neil_b

If you have the patrol method and use it consistently that's the main thing. That's what sets Scouting apart. Read a pre-1980's scoutmaster handbook if you need help with the patrol method.

I don't think preservation of Native American culture or any other culture falls to the OA or any other part of the BSA. The OA is there to honor campers and promote a life of service. It does so in an imaginative way, because that's more fun that just preaching at people that they should camp more and do more service projects. If you don't like the OA you don't have to be part of it.

"What we have here is a straightforward case of reductio ad absurdum."

Actually, I would say what we have here is a straw man.

"I find the failure to have effective recruiting efforts to be the most consistant thing that leads to failing packs."

When I have brought up the idea of recruiting over the years, I have repeatedly gotten responses like...

"Whose den are they going in? I don't have room in my den for more boys."

"If we recruit more boys we'll have to buy more gear and the troop trailer won't be big enough."

What they don't realize is that some day their boy may find himself the only one left his age in his pack or troop and may decide to quit rather than look for another unit with boys his age.

"The problems I have seen is that the adults are all in favor of sharing the load and 2 minutes in they start barking orders or making remarks about how the Scouts aren't doing it right."

Amen. That is exactly the problem I have seen. Adults who think they are being "helpful" but are just annoying the boys. There is a fine line between the adult who is helping and the adult who is hovering. The boys don't need multiple adults sending the boys in different directions or constantly reminding them that they can't do things as efficiently as the adults.

Assuming the adults have their own tents and fly and other stuff to setup, if the boys can't setup theirs as efficiently that doesn't mean the adults always come to their rescue to prove what hard workers they are.

There may be exceptions for example if it's raining and things are more in a hurry. Otherwise, so what if it takes a little longer to setup camp?

I can't recall anything we did in our patrol that could have resulted in a fist fight. High fives, knee slapping, hugs, yes. Fist fighting, no.

If anybody got so upset they left or got into a fist fight I think it says more about their character than it does about the course or the staff.

Stosh - Where are these camps? Sounds great!

I am impressed that your son has done so much research on his own and knows what he wants. However, troops aren't going to advertise on their web site that they have boring meetings and don't use the patrol method.

Also, don't think that the issues with the den leader will not be a problem if he crosses over with his den into the troop. My son crossed over with his den into a pretty good troop that used the patrol methods on all outings. But within a year his den leader took over as the new scoutmaster and he turned it into Webelos III. He drove away numerous people and things didn't start to turn around until he left.

So, if your son doesn't like his den leader he might not want to cross over into a troop with him.

B-P did criticize the "canvas town" summer camp as being less than ideal. Kudu quoted B-P as saying it was the opposite of Scouting, but I'm not sure B-P went quite that far. However, I have to wonder what B-P would say about the summer camps we have today.

I saw one boy last year get 10 merit badges in a week at summer camp. I suspect some of his counselors were rubber stamping and not really testing the boys on the requirements. I know for sure that the adults running the shooting range were relaxing the requirements for rifle and shotgun.

Unfortunately, I have also seen too many youth counselors at summer camp leading merit badge sessions who don't seem to know what they are doing and/or just don't do much. There doesn't seem to be anybody checking up on these boys to see if they are doing their jobs properly. I think they should let the participants evaluate the counselors. If the counselors knew they would be getting feedback on their performance they might try harder.

We had a bunch of boys sign up for camping merit badge last summer and all of them left with partials. The incompetent counselor didn't even sign off on all the requirements that the boys did, but camping is not a merit badge you can do in a week anyway. It seems like that's one they should not offer at summer camp. They should stick with ones like swimming and rifle shooting that can possibly be done in a week.

Astronomy is another merit badge that often disappoints boys at summer camp. If it is too cloudy they can't do all the requirements, it turns into just a classroom exercise, and they get sent home with partials.

I guess mainly I just am not crazy about classroom merit badges in general whether it is a merit badge clinic or the classroom style used at summer camp.

My religion tells me I should celebrate, because God has given me great things that are worth being happy about. So, whose religion wins?

We have had lots of Catholics in our troop and they have never told the Protestants that they should not eat meat during lent. Why does this JW think she is so special?

I would say don't change anything. I read about a Jamboree in England in 2007 where they forced everybody to eat vegetarian because they have become so PC. It's a slippery slope. Pretty soon you cannot do anything because everything violates somebody's religion.

