MattR

There seems to be a common theme here. Either the training is too onorus or it's a good way to get more people outdoors that have no experience. The BSA training is too short and incomplete but cub scout training is too much. Given that many cub scouters get burned out from too much advancement, repetition, etc, maybe there is room for better training. I'm not sure what it would look like or whether the BSA can deliver but I tend towards the side that says one night in the woods is a good idea for cub leaders.

ItsBrian, I'm of the mind that judging someone's religious practice is problamatic at best for someone your age. Talking about it could be good or bad. Find someone you trust to talk. Just know that many people struggle with religion.

Thanks for sharing.

Must be, we found a food court type restaurant that specializes in octopus.

Hey @@qwazse, are you currently on the southern coast of Spain? If not then we are not one and the same Much philosophy goes here but I'll leave that for another time. This place is an adventure.

Well, it is Friday afternoon at summer camp so people are tired of a week with each other. We don't know what the whole week was like or generally what the relationships are between the various characters. So maybe asking whether it's okay isn't as appropriate as asking whether it's likely and what should happen afterward. I mean, from the face of it it sounds a bit unreasonable but who's always reasonable? Maybe the best scenario is that this is an opportunity for a scout to see a bit of reality after he graduates into the real world.

Agreed. I'm seeing this happen in my own troop right now. Advancement is easy so the entire troop is working on one MB. It doesn't matter that a lot of scouts already have it. It was really easy to pick a MB for a month long theme. It was really easy for the plc to divy up the requirements so each pl does some classroom style explaining. Not sure how fun it will be after a few months. Until the bsa can explain this program in a way that parents can easily catch onto this is what it will be. Btw, the new sm is an eagle scout, so this is not a new problem. Also, this theme came right out of

Bsa needs a message for visitors and a message for current parents and a message for leaders. They are all just more detail of the what and how. Prepared for life is nice but maybe "helping your kids grow up, faster" might hit a nerve. Beyond that there is need for more and more detail of how it works. I think there is a difference with sports since scouts will have more opportunities to make decisions. I still like sports though. They compliment each other.

Hawkwin makes a good point. There's another issue - cost. It's costly to staff shooting and aquatics activities. It's cheap to staff a mb where you can pay a 16 year old less than min wage to stand up and talk. My scouts used to sleep during mb classes to make up for playing hard. Anyway, this problem also needs to be looked at if your council will buy in.

Ask anything you want, just mke sure it's in a foreign language and see how they respond. Ask them where the wc is or what a pancake is. If they have fun with it they're good. Frustrated, not so much. If they start frustrated, you explain what's happening and then they have fun with it, they're also good.

That's the issue that's missing in the poll: not enough moms. It doesn't matter if the units are coed or not. Hopefully I'm wrong but we've had moms that will do some challenging campouts once, likely just to say they could do it, and then they're done with that. The problem with GS is the lack of dads. It's not that all moms don't want to do it but the dads are more likely to want to do the adventurous stuff.

I removed several PORs because I didn't see any responsibility. One scout asked me one time if he could be bugler and I told him I'd give him credit if he could figure out what the responsibility was and how it helped the troop. I suggested he find an adult to help define it. I did the same for librarian. I'm not against those positions but I don't see the need anymore. <Anti Rant on> It's nice to know someone else sees the same thing. <Anti Rang off> This point right here needs to be written large in the SM handbook. It's much easier to teach a different way

Welcome, @@SFTX. Go ahead and just ask what you want to know about. As Yoda said when he was a den leader, do or do not, there is no lurk.

That's rich. Apparently the people of NOW were never girl scouts. It must be awkward when the NOW folks and GSUSA folks get together.

That sure is terrible. Just my guess, but rather than a 1000 ft climb (9.1) he was likely doing 9.2, Backpack, snowshoe, or cross-country ski for at least 4 miles. That's not the issue, though. There were two other "teenagers" with him and I wonder what kind of training they had. We see plenty of merit badge counselors that don't belong at summer camps. Is this what happened?

