NeilLup

1) As far as submitting square knot ideas (or any ideas) you can just write up your idea and send it to the Chief Scout Executive. Or, if you can identify the program group involved, you can send it to them. Every such idea does get considered carefully and I know of several cases where a single letter caused a change in a program or in literature 2) As far a why an idea for a square knot might not be approved. I believe there is a perception that there are too many square knots now. 3) The Wood Badge square knot isn't a totally crazy idea. For safety reasons, Sea Scout l

Hello Bob, By the letter of the law, you're probably right. As a practical matter, the Troop Guide is probably pretty much of the leader when the New Boy Patrol is first formed. Then, as the Scouts gain experience, their Patrol Leader takes more and more leadership and the Troop Guide backs off. I do note that the Troop Guide patch has two green bars. I have always presumed that isn't just moss growing on the patch

Laurie, you absolutely are correct. It is appropriate for leaders to try things and fail. One of the benefits for BSA leaders is that they learn too. If we are required to be perfect, that is a tough standard. But this matter of perfection is one of the challenges I believe we face in going from Webelos Scouts to Boy Scouts. In a Webelos Den, the leader is an adult and the boy gets plenty of close interaction with the adult and the adult is their prime leader. Then they go into a Boy Scout Troop and their prime leader (the Patrol leader) is a boy, probably not much older

Hello Dcarlton, Welcome to the forum. I understand that almost 95% of Varsity units are chartered to the LDS church. The Varsity program is designed to meet some very targeted program needs of that church and it does that very well. It really has not had much usage outside the LDS church. Varsity units are part of Boy Scouting at this time. Venturing is a separate program. It is possible that Varsity could, at some point, become part of Venturing. However, unless something changed in the BSA or in the LDS church, it still would be essentially what it is now bec

One final thought, Eaglewings, If you approach your Cubmaster candidate as if you were going to condemn them to several years of misery and you desperately hope they will take it, then they likely will approach it that way. On the other hand, if you regard it as giving them an opportunity to have a great deal of fun and make a real difference to boys and maybe, just maybe, if they want it enough, you will give them the chance, then they will approach it that way. I have also found that it helps greatly in recruiting a new leader if you are able to say that several leaders a

National council At-Large Members are, I believe, nominated by the national nominating committee and elected by the annual meeting. The lists are compiled by the national office and by the regions. I know, for example, that all national committee members are national members at large if not in higher level positions (National Board or National Advisory council.) I'm not sure what honorary, non-voting members are. If you mean positions like the Honorary President and Honorary Vice Presidents, there is tradition and, in some cases, by laws designation of who they are.

Hello SPLT15 I am sorry about your semester grade but that kind of thing can happen. As far as that and your accepting Jesus, may I suggest some advice. It is from another religion (St. Ignatius Loyola) "Pray as if everything depended upon God, work as if everything depended upon you." It may be very appropriate for you to ask Jesus to be the copilot of your life, but you are still the pilot.

Hello Laurie, Sounds as if the training you and your husband took was good. Well within the acceptable range for how training should be. Cub Scouting, as you know, is a family oriented program where adults do almost all of the leading. Boy Scouting is a much more group oriented program where the older boys, in a good Troop, do much of the leading. So the idea in training is to teach the adults that this should happen and how to make it happen. Not always easy on either one. Cub Scout leadership and parenting of boys that age are pretty similar from my observation.

I might mention something else about our Merit Badge University which is described in the January 2004 Boy's Life. It occurs on TWO Saturdays about 4 weeks apart. In the first one, the Scouts are introduced to the Merit Badge, meet the counselor, do a little and are given at-home assignments. In the second, they bring back the assignments and meet again with the counselor. Perhaps they earn the badge then. Nobody gets the badge in one day.

I think your son should go, Scoutmom with this caution. It is possible that it IS just a merit badge mill. I have seen those. You also need to ask what happens if your son goes, completes one or more MBs, and then the Troop says "we don't accept those." Technically, they can't refuse a signed application but it could be ugly. Make sure they know that you plan to take your son anyway. BTW, if you want to see a write up on a GREAT MBUniversity, check out January Boy's Life. The Harvard MBU is in our council.

Congratulations, ManyIrons and thank you for taking the time and effort to go to WB and complete your ticket. Now part of your challenge is to encourage other leaders to go.

Good but sad counsel. One hears about this kind of thing fairly frequently. When you contact the parents, expect either a hostile reception or a tale of woe which will make you bleed. Expect "A Scout is Friendly" and "A Scout is Kind" to be sorely tested. You need to be prepared, in advance, with what you will do and likely follow through. Most likely, it is not the boy. Rather, it is the parents who are having exceedingly hard times. If possible, you need to figure out how to get the money while showing a lesson on responsibility to the boy. Tough job!

The wonderful comments by andrew, Eagle and Twocubdad outline precisely the dilemma faced by National developers of training materials. The material must be: 1) Clear so that the trainers can understand it and present what is intended 2) Targeted at what is intended 3) Cover the materials desired by the participants 4) Achieve the training objectives set by BSA Nationally and Locally 5) Fun for all concerned 6) Able to be presented to one person or to a large group 7) Not requiring inappropriate or too much preparation, resources, etc. 8) etc. etc. So if you present wh

One suggestion I might make for an SM approaching a Pack. What can you do for them? Can you put on an exciting demonstration? Can your Scouts do something exciting. Are there any boys who would like to be Den Chiefs, particularly Webelos Den Chiefs? Be ready to offer that service to the Cubmaster. But don't offer a boy who could be problems, offer someone who will be a good example of being a Boy Scout. Possibly an older Scout. Remember that Den Chief is a position of responsibility for advancement through Eagle Scout.

