BadenP

Callooh It has NEVER been and still is not the mission of the BSA to allow scout leaders to run a troop like an Eagle mill, it is not a local option or is it in line with any BSA program. Those scout leaders who are running these mill troops are doing so based on their own twisted interpretations of the BSA policies, these violators are the ones who have no place in leading these boys or running these troops and should IMO leave the BSA. CC apparently you seem to be in this group or agree with their premise. The falling troop/boy scout numbers you describe in your post are due to the reckless, ill thought out, and in the boys eyes these boring mill troop programs. Which are the result of undertrained leaders with few scout skills who try to over compensate by running a classroom program with little outdoor experiences for the boys. These are the kind of leaders bringing boy scouts down, and add NOTHING to the making the program better or instilling in the boys a sense of the scout law and oath. The boys leaving boy scouts only validates my point, whether you agree or not is not even relevant.

Eagle92 Your story really hit the nail on the head as to what is wrong with boy scout programs today. It is all about gimee gimee more badges faster, faster, don't bother me with actually learning any real scoutcraft, values, citizenship, or leadership I just want my Eagle ASAP and then its goodbye scouts. Tahawk- your post also states it so succintly and so well, "if scouting is no longer about values then we might as well just sell Eagle badges on Ebay." To those of you scout leaders who don't seem to mind or care about the direction scouting is currently heading then I say to you it is time to examine your motivations for being a SM or ASM. If it is not to give your boys the most complete scouting experience possible, but instead to run a classroom Eagle mill troop than I respectively suggest you volunteer your time elsewhere where that mindset is already present, such as coaching sports, totally adult controlled.

Scoutfish & Basement I like your ideas about what camping should be, time for business and lots of time for FUN thats what the boys will remember about scouting. If they don't get a chance to have fun and immerse themselves in the outdoors how will they ever develop an appreciation for the outdoors and nature.

Sadly I have seen this happen as both a DE and a volunteer several times in several councils, I call it the professional scouting bait and switch. Membership appears to be greatly increased = more DE's, FD's and new districts to meet the demand,problem is it is soon discovered than this growth was mostly on paper and things change. The SE says it is time to tighten their belts and reduces staff by one or two DE's, eliminates some districts, back to the original, however he has now gained a new FD and /or a DE or two and payroll expenses go up. The SE now tells the volunteers these additions to his staff are necessary to develop "potentially new membership and units" available in the council untapped because the original staff was not large enough to develop them. Three to five years go by and membership remains the same or goes up slightly, now the SE tells volunteers that they need to increase their FOS to help support growth in the council. The only growth seen is in the number of professionals in the council. BD is correct there really is nothing a volunteer can do as this stuff has been going on for decades, supported by National. A new DE when they go to training at National gets,or used to, a plaque with The Scout Executives Code, one passage reads, "Recognize that my personal example of integrity and action is paramount and must be acceptable to every youth and leader; live and work in accordance with the principles of the scout promise and scout law; build confidence in my leadership with my spirit, my enthusiasm, and sound administration." Somewhere along the way too many professionals have forgotten these words that they recited in a group as a new DE at National. Oh well life goes on and our full support and energy should always go first and formost to the youth we serve and let the councils get mired down in the messes of their own creation.

Funny dcurt but what you describe in your last post does seem to fit you like a glove more than anyone else in this forum. Too bad you won't see this post since you have put me on your ignore list for which I say so what. It has no effect on me and I can still remark on your posts I strongly disagree with, however now you will never know when I do.

twocub As far as caring about the BSA and giving our teens the best quality programs we can I think we are in agreement much more often than not. I think we both want our youth to have the opportunities to be and achieve all they are capable of in scouting. Fear not the force is with you!

