MattR

Nobody will, especially because nobody has heard about this. Of course, few people have heard of scout me in. Just to totally change this thread, how is advertising money spent in the BSA? I never see any ads from the BSA on anything. Does each council have to pay for ads or does national?

I like this. But some nitpicking: Get the scouts trained & Set the scouts loose: Maybe not if you're starting a pack? I'd add: get some expertise to look over your shoulder. In a perfect world this would be a commissioner. This is not a perfect world. It should be someone you respect. The training can't cover everything. Also, for troops, make sure the adults are all on the same page as to what scout led means. There are lots of different opinions. All the people you're recruiting for adult leadership have to be interested in this job and willing to learn.

I don't agree with the idea that $1000/year is still a great deal. It may be a great deal for those kids that are on crazy competitive soccer, or marching band, or mill your own robot parts. The parents of these kids can more easily afford this. But scouting is supposed to be for all kids. In the land of under employed, $1000/year is still a lot of money. Sometimes it has to get worse before it gets better. Maybe it would be better if the BSA just filed chapter 11 now. I'm optimistic enough about scouting that something good will come up from the ashes. Again, the problem isn't scouting.

We rarely go camping where there's potable water. We have the big blue water jugs that hold about 6.5 gallons. On our last campout we brought 9 for about 35 people. We were comfortable. When I asked if I could have 2 jugs for my events I was told no. We had other jugs so I was fine. Anyway, I think 1 gal/person could work for food and drinking, but not enough for cleaning and fires. And that's for very mild weather. I will drink a gallon a day if I'm exercising.

The scouts need to see a problem big enough to out weigh the cost of trying something harder. It's really easy to just stand up and talk. It's also hard for most scouts to try something new. Hence, ruts. This is about motivating teens so I sure don't have a magic recipe. What I used to do was, before planning the year we reviewed the previous year. If the meetings were boring that's where it came up. Then it was easy to talk about making them fun. I had them set goals, like number of "doing" meetings vs "watching" meetings. After that I held them to it and, just as importantly, provided e

The best thing we ever buried in coals as a scout was a Dutch oven with a cake in it. We were so surprised it came out because we went off to play a game and forgot about it. I'm not a fan of eating up to the burnt food. The corn husks make me wonder if there's other food that can be cooked within them, or something similar. Our camps would not be able to support a camporee's worth of scouts cooking over a fire (not enough downed wood). We'd have to move it around various forests. The forest people would probably love us for removing the fuel. In my first troop I don't remember goin

I've never heard of parents asking for lock step advancement. Usually, when we mention that it's up to the scouts to decide their pace, the parents think that's really great. Responsibility! At last! I wonder how much of wanting the cub model is because the parents don't understand the relationship between aims and methods. To be honest, the message the scouts typically get from recognition at COH's is that advancement is what it's all about. The scout and his parents come up to the front, does the whole pin and patch exchange dance, gets photographed, hugs around, everyone applauds. That

I don't know how much the scouts want. It's called a scoutmaster minute for a reason. A really good story teller might be able to stretch that to five minutes. So, if you have a great story with a moral then ask the scouts for a slot in the program.

Sounds like a great idea. I'm also thinking my local camp would be more than happy for a shed to form on camp property . One of our council properties does have a group that just completely ignores the council but does take care of the one property. I have a friend that lives in Barcelona and they have a "cooking shed." Somehow this group got hold of an old restaurant. When they get together they make fantastic meals. Or just really great mixed drinks. I was there one day and although it was all in Spanish they were still giving each other a ton of grief. Sounded fun. We also have a

@mds3d, That's a great idea. We have the scouts material but they had to do the rest themselves. Helping them might get them over the hump. A 2x3 flag also sounds great.Ours are smaller. This is a good place for bling.

A few things not mentioned: put on dry clothes, including long johns, before going to bed (what you wore during the day is already damp), don't wear too much in your bag - it's better to layer on the outside of the bag with a blanket or a second opened bag, wear a hat to bad, eat lots of fat and protein before bed (no sugar). For fun I've seen scouts do a relay race with putting on layers of clothing.

