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Time to get serious with that welding MB.

The reason why this disturbs is that it supposed that mass murder could be a rational conclusion based on the environment in which one is immersed. Having known a few young men (all from good parents) who committed suicide (not all with firearms), I often wonder if one or two of them were motivated by an urgent need to prevent themselves from doing anything worse. Obviously I’ll never know, but I certainly wish they had the courage to talk it out with one or more of the many people who they could trust,myself included.

Flawed assumption: not all crews have an “outdoor adventure program.” Nor should they. A crew’s program goals may very well clash with the objectives of any of the nearest troop. E.g., the crew might seek to master pistol marksmanship. Also flawed. My crew was the most vibrant when it wasn’t being feed by a troop. It had a tangible purpose when non-scouts were in the mix, especially as leaders. Regarding an older scouts’ patrol/leadership corps/venture patrol, I challenge anyone to float it by your scouts to see who wants to start one now and see if it sticks. I foresee good

For my youth Venturing was a safe space to get away from all of the advancement chatter. A Venture Patrol does nothing for the relationships between 15-17 year olds and 18-20 year olds. Youth will leave BSA to pursue those associations. Merging with Exploring, IMHO, offers the greatest potential. All crews become posts. Harmonize award as needed, increase mobility between career exploration and the activities in venturing, have fun.

Too lazy to find the link to one of my earlier posts, so I’ll retype: An Italian exchange student in my crew was trying to get up to speed with translating her scouting experience into ours. Among the terms that perplexed her: “scouter.” Because, she said, “You know, once a scout, always a scout.”

If I were that scout, I’d ask DEC for the claws that poked my bag!

This . A very key point of venturing was our ability to take the senior venturer and say: "Hey, we've given you the skills. Consider starting a troop or a pack." Or, "This troop needs an adult leader for a weekend trek. You've got that Ranger award. Want to be the hike-master's #2?" Or, "Get together with your fellow council officers at a location of your choice, brainstorm, and at next meeting we'll discuss implementing the next big Council/Area/Region/National event." Or, "Write an article for the council newsletter about the last event." (The council wouldn't pu

Those were the titles of my graduate courses, in that order.

Why should being removed from your committee responsibilities bother you? Your boys decided to relocate to another troop. You can now do so without there being any formal obligation to the committee on your part. The downside of posting your complaint on a forum like this, is that everyone can read it. It is likely that we will soon get a reply to this thread from a member of the troop stating that the situation has been misrepresented, and the actual issues are being handled with discretion by the committee. It doesn't matter. You can move on with little to lose. You won't be f

And if the horse has been rotting on the ground for a year, you’re allowed to flail it! Did we do something in another thread that needs us to be reminded?

On the bright side, we've all gained skills in remote connection. I think that means that there's real potential for better youth-facing tools for youth protection, and possibly a better way to multiply adult resources. So, here's a how-to: Develop publicly accessible youth-protection and youth-development resources that directly communicate barriers to abuse as they may occur in and around the venturing program. This must necessarily include youth forums and safe-space for reporting and delivery of psychological and legal aid.

Anointing parents of scouts as crew leaders is absurd on in face (and I say that as an advisor who had 2 of his 3 kids enroll while also in a troop). Across the bridge and tunnel* from me were two phenomenal a an advisors one who only had daughters and another who matriculated from a crew (no kids at the time). The latter woman out-shined me in every way, partly because she was brought up in a crew with young advisors who expected youth to train to be future advisors. About half of the crews in our council were led well by people who didn't have kids or whose kids weren't in scouting. The fact

My observation is that my high school age kids benefited greatly from being in fellowship with college age youth. So I see no point in changing the age range from the current one.

@Cburkhardt the one striking omission: older youth -- especially 18-20 year olds -- do not need a pair 21+ year old adults of the appropriate sex to meet and plan adventures. They would rather risk (or perhaps are ignorant of the risks of) the potential abuse inherent in meeting on their own in the absence of adults (or in the presence of just one adult of the opposite sex), and bring in, as needed, the occasional adult based on his/her qualifications to supervise their activities of interest. IMHO, this, above all other things, undercuts BSA's ability to fashion venturing into the umbrel

Exploitive teachers are nothing new. The issue is what schools are doing to screen out such teachers. Schools that are under the auspices of a larger organization may face legal action similar to BSA. How likely that is depends on the wealth of the organization.

@5thGenTexan, I agree with @Eagledad. A couple of MB’s and mastering basic scout skills is a great start. I’m told that down your way, maximizing time swimming is essential to beat the heat. For my family, who spends a lot of time on water, those instructional swim periods took a load of of my mind.

No, the image means we give everyone the tools needed to pick the maximum number of apples so that the cobbler gets in the dutch oven before nightfall. It's about free markets, pure and simple. It means some people get a lake, others a pool, others travel to a nearby park/college with qualified supervision, but all learn how to forestall death.

Again, equality is "everybody goes to Jambo." However that event is not merely some prize for scouts with a fortune ... If your scouts agree that your troop would be best represented at Jambo by a scout with little means, then yes the equitable thing would be to support him/her. The expectation should be that that scout would more likely return with enthusiasm and novel ideas to benefit his/her fellow scouts. More importantly, if one of us only had $500 to spare for jambo, and there was a potential ASM who was qualified but limited in funds to go, equity dictates we give what we have

You are describing "true" equality. Not equity. Equity is: our camp only has a lake. But a qualified supervisor can safely arrange an aquatics area so that scouts can still master aquatics in order to forestall death and -- as a byproduct -- earn aquatics awards.

We got swamped with new scouts. Enthusiastic ones. So much so that they are recruiting their buddies. Nice problem to have, but the NSP is getting an increasingly wider spread in advancement to scout rank and beyond. I told the PLC that they have until the end of the month to distribute this dirty dozen (now baker's dozen) into their respective patrols. That way they can start drilling with the guys who will be in the tent next to them at summer camp, and the Troop Guide and fall back into coaching the few who haven't made Scout Rank yet. Still, we're continually flexible. And if eight

You've revised the definition of equity. Equity does, in fact, take into account that some of us came into the world with an inability to give "it the old college try." For example, when I was getting manipulated by my school district to pay more taxes than my neighbors did because I had just arrived and lacked the privilege of a lower home assessment due to a rising market, I could ask for an equitable decision in spite of the letter of law that was written in favor of long-time residents of the district. The judge saved me thousands. Equity lets someone who has come lately to the game t

@MattySchnides, welcome to the forum. We don't give fundraising $'s to council. We do let a representative come and pitch FoS to our parents at a local CoH.

@Tired_Eagle_Feathers, it seems that people have forgotten plain English. From Webster ... That's from the online version which is an oversimplification, so from the Collegiate Version (1980, omitting #2 for the sake of brevity) ... Anyone who has ever been accused of so much as a parking ticket hopes for an equitable judge. In our county's perverse system of taxation, I've relied on a judges equity more than once. (Which eventually translated into home equity ... which is #3 in the definition.) How dare I expect to walk into court and expect equity? Well ... In college,

I hate being thrown back into the Cold War and catching up on reports like Dad scoured the paper every evening. However, I found this young veteran to be refreshing and educational. Here he devotes the first half of his blog explaining the patrol method US NCO corps. File: why we do what we do.