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God rest him, and bless his family.

Not knowing young women who want BSA4G, let alone Eagle rank, I guess I don't have a dog in this fight. I guess if there are some 17 year old boys who regret passing on scouts, this might be recruiting opportunity. However, having concluded that BSA's membership decline was preceded by National's imposition of the ageist policy on rank advancement, I must say this does not encourage long term membership or direct requirements to be more fieldwork and less bookwork. The age deadline should be removed. Any man or woman of integrity willing to serve as a direct contact leader for a year or so should be permitted to persue rank advancement. The era of "hurry-up" rank advancement should come to an abrupt end.

Welcome to the forums @SarahPeas! Too soon to tell. Ask me in another 20 years. My daughter is taking the long road to fame and fortune ...

I forgot about some of the goofy replies that I posted on Bryan, that upon reflection make good sense, like why I always mix up "chip" and "chit". I can see how, for cubs, all of that can be an abstraction.

@Eagle94-A1, do you have a reference? I've never dealt with Whittling Chip ... never had one as a bear while whittling my PWD block ... don't think my sons had one. So I never gave much thought as to how it would be used.

At the end of the CoH, our TC's Eagle advisor was invited to speak, gave an excellent description of how he counseled scouts with their projects. It was excellent, but I fear that I would misquote him if I tried to list his all of key points, but I really liked one bit of advice to the boys (which, indirectly was a hint to parents): pick a beneficiary who excites you and a project that you'd be proud of. @robert12, don't lose the forest for the trees. Visit roundtables and encourage your leaders to think out of the checkbox and on the above terms. At a local park, I made an orienteering course whose controls were former Eagle projects of the troop, some more than two decades ago. I sent the map to former SMs to double-check my way-points and make sure I didn't leave out any scouts or mistake their projects for someone else's. They were thrilled to see how their troop literally dotted that park! So challenge scouts: years from now ... whose map will your project be on? P.S. - On my "to do" list is a map covering our community and the many projects by scouts at large.

Facts not in evidence: what laws the Chin made fell along racial lines https://www.zum.de/whkmla/sp/0910/hersheys/hersheys5.html#ii To Merlyn's main objection ... Jesus did address slavery, but not in a way that we would at all find comfortable. The theme of "ultimate toppling" was at the forefront of Jesus' teaching. (E.g., Make peace with your enemy while he is far off ... Lazarus the leper and the master who wouldn't employ him.) That is, if you sought to be a master with select servants -- effectively casting others out and subjecting them to disease and decay -- you could expect to rot eternally while those outcasts would hold sway in the "bosom of Abraham." He later began to model Biblical servitude, which his disciples didn't like at all ... to the point of insurrection on the part of one. Subsequent ancient Christians took this quite seriously and pagan sources are on record mocking believers lack of finery.

For a while Son #1's pack did do a dad-only class of cars. I thoroughly enjoyed it. But, it does add a lot of time to a long day. So they eventually dropped it.

Really? It's that hard to believe? Let me think of some possible point-by-points that may not make your parents happy, but should help you set a desirable tone. Dads build the cars, it's not fair. Correction: some dads build the cars. I hear from strangers on the internet that some moms do too. Well, is it fair that Johnny loses a finger because his hand-eye is not quite there yet? Thank God they do! Otherwise some of these boys would win too easily. Mr. Smith clearly built his son's winning car, you should not allow that. Facts not in evidence. Talk to Mr. Smith, and ask if he can help you and your son build a car like that. I let my son build his car last year and he came in last, so this year I'm not letting that happen. By all means let your son team up with you or your spouse, if she is the better fine woodworker (yes, in my household that would be Mrs. Q). Also, while you're at it, can you team up with any boys whose dad's are out of the picture? Better yet (show scoutstuff site), here's where you can order blocks for your den, and maybe they can build prototypes before we roll out the pack kits! Awesome! Here's what you do: buy your son five kits. Have him build a car a month until derby day! Let's have all the kids build the cars at a Den meeting and hand them in, so we know scouts made all the cars. And steal a good Saturday away from a father and is son? And what about the boys who want to spend more than an hour sanding out their car? We have an event for that. It's called the rain-gutter regatta. Scouts should make their cars 100% themselves, parents should only watch. Some old fart on the internet told me that they don't realize it, but parents have precious little time left to spend with their kids before they conspire to gather their siblings spouses and girlfriends for a weekend backpack in a wilderness recreation area without you. (Not that he's jealous or anything ... ) Or you could send them to Bryan

I salute with whatever unit I'm serving. But here's a lot of discussion on the topic: https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2017/01/23/which-scout-sign-and-salute-do-i-use/

Love the story. Don't be discouraged by the competition hassles. It's part of the character building process. Regarding your difficult scout, refer to my recent post in Scoutmaster Minutes. (Which by the way, I shared with the troop last Monday. I think they took it in the positive light that it was intended. At least I hope no mischievous 1st year is having bad dreams about looking up from the bottom of Mr. Q's latrine.)

