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Yep. I'm not a fan of the new training regimen. I think we lost something significant when so much became "... in the comfort of your home ..." rather than "... at your next roundtable ..." or "... with our trainer at meeting hall ...". As much as it was a hassle, you got some fellowship out of the deal. And, sometimes that included an invite to an awesome hike.

If you can team up with a local school or YMCA to have lessons for the community one evening a week, I suspect quite a few able-bodied counselors will come out of the woodwork. I disagree with @SFF about being content with boys just being able to earn an MB at camp. We are scouters. Generating opportunities year round should be our game.

This question is bigger than BSA. Many national youth programs may falter if benefactors of all types cease to believe in them. If only partisans would take the money they blow on these hideous TV campaign spots and sink it into local youth programs ... That would tip the scales for me ... an ad that said "Instead of bashing the politician we hate/dread, we donated the money for the remainder of this spot to boys and girls clubs. Enjoy the next 25 seconds of air paid by other sponsors. See you at the polls!"

I like @perdidochas's point. Bring a buddy. Shoot, arrange a bike hike with your entire troop, if possible. I favor a boy earning one or two badges from his folks because years from now those blue cards (if they manage to be preserved that long) will bring up fond memories. It's amazing what seeing a parent's or a friend's signature again after a few decades can do for one's mental health. So much other stuff that I've wasted space on, I'd never miss.

No. If there are parents who don't trust you, there's no amount of proof (short of them riding on your handlebars) that will convince them otherwise. And if you are a smart as you seem to be, there's no data that you couldn't fabricate. Earn the badge old school: scout's honor from the best MBC you can think of. If that person is Mom, so be it.

Well, I guess the main attribute of a CC is a knack for asking adults for stuff. I think there are real advantages to a pack CC who also serves as a troop MC.

Some months they are more autonomous than others. And, if you browse through old posts on this topic you'll get a better idea of the ebb and flow. I rib our SM a lot because he has a servant heart, and offers to run errands for the boys. But, when that doesn't work out to the boys' liking (e.g., a key ingredient is missing) it's on them to solve it. And there are reasons besides laziness that drive boys to want to be more troop and less patrol. Overcoming those is a process.

@ItsBrian take a look at the requirement again! If you read https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/merit_badge_reqandres/personal_fitness.pdf carefully, you may be relieved (by about 3/4).

@MattHiggins, file this under "all politics is local". We usually let the boys adjust their camping arrangements the week before the campout. That is, we expect them to come the Monday before telling us who will be joining their patrol for the weekend. Yes, this opens the gate for adult intervention. So, the PLC has a 15 minutes pow-wow after each meeting (rather than the more typical monthly meeting). This helps them be "first-to-know" about who's on what roster, and gives them a chance to "task" adults with things that will actually help boys lead rather than replace their leadership. The best solution for patrols is a group of boys so tight and proud of their identity that they would more than happily arrive at camp as a "patrol of one" if need be, for the sake of his buddies. Inculcating that vision is truly challenging. But, it's fun when you see it happen.

This is the problem: we are given clear rules. They are the first pages of the MB pamphlet. You yourself cited them in your opening post. Then, you asked "Why even volunteer to host a MB class if you know that you have likely set up your scouts for failure due to your interpretation of the requirements? " (Emphasis mine.) I infer that somewhere along the line: Someone lead you all to believe "with" means "without" in some cases, and somehow your scout thought his situation was one of those cases. That's not interpretation. That's illiteracy at best. Arrogance at worst. Most likely, somewhere in the middle. Somewhere you equate earning a partial blue-card with failure. Leading a workshop is a success even if a kid goes away with as little as an MBC's contact info. Opportunity: about as big a gift as can ever be given. So, my apologies if you are more willing to adjust your thinking on this than your phrasing lets on. With some folks, it takes a long while for the above to sink in. But, it does need to sink in. It really stinks to see 11-12 year-olds hit these adult-generated roadblocks. At least your scout has local contacts so he can quickly wrap up his partials. But, we need to lay blame where it belongs: BSA was clear. The MBC followed the requirements as written. The volunteers and pro's who organized the course weren't. This creates choppy waters indeed. A scout cannot control what he is told. But, he can control what he reads and set his standards accordingly. On the bright side, learning attention to details like this will pay off for him when he goes to do his Eagle project. Who knows what hideous workbook will await him by then!

