MattR

1. What reasons has your troop sent a Scout home? Bringing marijuana to camp. In my troop if a scout doesn't obey his PL, it goes to the SPL. If still no result it goes to the SM. The SM decides if the PL and SPL honestly tried. If so, the boy goes home. I've never actually had to take a scout home but I did go looking for my keys one time before everyone decided this was really about to happen. Once the problem scout understands the process he starts listening to the scouts a lot like he listens to the adults. That's the real issue here: Do the scouts respect the scout leadership. 2.

Agreed. Lot's of tea leaves. Is that a local view or national? My guess is there are arguments going on within all of these pie slices, to use a phrase from some other thread I probably couldn't find again.

I can see the tendency in all of these slices to push more religion and drop the outdoors or leadership. People with hammers look for nails, and when everyone is of the same religion that hammer is going to get bigger. Something else will have to give. All the church youth groups I hear about from my scouts are run very differently than a troop. They are all about entertaining the kids while teaching them religion and the focus of boy scouts is more on kids making decisions, where religion is less important. Who is going to be the keeper of the Green Bar Bill flame? I can guarantee you

If you truly value your blood pressure then go spend some time with your scouts. It put me in a much better mood. Edit: reiterate: nobody here is bothering me, I just see so much potential for scouting and the idea of siloning scouts into LDS scouts, Catholic scouts, TL, ad nauseam is just defeating some of the great aspects of scouts.

If you look at the page referenced, there are about 75,000 units chartered by religious organizations, about 10,000 from civic organizations, and about 7,000 related to schools. 92k units by my rough adding. There are 38,000 LDS units but they seem to have small units (11 kids per unit).

I hope I don't become the "kumbaya guy" but it was too hot outside for a bike ride and I'd rather do this than deal with the 3 parents pissed off at me because their children (one of whom decided to poop in the woods at summer camp) are too perfect for my crude methods. An entire patrol went off the rails and I required all the parents and the scouts to join me in a discussion about the Scout Law. This seemed like an opportunity for the boys to learn more about the ideals of scouting. A number of parents didn't like that approach. So here we are, trying to live up to the same ideals. Maybe

I've never seen a problem with legit counselors. Having fun at camp is what this is all about. One problem is there are fewer activities to do outside of merit badges, especially for older scouts. The result of this is fewer scouts are going to summer camp so they don't seem to be having the fun they used to. I'm hoping that if the scouts had to do all the reqs they'd have more fun. Maybe that's a bad assumption. I had a scout work at camp and he asked me to sign off on the merit badges he taught (camping, pioneering, and something else). I said great, it will be really easy for you to com

Actually, in this case what I propose (or meant to propose) would work well. Go to the classes and learn what you can, but don't waste time discussing and sleeping. If the counselor is a good one like you had, do the fun stuff and get the most out of it. All that's really needed for fishing is catch 2 fish, release one, eat the other. The rest is discuss and explain. Having that signed off at home by a real counselor would be quick and easy and the scout would have had a great experience trying the different areas and casts. I don't know that I've ever seen a camp in my area where all

I agree with this and I also agree with the idea that the BOR doesn't need any testing. But there needs to be testing somewhere, assuming the scouts truly own the calendar or else those activities will not be put on the calendar. If nobody in the PLC knows how to start a fire then who's going to suggest making an event that requires starting a fire? Teenagers don't like to admit they don't know something. I've tried cajoling scouts into these activities and it just doesn't happen. I finally told the scouts they need a challenge at every campout, there will be testing at every rank (but not BOR

Terry, I agree with 99% of what you said and what you and the moderators do for this forum and scouting. Without the help I've found on this forum I would have given up on scouting a long time ago - and I'm not done needing help. I also agree that acting scout like is paramount. That said, I'd like to hold your feet to the flame to a much higher standard than anyone else here is held to. Most likely I just want to make a point and picking on you is the best chance I have to do that. Please let me explain. Your post comment "(or start one of your own!)" reflects what was said a lot to those peo

So how do we, at the troop level, deemphasize poorly done MBs and emphasize just having fun doing cool stuff at camp? I can't audit 30 merit badges to see how they're done. I'd rather just say no MBs will be signed off from camp but learn what you can, we will accept anything you made (including score sheets and photos) but the rest will have to be done at home with a counselor on your own time. Rather than sit through a boring fishing MB class the scouts can just go to the lake, fish, take a picture, and go do something else fun. I would much rather see summer camp have a lot more "just c

There are a few threads about merit badges and how poorly they are being done. Everyone is impatient and the results are just a waste of time, which everyone is trying to minimize, so more impatience. However, I like the idea of merit badges when they're done right. I can't fix National but here's an idea I can control. At summer camp scouts can only take merit badges that are staffed by people that could be a counselor outside of camp. Or, we will only accept blue cards from someone that's a counselor, so the scouts will have to redo other merit badges when they get back home. Likely that

But the older boy is still in Boy Scouts? Doesn't sound that bad. I took off two years from cub scouts with my son because the kids in his den were making it miserable for everyone else. I never did cub scouts as a kid, so I didn't mind. If the older boy is having fun then the younger will likely want to join a troop when he's old enough.

