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So, to avoid any and all sense of indigenous appropriation, should the name be changed to Order of the Flintlock?

That’s a cautionary tale for us all.

Yeah. Hide ice cream at a location within a half-day hike. Place the coordinates to that location someplace else. Provide a map with the location of the coordinates. First patrol to navigate to the ice cream gets their choice of flavor. Search “wide games” there will be plenty. but, for meetings we do games like a round of basketball, sleeping Indian, or other 15 minute game chosen by the SPL. Books? What are these books you speak of? Scouts master skills, demonstrate them to their PL or SPL, who then signs off. We don’t reserve a specific time for it. Our general str

@PACAN, I can think of three striking disincentives for GS/USA to reshape its program into anything like BSA’s: It is quite clear that by-and-large parents are still preferring to send their daughters to GS/USA over BSA4G. (Some prefer to do both.), Girls in both organizations love both, and in spite of attracting a small number of girls, BSA has not gained membership.

@Leehoden, welcome to the forums! Not to sound too judgmental, but many of us have acquired adult-to-youth translators. Adult “as a troop we were focused” often translates into youth “this is really boring.” Once most of your boys have achieved 1st class rank, it’s time to stop focusing on advancement and focus on super activities (what others here may call fun and adventure). So, some probing questions: What game do the boys play before, during, or after meetings? When was your last really muddy service project? Which patrol recently was awarded a totem for best camp

If some of your scouts or family are enduring a prolonged loss of taste (an effect of the disease, not the vaccine) you might want to put them onto a stellar ganglion block.

Both immunization and natural immunity have a limited duration. How long? It depends. Also, although excess deaths in general have decreased in the US, it seems to be a regional thing ... up in some regions, down in others. If you've tolerated the boosters, it's not a bad idea lining up for the next one. If they've thoroughly exhausted you, no one should judge if you take a pass. It's a roll of the dice. But how people respond to the jab does not seem to correlate with how they'd respond to the actual disease. Anyway, my pandemic guy is all tied up treating RSV. That's all the rage these

@jcousino, Daniel (thanks to that incident with Darius’ big cats) was a figure of note in Persia as well. By the first century, the Parthian Empire overarched both long-established Babylonian and Persian Jewish communities. So, to say that Magi were more in contact with one community vs the other is too specific for the Nativity text. One can only guess that they had at least indirect access to Hebrew scripture, but none of that was recorded by Matthew. Instead the text noted their obsession with stars and ignorance of messianic prophecy. The evangelist’s was not so much to associate these t

@jcousino, if in jest, it is with utmost seriousness. Some background: Our common use of the term “wise men” dilutes what the Evangelist Matthew was trying to say. Magi, in Ancient Greek literature, specifically referred to Persian priests — most likely Zoroastrian. The point being that these Christmas visitors were alien to anyone who’d have a religious or political connection to the story about to unfold. But, strange as they might have been to occupier or inhabitant of Palestine — they were specially preparing their whole lives to anoint kings as part of their religious duty. (At least

Hey guys, have you ever heard of the first Zoroastrian scouts? They formed an awesome patrol, and took turns in their unit’s most important position of responsibility: Chaplains Aide. Well, first they earned astronomy merit badge, then Orienteering . While working on personal management, they built up a stash of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They kept themselves physically fit, studied nature, transportation, and citizenship in the empire. Then one clear night, while watching Jupiter retrograde around Leo, one of them said, “Hey let’s go venturing and see where that will take us. I bet w

A lot of words to say that the national leadership of both organizations is intransigent. An article by Rothschild covered the sewing of I’ll will in the early years. My link to it is buried somewhere on these forums. I’d like to see another academic piece that would bring us into the 21st century. Bottom line, the national leaderships have done their calculus, and it would literally require a POTUS or Congress to move them toward meaningful collaboration.