"The phone chirps....the boys dig them out by force of habit. Reflex. then the just respond out of reflex. It has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on. Besides, who is in charge of the program?????"

The training material says one of the SM's responsibilities is to "Build a strong program by using proven methods presented in Scouting literature."

In most cases rules are of course coming from the adults even if the SM gets the PLC to rubber stamp them.

Once at church my son was messing with his phone and I said something to him and he showed me he was looking up the Bible passage. Another time at a troop meeting he made an OA announcement and used his phone because the information was in a tweet from the lodge.

I've used mine to look up merit badge requirements, to check dates for activities, to check the weather report while on a camp out, etc. I also use it to take pictures. At summer camp last year I put pictures on facebook in realtime so parents who stayed back home could see them. It can also be used as a light source when you cannot find your flashlight.

The anti cell phone rule is kinda like gun control. Bad people use the guns to shoot people so the solution is to take guns away from everybody.

The cell phone isn't what's bad, it's the behavior of how it's being used. There are down-sides to the technology, but there are also some ways it can be used positively as well.

Yeah, the GF breaking up with the boy while he's at a camp out is a bummer. Kids have to deal with modern problems we didn't have to deal with. However, he could have discovered this at home and maybe it was better for him to learn it while he was surrounded by friends.

Unfortunately, a lot of times kids start to text and play with their phones when the meetings are boring. So, if you have a constant problem with this, maybe the adults should start to look at the program and ask themselves if they can do something to better keep the interest of the scouts.

At the last OA camp-out I went to the lodge had a Twitter account setup for sending out informational messages during the event and told people how to have the messages sent to their cell phones. My son and I both subscribed and they are still sending us messages in this way.

So, you can try to communicate with the boys on their level in the 21st century manner or you can lay down the law and see how many are turned off by all the rules and eventually quit.

I got fingerprinted for a security clearance just last year by my local police department and they used ink.

Strange requirements? How about this one, "5.Using the construction project provided or a plan you create on your own, identify the items that would need to be included in an environmental impact statement for the project planned." Making a kid learn how to comply with government red tape, now that is truly strange.

At least killing and eating a chicken is something a kid could relate to. I bet if the kids had to do that they'd never look at their chicken nuggets the same way again. It's only strange by modern standards in which most people never see the animals they're eating while they are still alive.

I am thinking they probably used chickens because it wasn't rabbit season. Right? B-P had his boys skin and cook rabbits.

I've had some of the same frustrations even though I've only been a scouter since about 2002 and never was a boy scout.

It's difficult for me to understand why anybody who doesn't believe in the basic teachings of a religion would want to be identified with that religion and instead seek to change the religion to suit their own ideas.

You'll definitely need Youth Protection as that expires. You'll have to check with your Council whether they want to count your other old training. As somebody said, there's a lot of training you can do on-line now.

There is a big stigma of non-coolness to the term "boy scout". The BSA could easily get rid of that by renaming itself something like the US Scout Association or Scout Association of America.

I can think of four reasons for a name change.

1. The BSA is already partially co-ed (Venturing) so the name doesn't really make much sense for them.

2. Even the dictionary gives one definition of "boy scout" as "An honest, friendly, and typically naive man." (as defined by Google) Typically naive? Really? Pretty insulting, but so many people use the term that way that it made it into a dictionary!

3. African Americans don't like the term "boy" as one definition is "a Black or native male servant of any age." (Collins English Dictionary) - Not saying we always have to be politically correct for fear of offending somebody, but this can create confusion.

4. High school aged "boys" don't want to be called "boys" anymore. They think of themselves as young men. HS sports teams are referred to as Men's and Women's (or Ladies). Many of our so-called "boys" are old enough to be a father, old enough to have a job, old enough to be tried as an adult, and even some old enough to serve in the military.

5. A rename wouldn't necessarily mean going fully co-ed and competing against the GSA. It's just a simple shift of terminology.

I don't know if buying our Scout shirts from Bangladesh necessary benefits the Scouts there in any way. I figure that money goes to wealthy individuals there who spend their money as they see fit.

Regardless, workers in Bangladesh making Scout uniforms are not treated well.

Check out this link

www.sweatfree.org/docs/enemiesofthenation.pdf

Here are a couple interesting quotes from the document.

