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Be careful what you wish for. Venturing has been the fastest shrinking division of the BSA. There are lots of reasons for it, but the nebulous leadership structure could partly explain it.

I tackle this slightly differently. I prepare parents that I will encourage scouts to plan excursions on their own. This includes the scouts reviewing: a map/brochures ... sometimes the week before ... sometimes the day of ... often times both, skill sets (how many 1st class scouts are among you), boundaries (that includes time constraints as well as obstacles that may require qualified supervision). equipment needs, weather outlook, personnel needs. Each patrol reviews their plan with me -- every week leading up to the event. They start out real general, and get more specific. Generally, these guys don't give me a plan separate from the troop's overall schedule. So, usually it's something like "After we set up camp, we would like to go see ..." Based on that, I ask them to "fill in the gaps" of anything mentioned above. Often they will ask for an adult or two. They will be specific. For example, they know not to ask me to open a shooting range for them. They will ask me along if they want to identify flora and fauna, or if they need qualified supervision for a safe swim. When they don't, they will usually provide a rendezvous/extraction point and time for an adult to meet them. Youth with a good plan are safer than they'd be with adults and a bad (or no) plan. We are exited and nervous for this year because the boys have organized themselves into four diverse patrols and it's not clear if we will get a good range of multi-tiered activities -- or we'll get everyone always trying to march to the same drummer. Our CC is rightly concerned that we might not always have adults for the things they want to do.

Welcome, and thanks in advance for all you'll do for the boys. Some ideas: Treasure hunts! Mix-and-match trail mix table. Fall hike. Mini- service project. (Ask the ranger. There may be some litter pick-up, or some wood to stack.) The real lesson: do whatever your parents (or your local boy scouts or venturers) will volunteer to organize. In other words, as CM, don't get sucked into lots of tasks when you should be covering the territory making sure boys are happy and everyone has what they need to have fun safely.

Got a preferred edition? Yeah, about that ... Our CO does not provide internet access, and our prime camping spots are beyond coverage maps. I suspect we are not alone. So, if we had mass-storage for vids. Which are the "must-downloads?"

So, getting off of my anti-EDGE soapbox, and just having fun with the boys ... We have two librarians -- both second class rank so they don't need the PoR for advancement, but they've been begging to have the position. Last night they hit the ground running ... sorting MBPs and moving them from a box to a shelf for easier access. Chaos ensued, with scouts verbally "checking out" their favs. The bugler snatched up music/bugling and he had his trumpet (came straight from band) out and started practicing, asking me and a buddy of his to coach him on some of the tougher calls. The librarian swore that from now on, "no checking out books without showing me your blue card!" Besides MBPs and maybe some handbooks, what other references would your boys like to check out? What have you seen your boys liking to read? What have they translated into real skills that served their patrol/troop? In other words, if someone told me they'd like to purchase a book or two for our troop library, what would be on the wish list?

Congratulations to your son! I just spent last night coaching our new bugler in some calls, and I'm really looking forward to our troop rallying under the young man's muster. It's a tight fit for some of the shorter sleeves. But my off-the-cuff call would be: Put "Trained" in the drawer if there's no room. Tell him to grow into a larger shirt ASAP.

About 10 years ago, I tried to connect our camp director with a branch logistics guy who told me of a surplus of supplies following a major event. Part of the problem may have been timing (the start of a busy camp season). But, when I followed up with the CD, he said the stipulations were prohibitive... not the least of which was being on site to claim different items on different days. I'm not sure if the process has changed. But, I'd agree that troops who show desire and develop the discipline to prepare for relief work would do well to have a procurement guy with a flexible schedule to respond to available surpluses.

Oh, yay! I can get on my downfall-of-civilization soapbox. But, he doesn't have it. The thing about human memory is, it forgets! And be it one skill or another, it will be forgotten. If all that was used is EDGE, the student will be left unlearned and totally dependent on his instructor. A scout must not first be explained a skill, or shown a skill, or condition muscle memory to do a skill ... He must be shown a reference about a skill and, to the best of his ability, read it!!! That way, the teaching of his instructor has some permanence beyond the bounds of human memory. The EDGE method falls woefully short in that department. <Rant over, for more see http://scouter.com/index.php/topic/7204-edge-why-dictate-it/?p=304641> It's not book work per se that scouts find stifling. It's book work that doesn't "come alive." I think some of the girls who are interested in BSA picked up the Boy Scout Handbook or Boy's Life, taught themselves a few skills, and concluded "This is fun. More please!"

My main concern is boys having a tool that their hands can't grip. My second concern is not every sheath grabs the blade smoothly or releases easily. A third concern is that stupid happens fast, sometimes faster than webelos can think. That said, you have to start somewhere.

Nearly everybody (be they scouts or sports clubs) pitches character and leadership when recruiting youth. We offer skills that will forestall death. Lighting fires is one thing, lighting them in freezing rain is another. Swimming is one thing, safely rescuing a tired swimmer is another. Hiking is one thing, helping an injured hiker stave off shock is another. Camping is one thing, making the shelter out of found items is another. Roasting a hot-dog is one thing, a four-course meal is another. None of these skills need to be learned under a "high adventure" or "character/leadership" moniker. They sell themselves if we instill a vision of the pinnacle scouting experience: hiking and camping independently with your mates.

