NJCubScouter

Even if they were to phase out Venturing, which I don't think they will, I think Sea Scouts is not going anywhere. A specialized program like that will always have a following.

Just noting that as I say this, I have the official moderator stun-gun in my hand, metaphorically speaking. This thread has devolved into name-calling of a 16-year-old girl. That has to stop, now. You can disagree with what she has said, or asks for, as others have done, including me. That's sufficient for the discussion. The name-calling crosses the line. I'm putting down my stun-gun now (for now), but I don't think it's appropriate to be calling her father names, either.

Col. Flagg, I found the thread I was looking for, and I see you have now posted in it as well. (The one started by LeCastor.) His district is starting new crews and revving up to support the program, and your district doesn't want to hear about it. The contrast is rather striking for subdivisions of what is supposed to be the same organization.

Col. Flagg, let me ask you this: Do you think that when you were 16, you ever said or did anything, or asked for anything, that in retrospect as an adult, does not seem reasonable? I can tell you that in my case, the answer is yes.

Of course you can ask. Anyone can ask anything they want. The answer is going be (and should be) no, which I believe is the same answer the BSA will (and should) give Ms. Ireland. I actually see nothing wrong with her asking. I think it's great that she wants to be a Something-Scout and do the work required to earn Eagle. That doesn't mean she can, because she was born too soon. She can probably be a Something-Scout for a short period but apparently will not have time to earn Eagle. Maybe she will want to become an ASM in the Something-Scouts when she turns 18. They are going to need female leaders and all of her youth activities (official and unofficial) should make her a good candidate. (Added note: I think that under current rules, if all you needed for Eagle was a BOR and if the reasons you didn't have one were beyond your control (which is a big "if") then you probably COULD get an EBOR now.)

Thanks for the update Eagle.

Didn't someone else post within the past week that they are involved in a current district effort to INCREASE Venturing activity? Maybe they said they had been appointed Venturing RT commissioner where there had not been anyone in that position before? I could be wrong about that. But if I am correct, it suggests that there is a difference in how different people are interpreting the signals coming from National. If nothing else, it would seem to me that National would not want to lose the 18-21 youth members, although I suspect the numbers currently participating in that range are not overwhelming.

I have not seen any article saying that she is trying to get "credit" for anything. What the article linked at the beginning of this thread says is that she is asking to be able to join now rather than when the new program goes into effect because the time period in between is the difference between her having a shot at making Eagle before she turns 18, and not.

Well, it WAS two, until about 5 years ago or so. I forget whether the first part was called "Proposal", "Plan" or something else, but it included both the proposal and the plan. Basically part 1 was "before" and part 2 was "after" (as part 3 is now.) My understanding is that the main reason they divided the proposal from the plan is that Scouts were doing the elaborate planning required in the combined first part, only to have the idea itself turned down for being outside the scope of an Eagle project, or for whatever other reason. National decided to add a step so that the Scout could just outline the proposal (which still has a significant amount of detail, including what I would call "preliminary planning") and then go ahead with the full "planning" process only after the proposal is approved.

You are correct sir, I guess I just thought that the "give leadership to others" part was in there from the beginning, and I didn't read the 1965 requirement closely enough. According to this page that phrase was added in 1979. So I guess I could have done a "DIY" project myself, if I had done one. My recollection is that the kids who made Eagle in my era did recruit the rest of the troop as labor on their projects. It may be that it had become common to do so by that time (mid-70s) and maybe some councils were requiring it, so National decided it was a good idea and formally added it to the requirement.

Interestingly, I have seen no indication that Ms. Ireland has even raised the "international option" as an issue. Her request is that she be permitted to start working on Eagle (well, really, Scout through Eagle) now, including the counting of the time periods, so that she will have the opportunity to make it before her 18th birthday. The majority of us here (including me), but not all of us, seem to feel that this request should not be granted.

Yes, as with many things, a happy medium would be best. But I see the chances of the BSA making any significant change to make things LESS bureaucratic as being the proverbial "slim and none."

