MattR

The only "structural" thing that I can think of to guarantee a scout an eventually successful BoR, if that's what he really wants, is to remove the age 18 deadline. (Sorry to those of you who are tired of my soap box.)

Why not just extend scouts to 21? A really good 20 year old scout would essentially be an ASM so what's different. They still can't drive scouts around. Scouts would more likely stick around if they're having fun and that could be a welcome change from all us old farts. They'd leave when they're ready. It would reduce the artificial pressure you mention. And there would still be a time limit.

I'm not sure this really helps the original topic because the BSA would never go for it. But it's nice thinking about.

Anyway, your tired old soap box is better than some of the others.

That's wonderful that you want to help out. Thanks for sharing.

I know nothing about the Camp Fire program. Could you describe how it's different from Boy Scouts?

IMHO, district reviewers could do a better up writing on the proposal and adding explicit words about expected leadership and planning.  

 

In addition though, that's what the whole project is about.  It's documented everywhere.  It's documented the scout can strike out on his own AT HIS OWN ADVANCEMENT RISK.  If the scoutmaster failed to know leaderhip is expected, bad on him.  If the district failed to communicate it, bad on them.  But I really find it hard to believe that between the SM, district review and the explicit words written in the Eagle workbook, the scout did not know that significant planning is expected.  It's documented everywhere.  

 

What does happen though is people continually try to find the least, the minimum and how to skirt by.  I've had mothers ask explicitly "what is the minimum to complete it?" 

You do bring up a good point. The BOR is there to ensure the SM did his job. On the other hand, delaying bad news is always frowned upon. You can't wait until the Star BOR to tell a scout he was a lousy PL. So why should the Eagle BOR be different? I guess it's because the district is interested in setting the standard but why do they wait until the BOR to get involved?

This is just proof to me that the new eagle project process has some problems. It doesn't help this scout but I'm glad we tell the scouts that they need to prove they are prepared before we let them start the project.

I reread this thread and I have a slightly different view on this than before. The adults dropped the ball but I'm not sure the adults could ever get this right given the process. As Back Pack said, the process isn't very good.

Tell me if this right: The district can be given a vague plan and they have to decide whether it's a valid project. After that the unit leader and the beneficiary are the only ones that can say whether a project showed leadership. However, the beneficiary likely has no idea what a valid project is and signing off might be the path of least resistance. That leaves the unit leader as the final arbiter.

Do I have this right? I realize I should know this but we do things differently. I won't let a scout start his project until I've seen enough preparation to know that everyone knows what's going on.

Anyway, what this gets down to is whether or not the SM really has the authority to decide what's a valid eagle project. If he does then the BOR should not have any say in this. If he doesn't then there's a problem with the whole process. The district runs the eagle BOR and shouldn't wait until then to say anything. We have had this discussion before and late feedback on whether a scout is showing leadership is not good. The district should decide when the project is done whether it was done right. And yet, the district has little say on the front end.

In the case of this project, apparently there were "suggestions" from the district. What does this mean? If the district is given a vague project is it possible to make anything other than a suggestion? Honestly, why did the district sign off on a project that was nothing more than organizing labor for a turn key project? Or was it a case of the district saying this is a turn key project, that won't fly, and so we suggest you do one of X,Y, or Z. If so, did the SM ever see this, since he's the one that decides if the project was done right? Can the district require enough detail so X, Y, or Z get into the project description? Could they even require that the proposal be rewritten?

This is rough situation. Nobody wins. And you get to be the bad guy.

To be honest, I'd look at the rest of his scouting. If the reason he did such a lousy job was because he is just lazy and everyone cut him slack, then I wouldn't feel bad about rejecting it. If he's a good scout and the adults dropped the ball, then I'd just hold my nose and sign it. And then I'd get the adults together and figure out how to prevent this in the future.

If you decide to reject it then don't feel bad. If he appeals and gets eagle then good for him (or more likely his parents) at least your name isn't on it. You volunteer, you do your best, and that's it. Don't beat yourself up over this.

That's great that you nearly tripled the size of your troop in one day. That's going to make for some changes but it's a high class problem you have.

As others have said, SPL and ASPL is overkill for 11 scouts, you probably don't need either.