Here's my take on why. Back in the 60s most organizations were very top down. The Japanese took advantage of it using an American's idea, and started making better quality cars and electronics. They were hungry and more amenable to trying something new, like a more bottom up problem solving culture. The US auto industry eventually caught up. The BSA, however, hasn't. They haven't been hungry because there were always people around to make donations. Case in point: the failed idea that one can get eagle without camping. They had to bring Hillcourt out of retirement to fix that mess. There are n

... followed by @Eagledad's description of giving the methods to the scouts and the aims to the adults. I agree with @dkurtenbach that times have changed and everyone is busier. This has a negative impact on scouting and we all know why. From the district view at camporees, most patrols are ad-hoc. So rather than fight it and form huge patrols (which I really don't like) or require participation or going the complete other way and just making ad-hoc patrols the meeting before the campout why not just embrace it and get back to Eagledad's view: The scouts own the patrol method, let th

Sounds fair. I think there's another issue. Where does this drive for efficiency come from? Scouts are busy. Parents are busy. Everyone is trying to cram more into a week. Asking for more volunteer hours is like squeezing water from a rock. Unfortunately, scouting growth is kind of like a good loaf of bread, it takes time to rise. The longer it takes the better it tastes, and using yeast can really wreck it, not to mention make it less nutritious. (Can you tell I'm hungry?) I was surprised the first time a scout told me one of the best things about scouts is you can just hang out wit

Is it about efficiency or just not trusting the scouts? Not trusting them to "do it right," not get in trouble, not get someone hurt or not believing that they can eventually figure it out?

Thanks. My troop pays mine. It's not the $45 so much as the $200 each scout owes our council.

This is what I received from my council: It was $24? So they just about doubled it? Or does "to minimize additional asks for money at recharter" mean it will be more?

I actually did join in 2007 but was quiet for several years in the middle.

HiSounds like a new troop to me! Yes, there are things that could be improved but the real question is does the troop have any process for solving problems? It looks like the SM wanted to control everything and you would like to change how things are done. You also mentioned that the scouts are not happy. That's the most important observation. Here's another view: don't waste this problem by having the adults solve it. What do the scouts want? What do the scouts think went right and wrong? Also, going behind the SM's back is not a long term solution. The ASM's and the SM need to be o

There seems to be two different issues here. One is the quality of the uniform and the other is the quality of how the uniform is used to help with the aims of scouting. It's the same thing with advancement. First, helping with the aims. Both the uniform and advancement have gotten very complex, bloated, full of arcane rules. I'd much rather see simplification of all of it primarily so the scouts can own it and the adults can be gently moved aside. We don't need pages of rules about patch placement. We don't need knots on uniforms. We don't need pages of requirements that involve describ

Interesting discussion. So close to the trees. I mean, here we are trying to motivate our youth to improve their character and we think we have a clue. Who here thinks they know exactly how to motivate any teenager to do anything? Character is hard but maybe just taking out the garbage without being reminded? That should be easy. Or not. We all have ideas but no scientific proof. Bottom line, Mrjeff just joined us, dragged up an old thread and argument from 2014, and we're nowhere closer to an answer. Surprised? Maybe a better discussion is how can we possibly break this pattern? I don't

Irrespective of the MB reqs, no training program that I have seen says no aerobic activity. At the very minimum, high intensity training for short intervals will do the job. Such as those wind sprints. However, the elephant in the room seems to be a teen with visions of grandeur. This is common. I remember wanting to gain weight as well, some 45 years ago because I wanted to play college football. Good thing I didn't put my eggs in that basket. Anyway, it could be your son needs to get his training wisdom from someone with more expertise. As in not the internet and not his friends. A kid

Welcome to the forum @Johnapollo138. Cub scouts is not the goal, scouts is. My son got tired of out of control Cub scouts as well. We took a couple of years off and came back for Webelos and then scouts. It was a great move.

My best advice for you, @The Latin Scot, is to just show up and have fun. But there's a bit more to my advice. If you really want to help you first have to listen and learn. Find out where they are, what their struggles are, how they do things. The only way to do that is to be there. Next, if you want someone to take your advice at all seriously they first need to trust you. Giving advice from the start is not the way to develop trust. I call it making silver bullets. Have some fun with them and really enjoy their company so when the time comes to telling them something they don't want to hear

Well, I'll give them credit for reducing costs. We will have lost something like 40% after all is done in our district over a few years and the council is frozen into inaction.