NJCubScouter

I agree with Hawkwin. I sympathize with Ms. Ireland, and since girls will be able to earn Eagle in the near future, I wish she could have the chance as well. But in all fairness, she can't. They don't even have the 11-17 girls' program set up yet, and I can see why it will take the 18 months or so it is going to take to set it up. As we discussed with the new rules on Eagle palms, there is always going to be the "last person" who either had to follow the old rules or isn't eligible at all. Unfortunately, Ms. Ireland is that "last person," or one of them. I think BSA needs to hold the line on this one.

I don't know, I don't think those uniforms look any "goofier" on the girls than they do on the boys. Maybe its more that we aren't used to seeing girls wearing them, plus it almost looks like they went out of their way to make this photo look goofy, like the big bow the one girl is wearing. And what's with that ladder behind them? And maybe I'm wrong about this, but are the pants on the girl in the middle a different shade of blue than the others? Or maybe it's just a different dye-lot. I have seen slight differences in color before on BSA uniforms that should have been exactly the same.

Aren't those girls Tigers, though? Or at least dressed as Tigers? The one in the middle is wearing a Tiger hat, not a Wolf hat, unless they have changed the colors while I wasn't looking. And the tiny bit of color in the middle of the neckerchief slides seems to be orange, not yellow. So are those red-ish neckerchiefs for Tigers now? Or maybe the people setting up the shot didn't know what they were doing and gave the girls the wrong neckerchief. If they really wanted to do it right they would have had all three wearing hats, and definitely not that bow that one of them is wearing. Unless that bow is going to be in the next catalog...

You never know, my son actually earned one non-required MB twice at summer camp, 2 or 3 years apart. I think it was Geology. He forgot he had earned it the first time. Not one of his prouder moments. But he didn't get the actual MB patch the second time, so it didn't go on his sash. (And of course it doesn't "count.")

Well, you learn something new every day.

They did, and I just happen to have here a photo (well, I just took it actually) of the right sleeve of the uniform shirt that I last wore in 1976: This patch was earned at the week-long Troop Leader Development course at Ten Mile River Scout Camps, Narrowsburg, NY, in the summer of 1973. My recollection is that this was the first year that that course was given, but I'm not 100% sure of that. What puzzles me is that this patch is in the place where the American Flag patch would be found. Why isn't there an American Flag patch on my old uniform shirt? (That's a rhetorical question.)

I think they've been trying to do that for at least 50 years.

I remember seeing the Bobby Fischer chess columns but I believe that while I was a Boy Scout the column was being done by Larry Evans. Not that I understood most of it anyway. Space Conquerors must be a little before my time as well, or at any rate I don't remember it. Why don't they go at night, right. Actually the science in there seems pretty abysmal, and I am not a scientist. I think they knew in the 50's/60's how hot Mercury is, and that nobody's putting any cameras on it, nor are any human beings going into orbit around it. And about 20 other things.

In Boys' Life, I liked Pee Wee Harris, Pedro and Scouts in Action, but my favorite was the bad, old jokes on the back page. I still tell some of those bad jokes.

As a 15-year troop committee member (and a pack and den leader before that), whose son aged out 8 years ago, I guess I am one of those old timers. I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly, from just about every angle. I have seen good conduct, not-good conduct, lack of conduct, and everything in between, from "old" leaders, new leaders, "medium" leaders and non-leaders. And not just in Scouting, but other volunteer organizations as well. Part of what I have seen coincides with some of what you have seen. Our troop had (emphasis on past tense) a CC who was trying to do about three committee jobs (in addition to CC) themselves, and often asked for help, but was never really able to "let go" from the things they were doing. Even when someone else was supposedly in charge of one of these jobs (or activities), the CC still held on to part of the information required to do the job and did not trust the person to actually do the job. When someone tried to help with something outside of their specific responsibility, they were sometimes met with a hostile response. And, referring to an issue that you mentioned, this person did not know how to ask for volunteers and would not listen to advice about it. Telling a roomful of parents that a particular job needs to be filled rarely produces a volunteer, and when it does it is not necessarily the right volunteer. The correct approach (and the one advocated in BSA materials on the subject) is to figure out who is the right person for the job, see if the committee agrees, and then personally ask that person if they will take on the job. And if that person cannot do it, go on to the next person. In your case you took matters into your own hands and asked someone to do the wreath sale. Not really how it is supposed to be done but it produced results. If I had done that in the time of the CC I mentioned, I would have gotten yelled at. Meanwhile this person never once cracked open the troop committee guidebook, and the one time I tried quoting from it, they looked at me like I was a three-eyed visitor from another planet. (So I eventually took matters into my own hands in the ultimate way, and recruited a new CC myself, got agreement from the other MC's (not the CC), and my recruit presented themself to the old CC, who saw the handwriting on the wall and stepped down.) On the other hand, dealing with "new parents" (and sometimes not-so-new parents) is not always a bed of roses either. I have seen parents who WERE properly asked to take on a job, and declined (often with "I'll get back to you," which often means the same thing), for no other reason than they are "busy" (which everybody is) or they feel they have already done enough volunteering for their sons in Cub Scouts or sports. (This one really rankles me now that I haven't had a son in the troop in years, and someone can't spare an hour per month or so to join me in doing boards of review for THEIR SON. Well, not their son of course, but you know what I mean. And yet when their son's EBOR comes around, some of them do find the time to hover around in the hallway during the board. I had one parent trying to give me hand signals or something, during their son's EBOR.) And then there are the people who selflessly serve others, follow proper procedures, read to learn about what they are supposed to be doing (beyond the official training) and treat fellow volunteers with the respect they deserve. I try to be one of those. And every unit committee or leadership group is different, but many of the challenges are similar.