You haven't really described the existing patrol. One scout is about to get Eagle and leave. How old is he? Two are young and likely not much different from the 7 that joined. That leaves 2 other scouts? What ages and abilities are they? Patrols form based on personalities. You might not end up with 2 regular patrols. You might end up with 9 newish scouts and 2 others that are the "leadership patrol" that train the patrol.

Talk to the scouts about the issues and let them decide.

Emphasize good rain coats and good foot gear.  Bring extra of both.  Dress warmer than usual, extra layers, heavier jackets --- most people do not realize what it means to be outside for an extended period without the ability to go somewhere warm.

 

I'm a little concerned by what you mean when you "stay away air mats," everybody MUST have a pad between the ground and their sleeping bag, air mattresses work fine for this, if you try to sleep directly on the ground you will be cold.

I think what he means by "stay away air mats" is stay away from cheap, uninsulated air mattresses. A cheap air mattress, with no insulation in it, will let the heat from your body escape out the sides via convection and it will be no warmer than sleeping on the ground. What is needed is something that will keep the air from moving within the pad. Closed cell foam or an air mattress with insulation. I've had plenty of experience with sleeping on bad pads. For scouts, at the temps they're talking about, a fairly inexpensive closed cell foam pad will work fine.

Staying dry is very important. So put on dry clothes before you go to bed. Bring lots of extra clothes, hats, socks, shoes. Once they get wet they won't dry. The places you lose heat the fastest are the head, neck, hands, and feet. So make sure everyone has a hat, some gloves, and boots. Tennis shoes would be bad all day in rain. I'm not sure what your daytime temps are but 50 degrees all day in a wet climate will start sapping energy from cubs. Bring extra stuff that others can borrow. Consider having a gear check.

A positive mental attitude can be encouraged with fun things to do. Have a good program. With cub scouts you may need a lot of activities but if they start having fun on their own then let them go with it.

Food is a fun thing to do. Make sure the food is something everyone enjoys. Meals are a wonderful time to be happy and feel good. This is no time for picky eaters. Hot chocolate is yummy.

Fires are also a good mental motivation. No, you don't want people sitting around them all day but once it starts getting dark, and cold, and wet, a fire is a good thing. Make it even better with a good campfire program. Board games or something they can play in their tents. Not sure if you have a cabin available. My scouts always have cards to play.

Figure out at what point you call it and save it for another day. Know your limit. Given this is the first campout for many scouts/parents, don't be macho.

Hope that helps.

This was posted on our council website a few days ago:

The Boy Scouts of America has notified all councils that, effective April 1, 2017, filing the BSA Tour and Activity Plan for review by council offices will no longer be required.  The purpose of this letter is to inform you of that change to the process for Scouting units planning activities and outings away from their scheduled meeting places, as well as how that affects the chartered organization.

A cross-functional team has completed an evaluation of the BSA’s Tour and Activity Plan, resulting in a recommendation to terminate the plan effective April 1.  This team concluded that terminating the requirement would:

• Eliminate review and processing procedures by the council staff, thereby freeing staff to focus on membership and removing an administrative burden.
• Reduce complexity of planning activities and outings, thereby cutting back on processes and paperwork for unit leaders.
• Increase consistency with the Commitment to Safety, the Guide to Safe Scouting, Risk Assessment Strategy, as well as Camp Standards planning tools.
• Change the conversation, engaging everyone in risk-based planning vs. process.

This change does not remove the need for unit leaders and their chartered organizations to properly plan every aspect of outings, including ensuring that required trained leaders are present at all times during such outings, and the training dependent upon the activities being conducted (e.g., an activity involving water craft will still require leaders to be trained in the Youth Protection Program, Safe Swim Defense, Safety Afloat, Basic First Aid, and CPR).  Similarly, vehicle insurance requirements remain unchanged.

I'm reading a book on Jewish philosophy and the subject of obedience just came up. Such timing. In a nutshell, this thread is old. Very old. There are a lot of stories in the Bible that talk about just this. Obedience is important, as long as the one being obeyed is also obedient to a higher ideal. This is different from many Greek philosophers that said obedience to the state was a given, no matter what the state did. Both sides say obedience is important to develop society. The problem with simple obedience is when society goes off on an unhealthy tangent, such as equal but separate, or tossing all the male babies into the river and keeping the females for slaves.

