NJCubScouter

As of the time my son became a Boy Scout 7 years ago, our troop paid for a Boys Life subscription for every boy. Unfortunately, at some point several years ago our Troop Committee decided to take the subscriptions out of the dues and let those who wish to subscribe subscribe. I wasn't at the meeting in question, but I believe it was at the time of an increase in both registration fees and/or insurance fees to the council, and the BL subscription fee itself. The troop dues had to be increased anyway due to the registration and/or insurance costs and to keep our budget balanced in general, and the decision was that the committee just did not want to increase dues enough to cover the BL subscription as well. As a result, our troop dropped from a 100 percent BL troop every year to one with about 5 subscriptions, and I would not be surprised if we are at about 0 now. My son was one of the few subscribers at the beginning, but he lost interest at the age of about 16 and has now Eagled/aged out of the troop. I suspect this is not the sort of response you were hoping for, since the literal answer to your question ("what you've done to make sure every boy in your Pack, Troop or Unit receives Boys Life at home") is, in our case, "nothing." I wish this were not the case, but it is and I don't think there would be any great sentiment to change it at this time. In fact we just had another of our annual votes on increasing the dues, and we decided to hold the line for this year despite the fact that we risk running in the red. The chances of adding another cost into the mix seem pretty small.

I thought he appeared at the Jamboree on a screen, rather than in person. I don't see any problem with that and actually I think it makes more sense, both to minimize the crowd-control problems that existed with past presidential appearances (due mostly to security measures) and for reasons of security itself. Do they run everybody coming into a Jamboree through a metal detector? (Including visitors?)

I found a council web site that has the forms here: http://www.threefirescouncil.org/images/Council/Files/Journey%20to%20Excellence-District-Crew-Troop-Pack.pdf

Kudu says: If you read the BSA camping requirements from Tenderfoot to Eagle, there is absolutely no requirement that an Eagle Scout ever spend a night outdoors. He merely has to have slept in a tent he has pitched. So pitch the tents indoors! The "outdoors" is implied in the various requirements including the Camping MB. I don't know of anyone who interprets them otherwise. Is there anyone in this forum who gives credit for a night of camping (whether Camping MB or First Class, or otherwise) if the tent is not pitched outdoors?

Beavah says: EDGE smacks of classroom education. Explain da problem on the board. Demonstrate the problem. Guide them on the practice problems. Enable them to do da problems for homework. Bah. Boring. Fine for school where yeh have only one instructor for 35 kids and you've put all da kids of the same ability together so they can't help each other. But much as it might be da way of the classroom, it's really not the way of Scouting. Kids mostly learn by watching and example and trying, not by somebody blah blah blahing an explanation or demonstration. Yeh could probably drop da E and D and we'd be better off. Just be competent yourself so that they can see what that looks like, then guide and enable. Or pose 'em a challenge like a patrol competition or a COPE obstacle and have 'em work it out, eh? We don't explain, demonstrate, guide, etc. a COPE course. We let 'em work the challenge, maybe dropping a hint here or there. Beavah, I think the problem is that you don't understand what the BSA means with this method... either that or... (possibly less-than-Scoutlike comment deleted here.) You are making way more out of it than is intended. Nowhere does it say that there has to be a lengthy explanation for everything. It is going to depend on the skill being taught. If an older Scout is teaching a younger Scout how to build a fire, I am not sure much more needs be said in the first "E" than "Here's how to build a fire." If it's "Here's how to splint an arm", I think there also needs to be some "Here's WHEN to splint an arm." With knots and lashings, the "when" and the "why" comes in as well. But still nobody is saying it has to be a 15-minute classroom lecture. And since the "teacher" is often going to be an older Scout (especially now, see new Tenderfoot requirement 4c and new Life requirement 6), I don't think you will usually have to worry about a long lecture anyway. This will also be a learning process for the "teacher." I think if a 13-year-old Star Scout is into the 12th minute of a dry lecture about map and compass, without a map or compass yet in sight, he will learn something from the fact that his 10-year-old student(s) has turned his attention elsewhere. So for the first E, all they're really saying is, make sure the learner knows what it is he is about to learn, and if appropriate, when and how that skill should be used. You say "watching an[] example and trying" is better than a "demonstration". It's the same thing. (Actually "watching an example" is the D, and "trying" is the first part of the G. If the learner is not doing it correctly, "G" continues with "dropping a hint here or there", which you also refer to as being a good thing.) Then letting the learner do it on his own, with some final words about when (and when not) to use this skill, is the final E. It's not a big deal. It's common sense. It doesn't necessarily take any longer than it did when we were taught these skills decades ago. In fact, it doesn't necessarily need to BE different than it was then, if it was done effectively back then. It's just to make sure a young teenager doesn't leave out anything while he's trying to teach something. Why do people need to make it into a big deal?

