NeilLup

Hello Melgamatic, I hope that you have the opportunity to serve on Wood Badge staff. Perhaps even be SPL some day for Wood Badge.

I can comment that Kudu's program looks spectacular and will work extremely well.

"Everyone is assigned a unique ID number in the BSA. So regardless of the number of units you may be registered with, you are only counted ONCE for purposes of membership. With Venturing Crews, the youth would be registered as primary in ONE (and only one) crew, and secondary in as many as they wish. " Hello emb, This should be true, particularly if the person multiple registers. However, if they register twice, pay two registration fees and particularly if they use slightly different names in registering (not necessarily in a sinister fashion), they may get two or more differe

As with a lot of Scouting activities, I believe that it can be useful to look at it from the Scout's point of view and ask "What's in it for me?" and "What is the ratio of work and effort to rewards and benefits." Not just personal satisfaction and rewards in the Pack, but in the Troop too. If the other kids in the Troop mock the Den Chief for "playing around with little kids" and "being a baby", it will be tough. But if the Den Chiefs get a lot of praise and reward at Troop Meetings and Courts of Honor, if Den Chief service is honored. If, for example, when OA elections com

As with a lot of Scouting activities, I believe that it can be useful to look at it from the Scout's point of view and ask "What's in it for me?" and "What is the ratio of work and effort to rewards and benefits." Not just personal satisfaction and rewards in the Pack, but in the Troop too. If the other kids in the Troop mock the Den Chief for "playing around with little kids" and "being a baby", it will be tough. But if the Den Chiefs get a lot of praise and reward at Troop Meetings and Courts of Honor, if Den Chief service is honored. If, for example, when OA elections com

It would appear that the procedure is the following: The nominee must be recommended by a Master Mason in good standing. The Official Nomination form (Petition) must be used. Step 1: The recommender must complete the petition and submit an attached page explaining the candidate's qualification for the award. Step 2: The recommender should also have the petition approved and verified by the local Council, indicating that the candidate is currently registered as an active Scout leader. Step 3: The recommender should then have the petition reviewed by the Worshipful Master of

Hello Stosh, With respect, the statistics that I have heard simply do not support that most Troops do a poor job of retention. It was announced at the 2008 BSA National Meeting that the average annual retention in Boy Scouting is 78%. In other words, if one considers 100 11 year olds, on the average, 78 will reregister as 12 year olds, 61 of those will reregister as 13 year olds ( 100 * 78% * 78%), etc. This calculation does not correct for 18 year olds that age out. It was also said that at that time (May 2008) there were more 15 year old Boy Scouts registered than 11 yea

Hello GKlose, I believe that we have communicated about your council. There is a Wood Badge Course being held in the Spring of 2009 hosted by the cluster immediately south of your council. That opportunity is open to you. However, as a relatively new leader, I would recommend that you go to the course in your council. Part of the benefit will be the leaders from your council that you meet, get to know, and work with after the course. As far as being prepared ... Take my counsel here: Breathe in Breathe out Breathe in Breathe out Don't worry a

95% of me tells me to say "fine, no problem." The other tiny 5% says to ask "OK, great, what do you plan to do at camp." If the answer is virtually anything Scoutlike, including get to know kids from other Troops, etc. that's fine. But if he kind of shuffles his feet and says "I dunno, just hang." I might pursue it a bit more. Has he heard bad things about the merit badges or been scared off? Was he forced to sign up for the merit badges and he doesn't really want to do them? Is he tired of round-the-clock multitasking? Is he planning to use his full creati

My recommendation would be that during the period of suspended membership, they would be off the roster.

Enough is enough. These young men would appear to have gone way over the line. I would recommend suspending them from membership. I would say that they are removed from the rolls of the unit. If the COR permits and that it totally up to the COR, I would say that if they wish to be reinstated after at least 6 months, they must petition the unit and the chartered organization to be permitted to return under conditions to be determined by the unit. If they desire a transfer, they will receive transfer papers but the unit will contact their new unit and describe the conditions unde

Hello Bob White, I will accept it if you say that the Scoutmaster is using a procedure different from that recommended by the book. However, I do not believe that he is "wrong." Scouting is not black and white, nor is it binary. There is, in my opinion, an extremely wide spectrum of acceptable ways to do things. The book recommends one way, or sometimes recommends more than one way. But that is not the only way in most cases, and doing something different is not wrong. We are chartered to be leaders, not to be robots. We have the duty and responsibility to do what w

