MattR

I've used this as much as possible. But it's not fool proof, in an odd way. I had a training campout and I packed it really tight, just to add a time stress. I told the scouts if they didn't work together they'd fail. They had fun and at the end I asked them what they thought of the training and they said it was great. The thing they liked the most was how much time they had to do things. Say what? Turns out they took my advice to heart and worked so well together that everything went much more smoothly than normal. So, did it work when they got back to their patrols? They certainly are much b

Charity goes to the poor, whether that be money or ability or some other hardship. Giving charity to those that aren't poor, in whatever definition of poor being used, is just being foolish. There are plenty of other people that do need that help. In your example the old lady presumably is not very mobile and helping her with the newspaper or her groceries is a good deed. You say it's not about money for this lady, which means it's probably more about community and interacting with someone that doesn't get out very often. That's the poverty in this case, a poor social network. So the kid that

Maybe you're misreading what I meant to say. We were free labor for a HOA with million dollar homes. They could afford to pay someone to pick up their garbage.

We wouldn't be allowed to do regular duties. We do seek out projects. We do a bunch of annual projects. We give hours for all of these and that's the score. Assuming the pancake supper (shouldn't that be a breakfast?) is a fundraiser, we never give service hours for fundraisers, mainly because the scouts profit from it. We once had a really nice HOA convince someone in our troop to organize cleaning up garbage around their ponds. It started off that they were going to make a donation to our troop and then they said it was a really nice service project. We kept our word and did the job

I remember running around for smoke shifters and sky hooks. I tried to restart it and got a "that's hazing" lecture. Everyone is my troop would like to keep it going, though. We sat down at one point and talked about the rules of when to let the scouts in on the deal.

Do this at Berkeley and the camp fires would blend in with the burning cars. (Sorry, tasteless, but...) I could see it being a fun change, once every few years. Cardboard canoes are also a lot of fun.

Yes. Maybe a 3 month long course would do it. And the flip side is if the course doesn't send something home with the scouts then the adults don't know how to emphasize what was taught. So I like the idea of a course just for teaching the adults patrol method. There's another issue here. Today's scouts have much less experience at dealing with each other than scouts did 40 years ago. They don't have any experience at dealing with people problems because they aren't allowed to deal with people problems. The default behavior is to just ignore any difficulty and hope it goes away on its own.

Maybe if your trees look like grass, and you rub it like an elk. I've never heard an entomologist say that ticks jump out of trees. Ticks do not jump or fly. Most of their pray is about 18" off the ground so they stay around there. Ticks are in grass and once they get on you they walk upwards till they find a good place to bite. Lots of ticks like scalps.

That sounds like a hoot. Please let us know if it's a good read when you're done.

"You can't always get what you want But if you try sometimes you just might find You get what you need." Keith Richards & Mick Jagger I agree that ironically kids are less social with all the social software tools out there. While they might like teamwork less than before, companies are desperate for people that can work in groups. Even software, the quintessential nerd activity, requires a lot of teamwork these days. I guess all this applies to families as well. So the need is there. But your point is well taken, scouts have fewer chances to learn how to interact with other peop

I'd really like to see the type of challenge you describe for klondike and camporees as well. Get everyone excited about it. The district has tried a few times and the response is not so great. Some scouts are all in for competition but some just don't like it. Part of that is that some kids are good at some things and not good at others. I'd like to see ideas for patrol competitions that require all sorts of abilities. Does anyone know of resources for that?

I remember when band was about music. This brings up an important point. Most extracurricular activities are based on a competitive model. Scouting is not competitive. It's challenging and it's about community. It takes time to develop. There are no seasons. There is no major event that everything is culminating towards - after which point everything starts over. Scouts doesn't start over. We don't want patrols reformed every year. It takes time to create that identity or that bond that brings scouts together, where they want to be together. It's not like a sport where x number of players

That could be true. I was just thinking of the scouts that can get Eagle by 18, they could be good leaders. And not adult leaders. Look at the UK model and it seems that they go to 21 and it's those older scouts that do a lot with the younger scouts. Yes, college and life does make scouts move but that could be a nice way to mix up some experience. The adults would have to get used to it but that's okay.

