BadenP

Yet another example of why it is almost always the adults who spoil the scouting experience for the youth. Maybe all unit leaders should be required to go through an intensive conflict management course every 2-3 years.

John I really think you are way over the top in your gross generalization concerning all the companies in Kansas City putting such value on the Eagle or OA. Based on what evidence can you show proof of your statement, or is it rather based on your own personal, limited experiences or opinion.

Eagle92 F-scouter is correct about sheath knives. An old BSHB is not a rule or policy guidebook. Avoided does not mean banned by any stretch, a knife is but a tool and any knife is potentially dangerous in the wrong hands.

WOW, never has there been a better example of what Scouting is truly about. I agree with everyone else here what a blessing these youth and adults are to this war torn nation.

Why not just one large patch embroidered with all the knots for every scout rank earned as a youth and all other training knots as well. It could be 8-10" in diameter and you could hang it on a lanyard and wear around your neck.

From these later posts it is becoming obvious to me that our boy scout program has been slipping for a while now concerning scoutcraft skills. Granted scouts is more than just outdoor skills, it is also about leadership and citizenship. So why have we allowed this to happen? Many troops are doing a great job in keeping the outdoor aspect of scouting alive and growing, but most are not. In my experience this is due to many factors, the main one IMO, are SM's and ASM's who are not all that experienced/skilled in the outdoors growing up and receive minimal to no outdoor skills training during basic, IOLS, WB(yea I know), and other trainings. In my own council many boy scout leaders are going to private companies, such as REI, etc, to get basic and advanced training in outdoors. National is also a guilty culprit in the "Mazzuca Deemphasis of the Outdoors Policy". Bottom line our boys are not getting the full scouting experience, the boy scout program seems to continue to become "wussified", and the average Eagle Scout if left alone out in the woods hasn't got enough basic outdoor skills to survive one night. I would love to hear your thoughts and solutions.

TL REI are you serious? They have the most OVERPRICED camping gear in the country and many times the quality is not even close to the price they charge. It just happens that I have an REI backpack and frame that they sell for $300, last time I checked, and it is pretty nice, used only once, but I only paid $10 for it at a garage sale. You may be surprised how many REI items you can pick up for a fraction of what they charge.

Barry Thank you as your last post, it just goes to prove my point. Hands off is the way most unit leaders like it and the flip side of that is their relationship with their CO is minimal at best. As long as no major problem comes up this relationship works fine, but a unit with a history of problems this type of relationship can be disasterous. Infighting among leaders, money problems, leaders not following YPT, are just a few examples where the CO might have to step in as it is their reputation on the line as well as the units.

Ok Beavah I can agree to that idea of 7 days. This idea also makes me believe just how much more improved the quality of an Eagle Scout would be.

Barry In answer to your question you either live in a council that is in perfect working order, which I highly doubt, or you base your statement on your own unit or very limited exposure to other units. The truth is most units want a cordial relationship with their CO just as long as the CO allows them total control in running the program and "interfers" as little as possible. This conclusion is based on my over 25 years as ACM, ASM, SM, Advisor, COR/CC, in four councils, and as a DE for five years serving two large districts and over 150 units. The units with a good working relationship with their CO, and by that I mean good give and take, good 2 way communication, and the CO taking an active participating role are less than 20% , and I think after you participating in this forum for so long you know this to be true as well. There are unfortunately too many leaders out there who want to maintain total control and just want the CO to give them a place to meet and sign all the papers when required, and leave them alone the rest of the time. Talk to any well experienced unit commissioners who will tell you the same thing. The truth is that many leaders and most CO's do not really understand their responsibilities to each other, and unfortunately councils do a poor job getting that information to both parties involved. That is why when serious problems do come up they become major disasters as neither party knows the proper procedures to deal with them in too many cases.

