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This is very true. Son #1 would often try to drag me into his slough of despond. He wasn't depressed, he just was taking good times and very good friendships for granted. My conversations with him often involved me reminding him about how one of his friends would have said "Your dad's so cool!" If he stayed home from a backpacking trip or day hike, I still went. I would invest time in mapping out personally challenging hikes. One time he said "You'll hike alone!" I replied "Suit's me fine." Then, whatever he did with his friends, I would ask: would it have been more fun if you could have made it last all weekend? He went to college with the skills needed to be cheerful in tough times. Son #2 had to fight hard against negative moods. I congratulated him on every victory. It took him years to talk about every battle that he faced. But for him, scouting was the place where he could safely be a guy hashing out problems with other guys. His college roommates have been scouts, and it's meant the world to him. All that to say, point out to the boy that he has unique gifts that seem to only rise up when he's with on these camp-outs.

Welcome, and thanks for all you do for the boys. I used to be a crow! My WB patrol mate was a CC and infusing more boy-led activity was part of his ticket. So, there was some leadership training of adults, and a goal of having the SPL MC the court of honor ... with ranks were given out by patrols. I attended one of those CoH's, and was impressed.

Adults already have "control", as we have seen with national decisions on membership, insignia, and advancement. What they often don't have, is comprehensive information about what their base thinks? Who is that base? Youth, certainly. But also ... Look at the list of BSA charters (http://www.scouting.org/FILESTORE/pdf/02-507.pdf) how many are owned and operated by youth? Randomly search for a publicly-recognized donor to the BSA -- what are the odds that that donor will be youth or youth owned? Of the years that you have been a scout, how often have your dues been paid from your parent's checkbook? I absolutely love when youth band together and move adults along. It's a great thing. But, I've seen repeatedly: if the adults walk away, there is no unit. As a crew advisor in a contentious scouting arena, I field a lot of bluster (often couched in the form of "helpful opinions") from a lot of adults. My only reliable filter has been: who's doing the time? Put it another way ... do you really think I should put the opinion of a tiger DL who's been registered in the past two years on equal footing with yours?

Polling isn't about running things. It's about learning how every stakeholder thinks. Now, a young adult such as yourself (assuming you started at Tigers) had about 11 years of service. That's far more than most scout parents. But the bitter truth is that most young adults with 11 years of service will stop contributing to the organization after graduation within the next 3 years. That's life in America.

Honestly, I think different council board meetings operate differently. So few COR's show that if a CO sends 3 different reps for its 3 units who all showed up at a board meeting, they may be given three votes just to beef up the minutes. I've only attended one board meeting and the agenda was one of those warm fuzzy things. The only votes were to approve minutes and the nominations for next year's officers.

Whatever you do, if you invite enthusiastic young adults or youth to promote an adventurous camporee (like a canoe trip), shout down any scouters who would pan it, get buy-in from a couple of troops who would lock it into their schedule, and commit to calling every unit leader in the district personally to promote it. Shooting sports at a local sportsmans club was really successful one year. Multiple ranges, well trained adults, as well as enthusiastic volunteers, including a local game Commisioner.

As articulate as your replies have been, I'm not entirely sure your experience should carry the same weight as someone like Stosh, Schiffe's, or David, who worked with multiple generations of units. In any case, I don't see this as a distinct disadvantage, because your ability to rally multiple youth with few service stars should far outstrip an adults ability to counter with cumulative service-stars from adults. Technically, that's one vote per CO. So, for example, a troop's "vote" is diluted if it is under the same roof as a CO with a Pack, Troop, Crew, and in two years a BSA4G pack and troop.But those votes are for actual board decisions - which are few - not polling, which a CO may or may not use in its decision process. Poll results could, in theory be drilled down to the scouts in a CO. Voice of a Scout surveys got down to district level for its key three. Some districts found them helpful. Others less so. The only "free" polls I've responded to besides VoS are the ones you all have posted. That's mainly because you've paid me with copious good ideas over the years. I've been able to articulate those to my unit, and it has helped me be a better scouter. But, it's been pretty clear that you've invested in your questions and revised when asked. I'm not sure that would happen on a scale of millions. Somehow, there needs to be a governor for whose surveys get to take up he time of hundreds of thousands of members. I chose a capitalist model because that greases a lot of things smoothly. With something like FOS, there is greater potential for full disclosure. The bottom of the Preferred Pancake Batter survey could have a by-line like "sponsored by contributions from General Mills." Features of really good poll results should include bias estimates. For example if respondents were more male, northern, southern, older, younger, etc... then the known demographic of our membership.