Eamonn Even if what kcs says about the boy is true which is questionable, I agree with you that this is not the arena to bring this up. Obviously some SM and troop found something in this boy so he could complete his Eagle, which brings me to my previous post in this thread. No matter how bad we assume a kid may be sometimes it just takes someone to care or a group of peers who takes him at face value and helps him find alternatives to what he may have experienced in his life so far. Too many people are too quick to brand or label a person when they know nothing or very little about them. We see it happen in this forum all the time.

dkurt& jts There are no personal attacks in my last post, if you took any statement too personally then there must be some truth in it. Besides I am not here to argue or debate with either one of you, which does not seem mutual on your part. Rather I just point out to you from your posts things I feel are in error. Cool off and have a nice day. YIS

And those are many of the same reasons that every year more and more troops are going to out of council camps or non BSA camps. Lazy SM's like this setup because that means they can sit back swill down coffee all day and let some 15yo CIT do all their work for them. In their opinions you can't get council to change their camps so just go with the flow. What a load of hooey. I wonder what quality of scout these slacker troops are actually producing, my guess are ones who skirt the rules or do the minimum possible to advance with minimum to no retention of anything they learned along the way. In this forum we debate and argue over rules everyday, yet the councils don't seem to follow them, many of the scout leaders fudge on them, and National doesn't seem to care one way or the other, and the result is the disjointed program we have today, producing substandard scouts and Eagles. IMO we should take all the advancement guidelines, procedures and regulations, and the G2SS and burn them since few are following them anyway and no one from council or National is enforcing them or can enforce them. However if council is meeting their numbers and money quotas, junior is getting all his badges quickly and Eagle by 13, and troop leaders do not have to even camp anymore or even learn scout skills than everyone seems happy and content. What ever happened to having pride in the quality of your organization and the programs it offers???((This message has been edited by BadenP)

Too bad the kid never received the proper interaction with troop leaders and counseling professionals that might have turned him around. I have a former tough as* kid like that in my crew currently and he said something similiar to an African American girl in the crew, who happens to be a black belt in karate. She gave him one chance to apologize which he refused to do, so she gave him an impromptu introduction to karate. As he was picking himself off the floor the boy apologized over and over again to her and the rest of the crew and to this day has never uttered another prejudicial word. That young lady is the current crew president and that boy is now a crew VP and the two of them have become good friends. I also gave him a few counseling sessions along the way to help him see how counterproductive and potentially harmful those kind of prejudicial attitudes can be to others, and to his own well being. But, it is amazing that sometimes it just takes a good old fashion as* whooping by a petite young lady to give a hardnose a whole new perspective on things.

dkurt Your fall back and play dead attitude is not very practical or realistic. In our council at least if they tried to pull something similiar there would be a massive crowd of scouters at the next board meeting demanding change. Yet our SE is a smart man, his predecessor was not and got booted out, he knows what makes his scouters/scout families happy, the FOS exceeding goal each year, and the popcorn sale a success every year. This council I am sure is the exception but the SE and the board always listen to our requests, ideas and concerns and do all they can to make them happen or corrected. As the COR for my crew I am always at every board meeting and they truly are concerned to know whats happening in the field. Our council camp is very well developed with a wide range of experiences for every level of scouting, and always has a long waiting list every summer. So yes you can get your council to listen if you make the effort unfortunately in many councils most scouters would rather complain than make the effort, sound familiar dkurt?

dkurt Yea, let all the scout leaders just sit back and accept the fact they can do nothing as we watch the boy scout program continue to be dumbed down, and membership continue to drop, and the quality of the value of scouting continues to diminish in the publics eye. Why not do the same thing in college, like medical school, so the next time you need an operation you have a surgeon who barely knows the basics cutting you open. The truth is if scout leaders who really love scouting sit idly by and allow substandard programs and requirements continue to become more prevalent in the BSA producing substandard scouts then we might as well close down the whole show right now. Instead we need scout leaders who are real LEADERS demand high quality and the very best from their boys, their camps, their councils, and most importantly from those bozo's at National who have really lost the path and vision of what the BSA is supposed to be all about.