I think, after Gustaf’s insistence that Sweden’s youth organizations work more closely, BSA tried to promote Scouting/USA with the idea of doing something similar. There were people in both organizations who didn’t take kindly to it. But, there is a big difference between proposing an ultimate merger and inviting your lead youth to collaborate on a national level. Rebuffed once? Invite four years later. Repeat. Unlike @Cburkhardt, I don’t see the current approach to membership as irreversible. Market forces could could drive the next few classes of boys to gain interest in BSA a

Just a note regarding longer attention spans: try not to take advantage of that in meetings. One of the challenges facing women in the workforce is to manage discussion and keep everyone succinct. (Truth be told, I have this problem.) The young women in my crew were often quite surprised at how soon they could act and how quickly people would respond to their requests for action. The young men generally needed to learn to think, while he young women generally needed to learn not to overthink. Scouting, historically, involved non-verbal communication. Be it boys or girls, we should wo

At its core, scouting (boy or girl, young or old, sport or military) is: observe and report. Part of the discourse over the determination of what’s required vs. what’s elective is a concern that we are replacing that core with memorize and recite. Doing so moves us off brand.

@Scouterlockport, the negative effect is that an Eagle-required badge takes up the time that an Eagle-bound scout might use to earn an elective badge. This reduces the diversity of experience that we expect of our youth who earn Eagle. FYI, at one time, First Aid MB was required for 1st class rank. Pushing it back to Eagle necessitated more components of it to be explicit requirements on the trail to 1st class.

@Ojoman, do you know what tipped BSA to change its attitude towards scouts and scouters with a permissive sexual ethic? This clip from our president Titular power is quite real. And the fact that no POTUS has issued an opinion on co-ed scouting, nor has congress made a non-binding resolution in favor of it ... that should speak volumes to your scout. Politicians have gladly done photo-ops with our female scouts, but they have not asserted that co-ed is or is not the way BSA should go. A few years ago, I made a rough calculus (too lazy to dredge the post and link it) that fo

As to "why", DuctTape shared the link to our discussion. Our scouts who have taken it so far enjoyed it. I'll opine no further.

Strangers on the internet… great shoulders to cry on. Tell your CC that it’s time to start the search for your replacement. Before passing the patch, you want to get one or more of these great parents trained … possibly including Wood Badge or Powderhorn. That takes time. Keep working for smiles.

Define “other countries” the largest organizations (India, Indonesia) are segregated. Some of the fastest growing (Pakistan) are unisex. Some of the slowest growing or declining (like ours) are facing negative growth. The most successful associations with blended organization are that way because their royals insisted it be so. Scouts UK has only just recovered its losses in male membership after decades of decline. And that was a result of a concerted effort of their leaders of Girl Guides insisting that everyone play nice. So, why should a girl AOL lack a troop to crossover? Two causes:

Or, this painting might have have caught his attention at one time.

I’ll should wait for part 2. But what you’ve recounted so far emphasizes the importance of two-deep leadership and no one-on-one contact, and the difficulty ensuring it every minute of 240 hours of summer camp.

Good luck. I’ve worked with committees faced with these kinds of decisions where every solution sounds like a bad one.

I’ve known scouts who finished their Eagle advancement while in juvenile detention. So I’m quick to say anything’s possible. But … When a seasoned scouter has his doubts, it’s time to ask hard questions. What will a Lone Scout program offer the scout that he may not already have via his treatment program? Are you sure nobody in your council is trying a scouting program for kids with behavior disorders? There’s no boiler-plate. So, you need to find the scouters in your council who may handle a program specifically for this. This is one of those situations where a note to your SE might

All minus most equals some of our scouts carrying for the rest of us. For a few years, Buttercup was the troop song. And no, it was not great. Then one choir boy decided to take the lead by opening with that guttural “Why do you …” just like on the record. All of summer would be up and dancing at evening campfire. The Good Book says “Make a joyful noise …” no mention of tonality.

I can’t even believe I’m about to say this … … make peace with the electronics. The boys in my troop become singing fools when they start streaming old-school pop tunes. I constantly remind them that I loath whatever the tech name is for their pathetic excuse for a boom box, but I’ll abide it as long as I hear their voices rise above in passable melody.