Rather than replace Obedient with Responsible, just add that the one being obeyed needs to be responsible. I think that's what we probably tell everyone anyway.

The bottom line for the scouts: it's still important for a scout to obey his patrol leader when he's asked to help clean up. You know they're just looking for a loop hole.

... Leadership is hard to define, much less measure.  

So is character, but that's what we're about.

Why not just one scouting program from 11-21 and let the CO have some flexibility to create what they want? Do you want to limit the age above 14 or below 18? Boys only? Girls only? Coed? LDS only? Eagle has to be completed by 18 but if you want to stop at First Class, go for it. All of this micro managing of the program does not help.

Train them, trust them, let them be may just as well apply to the units as it does to scouts.

A troop with 11 - 21 year olds is an intriguing idea. There would have to be adventure. There would have to be strong patrols that do their own thing. Eagle would be less of the focus.

Ah, but Col Flagg, the neanderthals are using more patrol teamwork and leadership skills than the nerds.

Let's face it, troopmaster's a tool. Tools can be abused. Tools can also be useful.

We find it very useful for syncing with the council advancement records and making lists of awards to buy. We used to just have scouts denied ranks because something got lost in the human process. It also feeds our website with roster and email info. Maybe that could be replaced but someone would still need to enter that info somewhere.

I agree that replacing the scouts handbooks is a bad idea. But we don't use it for that. The book is the defining document and the scouts are responsible for updating troopmaster. We have a computer at each meeting so scouts can do that. The scouts use the computer as their backup for when they wash their handbook. We don't credit PORs through troopmaster. We do credit campouts, though. I like that feature for a completely different reason. When a scout is just about to age out I like to talk to them about what they enjoyed. Having that list of campouts and high adventure trips helps bring up good memories.

For some stupid reason we keep track of partial MBs and that is the biggest waste. If we could reliably get blue cards from summer camp or the MB fair then we'd just give the scouts the card and say don't lose it. But we get reports and have to do something with them. Filling out a blue card is harder than the computer.

All that said, I can see how keeping it manual (other than the council/advancement uploads) is a good way to create more responsibility for scouts. That's worth something.

On a few pages of this thread, people would probably call my program "co-ed" -- and I guess it is.

 

Our sibling den evolved into a Girl Scout Troop, which tried to forge it's own identity and collapsed under the crappiness of GSUSA.  At this point, the GS Troop functions without our Pack as a Patrol (or two, depending as size), where they work of GS Advancement during Den Meeting nights and the Pack Activity during Pack Activity nights.

 

We got a lot of amused looks at a district cub event last year where I had two patrols of girl scouts at it.

 

My take on the matter:

Cubs could go entirely co-ed.  The new program is very "boy" oriented but not gendered as strongly as the old one.  The old one I'd make tweaks for a Cub-Girls program, and designate Den's co-ed.

Boy Scouts should not be Co-Ed, but I'd create a middle school Girls program that is similar.  Alternatively I'd permit a CO to charter Male and Female troops, but not co-ed ones.

 

In our neck of the woods, the major Council Events all invite GSUSA units to participate, and some did.  There was huge excitement when a Girl Scout Troop won a "Chief's Choice" gateway competition at Camporee.

 

I'm just not seeing the issue.  I think it's a regional cultural issue, and Councils should have some flexibility.

 

But it does bug me that our Girl Scout "Troop" sends money to GSUSA instead of BSA, and they'd all drop GSUSA in a heart beat.

 

Caveat: my wife is the Girl Scout Leader, our GS Troop was started as an adjunct.

Our units are very religious in nature, with strong gender separation, so I don't see co-ed patrols/dens in our future anyway.

We don't use the LFL backdoor, doesn't seem trustworthy.  Our events are all "family" events and open to the family members of all unit members.  The participating "girl scouts" are almost always siblings of "boy scouts."  In the few cases where they aren't, we signup and train a girl scout dad as an Adult Leader, and they participate as the Adult Leader's family.

 

It works for us.  When our Boy Scouts visit the Pack campsite and discuss pioneering with Daisy/Brownie girl scouts, it's an utter riot.