Whoa, Bob White, I am extremely troubled by your criticizing a Scoutmaster to one of his or her Scouts. There is a recommended procedure for selecting the leaders of a Troop and a Patrol, but it is not the only "correct" way. In fact, one major sponsor, the LDS Church, as a matter of church policy and procedure, uses a different method for selecting the leaders of their Troop. Youth leadership is a method of Boy Scouting. It is not the only method. A Scoutmaster and Troop must balance the methods as they do Scouting. The Scoutmaster does have the prerogative, within

There is nothing saying that a Scout can hold only one position of resonsibility. Normally the time of a pack/den meeting is different from that of a Troop meeting. So a Scout can be a Den Chief and also be PL, SPL, ASPL or any other job if the Scout and the Troop leadership so desire. Den Chief and particularly Webelos Den Chief can be great leadership opportunities. As was very correctly pointed out, a Scout can meet the position of responsibility requirement by serving as Librarian or Historian. I believe that Den Chief represents much more leadership than Historian or Librar

Occam's Razor.

Wood Badge staffs are trained to be able to work with people who know essentially nothing about Wood Badge and very little about Scouting. IT happens. There are also, not uncommonly, participants with decades of service, Silver Beavers, etc. I had one participant who had both the Silver Beaver and Silver Antelope. And everything in-between. I would say that it is better to go earlier rather than later as there will be more time for your Scouts to benefit from your Wood Badge participation. Not knowing much about the ticket is not a big problem. Again, typically the

What do you think that your new council would do that your current council is not doing? Would it not be a lot simpler and more satisfying to arrange for your current council to provide the services that you want.

Hello Stosh, Bite your tongue and slap your wrist. If the JASM is a position for Eagle Scouts to retire, some serious training is needed of the JASM, the SM, the ASMs and everybody else in sight. JASM is a real job for real Scouts to do to aid and tie together the adult leadership and youth leadership of the Troop and be a counselor and intermediary to both.

I completely agree with gags about hiking poles. I have two knees that are bone on bone and clinically qualify for a double knee replacement. A few years ago, I hiked the Grand Canyon and the poles make an incredible difference. There is one other exercise which can make a tremendous difference -- pushaways. Grab the edge of the dinner table and push it away from yourself. If you are like most Americans, you are anywhere between a few and a significant number of pounds overweight. While it is not necessary to be lighter to be a successful backpacker, it can really, really, r

Hello, If you still want to do a week at camp, maybe you can volunteer to be a leader at provisional camp, or else at Cub Scout Day camp.

Hello Eamonn, "In an organization like Scouting one thing we all have to learn to do is say no. Very often we allow ourselves to think or be talked into believing that if we don't do "It" that "It" isn't going to get done and the sky will fall in. I have in the past been very guilty of talking people into taking things on that maybe they didn't want to do? Or just overloading people who already have enough on their plate. To tell the truth I used to see this as a gift!!" More than once, my wife has held a mirror up to me in this area. I have learned to hold the mirror up to

Hello pohsuwed, Congratulations on earning all merit badges. As far as a square knot for earning all merit badges, frankly, I don't think that it's a good idea. Just as I don't think that earning all merit badges is particularly a good idea. The merit badge program is, by and large, designed for Scouts age 11-15. Some exceptions, but not many. It is designed to give a Scout a serious introduction to a topic of interest so that Scout can then identify topics in which they can become more interested, make their life's work, etc. I think that there are about 110

I'm not particularly worried about this because the money is only "earned" in paper transfers. It isn't really "owned" by the Scout. If you wanted to be a little bit "cleaner" you could say that if the boy joins your Troop, the money goes to his account. If he goes to another Troop, it goes to that Troop. If he doesn't join a Troop, it goes to his Cub Scout Pack. I would also be incredibly careful about Gunny's suggestion of giving a "receipt" for a "donation>" That implies that the money is "earned" by the Scout and that he has some "ownership" of it. You really, re

Hello Michael, I checked the Guide to Safe Scouting and the only relevant thing I found was the following: "When staying in tents, no youth will stay in the tent of an adult other than his or her parent or guardian" In this case, youth is a person under the age of 18, so a JASM would be considered a youth. I can tell you that in most units I know about, the senior youth tent together i.e. the JASM(s) would tent together with the SPL and other senior youth. You are talking about what appears to be a rule made by your Scoutmaster. If you have not had JASMs previ

I concur completely. It appears you did an excellent job of obtaining information and determining how to proceed. I would even comment that if someone on the EBOR suggests that he should be turned down because of the 4 years ago incident, I believe that is inappropriate. If the incident were that severe, he should not have received earlier rank advancements. You can't pass a boy for 1st Class, Star, Life in spite of a negative incident and then at Eagle decide that the boy is unworthy.