MattR

Welcome to the forum, @SubSM. I have an eagle scout from my troop that is currently on a sub. Nobody, and I mean nobody, saw that coming. He was a great scout but wasn't exactly interested in rules and regs. I have talked to him since and let's just say he really grew up.

The best scoutmaster is the one that does a great job of motivating your kid. And yet kids are different. When I was a scout I would have told you I wanted the laid back SM, but I also know in hindsight that once in a while I needed my butt kicked. My best lessons were when an adult challenged me just the right amount. Sometimes that was more than just a simple question. Lao Tzu also said: "Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt." I mean, he did write a book called The Art of War. Not exactly scout stuff . What we really need is

I never see more than about 1 in 3 or 4 families really get involved and it's getting worse. So expecting all 5 families to help out is a bit impractical. Using the boys troop might not be ideal but if it' a way to get more girls involved then I think it's worth it. Five girls might look like enough but I think it needs to be much more. Two patrols at a minimum. Three would be better. So, twenty scouts. As for web 3, I think teamwork is a more important skill to learn up front. As others have said, start with an adult as PL, show them the process you want them to follow for planning and p

I just got back from a trek run by the summer camp we were at. It wasn't so much cooking our food (more like rehydrating) but it was a challenge that we all shared. In that respect it was similar to patrol cooking. Selling this idea of shared challenge seems to be harder now than years past. The response from the scouts was great, though. This was one of the best trips I've been on as the mix of scouts was about as ideal as one could hope for. Everyone was positive even though there was some suffering. (We even got a few frost points!) The teamwork was incredible and so the leadership req

So Paige could get eagle by not doing much more than asking for it? She could squeeze in just before Sydney. Zing! Such poetic justice. But Paige likely is a bit more humble and probably doesn't care. More poetry. To each his, or her, own.

@SSScout: silly rabbit, God is everywhere, as is your Faith and Chaplaincy forum

I had a scout bring marijuana to summer camp. His tent was inspected after another scout said he smelled it. It was the right thing to do but that's an extreme case. For medicines and cell phones being found I agree that it should have been clearly explained ahead of time, as none of the scouts were intending to do anything wrong. Even if it wasn't explained it would have been better to just explain it that night and give everyone the option to make things right. I'm a bit surprised the council doesn't collect prescription medicines. At the same time, telling a scout that he can't take his ove

Now I have to ask scouter terry for a groan emoji.

I'm going backpacking next week with my troop. There is so much snow in the mountains that we need to bring snow shoes, and warmer clothing, and a big pack. Frost points the end of June, just what I want. Anyway, I went and borrowed a big pack. I'm thinking I'm getting too old for this. New thought: Now I'm more like the younger scouts on the hike - not quite sure if I'm going to make it. Reminds me of my first backpacking trips. I have a smaller pack that works just fine for a weekend (without snow) and a recent external frame pack that is super comfortable but doesn't hold much more tha

I don't think anxiety is the same as home sickness. I tend to agree with Ian, this is beyond our abilities. As they tell us in first aid training, don't try and solve problems above one's training. That doesn't mean just bring him home and give up. The goal is still to get him comfortable camping. You just have to find plan B.

Someone recently mentioned VOA. I always thought it was Voice Of America but apparently it also has to do with the OA.

I agree with those that say don't beat yourself over this, @CarlosD. First of all, while the scout may have gone to the emergency room, it wasn't an emergency. The ER is where you go when you're in so much pain you can't fill out the insurance info, or you might die if left un attended. A swollen knee is not that. Urgent care would have been fine. Urgent care is also the place where broken arms are put in a cast. Would you be upset over a broken arm on a campout? For your first campout as SM, yeah, I guess. But you'll get used to it. I had a troop guide sledding with a new scout and he fi

Welcome to the forum, @CarrieScouter.

I suspect that you can add a tag when you create a thread but that option runs out after some amount if time, just like how long you can edit a post. The reason for these limitations is to prevent spammers from posting something respectable, waiting until after the moderators decide it's not spam, and then going back and adding links to, porn sites, ads, and all sorts of other garbage we see. Anyway, I think moderators can add tags at any time. Send us a PM and we can probably help you. I added the tag "tag test" to this thread.

I think it was from a recommendation on this forum that I took my troop to a patrol cooking summer camp. I was impressed with the results. Cooking for a whole week helps the scouts get in a groove. It really did help teamwork. They did like the food better as well. And yet, my troop doesn't do patrol cooking at summer camp anymore. I think the biggest problem was the lack of support from the camps we went to. There was a stretch of 6 or 7 years where we tried every other year and it was always a disaster because the camps didn't understand what the patrols needed. Honestly, what do you do when

I think you're looking at my comments a bit differently than I intended. What I meant was that in order to participate with my troop I needed all those skills. My tent had ropes that required whipping and tying knots. We had no stoves, and hence had to build fires at least twice per campout. We had no patrol box so all the requirements for cooking, including make a list of required utensils, made sense because the PL just handed out utensils to each patrol member. I did have a stalking and tracking requirement. It did turn out to be useful when playing some games. I see what you're say

I can promise you that BSA is not trying to use 4 to start all girl's troops. If they want 4 digits give them 4: 0422. This is all based on one person at council saying something. Kind of like the one person in another thread saying the insurance won't cover an activity, or that there's a limit on blade lengths. People pass on rumors. If you want 422 then tell them so and if they complain ask them to show you the official documentation that states all girl's troops will begin with a 4. 3 digits is hard enough to sew on a sleeve. Anyway, have fun with it.

If the rules for voting went back to the way they were it would have little impact on how many are nominated from my troop. It's been a long time since we've had more than 3 people nominated and that was when we had 70 in the troop. My troop usually nominates the best scouts. The scouts that screwed around a lot as younger scouts typically have a lot of work to do to fix the name they made for themselves. Most don't make it no matter how hard they try and the ones that do really are the better scouts. So I'm not sure it's about making it harder to get in. I remember when my SM encouraged

Welcome to the forum, @towheadedviking.

Well, that is different from my experience. We have 3 service weekends and that's it for the year. I'd understand the frustration if it were half the summer weekends. I don't think much of any time is allocated to improving leadership. Tell me about that, even if it's an old program. It sounds great.

That's nonsense. I talked to the insurance company that provided our insurance a long time ago and if there were scouts at an event then it was covered. No permissions nor uniforms needed. Besides, nobody's likely to get hurt anyway. Sounds more like an ego issue to me.

I think that's over simplifying things. The work the OA does is what it has always done. And yet nobody thought of the OA as just free labor when I was a scout. One thing that changed is there are fewer people volunteering. If the same amount of work needs to be done by fewer people then I can see the perception that it's just about labor. My council is also being squeezed by fewer volunteers and less donations. The solution is adapt to that by scaling back but the council is just expecting more money from families.

How do you teach that skill? The part about caring. Teaching or leadership, attitude is probably more important than technique.

I watched the video. It would have fit in with the national meeting better had Sally really been George C Scott: "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country...." But more seriously, all the scams the cyber chip is trying to prevent is just a subset of something much bigger these days. We live in the information age and so we need to know how to deal with untrustworthy information. Whether it be youth protection issues or scams involving bit coins, stolen passwords, and pornography or your credit card, this is the dark side of society now. We used to call it street smarts because t

Centrifugal force. Mostly from the weight of the arm itself.