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@InquisitiveScouter and @fred8033 are working sides of the same coin ... that of mistrust. Once upon a time (those of you who are older than me may snicker now) before districts were the size of councils: counselor lists were a district function, camps were district camps, it cost real money to communicate out of your area code, and SM's knew councilors quite well. All of the verbal gymnastics in the GTA boil down to "a how to" when SM's or MC's don't trust MBC's. However, we need to understand that this is a truly tragic situation. Not because it happens, but because we've once agai

I've found that, for me and my council, retaking YPT about now keeps peace with all of the bean-counters. (It also falls between mandatory work online retraining and open enrollment. So, all I have to do is stop watching war footage, and I'm golden.) Did the test last night and aiming for the other 3 modules tonight. I guess I could have done the whole thing but taking a power drill to a pumpkin was way too much fun.

@jscouter1, you may not have noticed that BSA tends to recruit from within. Consider your the staff at your summer camp. Many were scouts who attended that camp and were recruited by camp staff. There is no better resume than the character shown over consecutive days. That cuts both ways. Many staff chose to work at a camp because of the positive experiences they had while participating in camp programs. HA bases are no different.

I think the Daily Mail is using the holiday as a device to add some humor to a picture which may have been acquired some time time ago. I leave to native Brits to comment further on their countrymen’s sense of humor. But … an interesting backstory would be if, off camera, Bear Grylls talked to him about introducing his girls to scouting. We might not know until the young ladies publish their own memoir decades from now. Until then, I’m willing to let them have a small niche of normalcy and explore no further.

I did the band thing, too. Before that, the American Legion had a boys club where we went to the armory and drilled with mock rifles. Lots of activities were hosted at the armory or the VFW’s lawn. (The guy who directed me to these forums in the VFW band!) But in no uncertain terms did we consider any of that (or the marching that scouts did) military. It wasn’t until I befriended a professor in college who protested in the ‘60s that I realized how triggering much of that could be. However … It’s all a matter of what we want to hand down. Your post opened with scouts disregarding protocol

Yes. Somewhere I’ve seen posters of the scout sign, salute, handshake, attention, at ease, as well as marching formations. Many of us take it for granted because a lot of us saw our heroes in film. I had Dad, uncles, an aunt, older brothers, several cousins, in the military. There were a lot of parades. (Multiples on the same day … Mom went from street sale to street sale.) Many, many, military funerals. I’m sure some of you were immersed in that culture even more. My kids only experienced a fraction of those events, the movies they watched rarely involves military or even marching band, and

Or do the trek with strangers! Check with your council to see if they are forming a contingent or if a troop or crew is looking for scouts to round out their numbers. Many of my scouts took advantage of this.

Do you all have your own cork board or whiteboard for notices, meeting agendas, etc … ? Either that or a binder with those things would be good to have. The scribe could insert completed minutes and attendance sheets there as well. I might also suggest some drawings of stances during protocol. Many scouts wouldn’t understand this as films and videos about life in a regiment aren’t a popular thing. There are especially very few such media for young women. My daughter, when she joined our crew, didn’t understand this aspect of scouting either. If you have a female officer in your neighborho

After CoH last night our SM and I were talking with our COR, and she asked if any of the boys had visited the nuclear power plant where she used to work. I asked if she knew anyone we could contact, and then the SM says, “Wait a minute, I have a colleague who works there!” That next adventure could be in someone’s contacts list.

Something has clearly got blown out of proportion. Do your best to iron things out. Get help if need be. There’s more to life than scouting, you have quite a few years of parenting ahead of you, and you all will be seeing each other in your community.

If this is a one patrol troop, who cares what the SPL does? That patrol’s duly elected PL needs to be challenged and mentored in taking care of her youth. It doesn’t matter if he duly elected PL has only earned Tenderfoot. Her goal is now to qualify to take her patrol hiking and camping. The SPL doesn’t have to have interest in all the young scouts. (It’s nice when we have one like that.) She has to invest in one or two scouts: the PL and APL. The SPL can be encouraged to keep doing that networking thing she’s doing and look for activities the PL and her patrol might like to do. I re

I'm gonna tweak 'schiff's observation a little because folks these days equate adventure with "big ticket" scouting. Great units find great adventure. This the "magic" of my SM growing up. He was amazed by local history, so we went on a lot of town hikes. Even in our country hikes, if someone let us take a water break on our lawn, he'd welcome them to share what they knew about local native lore. If a scout overheard some debate about which side of the state line a local landmark was, he picked up the USGS map from the Agricultural Office and arranged to take us there to see for ours

I’m sorry, you didn’t mention what game your scouts play before the opening our closing meeting.