We can file under "may not see it in my tenure" but let's lay some groundwork: IT through scouting.org just needs to improve even to manage what it does now, but let's suppose it gets better (and this would have have to be on the par of Google campus better) and can reliably track each user's scouting career ... Once a scout, always a scout. Opinions from old and young alike matter. So ... Votes are proportional to service stars (years registered in the program). For issues specific to the program, votes are proportional to time served in that program. Current vs. lapsed vs. never registered categories would be important to know. (There are direct marketing opportunities in collecting info from never registered users, even if half may be international spy bots.) A fee would be required to vote to underwrite the cost of delivering voting tools to the underprivileged. It could be on a sliding scale according to service stars A very large FOS donation would be required to request a survey. This may wrankle some "it's just for the boys" proponents, but I would remind everyone that the BSA was posting steady gains in membership over its first 50 years until it codified an ageist policy of rank advancement. Youth are not the only people we need to hear from. It will also wrankle the want-something-for-nothing crowd. But a little skin in the game is its own form of security. Results would be posted in full, with room for debate and up or down votes.

Welcome and thanks for all you do for the boys!

I'd agree with @Stosh, if you were the den leader. You're not. Run with this plan. Friends make good dens. You have nothing to lose by letting this play out.

Hosting Jambo was a healthy exercise in managing civilians -- a stress-free exercise until our sworn enemies gave themselves props for inflicting casualties on them. Military bases -- AP Hill especially -- were facing closures. This made it especially hard to train and prepare on a 4 year plan. BSA agreed to not have bases charter units so that it could maintain its right to have a publicly available membership standard that excluded athiests. In turn, their right to use public spaces was upheld. This is the same principle that guides public schools to not favor a religious practice, but does allow religious groups to practice in them. Also, at the time, large youth concerts were increasingly popular. (I think one festival reached a record 80,000 attendance.) So the possibility of a revenue stream was not that far fetched. Some negotiations with WV limited that. SBR resolves a lot of issues and offers real potential, that's why large donations and bonds are readily available for it. But, it should come as no surprise that businessmen often make excessive projections. They may be making them with this decision as well. But let's not discount that there are folks who are having fun with girls in the mix.

Good points. Another fine point: That Venturer who was 13 and graduated 8th grade last year? You might want to set her birthdate forward to it's actual date so she doesn't age out too soon in several years.

Oh, now I understand. I would never push the boys to have a troop campout in addition to a camporee in the same month. Basically it takes a lot of effort to prepare a troop for a good camporee. Training. Equipment checks. Rules for competitions. We usually need one or two weekends for some kind of training for each patrol. This is especially true if it's the boys' idea. The more enthused they are about something, the more effort they'll put into it. So, unless there is a patrol who wants to do something completely different, I wouldn't add anything more than the camporee if that's what the PLC elects to do for the month.

@@F-P Are your boys choosing to go to camporees? Or, is someone making them?Our boys elect to go to Klondike, but rarely choose fall or spring camporees. It really wrankles the old farts who plan (correction: who dumb down the ideas of college age volunteers), but you can't harp on "boy led" and then say 1/4 of your program must be district events. (Yes, that sucks about 20 minutes of discussion at roundtables.) The older boys often go to ski weekends summits with their venturing crew or O/A. So, a lot of council activities could get counted as campouts for camping MB (if the boys want them to, it being their responsibility to track that sort of thing). But, if you got a troop or patrol of boys who are all about attending every camporee in theirs and neighboring districts, Bless their little hearts, why don't you want to count those nights for advancement? Don't they still have to plan their own meals, pitch their own tents, etc ...?

Welcome to the dark side! We have cookies. A venturer's experience really is a combination of the quality of the advisor and putting enough in to get something out of it. If he's into details there's a Venturing handbook, and an awards book on sale at the scout shop. Me, I loved being an ASM, so I'm not so sure I personally at age 18 would have considered Venturing if it were available. (I had friends who were Explorers.) But, I'm sure glad I could be a CA over the past decade.

As good a plan as any. But, also think about that "How to Earn and MB" skit (which, I sure hope if anyone out there does it, they will make a better title and post the script). If your guy puts that together for your troop, it will meet a specific need. If I were his MBC, I'd consider that in the spirit of the requirement. But, even a letter-of-the-law guy would give props to the scout if he incorporated that into the "hurry-up" CoH. Bottom line: the point of some of these requirements is to add vigor to the troop while helping a boy stretch in a new direction. I'm not a fan of the dual-purpose wording that creeps in to these badges, but since it's there, let's make the best of it.

If the PLC decided to go, yes. If only one patrol decided to go, no. That would be a patrol campount! If the youth didn't want to go but the adults made them anyway, no. That's neither a troop or patrol campout. That's a committee campout.

WSJ does lean conservative. But, I would like to think that they'd poll well beyond their readership. Very odd. No categories like former boy scout/cub scout/girl scout or donor to/volunteer for the BSA in the past year/next year. I suspect NBC doesn't have the full survey. It's hard to imagine a business journal not asking questions that get at investment optics. Politically, this should be a big concern for Democrats who might hope Independents will be so disenchanted with the current administration that they would sway in their favor. There is a non-negligible gap in that a majority of Dems are applaud social change and a majority of Indeps favor conservation.