Under unit money-earning guidelines, you (as a unit Scouter) are not supposed to be asking these businesses for money anyway, without council permission. Generally the councils want to keep these sources of funds for themselves, and no, they're not sharing the funds with the units. I'm not saying this is a good situation, but it is the way it is. As for the Quality Unit Award, I guess it is going to depend on how heavily they weight this factor. If they effectively make it impossible to make Quality Unit without participating in council fundraisers (i.e. selling overpriced popcorn) and having parents donate a lot of money to FOS, a good number of units, including mine, are probably going to stop being Quality Units. Oh well. It's a nice patch to have, but not "at all co$t$."(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

Ok, I did a little exploring (oops, I mean venturing) on the Internet and found out what the 1970s version of "EDGE" probably was, "Manager of Learning." (See http://www.whitestag.org/skills/manager_of_learning.html) Now that my memory has been jogged, it does sound familiar (along with the other 10 "competencies", including GGI.) Obviously, from the URL we see that the TLD course I took in the early 1970's was part of the White Stag program, which I fear will send Kudu off on yet another historical rant, but so be it. I do not accept the idea that the training and leadership methods that I experienced as a Boy Scout were as terrible and counterproductive as Kudu seems to believe. I mean, what's wrong with things like "Setting the Example", "Planning" and "Evaluation" (more of the 11 competencies from the 1970's)? ALL good leaders do those things, regardless of whether you give them a name or make a list of them. So the current trend (since the 70s) is to make a list of them and give them names and sometimes irritating little memory assisters so you're less likely to forget. Is that really so bad? So in the 70s, the 4 steps were Guided Discovery, Teach/Learn, Application and Evaluation. Now it's Explain, Demonstrate, Guide (as the learner practices) and Enable (the learner to succeed on his own.) Is it really that different? You can see how the steps overlap. I think EDGE is more useful, particularly to a teenager teaching a skill, than the 1970's version. Guided discovery? What's that? I've never really known. The EDG steps are much more concrete and helpful, and they are also the embodiment of "Teach/Learn." They actually tell you HOW to teach, so the skill is learned. And then Application is part of the last E and probably a portion of the G, and Evaluation is part of the last E. It's really a matter of terminology, but as I say, I think the current terminology is more helpful, especially to a young person.

Bart, OGE and TwoCub basically took the words right out of my mouth regarding EDGE. It is not really anything new, people (including Scouters and Scouts) had been teaching and learning things this way for many years without articulating it as a specific series of steps or giving it one of those irritating acronyms. The first time I ever heard of it was a few years ago when my son came back from his NYLT course and I was flipping through his notebook and comparing some of the content and terminology to what I remember of the TLD course I took back around 1973 (another favorite of Kudu's, I'm sure.) From back then I recall another acronym, GGI, Getting and Giving Information, which is not exactly the same subject but in the same ballpark. If I had my notes from TLD I would probably find something that was a better match, but with a different name and probably without the specific steps. But what I remember thinking about EDGE when looking through my son's NYLT notebook was, basically, This is just common sense. They spelled out the specific steps (and added one of those silly mnemonics to remember them by) so you would be less likely to miss a part, but it's really just common sense. When my father was SPL in ~1940, he probably taught Scout skills more-or-less the same way, he just didn't know what the steps would be called 70 years later.