I really hate how this happens to new parents and scouts. You think you're being sent to something that -- by squinting very carefully -- will allow a scout to bypass the tedium of very first phrase of a requirement. By sins of omission and commissions, workshops practice this deceit on the inexperienced. I assure you that it enrages our SMs. Because, it's fun getting boys started on the road to success. You need a paradigm shift. And, like most people who need one, you don't believe you need it. When I was a scout, the working assumption was you would attend a merit badge pow-wow to meet a counselor and learn how to perform some of the requirements -- not to complete all of the requirements that day! Having met the counselor once made it much easier to call him/her later to wrap up the badge in ensuing weeks. Your working assumption going into any MB workshop was that at best you will earn a partial. Partials were supposed to be a good thing. They cleared the stack of things a boy could do easily, giving him a plan for knock out the one or two things that couldn't possibly be done by first meeting. An honest workshop would make this clear. In fact most should be two weekends: one to introduce the badge and help the boy get get the "counselor's approval," and one to come back and demonstrate what he did with that advice. (Actually, with the fire-starting thing ... it can be a long wait for a clear day in western PA.) So, the Boy's Life link ... is it an "honest workshop"? It provides resources, but it also quotes the requirements verbatim ... "with your counselor’s approval." It could do better by opening "Share this site with you counselor and with his approval select ..."

Make sure they have a link to the Learn it Young. Remember it Forever. video from Scouts South Africa : And at least one of the many Happy Scouts videos, for example this one from Slovenia: Bottom line: if your course is a bunch of rules instead of fun and challenging and international (because it's not the Nation Wide Web), go home.

Wow, scouts being friendly (well, at least their leaders encouraging them to do so) who'da'thunk it?

So, you now know that to not seek a your counselors guidance is a bad idea. I'm sorry that the workshop that you scout attended set him up to violate the spirit of adult association clearly intended by this requirement. I'm not hating the player, just pointing out that putting it on red five at the roulette table is rarely profitable. Hopefully your troops counselor is like @MattR and will give him a simple project to work on ... Unlike me who would have him pick an excersize from the back of the FORTRAN Coloring Book!

So how could a scout get approval from his counselor before the workshop? (I hope everyone sees where I'm going with this.) Anyway @ItsBrian's suggestion is as good as any.

I would only worry about this if the scouts express concern about implying that they are something they are not. Or, they think they might not take the oath seriously if they aren't American (as if saying they will do stuff "as an American" somehow gets them off the hook for as long as they aren't citizens). Two possibilities come to mind: "As a sojourner in America ..." "As a {insert provenance here} ..." It also wouldn't hurt to find out if there is something of the sort that people from their homeland would say.

I'm sorry for the "you know it when you see it" attitude. The problem with too much detail in a BSHB requirement: it intimidates boys. That's not what we want. We want them to work with a mentor (for swimming it is usually an adult) who can help them reflect on a concept. Here's part of the swim test description from National Camp School: I honestly have never met any life guard or scout who has thought that this was problematic. The requirement takes a back seat to forestalling death. If we have the slightest inkling that next time a scout jumps in the water he wouldn't make the distance, we'd ask him to come back for some coaching and retake the test. Most days, if you pull a scout out of the water after he barely covered some distance, you can flat-out ask him "Was that in a strong manner?" And, having never read verbiage like that, he'll give you an honest appraisal. Maybe it's my upbringing. I knew I had mastered the breast stroke only after the pool director (a veteran from the Women's Air Corps) didn't cuss at me. That was better than any possible sign-off or patch. God rest her. If she was still living when my kids were learning to swim, I would have arranged the one hour commute for them to learn from her. Now I'm not encouraging anyone to take up her style of student-teacher interaction. (Most of you couldn't survive the chain smoking required for it.) But accept the fact that someone who's had to rescue a few victims (and you usually don't have to guard for long before you do) has a pretty clear vision of what they need to see before they clear your scout.

@hawkwin, I'm not sure what problem you're having with this. Our SPL asked our PL's to not sign off on any trail to first class requirements until they've seen a scout perform the skill a week after it was taught. He effectively expected scouts to be able to tie a knot in a strong manner. We're supporting him.

Actually very few endorse a candidate -- relative to lively debates that I may have heard in the 70s and 80s. Since then, the fear of losing non-profit status is palpable. Issues are slightly different, but even so I only heard one pastor in as many decades ask congregants to contact their representatives about an issue (specifically, to let them know that invading Iraq did not meet criteria of just war.) Talk shows have filled the void left by pulpits.

