MattR

5 minutes ago, ParkMan said:

If we want to respect that each Scout's journey is different and that they are welcome to some moments of personal pride, I've got no problem.  Just seems that we as Scouters ought to be consistent.

I've been consistent. I haven't responded to either thread. Personally, I'd rather see the MB patches be small enough that 21 can fit on a uniform and then there's no need for a sash. But it is what it is and isn't worth the argument. Same applies to the other thread.

Ours is $200/scout. I've been told that I could also charge $40-$60 per person for a camporee and the extra would go to the council. I not so politely said no.

The problem in our council is that those in charge really have no idea how to run an organization. Business 101: There's no point in having a budget if you can't track it. In other words, they have no idea where they're spending money. They have staff making North of $85k a year that do nothing. Lot's of money is getting sucked out of camps, the real profit centers, to pay for these people. It used to be that lots of people donated money. That's over and nobody knows how to deal with it. So they're raising fees. Our DE's regularly don't get paid at the end of the year. A few years ago they took all new DE's and showed them how to get food stamps..

The underlying issue is the BSA pays really poorly to new hires at the lowest level and then only promotes from within. So, DE's are mostly those that couldn't find a job elsewhere. Granted, there are a few that really believe in scouting and are doing it even though they're not making much but the majority that I see have little to no experience in scouting or how to run an organization. That's the pool of expertise they have.

My apologies to anyone that works for the BSA that I've offended. Maybe other councils do a better job. I suspect they just live closer to more companies that donate more.

17 hours ago, Kudu said:

of kids encouraged by your parents to seek adventure on your own?

The pros of this is anything that you want to do you'll get the backing of the parents. This is huge in today's world. I'd take a "troop" of these kids in a heartbeat.

17 hours ago, Kudu said:

a "Troop," if you are a Lone Patrol of kids

This is not very well defined. Due to your Free Range Kids activity, I'll assume this has nothing to do with the BSA (although I wish this mindset would infect the BSA) and is really about offering some scouty things to the FRK community.

The pros are the kids want to, and have to, take ownership. Since they've been encouraged to do this from a young age they will be more accepting of it. This is really big. A con is those children that come in to this late. The kid that has been taught to cross busy streets when they were 7 knows how to take care of him/herself, but might not know how to deal with the new kid that's not paying attention to the walk lights. Ranks in the BSA used to handle this. A First Class scout could take care of himself in the outdoors. Not so much now. So you'll have to figure this out.

If this indeed is more based on FRK then one pro is that advancement really is just a method. If a kid wants to advance then they figure out how to do that. It's not front and center.

Adult association is both a pro and a con in scouts. Teaching the youth the skills they need to safely engage in the adventures they want is a big pro. Reinforcing scout ideals is also important. Helping the scouts come up with ideas for adventure is also beneficial. Beyond that it's likely a con.

Institutional knowledge (outdoor skills, regular outings) is created with the typical troop's existing calendars.  Without that there can be a loss of knowledge to the youth. There might be a lot less service, but there could be more if the youth enjoyed it. Things like camporees and merit badge fairs would likely fade away. (mostly a pro) Summer camp would be about fun. (huge pro). The outdoors might get a lot less interest but maybe the youth would find something else, such as music or a sport. That could drive some youth out. So, you can't do what the GSUSA did and drop the outdoors. Camping is still fun.

Sounds interesting. Keep us informed.

Scout 1). How about starting with a duty roster? Everyone needs a job so she has to decide. She should also not give herself a job unless she's short scouts. It seems to me that scouts have a lot of trouble delegating because they don't want to rock the boat. We're all friends and nobody tells anyone what to do so I can't mess that up because then I won't have friends. Talk to her about servant leadership. It's not the evil boss. There's a time to play and a time to get work done. One of her jobs is to help her patrol get the work done faster so they can play more. She's not telling others what to do so much as helping them get back to having fun.

Scout 2). He did briefly pull his weight, so take that as a win even if he's looking to you for approval. Do that a couple of times and then work with his PL to take over your job. It sounds like just maybe this scout knows he's not making friends but doesn't understand how this works. As ridiculous as that sounds think of it from his view. He may never have pulled his weight before. He may only have people tell him how much he's screwed up. Some kids just don't know.

I was a scout from roughly 71 to late 76. I vaguely remember the no camping required. We went anyway.