Lots of great units around here. What they need … Youth willing to hold themselves to the Scout Oath and Law and Outdoor code. Rest assured, that everything else will collapse if enough youth in your unit let this slip. A sponsor with space for meeting and storage who is in it for the long run. A community enthused about scouts to the point that they provide use of some property, opportunities for service, opportunities to fundraise, and the occasional cash donation. Teachable adults who enjoy each other’s company, and have time and talent to spare for scouting. A

Thanks for getting the quote. There are two tragedies. The victim and his family, and the youth who has to live with his decision to handle a weapon, the net effect being another boy's death. I agree that an adult leaving a weapon armed would be negligence. But, lacking proceedings, we are only speculating on the sequence of events. We aren't told who armed the weapon. An "unsupervised" older scout may have had the combination to the gun safe, known how to load a magazine, and how to fire the weapon. Or, he may not have known how to properly disarm the weapon, and the next youth could han

@malraux, it's not clear to me what the event was. Larger bores are permitted for older scouts and venturers. An older scout or adult may have been using the rifle when the youth was downrange. IMHO the make of the firearm is immaterial. The fundamental question is how a 12 year old scout found himself in the line of fire. Maybe being able to understand this is most pressing to me because 11-12 year olds are now the majority of our troop. Keeping them out of harms way is a formidable challenge. Once a year, we hold a demonstration of a variety of firearms that a couple of our troop'

I don’t see anything particularly surprising about an AK-47. Any firearm left loaded is problematic.

this. We scouters miss a lot. You can find lots of topics on this forum about how we're trying to sort out some behavior or another that's way above our pay grade. Many times, the only reason we know how bad things became was when parents let us know. And, mine is not the most boy-led troop out there, so it's not necessarily because of any physical distance from the adults. Parents have helped us suss out problems from uncouth speech to contraband. Yes, parents are concerned that they are making their sons to be the "snitch." They really aren't. Yes, parents feel like their son

Oh, I’m dealing with a dozen articulate 12 year olds these days. Some of them are very witty, and I see the exhaustion on the older boys’ faces as they try to keep up with their conversation. Well, in our troop tents are sacrosanct. Foul language is also treated seriously. Unkind, discourteous, and unclean. These things can be really discouraging to younger scouts. The net effect in our troop is that older scouts who behave like these don’t get elected into O/A. It sometimes takes a few election cycles for them to elevate their behavior. But, young scouts might not have the p

Oh, for the love of all that is right and holy ... Let the kid take a break from troop life! I've seen so many "wrecked" teens who were in this for their dads or grandpas. Maybe you have an exit plan, but I've seen plenty of dads who don't, here are some steps: Thank him for telling you this early rather than holding it in. Invite him to keep doing that going forward. Make it clear that if he wants to limit his scouting activities, he can. If he wants to resign from the troop, this is the perfect time to do it before they recharter him for the coming year. Tell him he

Welcome to the forum, and thanks in advance for all you’ll do for the boys!

If I had a choice between a mini medal and a plaque, I’d take the mini medal. But, how about an electronic medal in the form of a screen that scrolls all of your awards. Make it solar powered so that the wearer had to spend time outdoors to keep it blinging,

@Jmatt0613, yep. your in the big leagues. Like I said earlier, don’t treat your proposal as an end in itself. Treat it as a way to say there’s a problem. This is an opportunity for you to listen to other scouters in your troop and get the idea mill going. You’re scared because you think you have something important and you are uncertain if it will be accepted. In those situations I remove all doubt by assuming that my idea will be rejected outright. That way I have nothing to worry about. Don’t expect your idea to pass instantly. Don’t take it personally. In fact, I always wor

Hi @tc79. Welcome to the forums. Contact your district executive regarding this. Other packs must have encountered the same problem, and it would be a good round table topic.

Every adult in the troop should look in the mirror together. This is not necessarily about an intimidating adult. The MC and others in the board could be on even terms with the scout. But, in a formal process designed to get feedback on troop life, when a scout knows that two of the adults in the room don’t trust the SM … a “standard BoR question” can leave a scout thinking about how much his/her response will be used to indict the leader who is not in the room. When a brain starts running in that direction, it gives the mouth nothing to say. In a troop where the SM trusts the CC and MC,