ItsBrian, bored is good. That means everyone is doing something. That's teamwork. I''m sure you can find something else to work on. Some other way to make the patrols stronger? But getting back to PLs that won't lead. Given that the PLs have likely never experienced good leadership they are likely learning on the job. Something I realized is that it's easier to learn leadership if the rest of the team is willing and able to follow. In other words, they need to understand teamwork. Each scout has a job and does it. The PLs job is not to plan everything, it's to get everyone busy, helping th

I had nothing against the OA. I liked the idea of the OA. However, it struggles. In our case the leadership consists of some rather young scouts that are well intentioned but quiet. And they can't seem to follow through on much of anything. I had to run the OA elections on my own. Whether this is just poor leadership or lack of motivation I don't know. But it was hard for me to encourage my scouts, who aren't much better, to show up. If they had good enthusiastic scouts making things happen then it would have been easy to get some scouts over to chapter meetings. This isn't just the OA, a

They added a FAQ that made them look particularly dumb. Yes, there have been increases an average of once every 5 years. But in this case it's been twice in 7 years and the total has doubled in 5 years? Didn't it used to be $15 five years ago? And yes, soccer costs $400 some place and that doesn't even include uniforms, but guess what, the $33 doesn't include uniforms either, or summer camp, or any camp, or anything within the council. So the $33 national gets just because is suddenly not so far off the $100 the council wants everyone to donate to FOS. For people that don't have much money thi

Cubmom07, first of all, welcome. Secondly, I hate to say this but the reason these kids (sorry, but I won't use the term scouts) "roll their eyes at me and act like they don't hear me every single time" is because there doesn't seem to be a reason why they should. While positive reinforcement and talking to scouts about how they should act scout like is usually a good thing, there are times when they are just figuring out the boundaries. Not the specified boundaries but the real boundaries. If the worst thing that happens is they get a lecture then maybe that's reasonable. I suspect th

Pretty much anything, assuming they have a responsibility. If you really need two buglers then why not. The point is the scout has responsibility and is fulfilling it. BTW, APL is usually not a position that gets credit for rank advancement. But that depends on your troop.

I never would have thought it was social media as the cause, or even smart phones, but the results I can see. Lots of scouts no longer get driving licenses when they can. But the bigger problem from the scouting perspective is that kids have less experience making decisions (good or bad), or knowing how to deal with problems, especially people problems. That's making it harder to develop leadership.and that's hurting the program. Maybe helicopter parents are only part of the problem, we also have helicopter kids. They don't have experience being on their own so they are really uncomfortabl

Interesting. It's signed off by the SM at the SMC for us. One more thing we likely do wrong. But I don't agree with the idea that a scout only has to not lie for 6 months out of a much longer period to qualify for "scout spirit". It's fairly clear to me that judging character is hard to do. My suggestion to any SM is make it consistent, be humble, and stick with your principles. No two SMs will look at the same situation and come up with the exact same opinion of what should be done. That doesn't mean everyone should just give up and say character doesn't count. You do your best and call i

Mashmaster, this type of thing just plain sucks. You try and do the right thing and then someone dumps on you. You sound like you're not happy with it and that's a sign that you're doing the right thing. My guess is you're replaying everything that happened and checking your actions. Honestly, you are the keeper of the flame. You set the standard and everyone else will appreciate it and respect you for doing it. I'm just going to blather on so you know you aren't alone. I had to talk to parents a couple of times (reference: weed at summer camp) and once or twice we'd get into this disc

Mashmaster, I've been there and I don't miss it. I noticed that the pain a scout has to go through has nothing to do with the crime or the punishment. It has everything to do with whether or not the parent agrees with you. If a parent backs you up then the scout will accept whatever you have to say. Usually more parents agree with the SM than don't. Good luck and take care. You're doing the right thing.

No, I'm wondering how to make this simpler for the adults. I'm done being SM, I don't need this anymore. I used to do exactly what you're talking about. Try and figure out each kid. Be persistent. Keep trying. It takes a lot of time. So every time I hear that it depends on the scouts or that it's more art than science, I see more kids quit scouting because typical adults can't or won't put the time into developing leadership in this way. That's why it's so much easier for the adults to just take over. That's the crux of the problem that the BSA is having. If the BSA wants to increase membe