While Hillcourt was pulled out of retirement to fix things he really needed to fix the culture at national because we seem to be close to no camping required again.

I mean, how can you be a First Class scout with only 3 campouts? Maybe by the third one I could set my tent up correctly. First Class? not a chance.

We have a designated ASM that does all the SM's kids SM stuff. None of our ASM's sign off anything on their kid's advancement unless it's a really unusual MB.

Sorry to see you go. I just ran a camporee that was all patrol competition. That and making a fool of myself and the scouts had fun. So, it's not all bad everywhere.

Anyway, take care.

First of all, congratulations to the young man that did all that work. It's impressive. Second, given that it's a subjective call on whether a project is adequate, why is there no feedback or other way to do a check? Sounds contrary to everything else in the G2A.

I'd rather see pictures of mangled pineapple upside down cake. Of course, chocolate will also work. 

1 hour ago, Jameson76 said:

Anchoring is one of the Pioneering MB requirements

This is true, but the BSA doesn't recognize MB's as sufficient training for adults. See First Aid, Life Saving, and any shooting MB for examples. Maybe this is a different topic. Anyway, I'd rather see training and let us make towers than just cut all the fun out of pioneering.

1 hour ago, Jameson76 said:

Hardest part is getting good spars, keeping them dry, and moving them to make a good tower.

Dry isn't a hard part where I live. Good requires lodge pole pine. Anything else would require a really large saw for ripping boards from lumber.

I still remember making a tower when I was a scout. That was the greatest fun. As an adult we made an hour glass tower at a summer camp and had it done by Tuesday. Then the scouts just used it as a jungle gym the rest of the week. Scouts talked about that for several years.

This is where I wish they just had more training or certification rather than blanket rules. I get that towers might be tippy, so teach people the proper way to anchor them. We made a monkey bridge and had to use a sledge hammer with steal spikes (the wood ones shattered) because the ground was so hard. But pioneering projects are fun. Make your own playground.

Climbing on rocks is the same thing. Scouts like going up high things, so teach them how to do it safely.

I'd say it's a [derogatory name] if advancement is the sole aim. When my troop had 70-ish scouts we'd have 6-8 get eagle a year. We also had two high adventure trips and summer camp every year because the scouts wanted to do all that. If anything, I added requirements (mainly, scouts would have to know all the skills they had ever been signed off on before any rank SMC). It was never a pass fail test. It was show me or let's learn it again. Another thing I noticed was that nearly all the scouts would get Life somewhere between 14 and 16 and then decide they had plenty of time. At which point they would go into what one scout called slacker phase. They'd still have fun camping. Then one day they'd wake up and say "AHHH, I'm running out of time!" I honestly tried to get them to set some reasonable goals but it was akin to squeezing water from a rock. Just about every scout that stuck around till they were 18 got eagle. That was completely self motivated on their part. The thought process was something like "I've spent all this time doing scouts, I should at least have eagle." I once tried to figure out our percentage of scouts that got eagle and of the scouts that joined about a third stuck around and got eagle.

Okay, maybe it's time to let this thread end. We are far from the OT and much further from agreement.

Marijuana.

But I'm sure that was not the intent of this question.

On 5/3/2019 at 8:21 PM, Jameson76 said:

When there are no phones, the scouts congregate more and socialize more.  Better attended card games and cornhole tournaments

We don't have cell phone coverage at any of our camps so we naturally see more low tech games. It's interesting to see how some scouts just adapt to it easily and some really struggle. Most scouts have a lot of fun with something simple like a stream or a patch of mud.

25 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

I wonder if there is more to the story?

Trail looks to be only less than 2 miles from 1 parking area and less than 3 miles from another.  Not discounting dehydration that can come on quickly, 

Two miles might not sound like much but it looks like it goes up around 1000 feet. That, and if they left late, and they didn't have enough water, and they weren't in shape, and they weren't paying attention ... tragedy.

One of the biggest challenges is knowing to say it's time to turn around. I went hiking with my daughter and her boyfriend. He did not want to look bad but he was obviously suffering altitude sickness. Everyone else was willing to just let him tough it out. I was the old man and the only one willing to say nope, we'll try again some other day.

1 minute ago, mrkstvns said:

but y'all friends across the pond can't really be trusted to do barbecue.

As long as nobody is hurt, we trust and encourage all scouts to try something new.