I've never seen it happen before, so yes, I'd be weary if a random adult with no scouting experience and no child in the troop showed up asking to help. It's not that I'd say no but I would be weary. I'm also a bit weary of adults from other troops that walk right in to my troop site and start working with scouts. There are plenty of scouters I don't want around my scouts and this has nothing to do with sexuality or YP. I have adults in my own troop that I do not want as ASMs because they just don't get it. They are more than welcome on campouts but I do keep an invisible leash on them. There

I was at summer camp with my troop two weeks ago and the staff was commenting on how cool it was that my patrols had their own cook sites. I looked around and my troop was the only one where the patrols cooked on their own. The Council exec came to talk at a SM dinner thing and he asked what the adults needed more of. I said I wanted more patrol activities. Cooking and cleaning were the only patrol activity and it's hard, I wanted some fun things for the scouts to enjoy together and MB time was preventing that. Give us the canoes outside of class, organized geo cache, at least give us some map

Maybe it's just me but most of the requirements for Eagle have little to do with character development. The BSA seems to believe that they can quantify what Eagle means in terms of a set of check boxes. But character is really something that is difficult to quantify and scoutmasters are not trusted to make those decisions. I think that's the real problem. The changes in requirements are just busy work. The real issue is developing scoutmasters the BSA can trust and letting them do their job. Where have I heard this before? Train them, trust them, and let them be? I'm in full violation by t

What I would do: make sure the boy is still enjoying scouts (high adventure trips) If not, forget it, it's over. If so, he is going through what we call slacker phase. If he wants it he will complete it. Nearly all do. What I would not do: bribe him (car for Eagle) or threaten him (no license until Eagle) or incessantly nag him about how wonderful Eagle is. I've had a number of scouts in slacker phase turn it around just about when the parents gave up and left them alone.

I ask scouts why they like our troop. Some responses: We do a lot. Events have fun or challenge but there is time to just hang out. We have scouts that are Den Chiefs and the webelos really liked them. We run the haunted house for the Council every year and some Webs join us just for that. We have a lot of high adventure trips. This boy led thing is new but they like it and they like their patrols. Scouts feel welcome when they visit. Every campout other than klondike, high adventure, and summer camp is open to cub scouts and their parents (we ignore rules about requirements for cub scouts at

My guess is it's more a case of adult's wishful thinking. These two have a hammer and they're looking for nails. These people think that because scouts like to text each other they will like to look stuff up online. So they will add lots of requirements to look stuff up and discuss what they've found. But scouts would rather shoot, paddle, ride, and do stuff with their hands. The scouts will ignore whatever these people come up with.

I'm curious if the "don't wear deet" idea is based on science or just a hunch. I've used that stuff for years and never had a problem with bears. All of a sudden we get a camp guy saying don't put any on after 5pm. If a bear can smell a candy wrapper from a mile away -- I've seen those claims -- he can probably figure out what you ate from what your sweat smells like and can also smell the deet you put on that morning. And no deodorant in the world will cover it up. Dogs learn the scent of other dogs so they can identify each other. Smell is more important than sight. A bear has a much better

Waterplant, first of all welcome. Good for you for trying to improve your troop. You mention three problems, swearing, too many adults, and one scout that doesn't obey anyone but mom and dad. I see a bigger question. Who solves the problems in your troop, the scouts or the adults? Who deals with a scout that doesn't listen to anyone? Adults or scouts? One thing you should be doing in scouts is learning how to deal with problems like these and do it in a scout like manner. There should be a time to bring these problems up in the PLC and talk about them. Do you have that time? Does your PL

I agree with everything people have said here - what a mess, good for you for wanting to improve things, good for your mom for backing you up, but you're up against a real problem and reason and listening to scouts doesn't look like it's in the cards. JoeBob makes a very good point. Maybe nobody will listen to one scout leaving on his own, but if a group all show the adults their transfer apps at the same time it might have a bigger impact and maybe some adults that should say something will start stepping up. I'd add one thing to what JoeBob says. Rather than 5 or 6 friends, how about asking

I've given my spl authority to send scouts home. It's never been used but the scouts know he has it. The spl is less likely to send a scout home than I am so it works. One problem it solves is the scouts that are perfect when adults are around but quite selfish when adults are not around. We ask that the pl try to solve the problem but if that doesn't work the spl is brought in. If it still doesn't work and it comes to me then I just have to find a ride home. A couple of times it has come to me and I start looking for keys when all of a sudden everyone starts cooperating. The goal of all this

One side effect of letting scouts form their own patrols is all of those that cause trouble are in the same patrol in my troop. I told them they have the most energy and will either be the best patrol or will fight with each other and be miserable. The difference being whether they follow the Oath and Law. I told them it's their choice but if they keep acting like cub scouts I will treat them like cub scouts. I went into the details of what that meant and got their attention. I also asked them to explain the humor of some off color jokes in detail. Talk about embarrassing a kid ("so the mayonn

It's ironic that Gates said the BSA needs to act quickly in order to control the discussion and yet they are quickly losing control within their own ranks.