Personally I would like to see this become the final requirement for the highest scouting honor, the Eagle, "the candidate will sucessfully lead a patrol on an expedition of at least two nights using and teaching as many of his scoutcraft skills as possible, and without any adult supervision." This ,IMO, would be a much better test of leadership and scoutcraft than the current crop of watered down Eagle projects, cleaning a playground, painting park benches, and many even worse. It is something definitely worth considering Mr. Mazzuca if you are really serious about preserving and growing the scouting program.

To play the devils advocate here, as both a CC and COR for my crew, how many of you out there either tried to develop a relationship with your CO or were so desperate to get a CO that you just found anyone willing to sign the papers without telling them what their responsiblities really are? Look it is impossible for any priest or minister to give your unit much time and frankly you should NOT expect it. Your COR if he is just a on paper only you need to get your CC to find you another one who will be more active. Look in all my years in scouting churches and most service clubs make lousy, uninvolved CO's and until there is a problem most unit leaders like that hands off leave us alone approach. Bottom line you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you want an involved and active CO you also run the risk of them telling you how they want you to do things, and if they observe something or hear something they don't like they will tell you what changes they want the unit to make. Active CO's play an active part in the running of their units, period. Unfortunately the majority of them are not and do not want to get involved with your unit. So we scouters have to make a choice do you want your CO calling the shots or do you want them to leave you alone? If you choose the later it is unreasonable and unrealistic of you to expect them to come to your rescue when something happens. Remember according to the charter the BSA contracts with the CO not the individual unit and the CO calls the shots, not the unit leaders, thats what the documents say, so be careful what you wish for.

I have to agree with NJ Cub on this one. This is probably someone you really do not want as an ASM if he won't even do the basic steps in getting there. He probably would not be the best role model for the boys and wind up causing you more grieve in the long run.

Basement Pretty self rightgeous attitude you have there bud. Just because you don't give your patrols the full range of experience explained in the patrol method doesn't mean all the others follow your example, including the other troops in your own council. Anyway you slice it this is truly a severe blow to the boy scout experience, even for the troops that never tried it before, because now they will never have the opportunity. So it is not overblown at all. Engineer You bring up some very good points and I too wonder how they will be received by the CO's/COR's and how this may affect National's relationships with those organizations.

Moose I had a boy in my unit with Asbergers a while back, it wasn't what he was doing as much as being with the kids he knows. Besides in this case this cub has already completed all his requirements the other kids are working on. In my experience these kids need to be constantly challenged with new experiences/activities. IMO, this den leader needs to have a talking to and receive some disability awareness training ASAP. As long as this boy is on his medications there is no reason he can not be an active and productive part of this den, and not a disruption.

TL Another idea might be create a whole new set of activities for him that he can do during his den meetings while the others are still working on their badges. Some ideas, get some older scout handbooks with activities no longer in the current handbooks like map and compass orienteering, basic lashings, nature collections, morse code, star charting, etc. There are inexpensive generic recognition patches you can get at the scout store or National Supply for like a dollar apiece, and present to him at pack meetings. It will take a DL with patience and some imagination but give the boy a whole new set of challenges making him less disruptive in the meetings. I agree with the others the Lone Scout program is NOT the way to go with this boy.

In my experience part of the problem is that the so called BSA policy of mandatory training or you can't register is just not being enforced. National doesn't want to lose membership or units so they create a policy with no teeth which is basically unenforceable, much like the G2SS, so there is no real incentive for adult leaders to go to training. Many figure it will all be on line soon so just wait til then. The truth is putting all the basic trainings online was the beginning of the end to district trainings. National in its so called wisdom has now created a generation of lazy scouters who want everything handed to them with no effort on their part. IMO, online training is like online universities manipulating the system to get your piece of paper with no real effort, no real testing of your knowledge, and no real life application of what you learned in the field before you graduate.

How about some scouting items that are actually Made in America instead of the cheap tinny camping equipment and knives currently in stock.

SP Using your logic then every questionable or potentially harmful activity would then have to be banned, such as starting a campfire, using a knife or ax, sleeping in the open air outdoors, canoeing, camping, cooking, pioneering, compass and GPS, hiking, any of the high adventure camps, etc, etc. What would be left is a organization with no real substance, purpose, or direction, and what ever was left sure couldn't be called the Boy Scouts of America any longer. Let's all get behind the CSE's master plan for a completely new organization with the new motto "VIVA Soccer".