I hate to tell you this but some of the best barbecue I've ever had was in Argentina. The only spice they used was salt. What made it so good was the fact that the meat was all grass fed and very slowly cooked. Every house in Argentina has a very simple brick barbecue in the back yard that consists of a U shaped brick wall on a concrete slab. That's it. They put a fire at the base in a corner, stretch the meat across an antenna looking thing, and just lean it over the coals. For several hours they drink beer and rotate the meat every hour. That and some salads and it was incredibly tasty.

What the scouts would cook over a fire and what I would cook over a fire, on July 4th, are very different things.

Barbecue. (Where are all the people from Texas?) Burgers with good stuff mixed into the meat will work but marinated something is my favorite. The least expensive is probably chicken thighs. They taste good and have enough fat in them that they're a little more forgiving if they get too much heat.

@Randymck55, this is why I said it's going to be longer than a brochure. This is a really big topic and this forum has talked, and argued, about it for a long time. It gets down to the very core of what scouts is about. If you could make a good, engaging presentation about this that could run anywhere from 30 minutes at a round table to a weekend at a council camp and covered boy led and patrol method and all the methods and how they impact older scout interest it would be a fantastic resource that would fill in a lot of holes in the BSA training material.

3 hours ago, PinkPajamas said:

Hmmm, A little longer.
Hmmm, A little longer,
Here with you.

My wife was a girl scout as well as a counselor. She still has a fat 3 ring binder of songs and the guitar. 

It's sad to see the politics. That movie that @RememberSchiff posted from the 20s, if nothing else, was incredibly positive about developing independent, confident, helpful girls. I wish someone would replicate that message for today's youth. I think it would be a hit for parents.

Welcome to the forum.

I have a hunch this is a lot more than a pamphlet. Older scouts leave because scouts no longer gives them what they need. Challenge, growth, meaning, to name just a few.

Thanks, @malraux. I found page 38. Talk about vague. I highlighted a couple of great quotes. "this may mean [something] should change." It would be clearer if they just said "we might just get really upset, but we don't know yet." Then there is: "[This] creates risks to Girl Scouts." But possibly not girl scouts. Remember when the GSUSA said the BSA wouldn't have a problem if they just did a better job of giving their scouts what they wanted? Karma sucks. I suppose everyone is getting what they deserve. Based on what I've learned about the hiring model in the BSA neither organization understands how to run a large volunteer organization.

Girl Scout Participation in Activities with Other Scouting

Organizations. The decision by Boy Scouts of America (BSA) to open the Boy Scout program to girls has fundamentally altered the nature of the relationship between BSA and Girl Scouts nationally and locally. Local relationships between BSA and Girl Scout councils that have led to partnerships and joint activities in the past will now expose our membership enrollment and brand to risks. This may mean that the relationship between a council and its BSA counterpart should fundamentally change.

Marketplace Confusion. To protect the integrity of the Girl Scout brand and reinforce our programming as unique, girl only, and best in class, we must endure that we take care that the activities in which girls participate are exclusive to the Girl Scout program, are safe and girl led, and are conducted under the appropriate supervision of Girl Scouts. Participation of Girl Scouts in activities with other scouting organizations creates risks to Girl Scouts. Confusion is in the marketplace regarding the relationship between Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts by the expansion of Boy Scouts to include girls in their programs. Girl Scout participation in Boy Scout activities will increase that confusion and will contribute to the misperception that Girl Scouts has merged, or is somehow interchangeable, with Boy Scouts.

Brand. Associating with organizations who do not have similar brand history, program portfolio, and track record for safety dilutes and tarnishes our brand, and allows Boy Scouts to leverage the reputation of Girl Scouts for their own purposes.

This was not a GSUSA decision. Just that of some local council (or whatever the equivalent is).

That said, the local GSUSA entity is likely about to lose some girl scouts.

I think you just need to talk to someone a bit more practical. As a scout, in 1975, I was an ordeal member of the OA. When my son, in about 2004, was an ordeal candidate I decided to get my brotherhood. There were no written records. I sent the council email just to make sure and they said "you're kidding, right? If you say you did your ordeal then you did your ordeal."

My guess is the chain of command in a volunteer organization is a bit lax compared to what you might be used to in the army. BTW, I was in the Transatlantic Council and so most of the volunteers were in the army, and they still didn't worry about some lost documentation.