Alex, long time no see. Welcome back.

Well, then let's keep pushing the boundaries.

The cones are for people in vehicles that can't easily look up. The cone is likely by the wing tip, not the engine.

Please continue with bombing girls scouts, or whatever it was you were talking about before.

Yeah, I remember the popular kids from high school. Half of them are in 12 step recovery programs now. Most of the rest are in marketing. I'm not making this up. I went to my 40th year reunion and I was the only one that had a technical degree. It was a ton of fun though.

There certainly are scouts that are socially awkward. And a lot of them have been asked to lead projects in their school because, as many have told me, they just know how to get things done.

Popularity and leadership have a small overlap. Popularity is often about being selfish and confident. Leadership is often about being selfless and confident.

You guys are sort of wandering off in the weeds. Maybe David's point was that 12 words alone can't teach a scout, or anyone else for that matter, how to be good. Of course, neither can 10, 13, or 613 commandments. If that were the case then the Bible would be a lot shorter.

So, to answer the original topic, I don't have a problem with obedient and it ain't broke. I'd leave it as is.

Wait a minute. I left a week ago after Fred said there was no worry about this scout passing his EBOR. Or did I just say eagle project? Hmmm. Fred, aren't you the one always saying we shouldn't add requirements and such? Isn't that what this is? At least no surprises after the fact, during the SMC? But this is worse.

One thing that should be noted is that the SM can be at the EBOR. He can't say anything unless someone asks him some questions. This is the opportunity to bring up other leadership the scout has done. I'd say talk to the people on the EBOR with the concerns before the fact, make sure the scout knows as well, and be there.

Col Flagg, I agree about the vague hand waving part of signing off on an idea and not better details. Our troop requires a plan with enough detail that if the scout were not there he could give it to someone else and they could do it. This is for the scout's own good. He would never miss his own project but having that detail is a good part of Be Prepared. Especially be prepared for the case where his plan is wrong or something does indeed change. The one that knows the most details about a project will be the best one to adapt to any unforeseen changes, and that should be the scout.

But the point here is that the plan has enough details that there are no surprises, like what this whole thread is.

DO NOT supply login info to the virteq popup.

I am running firefox, cleared my cache, and still get this. I tried it on chrome and there are no issues.

I poked around. Something was hacked. It's not this forum but this forum uses default themes and one of those has been hacked.

Try going to the bottom of the page (this forum) and hit the Change Theme button. You'll get some choices. Pick something else. I tried haze. The display will be strange but then try another page. it all gets back to normal and the silly pop up goes away. At least it did in the other window.

update: the default theme is bulletin. That one seems to have the problems. I changed it to ip board and that's okay. All the others seem to be okay.

another update: Other sites using this sw are having this problem. I found this (for Terry):

The site skin has:

1. http://virteq.com/profile_picture.png

Buried all over the place as a branding of some sort.  Their site is whacked, now asking for authorization to access it, so when the URL is called, you get the authentication dialog.

You need to strip that out of all of the CSS to make the dialog disappear, or do a local DNS redirect to dead-end it someplace.

I removed the offending code.  Tested on Edge and do not see the popup anymore.

The code was a Javascript for embedding the skin creator's logo and name (for credit).

If anyone sees similar popups anywhere, please respond to this topic and I'll remove it.

I'll be looking through the code to see if I can find it anywhere else, but I only found one place in a global template, which I removed.

I'm guessing their site got compromised or they implemented some new authorization scheme that extended to all external references.

Any site using their skins (not just this site, nor just this skin of theirs) will be impacted by whatever they did.

Again, just to repeat, the skin was a verified one to use for this software.  There was no hacking of this site.

Yes, they are idiots. The reason being that if they want to make a political statement it would be much much louder if they went ahead with the trip and a girl scout got stopped at the border. Just imagine the publicity. Girl scouts as terrorists? What a photo op.

"We just wanted to trade unicorn patches with our sister troop in Duluth and this big man with a gun said we couldn't come in and now we have to go home."

The newer project is smaller and the scout did exhibit major leadership while trying to do the first project.  The GTA says that an EBOR can look at other leadership to qualify the scout if the project is in question as showing enough leadership.  