It could be a case of "When government runs like business." It's been interesting to see the gerrymandering cases in PA and WI (among others). Academing solutions of how to redistrict states have been cooked up (e.g., https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.08781) but deciding bodies want to have their cake and it it too.

The thing is, I feel like I've always been taught (and have taught my kids) to respect Girl Scouts, Campfire Girls, Swedes visitng Jambo, etc ... all my life. (My SM had requisition tents from the QM for when GS Troop who needed to borrow tents ... and smiled to myself when they came back with a perfume scent.) Then these decades of polarization come and suddenly those programs become second class, NESA our rowdy fans cheered excessively, and our program gets pegged great -- but our leaders arrogant and bull-headed. So, we try to provide what others seem to have lost. Some of us are uncomfortable with the sacrifice, and the solution? Marginalize anybody who feels we've moved beyond them? That's a great way to drain our brain trust, our manpower, and ultimately, our camps. Think units sparsely dispersed, districts as bigger than councils used to be, councils the size of areas. But, who cares about money? Someone may step in where a traditional-minded leader steps out. But at what costs? Scouts without a trained leader who they trust? Disenchanted boys abandon Oath and Law (or never get a chance to learn them)? One more angry kid stewing at home until old enough to acquire munitions? One hiker injured alone on a trail without scouts strolling by to treat him/her. There are enough I suggest those of us who find redemption in BSA4G should refrain from disparaging remarks regarding unisex-minded scouters, and replace them with this simple thought: we need them. Our boys need them. Even our girls need them. Unisex-mined scouters are doing a great job with our youth. If WOSM includes many organizations who deliver the promise of scouting according to the customs of their countrymen and deems them worthy of the world crest, we certainly can respect our own citizens who desire to do the same.

This ^^^. Three troops eventually spun off from ours, in addition to one that met a little to north. (Some of our scouts have worn three different #s.) One for each night of the week ... you'd think. BUT NO!!! All chose the same night and time. At least scouts from two of the troops asked us to consider the idiocy of it all, and we merged back together. Still, there's no options to youth who might be free the other nights of the week.

I get that. I really do. I grew up with classmates who invested a lot of time and energy worrying about people who weren't their problem at all. There are certainly girls and boys who will miss out due to skills unlearned in the absence of each other's company. But, what will they learn in the absence of any scouting environment? I've not been satisfied with the consequences of such neglect that have made the headline news of late. If councils won't make unisex camps available for BSA and BSA4G troops, others will. And we might not be pleased with the results.

The law is clear. There should have been no mention that he was a candidate for office. That said, it is my speculation that the muzzling of leaders of non-profits contributed to the results of recent elections -- especially among evangelicals whose leaders are notoriously more nuanced than their congregations.

@gblotter, @RememberSchiff, @Jameson76and @Tampa Turtle Lead scouts or lead someone else .... my recommendation remains: work for smiles. When my venturers were getting short shrift because, well, girls were seen as some sort of contaminant -- even when no girls were present and I had simply dropped by a troop meeting in a venturing shirt: I made it clear to adults that I was not about to be bothered by the burrs up anyone's butts -- especially theirs. (Yes, I used those words. No, that's not how I usually phrase things.) Instead I made sure that their boys had outstanding, inexpensive, backcountry experiences. The reward: Boys taking an extra weekend to help girls hike. Shouts across a copse in the dark: "Hey Boy Scouts, you wanna play cards?" An introverted 11 year old making tea for a 16 year old venturer. E-mail from young scout thanking me for a backpacking trip. Girl Scouts canoeing FOR THEIR FIRST TIME. Chili powder+espresso suggested by an Italian scout/venturer. Watching her say "cheap" because "thrifty" wouldn't roll of the tongue! The look on my SM's face when he realized he was transporting his first car-full of girls, and his offer to assist me anytime after that. And what's more, I had plenty of all-boy outings full of smiles there as well. I reaped a lot of rewards. Nevertheless, I certainly could have done without the well-meaning scouters who tried to "tradition-shame" me. So, if another scouter manages reap that level of happiness maintaining a unisex environment, why should we "world-shame" him or her? Especially when the WOSM does nothing of the sort? While some of us move on to making BSA4G environments, we need to do our level best to honor scouters asking for unisex environments for their youth. Some of you, citing Scouts UK, think it's gotta be one way or the other. Good news, we're not British. Unisex and coed. We want to have it all. It's the American way.