MattR

"By following the Scout Law, you follow the Law of God also." I'd say that's a good lesson for the entire world. Especially the part in Reverent about respecting the religious beliefs of others. The 12th point is a paradox and that needs to come out in front. My religion or beliefs are absolute and none other can be correct, and at the same time I have to accept that different people have different beliefs that work for them. The only thing preventing people to handle that paradox is religious pride. So if the humanists/druids/wickans/whatever say their beliefs encourage the first 11

Yeah, he's trained. His problem is he doesn't listen to anything he doesn't want to hear. Kind of like my dog. And yes, there have been many many many discussions. I always get worried when I see a scout with hundreds of sticky notes in his scout handbook. But usually they go camping a lot so it's all good. This scout does not. Dad bribes him a considerable amount for each rank he gets, so Eagle is just a bunch of check boxes in the way. If it weren't such a thorn in my side it would be sad, so it's a sad thorn in my side. Nothing a beer can't fix.

I just had a parent tell me he or his wife had to go on every campout to ensure their son had a good time, and for his safety. I said fine, but they were to stay away from his patrol the whole weekend. Last week it was mom's turn and she decided not to go. I have about 60 scouts in my troop and I'd say four parents are high maintenance. Of those two help out a lot, so I can deal with them. The other two dads are ASMs. One might mellow out. That leaves me with one parent I just want to go away. So really, this isn't horrible.

I agree that the PL handbook doesn't need more, for the boys. If anything it needs less. But the OP was about using it for the adults.

Remove the bling. Make them for the boys, not the adults. Shirt cost is $10. There's a summer and winter weight/material. It needs a US flag, the world crest, and something that says BSA. There is no need for troop or council patches. No pockets, epaulets or collar. Patrol, rank, POR, and OA are pins that go on one, removable thing that easily attaches. Keep the necker. Zippy cargo pants are fine, but make them simpler and cheaper. Kids grow and get dirty, adapt.

​I vote because I have a duty to my country. I'm a scoutmaster because I believe in the Scout Oath and Law. Neither my country nor the BSA is perfect. Of course, neither is my family but I love them anyway. It has nothing to do with rose colored glasses or false pride. It has to do with believing in something and working to improve it. After that I can only have a beer and not worry about it.

Barry, I'll bite. I agree that the PL and SPL handbooks contain all the parts (and also that the SM handbook is a real snorer). But it didn't help me move my troop forward. What I mean is, in hindsight, it's all there, but before hand I couldn't see how to get there. It's very vague. I didn't see the end result. Here's one example. The biggest complaint I heard from PLs for a long time was that they ask their patrol to do something and it just doesn't happen. They have to constantly nag and heard cats. Bad teamwork. So, we created duty rosters and flag competitions and team building exerc

If I vote twice can I complain twice as much?

SR540Beaver, I went to WB and it followed the national syllabus, they even told me they couldn't change anything. They illustrated patrol method in that there were patrols. They talked about leadership for adults, but not the problems associated with teaching leadership to scouts. The focus was not on patrol method. It was on adult leadership. There was little mention of working with scouts. There was a section on mentoring vs coaching but that was it. If the focus was on patrol method then there are lots of important details they didn't mention. They did not talk about separation between

I think there are two issues. The first is the SM and the second is nobody understands the big picture. ​The good about the SM: Happy guy. I suspect the scouts like him, at least when he's not signing off reqs. A lot of outdoor skills. He expects the scouts to lead so he won't get in the way when they actually do. The bad: You can't make suggestions. Disorganized. No vision. Is it fair to say he has more confidence than skill and that's why he won't listen to anyone? Another guess is he thinks scouts should just man up and figure it out? That would fit with the comments that he has

Please help me with this line: " They want to be better. The SM is a terrific outdoorsman that lives and breathes the BSA program, but he's mostly gotten frustrated with him. Last campout he and I were up until all hours of the night discussing what to do and brainstorming. When I left the campout, I posted here, looking for advice from people here. " Are you saying that the CC and you stayed up all night trying to figure out what to do about the SM? If so, that is the crux of the problem. If the SM is willing to change then there's the answer. If not, there's another answer. I think y

Good for you, Alex. There's a lot to read here but the missing ingredient seems to be adults that understand how this works. Without that there seems to be no trust between the scouts and the adults. Everyone seems frustrated and nobody knows what to do. The scouts are flailing or not showing up. The adults are setting very high standards but are not showing the scouts how to get there. Your idea of getting them some success is great. How about coming up with a plan for the next 3 months and running it like an annual planning session? Here's one approach. Find a good chunk of a day, proba

I use the wool blanket to cover the entire floor and I put my foam pad on top of that. The pad only covers half the floor.I'm not sure why but it helps a lot. It blocks the cold from coming up around the foam pad. It may only help within a few inches of the floor but that's pretty much where I am all night.

