worked on but if your job is fundraising then it makes sense.

No to the first, yes to the second (at least how I would have handled it). Stupid comments are a good opportunity to bring the scout law alive.

There's a thread about uniforms that ended in the gutter over sex (girls in string bikinis tempting boys) and now coed dens is turning into girls being raped. I guess it must be the fault of all the girls. Or at least we should just blame them. Honestly, can we stop latching on to the least likely scenario that might happen and talk about what has happened? Have coed dens been a problem? If you want to talk about coed troops then what problems have you seen? The biggest problem I've seen is obnoxious boy says stupid things to girl and, rather than an older scout slapping him up side

Just a suggestion, but what might help more is finding someone that understands websites. Maybe someone at roundtable. Maybe your CO. Maybe your council will let you put a couple of pages under their website. Someone in your town knows how to setup a website and host it. Bring them a box of pictures of your scouts doing fun things, pull on their heart, and ask for a donation of their time to help you out. The website itself might be free. A domain name costs money but, for the size of a website you need, it costs nothing to run. You just need someone to help set it up.

It's a great opportunity that will consume a lot of time setting up. It might not be as much cheaper as you think but will provide more opportunity for scouts to lead and have fun. If done right, and the troop wants to do it again, it will be a bit easier the next time. We used to roll our own high adventure trips, and those are less expensive than national's. We did one that was for the entire troop and was a mix of high adventure and summer camp activities and all the scouts could go. It worked really well. But for one guy it was lot of work organizing everything.

"Is there or is there not a uniform standard in Scouts BSA?" Yes, there is. But that question isn't very helpful. A better question might be "what should the response be when a scout doesn't meet the uniform standard." As usual in scouts the answer often depends on why the scout isn't doing what is hoped for. I once had a scout wear intensely bright green pants to a meeting because someone complained that the green pants he previously wore were not "green enough." I suspect the tutu scout was also trying to make a point. While some broken rules require a ton of bricks, the uniform, w

Welcome to the forum. As for your question, my guess is temporary patches, as long as they're temporary can be anything one received that doesn't have another place. So yes, enjoy it.

They get plenty of marketing from professional sports. Fame and money. Granted youth sports is more than that but marketing is what it is. Yes, council focus is misplaced. I compare my council office to the local soccer office and ... ouch. You have a brutal point. For soccer they had one or two people at the office, which was a rented, small store at a strip mall. The head guy was very busy. They have a soccer complex (which is the most time consuming thing they deal with). They managed schedules, coaches that they found, collected money. They had training materials available for

We've had that discussion as well. A constructive discussion needs both good ideas and also the hard realities. The latter is brutal. My council doesn’t have the faintest idea how to market what they have and they at least had a full time marketing person. National is worse off. That leaves everything local. First, the target audience. It's true they don't know much about scouts. They also don't know much about their neighbors or community. So much advertising is being pushed to them the default is to turn it all off. At the same time units are desperate for volunteers, adding more jobs

I understand your frustration. I also really appreciate your honesty and trying to see both the good and bad. A suggestion: let your son decide whether to move. For one, boy led? Second, it seems that in 4 months you've already made a good impression. "Hey! Fun games are a good idea! Maybe that guy has more good ideas." To be honest, meetings at a summer camp is, well, brilliant. Maybe there's a different approach. The CC seems to like your ideas. How about just having a friendly, honest conversation with him or her. The business with fixed blade knives and lengths is just a myth th

Welcome to the forum, @Cavan. I read the entire thread, from the first post, apparently before you were born, to the last, and one possibility is that in 2004 there were rules about what could go on a red jacket. Somewhere in the first handful of posts people seemed fairly sure there was a document describing where patches could go. Those posts also included descriptions of other ways for people to display their patches. That lasted until about 2007. Then there's a long gap until a post in 2019 where the idea that any patches can be placed anywhere on a red jacket (plus more posts on how

@Scoutcrafter, I second @scoutldr's comment. The scouts should have some say in what they're doing. Also, they should be having some fun. So, I'm not sure you're asking the right questions. Does it really matter what adult has the final say if the scouts have no say? That said, you're right that the SM shutting you down is not helping. I'm also not sure what you can do to change that culture. Is it worth looking for a different troop? Are they having fun? What's important to you?

I'm confused. Is it hours or nights of camping? 100 hours of camping at 40 hours/campout isn't very much. But 100 nights is rather respectable. Then again, I'm not too sure what the NOAA program is. To me NOAA refers to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (or something like that).

@CM23,welcome to the forum.

That's also against the rules. Once you're 18 you have to swap the eagle patch for a knot. I gave out a lot of eagle patches that weren't allowed to be worn. I asked that the parents get their son a knot.