Welcome to the forums, Pete! I save poles from spent dining flys and cut and mangle them to size. A pipe cutter, hammer, and vice is usually all that I need.

They need to try harder if they want to compare to the gerrymander that comprises Laurel Highlands Council.

@FireStone Unless my sons asked for one, we made our own woggles. A DL tried to call Son #1 on it and I made it clear we were in full compliance with the handbook, Move #1 should always be a scout making his own slide out of any material he chooses. Well, maybe not out of lead fishing sinkers.

Congratulations! And It's about time! We deal with it constantly in this postmodern culture. And, we follow the G2A, although that even falls short for youth who are more or less emancipated. Sometimes, even the SM will write the reference. In the ancient world, we would not be interested in your "religious leader" so much as your confessor. And, such a reference would be quite brief. Something like: "The scout in question doth confess to me." And, it would be on the virtues of the confessor, not the scout, that the reference would be judged.

To be fair, I lived in Blake's Jerusalem long enough to cook Christmas dinner and hear the Queen's address.

Technically: oxymoron.

Based on my experience as a crew advisor, such tickers would prove to be grossly inflated by the unscrupulous, certainly rife with cub bots of both sexes!

that's funny because up until a few years ago, cubs weren't taught the scout law!

(Caveat: My rule #1 is don't ask for a rule. You'll eventually live to regret it.) Wait? What vote? There's no vote! The SM agrees (not with you or your son, with the letter of the requirements). He signs the book. Worst case: the TC holds its BoR, declares that your son was a total slug over the summer and puts in writing what they expect from him and when they will hold the next board. My SM and I are fine with the TC being obstinate ... on their own time, according to national standards, not according to an erstwhile SM's caprice.

If this matters to your son, he should ask for a scoutmaster conference and go over the ways in which he was active and carried out his position of responsibility throughout the summer.

You're catching on. Most rules are redundant to existing guidelines, they may help folks narrow their focus at a particular time, but they inculcate a lax attitude toward working with source documents.

Oh. Then maybe the job of this subcommittee is to find out which policies are/are not being followed, and which ones are. For example, maybe it was the boys who wanted monthly inspections to keep the adults from wasting meetings with excessive announcements. But, I suspect that actually they are saddled with a goal that's nearly impossible to meet.* This thing needs more strikethrough than insertion. For example, under SMCs. Have: Our SM and assistants will arrange conferences with scouts promptly in accordance with the BSA Guide to Advancement. Actually, I would not have it under "Advancement", it would be under a category "Delivering the promise of scouting." Then there would be another category "Cashing in on the promise of scouting." It would have items like: Scouts will appear in uniform as described in the Boy Scout Handbook when possible. When not possible, scouts will present themselves neatly dressed in apparel suitable for the activity according to Boy Scout Handbook, Field Book, and Guide to Safe Scouting. The SPL may devote meeting time to uniform inspection using standards in the Boy Scout Handbook, BSA Uniform Inspection Sheet, and BSA Insignia Guide. The Librarian will ensure that inspection sheets and insignia guides are the are at the ready for the SPL, and may re-stock the library using troop funds as necessary. And so on. *Just my experience: when boys in their late teens find themselves in what they think are catch 22's, they will quit rather than doing the hard work of resolving the underlying issue.

@Hawkwin your strategy, if anything like the one a former UC and SM tried, will get you all in protracted arguments and only lead to one more document which will be ignored in upcoming years. Proof is in their willingness to ignore the G2A. What you need from everyone in leadership is a commitment to live up to the promise of scouting as outlined in the BSHB, heed the approach to advancement, uniforming, and the safe activities according to the various guides, solicit advice of other scouters by attending roundtable and bringing up questions that you all have, inviting the district advancement chair to your committee meeting to help you do better BoRs and SMCs. That won't come in a policy document. That certainly won't come by bullying the SPL and telling him if and when he should have uniform inspection. Basically, with all I know now, anybody who would hand me your laundry list would be told in no uncertain terms to never let it see the light of day. So, simplify, simplify, simplify ...

Props to you for trying to collaborate with your neighboring pack. Find as many opportunities as possible to do so. One day your scouts will be teens and will tell you how stupid it is that their buddies are in different troops.