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Not sure how this is different from what is already available.

As meetings accumulate, the question should soon shift from what you can get out of it to what you can put into it.

Merry Christmas all. Blessings. And safe travels. Daughter's flight comes in right after church. Pastor needs a lift to the Airport, so we'll drive him there. And that, Merry Gentelmen, is how you lock in a short Christmas Eve sermon.

The "caving in" started toward the end of the last century, when identity was confounded with achievement: "Boy Scout camping" instead of any camping nights of a large number for camping MB. "Invite a friend" requirement for 1st class ... instead of having a 1st Class Journey to brag about. EDGE method instead of a proper Pedagogy merit badge. A bizarre dichotomy between Ranks and Awards ... rather than seeing ranks as Awards. I could add more, but that speculation on my part takes us off topic. I think Venturing arose partially because boys in troops needed someplace to find their identity away from these self-serving requirements. (Venturing bronze requirements were directed toward serving organizations outside of the crew.) I think Exploring had a similar, but more nuanced, justification for its existence. But, regarding MBC's. It's not on national to enforce their quality. That falls to us via training our fellow scouters at round tables and cracker barrels, training our parents act CoH's and committee meetings, phoning the district when it seems that a scout skated by, etc ...

Welcome to the forums! And thanks for all you do for the boys.

Which brings us back to Bird Study. Coyotes run "fluffy" to ground, more birds come to feed and breed. That may be tough on the inattentive felines, but good news for the smart ones.

There is nothing inherent about MB Pow-Wows (sorry, love that term over University) that would prevent scouters from following the process to the letter. The Pow-Wows that I attended taught me the process. The SM posted the announcement about it on the cork board (which the SPL dutifully announced) we decided to go, I started looking into the requirements for the MB's I was interested in tried out a requirement or two, told my SM, went with my card, met a counselor, partialed, follow-ed up later.

It's great that you followed up on this. The thing you need to get a pulse on: how much do these Webelos (and the families in them) love one another and the scouts coming up after them? I'll repeat. There is something to be said for starting from scratch with a small patrol of cross-overs who are thick as thieves. All of that bad history? Someone poached. You can poach back. If the COR has a good SM in mind (and maybe you all can provide top-notch ASM's/MC's over time), boldly invite a scout or two from other troops to transfer in as guides for your boys. There's occasionally the good youth leader who is "lost in the crowd." That one nugget might be your gold mine!

Good questions, and they really get at the crux of our culture wars when it comes to parenting these days. The boys you mention are Life scouts, I assume. Then they are already successful boys. It's okay if they are not Eagle scouts. Not a problem. I've been at university graduations where the valedictorian proudly had "Life Scout" in on his bio. People sometimes talk about this age 18 deadline. They had seven years to proceed through a 3 year process. Nearly all of us boys know this. We all come in, add up the time requirements in our books, and think to ourselves, "Easy-peasy. I got plenty of time." That thinking is even worse when your first PL earned it at age 14! I personally don't like the deadline, I'd rather boys/men make rank without the last-minute pressure by anyone in their family. Some parents' would cry a lot less if their scout just said, "I'm gonna finish this when I'm a scoutmaster ..." instead of "That's it, I'm not earning it." However, my bet is without the deadline there would be fewer Eagles as many of these boys simply procrastinate indefinitely. Do you really think, if there were no deadline, those couple boys you mention would sign up as an SM/ASM, serve diligently, and earn Eagle in the next couple of years? I'll take life scout (the concept, not the patch) any day over some hurry-up Eagle. I too hate the paperwork miasma, but I've known scouts with terrible organizational skills earn Eagle. How? They started early ... having earned Life around age 15, and starting on Personal Management ASAP, then their project a month or so after ... that gave them plenty of time to blunder over mistakes ... they just had to be tenacious for a year or two! Only scouts with superior tenacity earn Eagle. Now, I do approve of the family devoting time to trying out some MB's that the boy may be interested in. If brother is earning Swimming, get sister or grandma into lessons at the same time! But the paper-chase, that should be the boy's business. There's hardly a job out there today that doesn't require organizational skills -- and fending off the revenuers requires careful collection of receipts! As a crew advisor and ASM, I've dealt with boys who aged out at Life rank regularly. They've grown up strong and good. Mostly, they learned to do what they would have needed to earn Eagle rank. They just happened to learn it after age 18.

Mid-70's: Our district called it a MB Pow-Wow. It was fun. We met counselors. Got partials. Got familiar with the college campus. Completed badges by making phone calls and following up.

Not gonna judge those who move into the nuisance - people just being people. But, all those folks who stopped harvesting deer basically rolled out the welcome mat for coyote reintroducing themselves in Western PA. (SM says a lot of his buddies are generating conspiracy theories that this was the game commission's doing.) A Saudi acquaintance got invited to a local ghost coyote hunt. I wished him luck, and explained that the beasts were as likely to be tracking him - for no other reason than sheer curiosity - as the other way around. Conversation then turned to if, on the chance he had one in his sights, he still needed to say his 'b 'ism Allah as he pulled the trigger (a requirement if game meat is intended for halal cooking).

