pohsuwed

Is there a "Troll" button anywhere on this site?

I was visiting a scout shop the other day and took a look at the new Venturing Summit medal. I was taken back by the downgrade in quality in the construction of the medal. It is now just like the Varsity Denali award which is an emblem hanging from the ribbon which has the header bar glued to the top of the ribbon. I was quite sad to see this. Would it have cost BSA too much to keep it the same as the Silver or Ranger award quality?

This is an interesting one. I think we would all agree that Boy Scouts in general has been suffering with its public perception for some time now which has led to a decrease in enrollment and retention. I think we would all love to see this reverse direction. HOWEVER, we are also a group of people who for some reason are prone to cannibalizing our own whenever anyone gets any attention for what they are doing. It's very evident on these message boards, and it is probably evident in most of our districts and councils as well. In my case, our Venturing Crew was recently highlighte

There is plenty of what could easily be considered bullying going on here on scouter.com by people who don't think twice about their own snide comments at other leaders.

There is ALWAYS more to the story. For example, I recently participated in a discussion with a scout preparing his Eagle application where the scout's Life advancement date was in 2009 and his last leadership date was in 2008. (He thought he was ready for his EBOR!) This was not a surprise to me considering my knowledge of his virtually non-existent troop as well as his personal activity in this "troop". Luckily he had six months until his 18th birthday so I offered him the suggestion of either requesting a leadership position in his troop so he could work to bring it back to life or if th

Yes, I'm a little late to this party, but I do have a bit I would like to add to this discussion. Frankly, I get somewhat disgusted with some of the attitude that I find on these forums and this thread is no exception. It really appears as though a few people have latched onto and twisted a concept to make it something that it is not. The addition of quotes from Bill Evans doesn’t really answer the question either as it is evident that this is a poorly constructed award in the first place and even if Bill thought through it clearly he would probably not want to appear to contradict

Thanks charmoc! I may be wrong, but these boards have at least few conversations about the program being "boy led". It is interesting to find that Beaverrr and Mad Max take the different approach of controlling progression and constraining advancement, putting the control of the program into the pages of some unwritten book. Wouldn't "boy led" include the fact that if some boys run with the program faster than others and that we should let them run? Clearly each boy is unique and responds to motivation differently. The scout leaders should always emphasize the eight methods to create

Thank you, NJCubScouter. I seriously don't understand why Beaverrrr tends to jump to the most negative possible conclusions. In this case it is to attempt to discredit a scout he knows absolutely nothing about but his age. Really? Why can't the conclusion that he jumped to be positive such that the scout has done a great job grasping the learning opportunities of scouting. Heck, why can't it even be a neutral response and at least provide a congratulation? How many scouters are out there who don't realize that all scouts are different and work on advancement at different speeds. S

Beavah - I catch your fine-tuning, but it's really not relevant to the primary issue at hand. With that being said, this part of the thread has drifted a bit anyway, so why not a little more drift? Thanks.

Here's my rub. Life, and BSA, is what you make of it. As BSA is largely a volunteer organization the training is largely a function of our own efforts. If we choose to be trained and hence turn and train others (scouters and scouts) because we want the program to improve it will happen. If we would rather just criticize the program and the efforts of the organization to get people more involved it will not survive. Thank goodness for those who want it to survive.

Maybe we were typing at the same time. But once again, how does the uniform dictate a person's indoor/outdoor emphasis? I show no correlation. However, pushing for more outdoor emphasis in leaders would help out a lot. I have told local leaders here that if they were to structure their programs around activities around scouts qualifying for the National Outdoor Award their programs would improve greatly and I think it would attract a lot more dedicated participation by scouts and more support from scout parents. This wouldn't ignore advancement to Eagle as this would happen more naturally in

MC - Once again, completely ill-conceived correlations created between factors that are not close to having any direct correlation. Unless I am mistaken, it appears as though if /some/ adults give up their uniforms the program will come out of mediocrity? In my opinion, the rubber meets the road at the troop level. If the program is not well presented and managed by the troop committee and the scoutmaster the troop will be mediocre. (Please nobody jump in and say that it must be boy-led for sake of this discussion.) If MC's correlation were true, then what he is saying is that this gr

Great comments, especially the final comment by SeattlePioneer. I also have never seen any mud flung by a "have knot" at a "have not knot", but I have seen it the other way around plenty. (Pun intended, yet absolutely serious.) And the rest of my experience is similar to ScoutFish. It is the often the egos who first target those with knots as those who surely must have the ego when all they are doing is getting on with the program and doing their best. After all, isn't part of our creed to do our best?(This message has been edited by pohsuwed)

What drives me crazy about these forums is that you have a bunch of adults who suggest using the book to provide direction as to what to do. They then make up their own rules and suggest correlations between ideas that really have no direct correlation. For example, not having knots does not mean a scoutmaster is a better scoutmaster than others. He very well may be a better scoutmaster than others, but it is not due to his lack of knots (whether he has never earned one or just choose not to wear them, it doesn't matter). Likewise, having a rack of knots also doesn't automatically ma

I wear a CO patch under my flag on my right shoulder. I think it's an important thing to represent my CO with my scouts.