If you think this place can be bad that way, you should try editing Wikipedia. On your first day you might be told to AGF and make sure your article is NPOV, but no 1E or OR in your BLP... and that's just the beginning.

Wow, I did not think I was saying anything really controversial, and this thread in response to what I said is on its third page. Obviously I agree with Bart, OGE and others, training in outdoor skills is not mutually exclusive with training in leadership and related skills. Kudu, you say they are, but all you really "prove" is that perhaps one aspect has been overemphasized at the expense of the other. It does not prove they are mutually exclusive. In other words, training can achieve the right balance, even if one does not believe it necessarily does so now. As for Penta: You make good points, but nobody said this was easy. We do the best we can. Some people bring more skills to the table and some bring less, and hopefully the training fills in all or part of the rest.

National has gone so far as to create an Innovation Team to investigate our concerns and the feasability of our ideas in regards to program, operations, record keeping, ect. Really? What's their e-mail address? (...he asked innocently. Let's see if my suspicion is correct.)

Penta: I believe Ocean and Atlantic are already in a council together. Jersey Shore? But then that is your part of the state, not mine. My guess is that if Monmouth were merged, it would be with the Central Jersey Council (Middlesex and Monmouth). Yes, it would be a stretched-out council and perhaps it would have "vast cultural differences", but I think it would still be less on both those fronts than the Patriots Path Council. This council includes the city of Elizabeth on one end, Stokes State Forest on the other, and the "horse country" of northern Somerset County in between, and lots of other kinds of places as well. I don't think the BSA cares about any of that. They care about whether the council is supporting itself financially. You can't, I think, discount the sheer logistics - NJ looks like a tiny state, until you try to travel in it. Yup, I've lived here all my life.

ScouterMyth, first of all, thanks for NOT providing a more exact description, I think we get it. Second and more importantly, I would be curious to know how many service members have been removed for having "unnatural copulation" with a member of the OPPOSITE sex. I suspect the number is very very small. The fact is that this code section, and the current policy, does allow people to be removed simply for being gay, and they are being removed. The fact that they may tell someone they are gay (in what they thought was a private conversation) leads to the inference that they have had "unnatural copulation", because without getting into go-ask-your-parents territory, that's the only kind available. Whereas if the military finds out that a male and female are in a sexual relationship, they could be acting in a "natural" or "unnatural" manner, we just don't know unless we peek through the window. This is one reason why the policy is unfair. Blancmange, I do not think that exclusion of black people, Jewish people and others from Scout units was universal. In some parts of the country it probably was CLOSE to universal, in other parts it may not have existed at all. Even in parts of the country where there might not have been an official exclusion, I think people just naturally gravitated to their own "kind" more than they feel compelled to today. My father (who was Jewish, as am I), was a Scout in the late 30's/early 40's, and from my conversations with him, I believe his troop was virtually all-Jewish, and chartered to a Jewish community center. He lived in a diverse city in New Jersey, and I am sure the Italians had their troop, the Irish had theirs, the Polish etc. (I'm not quite sure how the blacks fared in that place and time.) He once told me an interesting story that took place while he was Scoutmaster, and I'm guessing this was in the late 40's or early 50's. There was a neighboring troop that was in the process of folding, and this troop happened to not follow the birds-of-a-feather idea, but rather had a few Jewish kids, Italians, Irish, etc. and a couple of black kids. My father's troop was apparently the most logical one to invite them in. The CR (or whatever it was called at the time) told my father that the community center wished for the troop to remain all-Jewish. My father said fine, then get another Scoutmaster. The result was that the "diverse" castoffs found a home in the now newly-diversified troop, with my father remaining as Scoutmaster. I'm kind of proud of that story.