Is that true? You would think, with two daughters, I would know that.

Oh boy. I don't think there's anything wrong with requiring an annual YPT refresher, but the full course, I don't know. It has been tough enough for our CC's to get some people to take the course every TWO years and some people have been dropped from positions because of it. Personally I think the annual refresher could just be requiring that people read the YP guidelines again and sign a form swearing (or affirming) that they have read them, and maybe add that you just have to take the test online, not the whole video. As for the full course going back to being over an hour (which it was the last time I took the in-person course rather than online), I think that is probably a good idea, assuming of course that the content is well-presented. I really feel that the current online course, which is about 30 minutes, skates over the content way too quickly, especially for someone taking it for the first time. (I know, I'm like the kid asking the teacher for more homework for the entire class.) I thought the old in-person course was better, even though I cringed every time I had to watch that kid describing how he was molested by an older Scout. On the other hand I always enjoyed the telephone call between the SM and CC in which the SM basically asks whether he can blatantly violate the 2-deep leadership rule on an overnight, and the guy playing the CC (and overacting a bit) tells him no, you can't. Some kind of blend between the older format and the current overview-from-50,000-feet version, doable online, would be better. Every two years in my opinion, with a "review" in alternating years. For that matter, will a "girl den" be able to have a male Den Leader, without having a female assistant leader? I am not talking about camping, I am talking about den meetings.

::Tap tap:: Is this thing on? Let's please stop with the personal commentary, including debates over what other people meant by a post, or whether other people should take offense at something, or what other people should or might learn in the future, or anything like that, and just discuss the issues.

Let's please stop the personal commentary.

There are some parents of boys already in the program who think the same thing.

Nothing personal, I just scrolled by quickly and didn't notice who wrote it.

Below each post is a "plus" sign, just to the left of the word "Quote." The plus sign is multi-quote, which does what you were trying to do. In the old software it said the word "Multiquote," I don't know why they decided to replace it with a symbol, but anyway... Added: Oh, someone already answered... never mind...

Full disclosure here, I stopped at Life, but it is my perception that it has NOT gotten easier. In some ways it has become more difficult. Up to a certain point there was no Eagle project. (I know that was still true in 1965, and I am pretty sure that when I became a Boy Scout in 1969 there was a project, so it must have been in there somewhere.) Now the paperwork for the project is a project in and of itself. I also believe that there are more requirements for some of the required MB's than there used to be. (The "Cits" would be included in that.) In the other direction you no longer have to earn Lifesaving MB if you earn E-Prep. (You also no longer have to get Swimming, but the vast majority of Scouts do so in my experience, even the ones who can't swim very well, because the requirements for Hiking and Cycling are both pretty onerous.) Also, the number of total MB's for Eagle have varied over time, prior to 1972 it was 21, then it was 24, and at some time during my 20+ year break from Scouting, it changed back to 21. My perception is that if we compare 1965 to 2017, overall it is somewhat MORE difficult to make Eagle today. I know that some others disagree.

I don't think the fact that I was not turned upside down in 1966 had anything to do with political correctness. I just think this "tradition" never reached my area. The pack leadership probably didn't even know about it. I can't explain it. It is a tradition that existed before I became involved with the troop. Nobody has ever talked about it, the SM's have just done it at every non-Eagle COH. It makes no sense to me, but then again holding a Cub Scout upside down makes no sense to me either. But I don't worry about it (the pinning upside down) because it doesn't hurt anyone, unless you count the very occasional pinning mishap, or the awkwardness and embarrassment of some Scouts in pinning something to their mother's upper-body clothing, especially if she is not wearing one of those ribbons they make for the mother's pins.

You're being satirical there, right?

Same as us, and my troop does that also, with the mother's pins. I have never heard of this turning-kids-upside-down thing other than on the Internet.

I understand BSA National is not very good at communicating. But they are pretty good at acting in their own best interests, and you would think that something that could lead to a substantial increase in membership would be widely publicized in order to make people aware that the program is available. Or at least I would think.

Everybody knows Jimmy Hoffa is buried under one of the end zones at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey (regardless of whether it's true or not.) The stadium was under construction when he disappeared, so it's not completely impossible, and New Jersey being New Jersey... But anyway, Giants Stadium was demolished in 2010, so if he really was buried there and was not "relocated" when the stadium was torn down, he would be now be under the parking lot for Met Life Stadium.

Yes, it's amazing how the sight of an eight-year-old coming dangerously close to being trampled by the high school marching band, or run over by a firetruck, will focus the mind.

Now, now, you're not "nuts." You sound at least as sane as about half the people I know. Of course, most of the people I know have some sort of anxiety, OCD or other issues as well.