I could insert my comment about Bird Study becoming an elective MB and the rise of climate change denial, but that would be too much on topic. Speaking of which, the murder of crows, fed up with last week's cold spell, have left Pitt's campus. No more twigs dropping on one's head as one crosses the Cathedral lawn at dusk.

Did I miss my cue to really send things off the rails by bringing up the benefits of adults having to earn rank, and pointing out the link between striking Bird Study from the required list and the rise of climate change denial?

It was about '06 or '07 that we on our council venturing committee told our DE to stop giving us lists of "paper crews." It was obvious based on who was in the room at the time that our effective membership was a fraction of the number council bragged about. @Cubber's situation comes as no surprise to me. A DE will prop up the charter of troop until no more fees come in. IMHO, that only extends the pain. On the other hand, moving a den full of boys into a troop where they are the majority stakeholders is not a bad gig. The question to ask is what is the leadership? If you have two boys who are good leaders, a couple of adults serious about training, a UC who would be a good coach for the adults, and a CO that really cares and gives a unit the space they need, there's plenty of reason to give it a try.

I've met some of the staff, and they are a top-notch bunch. No idea how that differs from the other HA bases. I think Beckley has more going for it than Cimmaron. But I don't know how staff prefer to spend their free time. You might want to E-mail the camp and see if one of the rangers or camp directors would make time for a conference call with your crew.

Patches, framed pictures, decals, song book, mix tape, spork, REI mug. good luck

It's like TT's my evil twin! Regarding what the PLC has been working on ... that should be in the SM report. If not this time, let the SM know (maybe through your husband, who's an ASM, if I recall) that you'd really enjoy hearing more about what the PLC's decided. P.S. - A lot of SMs' reports to committee are from the PLC's point of view. (E.g., the boys really liked X, they want to do Y, they had four advance in rank, we picked a new bugler, etc ...).

Oops. clipped. Here's the thing. We all go on and on about the "momma bear" effect. A scouter like @WisconsinMomma might have been more comfortable had she been brought up through the scouting program in an era when kids were told not to come home until the streetlights came on. That's not the case, she was denied the privilege of being a bear or webelos or his/her sister/girlfriend and seeing us make our club and whittle our own derby car. The notion of "trust the village, it'll raise your kid" is foreign, if not outlawed. Instead, she was brought up to be a post-modern nomad in among a bunch of other similarly informed (terrified?) parents that have been taught not to trust each other ... let alone those older boys. Moreover, they have been taught that "getting with the program" means, at minimum, shepherding their kids. They all need to go through desensitization. I see no realistic scenario where WB does this. There are two things that troops need to be trained to seek out: Separate rooms for each patrol to comfortably meet ... plus a common room for opening and closing ceremony/games ... and maybe an ante-chamber for the old goats' committee meetings, BoR's, etc ... Big open spaces not for each patrol to camp 100 yards away from any other patrol and adult campsites. Ideally, these would be close enough to home for scouts to fit in other activities (town hikes, service projects, parades, fundraisers). In other words: physical space makes people feel the "youth led" in a troop without ever having to mention the word. Parents begin to learn their role by watching their boys from across a field. Maybe, just maybe, a few girls coming up through the program will give us moms who can "trust the village" because they will now remember growing up in it and developing leadership through it.

Here's the thing. We all go on and on about the "momma bear" effect.A scouter like @WisconsinMomma would have been more comfor

Had dinner with a bunch of Saudi guys. We floated a couple of activities to do on a weekend. A winter hike was a popular choice. I'm toying with the idea of them visiting the troop on a winter campout.

Adult association is a method of scouting. So, we basically get adults to support fundraisers that boys will get behind. That means scheduling around important events, asking for help appropriate to the boy's skill, and helping the boys understand the balance sheet especially regarding the financial benefits to the troop. This especially means that participation is voluntary. So you better make it fun.

clarificarion: It helps an SM to hear from parents whose scouts are having a tough time in the troop. That news often precipitates an informal SMC. It doesn't help to hear from parents whom themselves are having a tough time with the program. It may help the CC. But that depends on how those concerns are delivered.

Motion: that posts in this thread since Safurday afternoon move to Forum Support. Suggested title: Names and By-Lines

All that said, if a mom or dad knows that a boy is having a tough time, I like to hear about it. Sometimes that conversation with the parent is all it takes to keep her from hovering.

First Aid MB was on the trail to 1st Class in the 70s. I often encourage our 1st-years to take it as it reinforces a bunch of skills. Plus when I clunk over, there's no guarantee that the guys with EMT certification will be anywhere nearby! A scout should have opportunities to earn 10 MBs in as many months. To me that doesn't make a MB mill. It makes a troop that explained clearly to kids how to earn MBs. When that message clicks, we get a number of first-years moving out of the gate completing MBs faster than advancing rank. Then, they realize that they need to master some scout skills for their next two or three ovals, then put some serious time in leadership development for the three after that. That's when the MB accumulation slows down to a trickle. Basically, when you don't press 1st-class-1st-year, a middle-schooler's nature abhors a vacuum, and he will fill it with something.