mk9750

For what it's worth, our Troop seems much like CalicoPens's. New Scouts crossover and are given a generic neckerchief bought from the Scout Shoppe. At the Court of Honor after a Scout earnes 1st Class, he is presented with our hand made "Troop" neckerchief, embroidered with a logo for our Troop that is now 50 years old. This necker, and the ceremony in which it is presented, are very special in our Troop. The Scouts really aspire to earn that neckerchief. It is one of the reasons, I think, that a good percentage of our Troop make 1st class by the Court of Honor after their second su

Scoutingagain, Although I took your comment as constructive even without the effort to soften the blow, I appreciate your effort to be kind. Truly, no offense taken. I mostly agree with what you are saying. In this case, I know we were very clear when discussing the expectations, and also with the training he received for the position in which he was supposed to serve. It was the Scout who did not make the effort that was expected and that he agreed to make. However, I think we did a terrible job providing guidance along the way. At one point, we attempted to have this discussio

VERY interesting question! I just set up and sat for an Eagle BoR. As Advancement Chair, I also feel I have a responsiblity to participate, regardless of my personal feelings for a Scout. However, there have been times, like this one, that I wish I could have taken the easy way out and declined. I truly don't believe this boy fulfilled either his "Active" requirment nor his "Position of Responsiblity" requirment. I knew the rest of the Board was not going to be persuaded that my position was correct, and I also knew that an appeal was likely, which would have been succesful. So even thoug

Tree, I think you are solid ground. All the parties agree, and the purpose for making the switch is a valid one. You seem to have all of the qualifications I would want of someone fulfilling this important role. I say go for it. One other way to proceed could be like our Troop did it for our SM's son. Our SM was not willing to let his son "get off easy" by letting one of the ASMs do the conference. All of the ASMs at the time were pretty new. So he asked one of them to participate with him for his son's SM Conference. Although the SM has only the one son, we agreed after the ex

Eamonn, Thank you! Mark

Our Troop meets 50 weeks of the year. We take off the week after summer camp and the week between Christmas and New Years. Except for Christmas, if a Holiday falls on a meeting night, we either still meet or move the meeting. We have a weekend campout 11 months a year. The month of summer camp we do not have a weekend campout. I thought it was interesting that you mentioned Cubs. Back when I was directly involved in Cub Scouts as a Den Leader and Cubmaster, practically every Den I knew of, even in other Packs, met every week, although some did skip meeting during the week of a Pack m

Eamonn, Despite my pride that some of the guys with whom I worked have put their knowledge to work and have thanked me for my help, I think you are likely right that 30 years from now, few if any will remember that "a budget is a plan. you make a plan to meet a goal. You record the results of your plan so that you may analyze how you are doing trying to meet your goal and make adjustments along the way..." or any of the other 300 pearls of wisdom I dispense regularly. I do hope that one or two of them will remember me fondly after I have started pusing up daisies. I wish I had thoug

Beavah, (Warning! Long post ahead!) I am only one volunteer among more than a million. So my experience is certainly not empirical evidence. And it pains me to sound like I am bragging, so please try to overlook my vanity. But in my experience as a MB Counselor for Personal Management, Family Life, Communications (which btw, is the required MB that has REALLY become lame!), and Citizen in Community and Nation, I have watched boys take the knowledge they garnered from both their own work, and long conversations with me and use it to positively impact both their own life and other

Eamonn says - "Yes I said do away with advancement!!" The Advancement Chairman in me must ask... What? And put me out of a job?!?!?! Now, seriously, There are so many wonderful things that happen because of, or through using the Advancement Method. I think it would be a terrible shame to elliminate Advancement, or to change it significantly from the model as it stands now. At least a couple of the other Methods - Out Door Program, Patrol Method, Adult Association - rely heavily on a young man desiring advancement. Without Advancement, why would any Scout sit through tedious con

ASM915, Congratulations! That makes our Troop's 50 years seem like nothing! Buckeye Council? Do you know a Campmaster from Manatoc named Jim Taylor? He was a salesman to my company and to this day, he's one of the only salesmen I ever excepted a lunch invite from. One of the greatest Scouters I ever met. I hope you've had the chance to get to know him, too! Again, contratulations! Mark

Dan, Congratulations! And you do deserve congratulations, along with the new Eagle and his parents. What you are feeling is something I have felt numerous times during my opportunity to be in Scouting. It's a feeling kind of like a shudder and a warm glow all rolled into one. And it doesn't just happen to me during Courts of Honor for guys I have a special affinity to. It happens whenever one of them give me reason to be proud to have been part of their life. I've tried to put this feeling into words, and the best I have come up with is to express how much more I have gotten from

LongHaul, Man, what an interesting perspective! You've made me try to establish in my mind who I meant by you. In hindsight, I guess I propably didn't have a specific person im mind. As I think about it now, I guess I meant the adult leadership trying to meet the Aims of Scouting. But you are right, I threw that out there without much thought as to who I meant. If I can take another crack at it, I'd like to stick with my original comment, but add that if current leadership has no clue about the real Aims of Scouting, or no interest in meeting them, then they need to be re-educat

I can hear my father answering this question: "Back in my day, we whould have tied them all together around a tree until we were convinced that they could get along for good." Or - "What those guys need is a swift kick in the arse." Or even - "Well fellow Scouters, why don't we adults take a hike and find out how this got resolved when we get back." Now I'm not going to say these are great solutions, and certainly are inappropriate for today's world. But in the few cases we've had situations like this in our Troop, I kind of wish it were my dad who was the Scoutma