Well, here is the comparison. Orginal project requirement (1965): Current requirement: Interestingly, the basic statement of the actual project itself (in the first sentence of the current requirement, as clarified in the parenthetical that follows) is really very similar to what the entire requirement was in 1965. They have just expanded "your church or synagogue" to "any religious institution" and have made clear that projects done for the BSA don't count, which was probably implied in the original requirement anyway. The bulk of the additions to the requirement, in terms of time, effort and restrictions on what the project can be, are not stated specifically in the requirement itself, but in the two documents that are referenced there, the Eagle Project Workbook and the Guide to Advancement. (I believe the reference to the G2A was just added in 2016.) Stosh, I think your analogy to tax forms is a good one. They have added a multi-page "worksheet" that you have to fill out and get signed by various people who, in 1965, did not necessarily have to sign anything. (I suspect each council adopted its own process, but I don't know, I wasn't even a Cub Scout yet in 1965, and whatever the Eagle project process was in the mid-70's, I did not go through it.) And now they have added a set of "instructions" in the form of the cited sections of the G2A - including an appeal process, etc. etc. Obviously it is much more paperwork and red tape than there was in 1965. I agree that the workbook has gotten out of hand. It is now organized better than it was when my son went through the process in 2009, but it's still pretty onerous. And I well-remember my son trying to get the text into those little boxes.

Some people will never get past it.

I couldn't stand seeing it that way every time.

Let's please not turn this into a discussion of transgender/non-binary gender/etc. That really should be under Issues and Politics. This thread is about whether there is a "race" to become the first female Eagle Scout, and whether that "race" is a good thing, bad thing, or both, or neither.

Our council has just completed (effective last week) a year-long reorganization of the professional staff, and the org. chart (at least that part of it) seems to now be fully staffed. This seems to have resulted in an increase in professional staff. The council has six districts. Previously I believe we had two field service directors and (usually) one DE (or DD or SDE) per district. Now we still have two field directors (they seem to have removed the word "service" from the title) but each one now oversees a "service area" consisting of three of the districts. Each service area has four executives, each of whom covers a separate subject-area for all three of the districts. Those areas are unit service, program, membership and development. These executives report to the field directors. So we have gone from six district-executive-types to eight. Each district still has its own volunteer structure, its own events, etc. etc. How long that is going to last is anyone's guess, but I think there would be a great deal of commotion if they tried to merge the districts any more than they have been merged in the past.

Snow Owl, you present this question as hypothetical; assuming it is a real-life case, does the council know that the person was arrested?

Insert_Display_Name, welcome to the forum! Did you choose that name intentionally? It looks like it could have been an accident. I am moving this to the Advancement section of the forum. The Eagle project workbook, which you should have and must use when you reach the "proposal" stage, would provide basic information. However, I don't know that I have ever seen it filled out before getting at least conceptual approval from the project sponsor. Around here, town officials and others will usually give a "verbal" approval based on general information about the project idea, then you fill in the Proposal section of the workbook, and the project sponsor must sign it along with your Scoutmaster, Troop Committee and District Advancement Committee representative.

RS: Ok, thanks.

I tried to do the same thing earlier but with my feeble technical skills I could not figure out how. So, how?

Ewoks are friends, not food. (I guess I just tangented to a completely different kind of movie.)

Hawkwin: I rank them more by trilogy. But I completely agree about the Ewoks.

I would say that the original show's treatment of women varied with the writers, producers, etc. Yes, the exec officer in the original pilot was a woman. But in the LAST episode, Kirk's old girlfriend says that women are not permitted to be starship captains. (Which becomes even more confusing when in the Enterprise series, set in an earlier time, there is at least one female starship captain.) In between the first and last episodes, I would say that sexism was frequently on display, which reflects the mid-late-60's. It was a tv show. And it was much further ahead on racial/ethnic diversity than on gender-equality, in my opinion. I was looking for an example of where my wife and I disagree. We actually both like Generations. I think you're mostly right. But how is "the jump to hyperspace" really any different from "warp speed"? Isn't faster-than-light travel "science fiction" regardless of what you call it? (I can't think of any other examples at the moment.) And pistachio-almond.

I did roll my eyes when that happened, but I chalked it up to just being one more thing that Force-sensitive people can do. And it's not that much more absurd than some of the other things we have seen in these movies over the years. As for a laughing Vulcan, well, we have seen that a couple of times, and there is that song, "The Laughing Vulcan and his Dog." (I know that some of our fellow forum members are rolling their eyes right out of their heads at this point.) You seem to be impugning the quality of Return of the Jedi. I put the original trilogy films on a par with each other. But of course it's all a matter of taste. I like Star Trek VI, my wife thinks I'm out of my Vulcan mind.