Hello Lisa, I am stunned by one thing you wrote "Your DE will not allow you to have a list of Packs and Cubmasters." So here are some suggestions: 1)Do you have a unit Commissioner? If so, ask your Commissioner to help you get those names. 2)If not,contact your Asst. District Commissioner and/or District Commissioner. Tell them that you are trying to recruit graduating Webelos Scouts for your Troop but that you don't have the names you need of the Packs. 3)Contact your DE again. You really don't need the names of all the Cubmasters and Packs in the District, just tho

Or, to add to the question of TwoCubDad, suppose that, at reregistration, a person changes jobs. All the ASMs become MCs and all the MCs become ASMs. Presumably that starts another 12 months. You can't legislate goodness. Plus, I hope that your Council Training Committee is going to go out of its way to make training available when and where people want it. If they play the common game of "We want to run a perfect training Troop and we won't run it without thirty participants" and combine that with "We won't reregister you if you don't complete training" it could be very in

Here is what I found in the 1920 issue of the Chief Scout Speaks: "APRIL 24, 1920 THE ELEVENTH SCOUT LAW How many laws are there in the Scout Law? Ten. Well, if there were an eleventh law it would be this: "A Scout is not a fool. He thinks a thing out for himself, sees both sides, and has the pluck to stick up for what he knows to be the right." A fellow who is a backwoodsman is never a fool, because he has to look out for himself on all occasions; while a chap who lives in a town gets everything done for him. If he wants water he goes to the tap instea

NJCubScouter: I believe there is a separate rule for "family outings." However, I believe you can't go halfway on that. In other words, if it is a family outing, every child that goes must have at least one parent or guardian going also. Normally, this alternative is used in Cub Scouting. I suspect this alternative would be available for the Venturing but having a full complement of parents might not be thrilling for the members. This does pose another interesting question of a sort which normally comes up in connection with two deep leadership. Let's say that a Venturin

For the Boy Scout, absolutely. This is called showing the flag. A dear friend of mine was my 18 year old ASM when I was a very young SM. He had just moved into the area but told me about his previous Troop. He said that one time, they needed new members and he (and other boys) were invited to a Pack meeting to do recruiting. So he went in full Eagle Scout uniform, merit badge sash, medals, etc. and said "Join our Troop, work hard and you can look like me!" He got them all! For the Cub Scout in the Boy Scout meeting: Probably. The only problem would come if some of th

Don't know how many kids you have, Eamonn, but in the blink of an eye, you will wish that you could go on skiing trips with your child. And then, except for very special circumstances, it will be too late. Go. Enjoy. Go as a parent or as an interested adult. And be thankful that the temperature isn't zero as it is outside my front door or -20 as it is in my place in NH.

Scoutldr, Your frosting suggestion is essentially what my wife did in the situation I mentioned. Actually, the man, at her insistence, had brought a tube of glucose gel which is probably a better idea as it is designed for this purpose. When she was unable to rouse him at 4AM, she slowly introduced it into his mouth and it took over an hour to achieve some consciousness. She later learned that this is not a trivial matter and both she and the man in question were lucky. Introducing anything into the mouth of a person in this kind of shock can cause them to aspirate the mater

"Now for the why, these need to be addressed. Lest say 2 scouts from a troop that does not follow the methods, grow up have a family and when there son or sons go into scouts, they had a great time in scouts (a great time does not mean they learned anything from the program) so they become leaders and run the program just like their SM or DL ran it." Hello Dan, This quote of yours raises such a good point and I want to address it a little. Your conclusion is good but I fear the way that you got there is very different from my experience. When anyone with Scouting experience

I believe that George Will is close but not quite right on the mark. I believe that there is a very clever, well calculated and well timed marketing program to coordinate, market and maximize the impact and revenue from the following: 1)Pete Rose's book 2) Pete Rose's interviews, public appearances, etc. 3) Pete Rose's potential admission to the baseball Hall of Fame I believe that the "apology" is designed to maximize the revenue from 1 and 2 and, if possible, make 3 happen. I do believe that Mr. Rose is in almost complete denial. I have heard it suggested on local

A Scout is Friendly. A Scout is a friend to all. He is a brother to other Scouts. He offers his friendship to people of all races and nations, and respects them even if their beliefs and customs are different from his own. There are many "liberal" Scouts and Scout leaders. May I respectfully suggest that our movement and our country are better served if we attempt to create an organization where all Scouts and Scouters are welcome and can enhance their citizenship, character and fitness and pursue life, liberty and happiness. I'm not sure how it is Scoutlike to be essentially

BW, thank you for the information. I would like to read that myself, if you don't mind, to be sure that I understand it correctly, so is there a place you can refer me. I went through something like the Pack A/Pack B situation in my first adult Scouting job. I was a new lieutenant on an AF Base. There had been one Troop and one Pack, each about 150-200 boys. About 3-4 years earlier, they had decided to split each into 4 Troops and 4 Packs. There also was a formal assignment of feeder Packs where Pack A would feed Troop C, Pack B would feed Troop D, etc. A boy could choose