jt First of all if enough units threaten to boycott the camp you bet you will get council to listen. Second camp is not about or ever was supposed to be about solely earning MB's. As far as MB counselors are concerned a staff of 17-19 year olds are really not qualified are they. However dumbing down and fudging the requirements so a boy can complete 5-10 MB's in one week is just plain unethical and dishonest. There are some simple MB's the boys can do at camp, but to run it as a MB mill where unqualified teens are signing off other teens on multiple merit badges is just wrong. Maybe if the camps were running a decent and complete program the camp MB Mill would become a thing of the past. The truth is it is cheaper for council to run a MB mill at summer camp then to develop the camp facilities to offer a wide variety of activities for the boys to experience, such as a Cope course, rapelling, pioneering, etc.(This message has been edited by BadenP)

Another thing that bothers me is what qualifications do these young camp staff have in counseling these boys in these subjects? Is it any wonder they do the badges as an academic exercise since most of these staff members would not be able to show practical application of these skills in the field. "This is apparently just the way camps are run", why as scout leaders do we allow that to occur without complaining to the camp director, the SE, and the council camping committee, or at least boycott the camp until they change this policy. IMO, too many scoutmasters have become much too complaisant in the kind of program their boys are exposed too and have allowed way too much substandard quality experiences to creep into their programs. If you don't demand first class quality camp programs from your councils then you will continue to receive sub par low quality programs, and the only ones being deprived of the true scouting experience are the boys.

Twocub & Calico You both seem to have missed the point which is there are many scenarios we will encounter in life where the knowledge of wilderness survival skills would be not only useful but essential. As far as what percentage would meet your criteria that is totally irrelevant to the point. 9.4 million visitors to the Great Smokey Mtns sounds like quite an exaggeration to me twocub, but even if that was true six deaths in 2 months is NOT acceptable in spite of what Calico thinks. I too was a National Park Ranger and I know what is acceptable and what is unacceptable in the park service, and Calico your statement is totally incorrect.

I think vol scouter's last post says loads about how misguided the National BSA office is about hispanic scouting. The BSA still can't seem to figure out why they are losing the Anglo community from boy scouts as the numbers of boys and troops continue downward. Yet they think the majority of Hispanic youth will come flocking to the organization and why, not because of the colorful uniforms, not because they love camping, even our CSE hates that, and not because of advancement or citizenship or learning leadership skills. The truth is that Hispanics want to retain their cultures and pass those traditions down to their youth, so unless the BSA plans to incorporate those same cultural traditions into the program they will never get the parents to support it or the kids to join it. The best they can hope for is to attract hispanic adults and youth who are already totally acculturated into American culture.

I think the real concern should be, where is the OA team who should be coming out to the troops and promoting the lodge? This could be yet another case of a lodge that is struggling or not making any effort due to plain laziness. Look, the OA in my council has always come to the roundtable to promote the lodge months before their troop visits and to get the okay from the SM's. As a result they always get a warm welcome and total cooperation from ALL the SM's. In this case the SM should not refuse to hold an election in his troop, and maybe get the OA to come out to promote it and the lodge. From rd's OP however it sounds like the problem is with the lodge since the other troops do not support it either.

I have to agree with Kudu doing the Camping MB is absurd. This is part of the cupcake scouting program that is becoming way too prevalent in troops today. wjturner- as a newbie to this forum you need to watch how you present your criticism. Since you present yourself as some sort of statistician all I can assume is that you are basically a desk jockey who plays with numbers to make your bosses happy even though they may not represent reality. 12 lost for more than three days and 6 serious accidents with three deaths in under 2 months is way over the acceptable average in any park, just ask your local park ranger if you ever get away from playing and manipulating numbers at your office and do any real scouting in the great outdoors.

Twocub "99% of us will never be in a wilderness survival situation". Actually TC your percentage is way too high. This summer so far in my area more than 12 day hikers to one local National Park have gotten seperated from their group and spent 3 or more days alone in the forest trying to survive, a half dozen more to that same park fell down a cliff in a remote area and were stranded until they were located almost a week later, half of them did not survive. How about those people driving through the southwestern deserts whose cars break down and there is no cell service in the area? Or anyone out in a remote isolated area who gets stranded? Do you want to bet that those people wished they had some wilderness survival training under their belt then.