 

Just a hunch but are you worried this scout might not pass his BOR?

I've seen very different views on what an EBOR should be on this forum. In our council, if the district Eagle person is okay with the project then it's good enough. End of story and nobody at a BOR will challenge it. If that is the case here then, as others have said, the first project makes a good story to tell at the BOR.

If the BOR might fail him over this, then there's a mess.

Just the other night they the last troop meeting.... "they" decided to set up first aid stations.  Not sure who's idea it was, but I know "they" have a renewed focus on trying to get the younger scouts moving along with their advancement...

blw2, this is not classic vs current scouts, it's adults not respecting the scouts. Nothing needs to be changed with the program to support that. The adults just need a better understanding of how it all fits together. Maybe just a classic attitude is needed. I swear people just didn't worry so much about advancement when I was a scout. I don't remember doing advancement at summer camp. Eagle was nice but just not a big deal.

Another classic idea is that it just takes time to be a kid. Scouts was fun and it was not a rush. It was also not a constant Harrison Ford adventure either. We had one really cool campout a year and the rest were nothing special. We had time to hang out and that was okay. Some adults get mad at me now because I want the scouts to have time to do what they want Saturday afternoons and the adults think we should have more scheduled activities. "Scouts will get into trouble if they have free time." I've noticed that scouts will get in trouble if they have all day and are stuck in a cabin, but a morning activity and an afternoon to climb on the rocks is magic when it comes to making memories. The best SM conferences I do are talking to 17.99 year olds. They all tell me how great it was to just hang out with their friends on campouts. Yes, they also talk about high adventure trips. So adventure is good, but it's not everything. For some scouts, just perfecting a DO pizza is also an adventure.

Is this satirical, or do you really think each council should be able to change the advancement requirements?  And add merit badges?

 

And while we're adding merit badges, apropos of the other thread, maybe some council would like to add the Bartending Merit Badge.  

What I said was let councils experiment and find out what really works. I did not say any council can make up any rules they want. If you think you have a good reason for bartending MB then make a proposal to national. Let me know how it turns out.

Or, everyone can keep arguing. That certainly changes a lot of people's minds, at least on this forum.

I'll leave it up to you to decide what is and is not sarcasm.

As long as we're making proposals...

Let's not have a top down, troop method decision. How about let councils that feel strongly about something make a proposal, get approval, and try things out for 10 years to see what happens. Do you want to simplify merit badges and reduce class time? Great, make a proposal, figure out a way to gauge the results, and report back in a few years. Do you want coed? Fine, let us know how it works. Do you want to ditch FCFY? Increase service hours? Reduce or change the Eagle required MBs? Revamp adult training? Add a theology MB? Require that a scout take his patrol on a campout, without adults, as a First Class requirement? Do you want to reduce cub scouts to 4 years?

Let's see what works where. It's about the scouts but we also have to trust the adults. I would be all for letting anyone here that has a passion for scouting be able to try something out.

Who knows. Maybe we'll find out that coed works fine in some places and is just a huge waste in others, or that an all girls troop is the way to go (and the GSUSA is forced to fix their program )

@@RememberSchiff, your graphic is perfect. Succinct. If there was a green LMAO button I would hit it for you.

Anyway, that is why my scouts could care less about MBs.

We're classic in some of these things. We give out ranks at COHs, but do a big shout out after a BOR. We require scouts to pass a skills test, but if they don't know all the skills that's when they get to relearn it. My scouts like it because it's better to be embarrassed by an adult than a younger scout. I do like the Eagle project.

The issue seems to be that the process is being sped up. The mentality is replace a lot of experience with class work. This is causing a loss of the big picture. Honestly, who cares about 4 different types of tents? There's a trade off between weight and protection, you'll figure that out after you do enough camping.

My scouts made a monkey bridge last weekend. Every scout there now knows how to make a really good square lashing. And patrols did a great job dividing up the work and working as a big team. They also had a lot of fun. They made decisions and solved problems, they learned by doing, they had fun. That's the recipe. It takes time. There's no getting around that.

If classic scouts means let's focus on the big picture then I'm all for it. If it means going back to red tabs on knee high socks, no.