MattR

I have a scout that can't get Eagle. He's one of the best scouts I've ever had. More of an Eagle than most I've seen. He was a great SPL and everyone looked up to him. But, he didn't pay attention to the clock and did his Life board of review late. Part of this was due to the fact that he was putting so much time into the troop, While he is ultimately responsible, I also let him down. I think of all the scouts we've nagged to get things done on time, that don't come close to the caliber of this scout, and nobody paid attention because they just assumed he was taking care of everything. I can d

The only way to get to the bottom of this great mystery is over a beer. We will also have plenty of leftover bird, so come on over.

So two half hitches is still the same as a clove hitch? But by reversing the second hitch, in either case, you're saying it's a better knot as it won't come loose. You just need a new name for reversing the second hitch. By the powers vested in me, I now pronounce this new knot the JobBob Hitch. I agree that a clove hitch won't hold a canoe. Been there done that. While looking at images for this great debate I found the spar hitch, rolling hitch, and constrictor hitch, http://scoutpioneering.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/hitches1.jpg, all of which seem like they'd hold the canoe better. The

Busted JoeBob, that second image is wrong. For a double half hitch the two ends of the rope go out opposite directions from each other (if that makes any sense at all) and not out the same side as shown in the photo. Anyway, google double half hitch and you won't see another photo like the one from bollweeviltroop99. It is a clove hitch on a rope. I haven't a clue if it makes a difference, though.

The requirements for Eagle are busy work. That's not to say that all the Eagle scouts are junior paper pushers, but quite a few are. If what we preach is outdoor skills and service then make those the requirements for Eagle. I really like the "take your patrol on a backpacking trip" for First Class. That's a great test of skill. Service hours for Star and Life are a joke. 21 merit badges where most seem to be doable in 3 hours could be completely revamped. I'd rather see 10 merit badges that take 50 hours each. Scouts would really know first aid if they spent 50 hours on it. There really

BD, you'll never know if he felt he "got caught", but my guess is, if he felt he got caught he'd be angry with you. Since he was almost in tears, he probably knows he did something wrong.

Fred says: "Personally, I'm glad my troop does not have your attendance requirement. It's forces the older boys choose between scouting and other activities. I'm afraid at 14 / 15 years old, many will choose the other activities and it's the beginning of the end of their scouting career. It also puts the focus on the wrong place. Scouting is about character and advancement is not gate keeping." A lot of adults said we'd have a bunch of scouts quit if I put in an attendance requirement, but nobody else wanted to be SM so I got my way. A very small number of scouts did quit but most of them d

Scout food is about $10. If it's a district event that's another $8-10 (patch and a potty). The troop pays for gas to whomever tows the trailer. If we're in a cabin that would be another $2-3 per person but the troop usually covers that. Adults pay $15 for food but eat well enough just to make the kids jealous. We did Iron Chef at a camporee. It was fun. The adults put together ramen noodles, peanut butter, soy sauce, Shiracha, and cooked chicken. That was good.

I find the field uniform impractical in the field. In the summer it's way too warm. In the winter it's a poor layer and you'd never see it. It works in the fall and we really don't get Spring so much as winter or summer. So, I call it a dress uniform. I really like the idea of a uniform, and my troop has to travel in them, but I'd like to see a change. Well, the pants and necker are good, I guess I just don't like the shirt. Who needs epaulets in the outdoors? Who needs troop numbers on a shirt, or a council patch? Military field uniforms all have velcro unit and rank strips and it seems reall

jblake, I was in college, we wanted to celebrate, so someone said, "let's make some sort of flambe thing." All we had was 151Rum. Plenty of adventure in a kitchen.

If it were me sitting down with him I'd make a small change. Before I'd tell him he won't receive the badge, and he knows he did something wrong, I'd ask him what he thinks the right thing to do is. If he says he doesn't deserve the badge then he gets it, I'm not the bad guy, and it's a good lesson in the end. He may also whine, in which case I'd continue with your plan.

I created campout attendance requirements. It makes it so much easier to have the discussion Eagledad mentions. What I'm learning is the clearer the expectations the easier it is for the boys to grasp them and harder for them to fudge them. The SPL or ASPL has to be on every campout baring an act of God. Same for PL and APL of each patrol. The PL is expected to go on most of the campouts (yes, that's fuzzy for a reason). My PLC just had to deal with a PL that hasn't been on a campout with his patrol since he became a patrol leader 4 months ago. The expectations above triggered a discussio

Thanks Kudu, nice read and answer. It's interesting that BP put an emphasis on the spiritual and there are so many people that are looking more for the spiritual. The Pew survey in another thread shows that. Maybe the BSA has an opportunity here.

