MattR

@jjlash, I had the same experience. The people I met were very enthusiastic and that rubbed off. The rest was just okay. I wish I had had a better mentor for picking my ticket. I was just guessing. BTW, I deleted your duplicate post.

If anyone asked me for help right now in starting a troop, and I had the time and energy, I absolutely would because I could do it the way I wanted. There would be no baggage to deal with. I'd explain to the adults how it is going to be and they'd vote on whether I should continue. I'd have a list of job descriptions that they'd have to fill to get things going. I'd come up with a list of games that involved teaching outdoor skills for the scouts to understand what meetings and campouts looked like. The scouts would pick a calendar. As for leadership development every single scout would take leadership training. The first thing would be teamwork training. Next would be patrol training. Next would be QM, Grub Master, and How to Teach Scout Skills training. Next would be patrol leader training. Eventually there would be SPL training. I'd make leadership training look similar to rank advancement. Focus hard on an aspect and get some bling when mastery is shown. One of the big challenges for boys and girls is getting them to take a chance. Scouting doesn't work without it. It used to be that boys were quite good and just jumped in and made do. Anymore it's not so much. That's a challenge that any new troop has to deal with. I would be very upfront with scouts about this issue. I would have them pick their own quarterly challenges. These aren't just goals of tasks to complete, but something out of their comfort zone. A real challenge that they'd never done before. It could just be go camping without mom and dad or it could be backpack up a 1000' hill, or pass the rifle qualifying requirement. Bring back the sense of adventure. Everyone has a challenge and everyone else knows it, encourages it, celebrates when it's met.

Welcome to the forum, @malraux

I wouldn't know. Google is my friend. I just read the one paragraph. But thank you for the explanation. I do enjoy this type of thing. I haven't asked for it. And in all honesty I'd be a bit afraid of one. It might sound odd because I really do enjoy reading bits of wisdom from people much wiser than I. But I'm not sure if it would work. I'm a bit cynical but how many scouters really do respect the religious beliefs of other people? The only way it would work would require everyone to accept any and all beliefs of everyone. Pagans, Baptists, Wiccans, atheists, Hassidic Jews, .... Without that anyone that started drawing lines as to what a legitimate religion was would just create a storm. It has to come from the point that each other person's belief is right for them. I've had plenty of people insult my religious beliefs and some were scouters, so I'm not sure it would work. You're welcome to contradict my skepticism.

Birthday cake.

@David CO and @The Latin Scot, I've sent you both a PM.

Good. Competition will float all the boats. But it's rich that they say they're experts at it. If so, why do they need North Face to help?

Well, isn't this kind of like squirt guns? People will ignore it. It's sad that it's gotten to this point, though. Two can play this game. I mean, if I camp at the trail head then I'm "there." Did you recently walk away? If you'd like to share, is this from frustration or it's just time (i.e., Mrs EagleDad said so)?

And you need to be able to add small numbers. Thanks for the correction.

Welcome to the forum @yknot.

Hi @Jacob9, welcome to the forum. To answer your question, you need a minimum of 14 months to complete Star, Life, and Eagle (for the position of responsibility requirements). If your age, to the day, plus 14 months is less than 18 years then you have time. So, when were you born?

My son is a scouting youth. Does this mean I can't have a beer while eating dinner with him? Okay, that's a bit far fetched. How about this scenario. Two families, both in scouts, get together for a BBQ. Again, there's beer. Is this a violation? Or a parent offers to pick up the scout son from soccer practice of another parent that is sick. I know what the likely scenario is they're after. A troop wants to do something that's not in the G2SS and so calls it a non scouting event. But that's not what the new rule says.

Well, I promise not to shoot the messenger. Thanks.

Really? So no going to a bar anymore? I would have lost all of my ASMs. Is this rule documented somewhere?

I would not have a problem with that at all. I also know that if I talked to my DE (he is one of the good ones) he'd encourage it. The problem, as I see it, has two parts. The first is a really vague description of what is allowed. The second is that parents interpret it to mean the scouts can't ever be on their own. I do understand where it's coming from. Vague used to be fine because all kids did things on their own. And I have no doubt that there were times when they got into trouble. No doubt because I got into trouble. The glue that can hold things together is good training. Again, none of this is mentioned. So it can still work. <moderator hat> The only solution is to get more adults reading this forum. </moderator hat>

And the above continues with ... This world is a form; our bodies are forms; and no visible acts of devotion can be without forms. But yet the less form in religion the better, since God is a Spirit; for the more mental our worship, the more adequate to the nature of God; the more silent, the more suitable to the language of a Spirit. Please explain. I can figure out something for most of it but the term "of one religion" is stumping me. Could one mean any, or a particular one? Of course, I could have the whole thing wrong. One thing great about doing this from passages originally written in Hebrew is that the translations are always a guess. So in the case of one religion it could also be one's religion and completely change the meaning.

