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@cocomax, is your GS/USA troop sticking to the size limit of 15? Or are the bucking that "recommendation"?

@cocomax, as long as you know how to fold a sit-upon, you'll do fine! There's a lotta love out there for GS/USA. I'm making plans to buy me some cookies from the great-nieces next week. But, when a girl wants to camp once a month -- far from outlets and flushies most nights -- she'd better hope there's room for her in the one troop in twenty that will give it a go.

One year sure felt awful busy. I think we had 8 then. I think we're up for another flurry. We have a bunch of life scouts who are about the same age. I'm always glad when we have about 5 times that number who will never get their bird. Those boys add a lot of flavor to the troop.

The SM should know that your husband is picking up a pattern of behavior. There's not much to do about it, but it's always good to see if the older boys widen their circle or narrow it. Boys who widen their circle to other scouts are likely engaging the program. Those who are narrowing their circle may be disengaging and might soon be on the way out.

This is nothing new. In my youth, I was told that arrowmen were not to do a rain dance -- or even a cheap imitation thereof -- because it was mocking a prayer. Other dances that narrated a story we encouraged. Also, certain drums could be replicated, others could not. I have no idea if that was the insistence of a tribe, some advice from an anthropologist (we had a few in our district), or pure hearsay. But making pains so as to honor vs. offend was part of the O/A mystique growing up.

@Thunderbird, you're assuming there's more to life than rank advancement! Oh, the tears of distraught moms you will see!

Well calling any weekend in a cabin "glamping" is just rude. There's no "glam" in a box full of boy-scent or man-snore -- no matter how much lipstick your try to put on that pig! But, the nation is rife with scouters wanting to push-back as the comments in @LeCastor's link and older post on Bryan's show: https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/06/24/ask-expert-isnt-camping-night-camping-mb/ https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2012/06/07/ask-the-expert-interpreting-camping-merit-badge-requirement-9a/

Lines on new resumes: Boy Scouts: completed Eagle Scout requirements, save the fee.

I've met at least one young drum circle (the men of which got their start in O/A) who were granted membership in the Lenapi Nation for their attention to detail and respect for the tribe's culture. I don't go following drum circles, so pardon me if I generalize from a small sample, but seems to me that being recognized by a living tribe for your work trumps getting some stickers from an anime fan-club for your cos-play. If that's the kind of recognition in store for even 1% of active arrowmen, we would be fools to deny them that.

Well, in "pretending", we seek to aspire to the noblest traits of who we're dressing up as. That is why we encourage buys to dress up as scouts long before they have any real idea of what Oath and Law really mean.

Our troop operates a lot more like yours. Although, there are occasions when the boys will ask to use paper products instead of mess kits. Anyway, this is what shared activities, camporees, conclaves, and jamborees are for ... so scouts from different units can get together and compare notes.

How I make this simple: Your uniform tells a story. Wear it when it is important for others to read your story.

Okay, first of all, everyone ... vocabulary It's a mystique (fascinating aura about someone or something). If you have that, don't give it up. If any of you have a mystic in your lodge, refer him to the monastery.

We call that helping a CEO justify more than six figures.

Wait a minute! You are telling me that this scout did nothing in the way of service in all of 2017? What kind of scout does no service approvable by an SM for an entire year? A one-minute good turn per day would net 6 hours in 12 months! I'm hoping you mistyped the year of service. If this was a service half-day that the scout did in October, he was awarded Tenderfoot in November, and mastered his Second Class skills in December, I'd count what you have on the books. If not, I'd look a little more deeply as to what the scout's been doing and see if there were contributions that really would have counted, but the boy just didn't think to keep track of them. The reason that so few hours of service are asked for is that the general expectation is that these ranks don't take a lot of time. <insert standard rant about the general moral depravity of counting service hours>

I thought this would be worth resurrecting since there was some dialogue about it on another thread. It seems that some folks treat a down-vote as some kind of scarlet letter. And maybe for other forums, that's true. I stand by my comfort with down-votes for anything that folks dislike. Far from being unbecoming of a scout, I consider them to be a friendly gesture. It's useful to know when someone disagrees with me. That disagreement may mean they are offended by my comment, or they think it is just plain stupid. If a couple thousand points get shaved off of my reputation, that may spare some scouter reading my drivel and mistaking it for ex cathedra of some uber scouter. Most of what I write is to help me think through and hone what I may say to someone in person. "Sad" and "confused" are nice touches. But a comment with a mix of up- and down- votes lets us know that not everyone in the scouter-verse thinks the way we do. If something is patently offensive, ad homenim, or mere money grubbing, use "report post" and ask the mods to clean it up. If it's disagreeable -1 now, explain when time allows you.

The new requirements literally have tag-along scentences with the verb "describe", but I certainly agree that a scouter's observations are important. For transfers (even if they are from within the organization) an SM's (or PL's - if the troop has him sign of on that req) observations may be limited. I've had to contact other leaders to get a fair picture in such situations.

Never had a shortage of parents who valued the outdoors. They may not particularly value my willingness to set up camp in snow or slog a mile through laurel thickets or roll with the orienteering club. But, we somehow manage to complement each other's crazy preferences to cover what the boys are asking to do.

Actually, the Scout Spirit doesn't have time specifications ... although one would think it's implicit. But, take 2nd class ... a scout describes how he followed 4 points of the scout law other than the ones he chose for tenderfoot. Suppose for one of those four, he gave an example of something he did before he earned tenderfoot. As written, he would still meet the requirement. By extension, a girl scout who shows multiple ways that she was following each point of the oath and law could meet the requirement. But, as I mentioned earlier, BSA-specific requirements (esp. those camping nights, and PoR and tenure) have no reasonable way of being fulfilled in GS/USA. The only practical way is if a troop of girls decide to pick up a bunch of old Boy's Life articles and form their own green bar patrol. But, that group of girls would be in the realm of rogue troop (as far as both organizations are concerned)!

A scout is trustworthy. Ask the scout, can you tie those knots, swim those yards, and navigate that terrain? If the answer is "No sir," reply, "Come back when you can." To add to Flag's comment: if you've seen a scout struggling in an area, tell him that you're postponing his advancement SMC until he regains proficiency.

That's not complicated. Ask the scout. If he/she cannot tell you how he/she lived by the Oath and Law before he/she knew it, suggest he/she come back in a couple of months now that he/she's recited it. For example, to my knowledge, Duty to God doesn't depend on one's ability to pronounce shibboleth.

That's what I've been saying about what happens as long as rank advancement is muddled with identity as much as achievement. Thanks for making my point for me.

By way of example ... Cooking: if a boy wants to rally his patrol and cook up supper during the meeting, I'm all for it. Did it before, tasted good, I'll gladly come back to the trough. The boys also did a great job cleaning up the kitchen. If somebody thinks the boys deserve some kind of teaching on all the ways they can poison their food, I'll spit nails and tell them to offer the lecture on another evening/weekend. Will put a sign-up list for it right next to the one for Klondike derby. I might change my tune if the session microscopes and specimens, or maybe a visit to the hospital to cheer up victims of an E. coli outbreak ...

Back in the day, a buddy had to repeat 2nd grade, but he joined our den and moved up with us. His mom even took a turn as our den leader when we were Bears. I loved my 2nd mom!

The ideal, IMHO, would be to reprint the GBB article in BL. An abstract about the article in Scouting. And a BL online comments section where PL's/SPL's could "sound off" if they've did what the article talked about and report their after action review.