The ladder idea is good in that it can help the troop see where it is and figure out how to move forward. Tampa makes a good point in that changing too much at once will cause so much failure that scouts will walk. And that's why adults jump in and rescue the scouts. "They aren't advancing, they don't have paper towels, I'll just fix the problem for them." Then we're back to square one. Maybe rather than fix the problem the adults should just note the problem and talk to the PLC. I'm going to take my set of ladders and give it to the SPL and ask him to define the responsibilities of the s

So I think what you're saying, or maybe what I want to hear, is that at the pinnacle of scout leadership, the SM is coaching and asking questions and only very rarely needs to make a decision. This seems very dependent on good scouts that want to do a good job. I talked to a few PLs last night and started asking them why we do things the way we do (why elections every 6 mo, why adults collecting permission slips, etc) and a lot of light bulbs turned on. I asked them could the scouts handle these things and how would they do it differently. That was a good discussion. I looked closer a

There's no doubt these guys are idiots and they are lying through their teeth to rationalize what they did. At the same time the death threats and the media attention is solely because they are associated with the Boy Scouts. I've been to this park and it's just a giant play ground. The kids absolutely love playing there and it shows. There are paths worn everywhere. People carve their names into the sandstone. There is not much of nature left to enjoy. The idea that these yokels destroyed some pristine natural area is a farce.

Well, it's 100 years old, but a good place to start. If I strip out the legalese and write it in a more current style I come up with: The purpose is for boys to be skilled in the outdoors, benevolent, responsible, courageous, honorable, and patriotic. ​That seems a lot more succinct than Reinforce Ethical Standards. I'm not sure the kids will think much of it. Sports is about winning and winning strikes a chord within a boy. Maybe honor and courage can take the place of winning.

I looked at the ladder thing and it brings up some questions. For the top level it says the adults won't step in unless it's a safety issue. When it comes to bad decisions that's fine as long the the result of the bad decision is timely. Forget food? Hunger. But what about decisions that aren't very timely. Let's say the scouts decide no new Webelos this year? Or maybe a decision just goes against the grain of scouting, such as not camping anymore, or not helping the younger scouts, or the flag ceremonies have become a joke. Or maybe just a PL being a butt. What's the feedback that addresses t

Stosh and Barry, you're both making some great points. Being able to gauge, even if it's subjective, how boy-led a troop is is a great idea. Barry is right that it has to account for the age and maturity of the scouts. Everyone seems to think boy led is a binary value and everyone says yep, we're boy led. Rather, wouldn't it be great to have some categories and how to evaluate them? It would be a great tool for improving a troop, both scouts and adults. Rather than numbers why not just grades? A - we're out of a job, hooray! B - We're proud of our boys. C - Needs a lot of coaching. D - D

BD, and others, the answer was buried in there under consequences. We had a problem with patrols not doing flags at meetings. So, I talked to the SPL about what a good consequence would be and we came up with the entire patrol, during the game, will instead practice their flag ceremony and figure out how to not miss their responsibility next time. Once they're done with that and they talk it over with the SPL, they can join the game. So, the other scouts are playing games and these guys are having a discussion about responsibility. Great motivation, and the scouts were in on deciding the conse

I don't know about percentages but I've recently realized that the things that prevent boys from making decisions are lack of maturity, lack of trust between scouts and adults, and fuzzy boundaries between the adult and scout responsibilities. Immature boys just don't make decisions and a lack of trust kills confidence. Fuzzy responsibilities encourages boys to defer to adults and for adults to step in. Making a short, clear list of responsibilities (as well as consequences for not meeting their responsibilities) makes it easier to pull back the adults and for the boys to know it's their probl

We get close to 200 trees and, I believe, over $10/tree, so a little over $2k. If you'd like, I can get you exact numbers. KDD is right, you want to check things out. You also want to do this in neighborhoods where people own their houses. We do a mix of neighborhoods, some nice, some not. We live in a town of 150,000 so we don't get the big city attitude. The idea that someone would limit scouts from selling popcorn if they aren't from your area is, honestly, embarrassing. I'm sure there are people that rip us off. There are also people that really like Boy Scouts. Maybe we're lucky and live

A few more questions. 1) I'm not sure you really answered the previous question. How do service projects fit in with the outdoor program? You said they're important, but how do they complement learning outdoor skills, which is really a selfish thing when you get right down to it. I'm not asking because I'm a butt, I'm getting somewhere with this. 2) If service hours are not important and "doing" is the best way to learn a skill, then how does the SM encourage a scout to do the right thing? Does the troop just plan a number of service projects and the expectation is the scout will show up to

Comparing a German Gymnasium program (a college track program) to a US high school is comparing apples and oranges. The Gymnasium picks the students that are allowed whereas a US high school takes everyone, irrespective of ability or disability. Consequently you get back what you put into the US schools. For kids that want a good education and are motivated, they can take IB and AP classes and their education is excellent (and will easily get you into European universities). Kids in the US can also mix and match subjects as kids move from teacher to teacher whereas everywhere else teachers mov

Kudu, I have a question for you. How do service projects fit in with the outdoor program? Since you'd like the focus of scouting to be outdoor skills (as would I), is there a need for service projects? My view is that the outdoors develops confidence and doing service develops compassion, two very useful characteristics.