It is good to see us all in basic agreement about how wrong this change really is. Even if only a few troops are affected, but I think the number is much higher, they deserve the right to continue this long standing scout tradition. Mazzuca playing his numbers games with hispanic scouting that is nothing more than a soccer league, and his continuing deemphasis of the scouting outdoor program is bringing this organization to the brink of disaster, IMO. The best thing Mazzuca could do is to resign now with his 40 years of service and get someone in there who REALLY understands what boy scouting is all about before its too late.

As Kudu has been warning us for a while now, boy scouting is on a downward spiral to becoming a glorified kiddy club. Thank God my kids are done with boy scouts the whole organization under Mazzuca's leadership has become just a shell of its former self, without any real substance. What's next, the only merit badges you will need for Eagle will be indoor activities without ever going camping or hiking in the woods? Thank you CSE Mazzuca for driving yet another nail into the coffin of what once was a dynamic, leader building,outdoor oriented organization and turning it into a club of momma's boys.

The fact that he read and liked Mein Kampf is a little disturbing, as is his fascination with Hitler. It is one thing to want to create better international cooperation between England and Germany but quite another to embrace that maniac Hitlers ideas of a supreme facist society, white supremacy and his other bizzare ideas.

shortridge Not to belabor the point there is a vast difference between a rule and a policy. The complainer will score nothing going up the ladder in this particular situation, no one was put at risk, and no ones privacy was violated, the CC and SE would probably just laugh this one off. Sometimes just because something is in print it still can be open to variable interpretations, look at our tax laws or our Supreme Court decisions. Sometimes some people become way too anal over trivial things, as in this case. In this case I think you are very wrong in your interpretation.

YPT aside as I think we all agree with those basics of that set of policies, just because something is printed in boldface does not elevate it to being a rule or regulation. For example here's one that comes up a lot, laser tag, the BSA G2SS says no but on what authority can they say no? If a troop, pack, or crew decides as a group to go to laser tag and are NOT wearing any uniforms how is that a violation since there is nothing identifying the group as scouts? The fact that at scout camp the rifle range is always one of the most popular activities, from BB guns, to shotguns, to black powder guns shooting at targets. I know some will jump in with but they are not shooting at each other, true but again laser tag guns do not shoot bullets or buckshot just beams of light and are not real guns by any stretch of the imagination, and these youth are not in uniform. Just because some individual has his knickers in a twist at National gets to decide for the entire scouting community to nix this activity, IMO, lacks any real forethought, credibility, or authority. That is why the G2SS is called a GUIDE. Besides, the hypocrisy is that the BSA allows video games that have more bloody carnage, killing and maiming at scouting camps and events. To bring this back to topic this pack did all it could to insure the G2SS was followed as close as was humanly possible. There were no violations because you can not violate guidelines, just choose to ignore them entirely. That was not the case here and you hardliners are way off base insuiating that any violation took place.

shortridge First of all the G2SS are GUIDELINES to Safe Scouting, they are not RULES or REGULATIONS or LAWS from National therefore you can not break or violate guidelines. These guidelines are given to help plan events in a safe atmosphere and to address issues that may come up, period. Look up the definition of guidelines and maybe you will see that your argument falls apart. In this case the unit involved did all it could do to accomodate all parties, they violated nothing, all the guidelines concerning this issue could not be followed exactly, but no one was put in danger or in an embarassing situation, and the fact a few adults objected should not jeopardize the event for all the others, as they were free to leave. The G2SS is not the Holy Bible of Scouting and scouters who think it is really do not understand its true purpose is or why it was created. It is not a rulebook or a set of regulations that must be followed to the inth degree. I agree with Eamonn on what he would like to do to the G2SS sometimes. This whole incident has been blown way out of proportion, and so has some of the advice given in this thread.