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So, I put this to the four twenty-somethings at dinner, seeing as we were dashing out to wait a half hour in line for good seats at the theater, and for the price of feeding them I wanted their opinions for the blogosphere. Two were Eagles, two were never given the chance due to their identity. However, those two didn't peruse awards or recognition in the youth clubs in which they were involved. The following is not my opinion, but reflects what these young adults settled on rather quickly: The consensus: a girl, having mastered skills commensurate with rank advancement and developed leadership, should be granted an EBoR. Her time served and leadership skills developed in a rogue troop should count toward rank advancement. The most recent Eagle was strident that scouters should not make this about time requirements because in doing so, they demean the rank. Earning Eagle was about attaining skills, not marking time. Everyone else supported his assertion. That this might open the floodgates for appeals for Eagle rank retrospectively was immaterial. They had no problem with BSA reconsidering past appeals. Mrs. Q brought up the possibility of law suits, but I reminded them that this is a private organization and the SCOTUS has upheld BSA's rights on these matters. However, the court of public opinion had influenced which rights BSA would excersize in recent years. Note that none of my young adults are currently volunteers or professionals in scouting. These simply have been surrounded by Eagle Scouts for the duration of time in this family. They are likely to volunteer/contribute in the future, and unlikely to join this forum. That's why I figured their opinions might provide insights. Make of it what you will.

@eagle1993 - I'm a guy who votes for candidates by spreading out the campaign fliers on the table and seeing which one has the fewest colors, on the cheapest paper, with least pictures, and most complete scentences ... So I'm not wowed by all this brochure gibberish. I'm not looking for a lot of organization either. Son #1 and I wound up being the only ones taking the nature trail on our time slot. It was a complete waste of camp resources ... one staff for us while rest were being swarmed by the hundreds of other Cubs in camp. But, that young lady was passionate about biology. She was also the first person to introduce me to Venturing (because I naively asked her how she liked Explorers). The other dog-and-pony shows were fine, but the one-on-one encounters determined which camps our kids would regularly return to. I am very attentive to safety - especially in aquatics. If the guards aren't authoritative, they hear from me. Staff don't have to be polished. They just have to be quick to learn and adapt. As for GS/USA camps, five great ones were closed and sold off in our area. A brochure on the last one standing is oh-so-much lipstick on a pig the former leaders who I know. I certainly hope that in other areas there is real substance behind the glossy pictures.

No worries @RememberSchiff and @NJCubScouter, I'm back home where you can see the bitter cold icy ground along with scrap from someone who skidded into the phone pole outside the house! We scheduled our return to Pittsburgh according to this simple quiz: would folks in Erie county be upset if they saw you on the road without your plow/winch/track vehicle/front loader, etc... Yes? Stay home until they stop cussing about the fools out in weather like this. No? Load up the car and make for the lamppost on the southern edge of this Narnia. Likewise @Cambridgeskip, from my time in England decades ago, I've come up with this simple home improvement quiz: Are you British? ... No? Check your R-values against recommendations for your latitude, and having met those, consider a hot tub. Yes? Crikey! Pull the thatch out of the walls and spend some quid on real insulation and triple pane windows! Life made simple by strangers on the Internet!

Holed up with all the kids on Lake Erie ... catching deeper snow in two days than PA has in any other similar period of weather records. Left my snowshoes in Pittsburgh, so I raided the garage for scrap and fashioned a pair out of plywood. You're never too sure how well they work as they sink through two and a half feet of powder. Was about halfway on my route through the woods when FLOP! Well, the good news is that I learned that there was another two feet of snow below the shoes to sink in ... or try to swim up from, depending on your perspective. As my head came up from under the drift, I remembered that my high-tech kit also came with walking poles. Designing from memory, especially one like mine, has its drawbacks. So, I plodded carefully for the remainder of my trek, and stayed fireside since.

I don't know why they wouldn't charge a fee. Just a few years ago, the same type of scout would be promoted to ASM and maintained on the roster in that position indefinitely. No training necessary. When the fee was ~$10, paying for these young adults was a trivial proposition for most troops.

So, in other words, you provide similar content, only diluted by FB's feeble interface and maniacle commitment to oversize adds.

Sounds like you're making this hard. If the fee's a burden for any adult you'd care to keep, find someone who'll pay it for them. Our troop has now decided to pay registrations for any adult volunteers out of fundraising. I disagree with this, so I send a $40 "donation" with my registration. No regrets. You know that this doesn't have to be about college? A guy might be holding down two jobs to support the family while he's an apprentice. You might get as many weekends out of that kind of erstwhile scout as you would out of a scout in college.

IMHO, this position and den chief are ideal for older scouts who want to continue their leadership development but have sort of grown out of life in their patrol. I enjoyed serving in both positions when I was a youth. MC's don't recommend positions, but they could bring the possibility up with the scout on his board of review.

If your asking each of us, that's gonna be harder for some than others! I had an older brother who's SM went AWOL, taking all troop records with him. That was part of our family consciousness, so I went in knowing there was a badge to earn. It became mine to earn at age 12 when I started reading the book and tying the knots therein. Five years of personal growth, and I was ready for my EBoR. Balance? For me, simple: Watch less TV, get more time. Speaking of which, time to stop watching Dr. Who and get out in the snow for a lakeside family portrait.

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