Our troop has a very simple ceremony when a scout completes a rank. Someone shouts "KA-CHING!" and everyone claps and congratulates the scout. It can be right in the middle of a meeting. Right after an election the new scouts are announced. At the COH they get their patches. For merit badges we don't do anything before the COH. So, the scout is recognized verbally. Now, for the Scout rank, I tried to have patches available to hand out right away. Unfortunately there are other processes that make it harder than it sounds.

I really enjoyed doing that as a SM. It made a simple hike into an adventure. The scouts got serious. They knew it was important just from all the questions they got. What bothers me so much, and is probably where @Oldscout448 is coming from, is that I just couldn't get this idea across to the other adults. They can cook on their own but that's not an adventure.

Along with that smart phone is 200 emails a day. Sometimes smart phones are just black holes for data. Trust me, I have been there before and I understand your frustration. I really hate to say it, but maybe this is the issue? Is this about communication or buy in? I think it's a great idea but what do the scouts think about it? My guess is they have no idea. Just a thought but how much preparation was there for this event? Do the scouts have any idea how challenging it is to cook that much food and serve everyone quickly? Did you ask the scouts to take ownership of say, cooking the pancakes and bacon, or serving? I was always more interested by a challenge. If you look at this event as an opportunity for scouts to do something new and get them involved in the preparation then I think the communication will take care of itself. Granted, this takes a lot more time and preparation on your part.

Thanks. I'll try to have fun with it. If When I get grumpy, send me a PM. BTW, @desertrat77, is off at camp this week.

We also have the added $200/scout fee that is replacing FOS. As for all that money on the campouts, if the scout is going on every campout then he's having a ton of fun and it's not an issue. If he's typical he's only going on half the campouts, so cut that number in half. On the other hand, there are high adventure trips. I always pushed for a less expensive trip. It used to be $300 but now it's more like $500. I had a lot of scouts tell me how much they appreciated that. @David CO, makes a point in that some sports are not absurdly expensive. Also, some scouts really do need to be thrifty. I always assumed there were scouts that needed to raise all their funds. Part of this discussion should also be about fund raising. Scouting supports that better than other activities. Cutting lawns and raking leaves are also good.

Welcome to the forum, @Koolio. This is an old thread and I didn't go back and try to re follow it. One thing to note is both Hedgehog and Krampus haven't been heard from in a while. We consider this a virtual campfire, so pull up a virtual chair and introduce yourself. It might be easier if you go to the new to the forum section and start a new thread. Thanks, Matt

Oh, we did have rough equality. Maybe my scouts are just spoiled with sugar at home. What turned out being better was just bragging rights. It's not that they were doing end zone dances or anything but we'd just give a big cheer to the patrol that won and that was a bigger dopamine fix than the sugar. We had an axe competition at our last camporee. All they got was a cheap ribbon but wow did they get into it. Sudden death in an axe competition is quite tense. Not only that but just the term sudden death in an axe competition got them excited. But back to patrol motivation for jte, maybe I should just chuck the idea and figure out more games that involve potential dismemberment.

I don't know. All those new parents that are just trying to do a good job for their kids likely don't know what they don't know. Especially in cub scouts. Who is telling them what is expected? In my case the cub master and CC were in the same boat I was, they didn't have the experience of boy scouts to know where cubs was going. I'm not surprised that parents don't take the training. They're busy. They learn from what they see in their pack. So if the whole pack is doing something wrong then nobody knows. We did have a commissioner and she was really enthusiastic but she couldn't convey that any change was needed. After having been a SM I have an idea of what they should be working on. To be honest, patrol flag and yell is the easiest part of what they need. One of the bigger shocks is that the parents have stepped way back and scouts will need to start dealing with their own issues. I'm not sure how to teach this in a pack. A troop guide would probably be the best thing I can think of. I had always wanted to try to get a webelos den to visit a troop once a month and be more integrated but that never happened. Again, not enough time.

We did that for a while. The first time we did it it was huge. After 3 or 4 times it was: okay sure. After a few more times it was: before we do this, do you have dark chocolate? It was kind of an addiction, except I heard no reports of them stealing from their parents for the next fix.