Great response, Lisa! We have had two boys in our Troop with whom we have these same kinds of issues. One boy has completed all his tangible requirements for Eagle. However, his participation and his effort in his Position of Responsibility have been VERY questionable. As we tried to come up with how the Scoutmaster could deal with this at the SM Conference, the core adult leadership all concluded we did a really poor job of making sure this Scout helped develop, understood, and followed through on the expectations for his position. In this case, at his SM Conference and BoR for Life, exp

I know that in our Council the person who certify others as Climbing Instructors and Climbing Merit Badge counselors must attend National Camp School. He has the title Climbing Director. In our Council, Council pays for camp registration, and the person attending pays expenses. Mark

I used to believe very strongly that no boy should become an Eagle Scout until he is older (16 seemed like a good age, to me, but I would have been flexible). My stance has softened, but I will not let go of my believe that with very few exceptions, a boy is better off earning Eagle later in his Scouting career than earlier. I believe this because I have seen quite often the difference in levels of appreciation that younger Eagles and older Eagles have for the program. And in my experience, very few young Eagles EVER understand what the purpose of Scouting is, even years after they recie

Barry - Great comment about your guys efforts at summer camp! A few years back, my youngest son was ASPL. It was his responsiblity to arrange for a meeting area for the PLC that was supposed to happen in July. He never got it done. The SM was all over him, telling him that if he and the SPL couldn''t follow through to make the normal PLC happen, then they would have to have the PLC at summer camp, which would have been a huge downer for these guys late in the day after spending hours on the lake kayaking, playing Capture the Flag, etc. My son let a few of his buddies know that h

Our Troop now boasts two adults who are the Climbing Instructors for the Council. So now we do things by the book (and that is a good thing). However, a long time ago, well before Climb On Safely and Topping out, we used to make a signal tower every year. It served three purposes - A pioneering project, A tool to help us spot open parking spaces while our Troop directed traffic for our CO''s festival, and as a publicity / recruting tool to show the parish, and the boys in the parish, something cool we do. The last year we did this, we made the best signal tower in history. OK, that

Oak Tree: What an unbelievably astute comment. You are dead right. (IMVHO) Lisabob: An even better response! You also are exactly right (IMVHO). Although I believe most anyone who might actually know me locally here could easily figure out who mk9750 is, I feel a sense of security in the anonimity of these forums. I can assure you I have never lied here, nor do I believe the vast majority here have either. But it is comforting to know that I can be brutally honest here without fear of hurting the feelings of someone I care about very much, which can happen if I express my i

I think when we see a description of a problem on these forums, without a tremendous amount of detail, we each tend to fill in the nooks and crannies with our own assumptions and perceptions. So my response is based on perceptions I have after seeing similiar issues in our Troop. Although I agree that some boys are not destined to stay in Scouting, were that same discussion to happen at a Troop committee meeting in our Troop, my first assumption would be that the Patrol Leader (under the guidance of a Troop Guide) did a poor job in developing the duty roster and explaining the reasons for

Great question, and an important decision, I think. For myself, my second and youngest son earned Eagle and turned 18 this past spring. I am without a son in Scouting now, and have been pondering my role in the Troop. I am the Troop''s advancement chair, and frankly, I feel I add a lot of value in that job, particularly in Boards of Review. I have asked to have a parent of a younger Scout assist me, and if one offers to help, I plan to turn the chairman''s job over, and offer to help out at BoRs. I also counsel three MBs, and for two, Personal Management and Family Life, I also

Great question, and an important decision, I think. For myself, my second and youngest son earned Eagle and turned 18 this past spring. I am without a son in Scouting now, and have been pondering my role in the Troop. I am the Troop''s advancement chair, and frankly, I feel I add a lot of value in that job, particularly in Boards of Review. I have asked to have a parent of a younger Scout assist me, and if one offers to help, I plan to turn the chairman''s job over, and offer to help out at BoRs. I also counsel three MBs, and for two, Personal Management and Family Life, I also

At District events, we solved this problem by having a separate event code for the Webelos. At Klondike, Webelos sign up for Webelos Winter Challenge. They use the cabins, do not tent with Troops. They follow their Big Brother Troop throughout the day. they participate separately in the activites that are appropriate for them - They can build fires, tie knots, etc. They have associated events for areas they cannot participate in - They shoot BB guns while Boy Scouts shoot Muzzle Loaders (not at the same time. The Webelos go through a safety class while the Boy Scouts shoot, then the Webelos sh

Yes, it would be a dumb requirment also, but I would require it if National wrote it. It doesn't say "Mark's Scouting Program" on any of the literature. While typing this, I came to realize something. One could make the arguement (weak, admittedly, but realistic) that there is value in a requirement for a Scout to bring the Scoutmaster coffee. It demonstrates an attitude of service. It demonstrates courteousness and helpfulness. And it might also lead to a Scout learning how to make coffee. I remember OGE or EagleDad stating a long time back that the adults in their Troop challenge

I have a bit of a different take. In previous instances, when the BSA changed the requirments for certain ranks (Eagle now requiring Personal fitness is on that comes to mind), they provided a caveat that anyone already working on the advancement could use the old or the new requirements, but not a combination of both. Usually, there was a time frame involved, but the Scout had the choice. If a boy bought a then - current book without the requirement, and then started to work on 1st Class immediately, he should be able to do so under the old requirments. The first campout or other Tr