Vigil: Plus they write dates funny over there. I mean how are you supposed to know whether 4/5 is April 5 or May 4? When it's 20/9 then its pretty obvious, but for the lower date-numbers its impossible. Though I suppose I'd have to admit that date-month-year is probably a more logical order than month-date-year, since it's in, um, order.

Shouldn't this thread be in Issues and Politics? Just a few quick points: 1. Penta, one thing I find interesting is that the Monmouth council still exists at all. Except for Monmouth and Burlington, every other "county council" in New Jersey has been merged into a larger council. The eight northermost counties in New Jerey are now divided into two councils, four counties each (this does not include Warren and Hunterdon counties, which are in a council based in Pa., perhaps the one OGE is in.) The population of one of these, Northern NJ, is many times the population of Monmouth County. Why? I don't know specifically, but the answer must be somewhere in the area of greater financial support and/or greater percentages of youths joining. The BSA does not keep councils independent just for sentimental reasons. So you must be doing something right, or be lucky, or both. 2. I agree with Horizon about the gay issue, and about how many non-gay Scouters stay in the program and, if given the opportunity, would help change the policy. Meanwhile, we are spreading the REAL values of Scouting, i.e. trustworthy loyal etc., self-reliance, responsibility etc. etc. Some of us (like me) don't even have a child in the program yet have taken on MORE responsibilities. And yet we disagree with this one policy. And we're not gay, or at least I'm not, and I'd say the vast majority of the people who oppose the anti-gay policy aren't gay either. (That last couple sentences is in response to something onevoice said.) 3. If the policy did change (to local option), there would be a ripple of dissent here or there and a lot of grumbling, but in the end I don't think many people would leave, I don't think any large CO's would leave (because it would not affect their units), and in the end the BSA would only be stronger.

CA Scouter, the simple answer to your question is that there is no policy statement from the BSA that prohibits what you want to do. There may yet be one, in six months, a year, two years, but at present there is not. The phrase in what your committee member quoted, "always with the minimum of two adults", is simply a reference to the two-deep leadership rule, which as others have posted (with quotations), does not apply on patrol activities. There is no policy that patrol activities exclude campouts. Of course, this brings up yet another tangent: Why can't the BSA provide its local volunteers with rules that are clear and consistent? On the other hand, I (along with others) fear that when the BSA finally does speak in a clear, single voice on this subject, the result will be no more patrol overnights without adults.

I agree with OGE. The issue (concerning Kudu) is not which training method is correct or incorrect, and the issue is not whether someone said something inappropriate back in 1965. The issue is whether calling people "stupid" and "evil" (or "stupid OR evil"), or idiots (or Idiots) is an appropriate way to communicate in THIS forum. I don't think it is. We don't need to be calling people names because they believe in a different training method. Personally I think that Scoutmasters and ASM's (leaving aside any other positions) need to be well-trained in outdoor skills AND leadership skills (and other skills such as dealing with behavior issues, how to best teach skills to boys, etc.) The two (or more) are not mutually exclusive. If you disagree, am I stupid, evil or an idiot? I think it's none of the above. We just have different opinions. I also think, Kudu, that you have a lot of good and useful things to say and I agree with some of your opinions, but you weaken the force of your message by calling people stupid, evil, etc. The message gets lost amidst the nastiness.