"The US$210 million Nassa Group is the second largest factory group in the country with 33 factories. Nassa has been the top supplier of apparel items to the worlds largest retailer, Walmart, and is also a past and/or current apparel supplier to Tesco, JC Penney, H&M, Sears, Asda, Carrefour, and the Boy Scouts of America."

"Labor rights advocates have also documented serious violations at the Nassa Groups facilities. These violations, documented by the Clean Clothes Campaign in 2008, include:

Compulsory 14-hour shifts, seven days a week.

Denial of the right to take personal leave or decline to work on legal holidays. Workers may be scolded or harassed by management to withdraw their requests for leave.

Verbal and physical abuse so frequent that workers described it as a 'regular daily matter.' When the facility falls behind production targets, senior managers abuse line chiefs and supervisors; these supervisors, in turn, verbally and physically abuse line workers. When workers leave their stations to use the restroom, supervisors yell at them."

"Like the Envoy workers, Nassa workers feared that if they were to speak out and demand their rights the company would retaliate by firing them or by orchestrating their arrest by filing false criminal charges against them."

Do we really want to support this kind of thing? I am beginning to think I should try to buy all my clothing "Made in America". Of course, you probably have to go on-line.

www.saveourcountryfirst.com

www.ehow.com/way_5135808_clothes-made-america.html

"Well they violated about every rule their was.....spent pack money on the troop..."

That is an interesting situation that might deserve its own thread, but I would think that could happen regardless of who runs the troop. I am not sure there is a rule against it.

I imagine the image has something to do with a cat stalking its prey, not a scout stalking a big cat.

Yeah, interesting question. We have ended up with that in our troop as well.

I think husband-wife teams are normal and have some benefits. If they do Scouting together it is one more thing they have in common. When only one spouse is involved the other tends to be jealous of the time that gets devoted to Scouting.

Communication is another benefit. They always know where to find each other, and they can bounce ideas off each other.

There is some potential down side of course. What's best for their spouse may not always be what's best for the troop as a whole, and when that's the case they could be biased and more likely side with their spouse.

In the case of my troop we had a lot of problems before these people took charge and things have gotten better in a lot of ways.

I compared prices on the uniform shirts between what they were in 2006 (before Mazzuca took over) and now (2011). I found they are less expensive now, although you would expect with inflation they would be more.

I happened to buy a shirt the other day and it was actually made in Bangladesh, which is a parliamentary democracy. Bangladesh has a Scouts organization with over a million members. Their web site has an article about BSA officials vising Bangladesh last year.

http://www.bangladeshscouts.org/eng/?p=246

Of course, it is a primarily Muslim country and these days I often wonder how much of our dollars going to such places could be redirected towards funding terrorism.

When I was Cubmaster of our pack we fixed a lot of the "fairness" complaints by getting an electronic lane judge and using GrandPrix Race Manager Software.

However, what is fair to one person may be unfair to somebody else. A car that is falling apart may be running into other cars and causing them to break, so running them down the track is not fair to the other boys.

I have seen people build cars that were way over weight or didn't have enough track clearance. In two cases we tried very hard to help these people get their cars in working order and failed. In both cases the boys were very upset and the parents blamed us. Is this fair to the leaders who are trying so hard and putting in so much time for the boys?

I would concentrate on the yelling issue and not as much on the belt loops. You get into a laundry list of issues and it just becomes too much to deal with.

The yelling may seem like a minor issue to some adults, but it can have a ripple effect. As a personal example, I never got into Scouting as a kid, because my older brother tried it and his den mother yelled too much. You lose one boy and you could also lose his brothers and his friends.

As CC I think you have the responsiblity to confront this woman about the yelling and make it official. Write her a letter (not an e-mail) and give a copy to your COR and cubmaster. In the letter you will first thank her for her hard work and dedication. Then you will tell her that as CC you are disappointed with the yelling, tell her that this behavior reflects poorly on the entire pack and the CO, and tell her that if she cannot control herself in the future you will start the process to remove her from the pack roster.

This may seem harsh, but your responsibility is to the boys and to the CO ahead of any one parent. If somebody doesn't confront her now she will be a thorn for years to come.

That is interesting. I wish we had this problem in our troop. Count yourself lucky that you have Eagle scouts who are willing to stick around and still be involved. And don't forget that you can have as many ASPL's and Quartermasters as you want or as many as you need to give boys positions for rank if that's how you like to do things.