This is just my opinion, but Venturing seems to be suffering from the same problems that Boy Scouts has, only it's worse. Namely, scout leadership is even more important in venturing, because there's no advancement carrot such as Eagle, and yet the venturing scouts I've seen have no more leadership skills than the boy scouts. It takes a certain amount of self motivation to make things happen. Without it scouts just sit and wait for someone else to do do it. The parents aren't around in venturing to run things. That's why I think fixing venturing will fix boy scouts. This has little to do with

Jobs can be an issue but rarely. The fumes thing is a farce. The points above about how other activities have strict attendance is very true in my area. It's why we've made attendance requirements for ranks above and beyond. But more likely it's the impact of puberty, and I don't mean girls. There seems to be a gap between childhood and adulthood, roughly 14- to 16++, where boys' brains are just mush. My theory is they're starting to see the size of the world and trying to figure out how they fit in. Consequently they struggle making decisions and commitments. If I can get them to stay unt

Just for arguments sake, let's assume TAHAWK's better product is created. Strong focus on the boy led, patrol method, outdoor skills, where adults are just trying to work themselves out of a job by developing great youth. In this scenario what would the impact be of adding girls to the boy program? The boys own this. Some would like having girls around and some wouldn't. And just the same, some girls would like having boys around and some wouldn't. Sounds like a good problem not to be wasted on adults. Most of my concerns with girls in the program are mitigated by having a strong youth led

Can't say, but here's the scoutstuff.org phone number: 1-800-323-0736

@@John the Xcar, your complaint that there's too much focus on advancement, that advancement has become the aim of scouting, annoys a lot of people not in LDS units as well. Very well said. I don't know if this is possible but if the LDS church drops boy scouts is there anything preventing you from starting a regular troop?

Good points, Skip. But I'd gauge where the scouts are before talking about it. A lot of kids are not affected by the 24hr news cycle because they're more interested in playing video games. At the same time, if a kid is in shock about it then telling them to ignore it is not going to help. You have to accept where they're at. So maybe "go enjoy a rare day of sunshine, but if you're really upset by this then let's talk." Every problem is an opportunity so who knows, maybe a discussion about the scout law might also help. When 9/11 happened I was a den leader and what we mostly did was ju

Yes. The MB counselor decides when it's done. And that means nobody else needs to see a worksheet, or that one is required. Just a hunch, but does this troop not use blue cards and uses a worksheet instead? The blue cards are the correct way to do it but ... if there's room for a counselor's signature on the worksheet then maybe your troop twists the rules just a bit for their own convenience. Sounds silly to me but there are much worse things.

I wonder what "politically conservative" means. Is it pressure to conform? If that's the case then Japan and Sweden are much more conservative than the US. Is it religious participation? If so, look at Africa or India or most of South America, they are much more devout. Or maybe conservative is that people stay in their social band. When was it that the UK finally got rid of the hereditary members in the House of Lords? How about acceptance of immigrants? I saw some political ads in Berlin last year that were rather blunt in their condemnation of Turks. This is what, 2 or 3 generations after t

Here's a shorter, slightly different version: decide what the maximum amount of describe, discuss, and explain should be for any rank or MB, and then stick to it. Hint #1, it should be a lot less than what it is now. Hint #2: kids like to do. It seems that each of T21 class have had an added page of requirements, not to mention Scout rank, without any increase in hands on skills. MBs are worse. It's a giant buzz kill. And, to get back to the OP, it makes summer camp boring.

It looks to me like there are two issues. One is some of the scouts are very competitive while others are not. The other is that some scouts, in this case the competitive ones, are very aggressive and assertive. First, the competitive and non competitive scouts. I would not try to make the competitive scouts less so, or the non competitive scouts more so. That's who they are. Some people would rather challenge themselves than compete with other people. There are different ways that people motivate themselves. By the time they're 16 you'll likely be happy with any way at all to motivate the

How about having each executive spend time with a randomly selected unit? I'm not sure it would help for the same reason you mention that going to summer camp wouldn't work. I'm not sure how many of these executives understand how the program works. I looked at the BSA "Game Plan for 2016." http://slideplayer.com/slide/10781510/The emphasis is: Membership, people that work at national, IT infrastructure, finances, and high adventure bases. There is nothing about helping units, or improving the program. The closest they have is membership numbers and high adventure bases. They don't see a p

If you're stuck in the woods on a snowmobile: Pull the spark plug, still connected to cable, and crank the engine. You'll get a spark. Even if the tank ran dry there's enough gas left that you can pull some out and start a fire. I've known a few people to use this. I make my scouts start all their fires with a hot spark, just to appreciate a match. It also forces them to set the wood up right. The best I've had luck with is drier lint and vaseline, but the vaseline needs to soak into the lint.