Well, as far as bullying goes, that's the whole problem. It was NOT being adequately addressed by people, so it HAD to be addressed by laws and policies. Of course, the laws and policies still have to be enforced by people, which is the weak point. But at least now the parents of bullies can't say there's no policy against it. We all know what's right. I'd say that's mostly correct as far as it goes. When dealing with youthful misbehavior, there is a general consensus about what is right and what is wrong. But when it comes to how to deal with particular instances of misbehavior, I think the consensus breaks down. Additionally, these days there is often more interference with the "corrective" process from the parents of the wrongdoer than there used to be, which further complicates things. The teacher or Scouter can tell little Johnny that his behavior was wrong, but if the parents get the youth home and tell him he didn't do anything wrong, the kid isn't going to learn anything.(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

Oops. You're right, Neal. Sorry, VigilEagle. And before I hit "send" on that post, I checked TWICE to make sure I was not putting the decimal in the wrong place, and I did it anyway. It's a good thing I don't do math for a living, and I think I will neglect to mention this little arithmetic misadventure to my son, the engineering student.

Acco, yes, you probably are an old fogey on some things, but that is ok, I definitely am on some things. I am the only person in my family without a Facebook account, and increasingly it seems, one of the few people in the inhabited portions of the Galaxy who does not. People say to me things like, they'll tell someone something on Facebook, and I just scratch my head. Isn't that what email is for? I'm not even sure what they mean. And I actually have been "online" for just about 20 years, but somehow the world of "online" has sort of passed me by. So maybe the fact that "e-mail" is "old hat" to me is part of the reason why I do see it as a valid form of communication and discussion. (And I am not a 20- or 30- something, in fact in a couple of years one of my children will be in the latter category.) I often need to tell 5 or 10 far-flung people the same thing; by the time I get off the phone with the second one, I would have an e-mail finished and already be receiving responses, and all the people I e-mailed are seeing the responses as well and can join in the discussion. Another thing I find is that if the communication is lengthy or even medium-length, or complex in any way, e-mail is much better because it allows me to collect and organize my thoughts, and edit them so they are exactly what I want to say. Seeing what I want to say on paper will often prompt me to change the way I am presenting something and occasionally even change the substance (i.e. I look at what I have written and realize, nah, that's not going to fly.) I get none of that opportunity with a phone call, in fact what I often get is interrupted by the other person before I even get past my first point, and things go off on a tangent, and I may never get to say all of what I wanted to say. So I see no reason why an email, or maybe even better yet for teenagers who have Facebook, a Facebook communication, cannot satisfy the First Class requirement. I mean, the recipient will look at the Facebook communication (see, I don't even know what to call it) and say, hey, (name of sender) must be really hip and groovy, he uses Facebook. Actually, I'm sure they won't say that at all. I guess I'm just an old fogey.

VigilEagle, if I read your post correctly, you expect to drink between about 23 and 35 LITERS of water, excuse me, dihydrogen monoxide, today. Is that really correct? I like H2O also, but I estimate I drink between 2 and 3 liters a day, which most people would consider a lot.

Lisa, that does sound like a good idea... but that would have to be a pretty big tag, to clearly show where each kind of patch goes.

Yes Sherm, I suspect that in the Cambodian Scouting program, they probably don't sent out catalogs with $100 Eagle Scout paperweights and other such items.

The previous Chief of Staff, Army, reversed the location of the Field on Army Combat Uniform flag patches (colored and subdued) because the United States Army is an "Expeditionary Army", and the flag itself trails the staff when the flag is moving forward into harms way. John, could you clarify that? I don't see military uniforms very often. Where was the flag before, and where is it now? And which way was the flag pointing before, and which way now?

Well, Council tells me that the blackout dates required by United Way are July 1 - Nov. 30. (Seems like a long time.) It is a VERY long time. If our council had a rule like that, our troop would not be able to do its biggest fundraiser, which is a wreath sale. We STOP taking orders around mid-November, so we can get the wreaths delivered shortly after Thanksgiving. If we could not START taking orders until December 1, you really miss the window for a "holidays" related sale. (Of course, our council would not have a rule like that because our area's United Way cut off the Boy Scouts a long time ago, for reasons best discussed in the Issues and Politics forum.) And if EVERY council had that rule, covering the same time period, what would happen to all those "holiday greenery" fundraising ads in Scouting magazine? There would be a lot less "green" coming into the Scouting magazine advertising department.