I'm going with Stosh on this one. I don't care how warm my bag is, and I have plenty of hair on my head, if my neck and head are exposed, I'm cold. As for yellow nalgenes I learned a long time ago that if it takes 20 minutes to get dressed, while you have to pee, it's better to just have an extra water bottle. BTW, I know it was a cold night when piss freezes On our cold campouts we tell scouts to bring extra long underwear and to put a dry pair on before they go to bed and to wear those the next day. Even if they didn't sweat during the day there is still moisture in their clothing. On

I just did an Eagle SMC and the scout told me a story: He was hiking with his college friends a month ago (yes, he's in college and not yet 18) one of them has anemia and passed out. All the other friends started panicking and the scout said, hold on, let's lay him down, get his feet over his head, treat him for shock, and keep him warm. The other boy woke up about 15 seconds later, sipped water, and did fine. All the other friends asked where the scout had learned these things and he told them. They were amazed. The point being that people that actually know boy scouts tend to have a good per

I don't know that I've ever been camping at 64 degrees. I would sleep on top in my boxers at that temp. But it's all relative. Don't add layers inside the sleeping bag as your body will not warm up the bag and you'll end up with cold toes. Put the layers on the outside. Our winter campouts are in the 0 to -20 range and I use a second bag as a blanket. One problem with many bags if you sleep on your side is you get tight spots around your hips and shoulders, thus compressing the insulation to the point of not doing much good. A second loose layer solves that problem. Insulation underneath is al

We do a mix. Typically they have something organized in the morning and in the afternoon it's whatever fits within the buddy system. They like that format. It seems that an organized event just gets them going. We had a series of campouts where it was just show up and see what happens and they mostly did play card games. And the participation started dropping. I don't know if this was the right way to handle it but I reminded the PLC that they always mention having fun and adventure as things they like about scouts, so where is it? It wasn't too hard to get them to commit to having some f

Make two versions, one for cub scouts and one for boy scouts. Have each tailored for teaching adults how to make the best program possible. That would mean finding people to write the syllabus that have actually turned a pack or troop around. Let it be about the boys, not generic corporate stuff.

Of course they don't understand. If they did they would have pushed me into doing this a long time ago. But to get to the real point, no, I haven't done a good job explaining it. It's been a slow process figuring this out. I finally have the adults not making decisions, which is good, but now we're seeing how poorly the problem solving skills are of the scouts. They don't talk, they stew. I spend a lot of time talking to the scouts to get them to identify their own problems. Now we have to scale that up without having the adults gum up the works. I talked today with my CC and we think th

That's cool Sentinel. Good luck. I wish you were in my troop. I'm in the middle of this transition and there seems to be a lot of issues that a user's manual would help with. Let's share notes. There are some parents that are angry with me and some confused scouts. There are also some scouts that are really jumping into this. I'm not sure about whether any parents are happy with me but I think I'm getting there.

While a newbie category might help, shouldn't we play nice in all the categories? Stosh has a good point, just look at the number of posts. It might help if people point these things out when they see someone with a lot of experience beating on a newbie. In the case of this thread I'm not sure if anything would have helped, but we should still play nice. You have to remember that people are thrown into this with little help from anyone. My early experience with this forum was not good, so I left it for a few years. But eventually I came back and found some good ideas. Now I know how to we

I'm not sure what this argument is about, but it's all relative. I got an irate email today that included the line "this boy led troop idea is fine, but ..." and it went on to describe how brilliant their child is and how one of the parents need to be on every campout to ensure their son has an exciting, safe, time. And they want to find out who is organizing the events to make sure it's done right. And, they never volunteer. Teaching the adults seems to be a lot harder than teaching the scouts.

Our last camporee was with a different district, just to mix things up, and they had an obligatory chapel service after flags Saturday night. It would have been a perfect time for a havdalah ceremony (marks the end of shabbat) but instead we got a full on fire-and-brimstone-you're-all-going-to-hell sermon. It was bad for the Christian kids. For me, I had to keep telling myself don't answer that question, just don't do it. I finally dug into the Scout Law and courteously walked out. But back to the original post. The requirement changes will not change the behavior of what I saw. They just

I could see it. Once upon a time we were looking for a CO and one church likes the scouts so much they wanted us, but they really didn't have room. Some troop are more independent from the CO than others and in that case the CO is only providing space. So why not.

A 40 degree bag is not warm enough for Philmont. It can get down to freezing. It depends on the time of year as well. June in the Rockies is still frost point season. I got a fantastic deal on a down Marmot 28 degree bag and it's great for summer backpacking where I live. It's a quarter the size of synthetic bags and I'm into light weight. People used to be proud to carry 60 pounds and I now push for 30 for 4 days. I can hike further and feel better with a lighter pack and that means everything has to be smaller. Granted, the scouts can't afford down but they manage considering they make