This is why Eagle is still a pretty rare award among boys. People look around their troop at the time they are awash in MBs and think BSA's stats are off. They ignore the boys who left their troop and other troops who are on the opposite cycle. Nearly every boy in Son #1's den earned Eagle. Son #2 was the only scout from his den who did. I disagree that no presentation is needed. Boys somehow need to be reminded that this process is for them. But, it certainly should not be a lecture from a CC. That will almost guarantee the boys won't earn a single MB outside of camp. Make a skit. Make it funny. Try to laugh at yourselves. Maybe have a scout with that slow-going attitude be part of it. See if someone will play a mom badgering a scout to stop playing games, then the scout takes up gaming MB. If you do anything as a troop, go through the requirements of a bunch of badges and see which ones would make a good activity for a meeting or weekend (without trying to earn a badge). Do that. Repeat. Then, try to figure out what you all would really like to master. (Service projects, scout skills, mechanics, BSA guard) and try to do that.

I'm really not so concerned with policy as I am with mentoring boys to achieve their full potential.

Consider a skit where you guys act out the process. One guy plays your SM, another the MBC, and two others a boy and his buddy interested in a badge. Try and have some fun with it based on your best and worst experiences.

If I were the MBC, I'd ask him if he thought what he did was in the spirit of the requirement, which in full reads: Plan a troop or crew court of honor, campfire program, or an interfaith worship service. Have the patrol leaders' council approve it, then write the script and prepare the program. Serve as master of ceremonies. Needless to say, the Merit Badge Pamphlet gives further detail. Our CoH's were often a little spartan because our boys preferred to MC campfires. Then, a boy wanted use an upcoming CoH to complete the requirement, so he worked on a script. It was rough, but we were quite pleased to "break the mold" a little. That boy is now SPL and put some effort with the PLC in working out a script for this last CoH. Things went a little smoother, and the adults aren't doing nearly as much talking! Baby steps. Anyway, that should give an idea of how a requirement could be used to help move a unit beyond "boilerplate."

Well ... 36 hours in the woods with a dozen tigers? I suspect he got his ear talked off by them, last year's Tiger DLs, this year's parents, and the Cubmaster. He's probably just trying to get you up to speed. Let the guy know you were overwhelmed by his E-mail. (One reason why I write to this forum is to get it "out of my system" before subjecting my fellow scouters with my drivel! Even so, they still rib me.) And ask if he plans on mapping things out every week. If not, take a breather. If so, let him know you're just not that detail oriented and ask for his patience because you are going to try focus on the boys as individuals more than the detailed plan. It's just your style. Running two dens in parallel may indeed be the winning strategy for you two. However, figuring out what to do together vs. apart will take a lot of finesse. So, you're gonna need to find a balance with the communication. Might as well start out honest and open.

It seems that the GS/USA is on the right track for public recognition given that Gold is less than 4 decades old. Admissions officers generally put it on par with Eagle Scout, even if the man-on-the-street doesn't. But, content matters. The girl-on-the-street can earn Gold without ever having camped 1 night. For a young woman who wants to be recognized for outdoor skills, she would have to be matched up with a unit that practices those skills. Effectively girls with such ambition are sold short. (By the way, does anyone have the original requirements for the Golden Eaglet and subsequent GS/USA awards?) NYC/NOW recognized the difference in content. It just didn't have the insight or courage to demand GS/USA make outdoor activity required for its highest awards.

I review a lot of these. Most important to me is how well the average boy in the patrol navigates. Moderate skills (i.e., a little beyond the 1st class requirement) give me the confidence that if they need to improvise, they will do so successfully. I've never had to adjust the plan of boys with moderate skills. When they present me with a hike plan, I also like to hear what their plan 'B' will be. (E.g. what if that bridge is out? What if that field is grown up and you get delayed?) I expect insertion, extraction, and rendezvous points. And estimated times of arrival. This includes lunch stops, or time exploring points of interest. I expect them to be able to tell me the landmarks that they will be looking for, starting with insertion, extraction, and waypoints in-between. This sounds intense, but with older boys, review usually can be done the morning of the hike in familiar terrain -- maybe in the time it takes to sip down one cup of coffee. With younger boys (or older boys in unfamiliar terrain) they must have plans A, B, and sometimes C mapped out in advance. They should arrange for me to review their plan at insertion, where they should be able to point out any visible landmarks and their initial direction of travel, and show how they are marked on the map. The younger the boys, the more I expect to watch their equipment shake-down -- and the more likely I will insist on a trained chaperon. Trained chaperons are adults who will not to interfere with any of the boys' decisions until they have walked a mile out of their way, or safety becomes an issue. We try to do a lot of hikes as a troop, so that I know how adults behave when boys miss a landmark. (Most of my time hiking with scouts is actually spent training adults.)