Matt I think you hit the nail on the head in your statement, "none of the kids want to lead". Without a core of solid crew officers who have a vision of what kind of crew speciality and what kind of activities you want to focus on the group is stuck in neutral. What has worked in my crew is a group of adult associate advisors with a wide range of outdoor interests, sailing, mountain climbing, backpacking, kayaking, etc. who offer their expertise to the teens, along with a group of teen officers who are focused on having a dynamic and fun program. You really need both of these present to have a truly successful venturing crew. Otherwise you wind up with an adult led crew and the teens get bored and leave. Remember in a crew it is up to the teens to develop a program catered to the interests of the members. As for recruitment this crew and its reputation are well known in the local high schools, the members bring their friends as guests to meetings, talk it up at school, and the membership keeps growing. Activities that have worked for us are overnight beach camping trips, snow trips, road rallies, on and on.... We started with ten teens and today we have over 65, it may take some time but it will happen. Forget the naysayers here who say Venturing doesn't work because if it is done right it works fantasically. Just do not try to do it all yourself, get a few Assoc Advisors, and remember it is the teens program. Good Luck!!!

Kudu I would have never believed that you would ever turn towards the dark side, lol. Use the force Luke and maybe you can turn this troop around or you could always teach them about "Cupcake Scouting".

Horizon The concensus is based on what is happening in many boy scout troops today , not when you were a youth. In many of the Eagle Mill troops in the councils I have been in and the one I am currently in the LACK of outdoor experiences and skills is so blatently obvious and it seems to be getting worse or more common. The Eagle prep in many troops has erroded into an academic exercise with little proficency of any of the outdoor skills that are at the very heart of scouting. Maybe your council is different though I really doubt it.

Oak Tree In my past boy scout leader experience I have seen leaders sign off boys at camporees who simply put could not demonstrate the skill, a knot that was continually tied wrong, a cooking fiasco "burnt offering" that the leader signed off and said thats okay just keep practicing, etc, etc. The biggest fudging going on IMO is the Eagle Project, where boys show NO leadership, show little organizational skills, the projects themselves are sub par, and yet with mommy and daddy and a troop leader within a week a detailed project outline, an organized work force, a focused project all seem to miraculously appear out of nowhere and the boy is signed off, EBORed and submitted to council in record time. The sad part is that this is becoming all too common a practice these days from what my boy scout leader friends tell me.

Horizon I really think you should re read the Trail to Eagle thread where most of these points were answered. It really came down to a 13 year old can be an Eagle, but the rub was what kind of program would he have to experience to achieve that goal today? The consensus seemed to be a very academically oriented one with minimal outdoor experiences, missing out on camps, jamborees, high adventure, full participation in OA, etc, etc. So the question becomes is that the kind of BSA we want to have, or should the boys be allowed the FULL experience of what being a scout is truly all about with rank advancenment NOT being the predominate focus. Being a scout is NOT about pressuring boys into becoming an Eagle by 13, and any SM/ASM who truly believes that 13 yo Eagles should be the norm should be forced to step down immediately. I don't know if your troop was an Eagle Mill or not Horizon, and maybe you were one of those rare 13yo scouts ready to become an Eagle, however that was never intended to be the norm from the inception of scouting and is still true today. Most 13 yo boy scouts are NOT ready to be Eagles by a wide margin.

Twocub A very excellent summation of what scouting is supposed to be versus what it is becoming in too many troops today. I agree with you and commend you for your methodology in making sure your boys have the very best scouting experience possible. I am sure years from now your boys will tell their kids just how much fun they had and how much they learned in scouting thanks to your efforts. Well done. Oak Tree- Twocub has answered your question to me for me. I would sum it up with making sure the boys have throughly learned their scouting skills at a pace of their choosing and ability, and have had the time to enjoy all the opportunities scouting has to offer them. Not in a classroom environment, or in a MB/Eagle Mill setting which is all about the quantity and contains little quality in a just sign the boy off ASAP and who cares if he really learned the skills/badge or not and get him through Eagle.