Welcome! E. Prep is best done on one's own with the help of a counselor in the boy's district. The boy's scoutmaster or troop committee chair should have access to a list of counselors for that badge. He'd meet with the counselor once to talk about what he needs to do. Learn the material and do the requirements. Then follow-up with the counselor to demonstrate how he's completed the requirements. Sometimes, it's fun to team up with a fellow scout and go through the requirements and meeting with the counselor together. If your troop has other Eagle scouts, they might be able to tell your boy who their favorite counselors are. Maybe a member of this forum from your area will tell us about a program that a local fire or police association does for scouts who want to earn this badge. Earning Eagle is a big stretch for a Life scout ... it involves a boy calling people and arranging lots of meetings. But, it is a worthwhile experience.

?Two-deep leadership applies to overnight activities. My understanding is that is what we are talking about. And, I don't see BSA backing down on requiring at least two leaders, one of opposite sex to the others, if youth of opposite sex are on an overnight. For meetings and other half-day activities, no on-on-one contact applies.

I've seen all kinds.I always did church- and scout- camp as a kid. Sometimes two of each in a summer. My folks never went on vacation, so for me it was a no-brainer. I vividly remember an older camper at church camp patiently teaching me to bat a wiffle ball. Meant the world to me. He was also a scout in my troop, but I don't recall seeing him at camp all that much. (But in my day, being in a different patrol radically diminished your contact with another scout.) Mrs. Q and I priced out other camps, and concluded that, aside from scout camp and the occasional music festival, we could do better for the money we would otherwise spend by catching up with family in various parts of the country.

That Scout Sun #2 must be one bright kid!

For @@Hawkwin's benefit (but also in case someone else was afraid to ask): I know of two ways: 1. Type the "@" sign and the name. This works well if the member's handle is a single word. 2. From a workstation, there is an icon for "Special BB Code" on the top row of the edit box. Click it then select "member". A field will appear where you can type the name. Type it, and click "OK". The text to generate the link is inserted, surrounded in square brackets. In fact if you want to try and edit/type code freehand, there's an icon that looks like a switch that lets you "step behind the curtain" of all of the fonts and frames in a message. Has anyone else come up with other tricks/faster ways to link to members ... especially names with blanks and special characters? I don't know that linking a member in a post does much more than send them a little notification on their messenger icon. I guess it allows readers to navigate to that member's profile. I've found the links handy sometimes when I forget what someone has written about in the past, and feel like I need to get up to speed to avoid typing an ignorant reply.

False dichotomy. Other summer camps dole out trophies, ribbons, patches, and certificates. Kids love them.

This is a really big country, there is a huge cost to assuming that social activism has established norms on any issue. Although this particular forum would allow me to delve further, I'll stop there. @@Hawkwin, the one word answer: "Trust". You and I might have it regarding one anothers' daughters, but I assure you that parents of everyone else's girls would not have it toward us. More importantly, from BSA's perspective, lawyers representing aggrieved parents would capitalize on that mistrust.

"High Adventure" is a niche market. Also, from the perspective of parents of 11 year olds, it sounds like those places you hear about on the news where kids die attempting ridiculous feats. Now, senior scouts do look for trek-type components. So, we need to market those ... along with brutally honest safety records for parents ... to scouts who feel they've accomplished summer camp, but let's not call summer camp "high adventure." It's not. Nor should it ever be. Summer camp is still a big deal in Western PA. City papers have full pull-out sections advertising them in their spring issues. My Floridian contacts are all about winter camp. It's the category most parents are looking for. And MB's are a totem in their own right. Heck, at a particularly slow traffic light, a popular camp (endowed by the estate of a pickle packer) had one billboard depict four MB-like medallions. (I know for a fact that they don't even award badges!) My neighborhood's most famous baristia-turned-humble-barber and his wife bought matching traveling jackets on which to sew patches from their visits to national parks. Yes they are in the Jr. Ranger Program. Shake your head all you want and mutter "steel-town hipsters", but this guy started three successful small business in his life, selling each on its upswing. If a guy like that wants little pieces of cloth in exchange for spending a few days someplace beautiful and picking up skill or knowledge along the way, why wouldn't a kid? So, lets not blame the parents. Scouts want these benchmarks too -- nearly anybody would. That means we all are stuck striking the balance between making sure a variety of awards are available through summer camp and making sure that scouts come by every award they get honestly.

We've been here before. Let me channel Mr. Rowe egregiously: "We're American scouts and scouters. If we are not our own spokespersons, the Mike Rowe imprimatur will do us no good." Don't reinvent the wheel. Borrow egregiously from Scouts UK, Scouts South Africa, and Scouts Australia. Especially: focus on the "Prepared for Life" theme. Sell how scouting give skills that will forestall death. Although, from time to time, I've shared the "We Are Happy Scouts" home grown challenge that WOSM did a few years back. The one of British cubs chatting by the fire is really cute too. Also, look up "Venturing is Awesomer." Honestly, everyone here should, at least twice a year, post on social media (or send a link via mass E-mail) your favorite PSA - be it professional or amatuer produced - related to scouting, and add a tagline like "Ask me more, I'll hook you up." If you're not doing that, don't waste BSA's time. Short of someone throwing down some millions for a commercial slot during Superbowl (and, nowadays, the World Cup), asking for any marketing favors from national is just gonna lose us some good boots-on-the-ground professional staff.

Thanks @AltdenaCraig. I'll not deny that the time demands of social media on our teens (and the rest of us) is something to struggle with. I will insist that a net good are teens who are less promiscuous, more sober, thriftier, more closely tied to thier parents, and more focused on longer term yields over short term gain. But, so long as scouting has a bizarre social media policy that treats all scouter's as potential predators rather than potential sounding boards, it will have precious little to market to iGen. We have nothing to offer unless we're there to see the mind of a troubled scout and say, in front of all his/her peers, "If you want, we can discuss this ... I'll give your PL my coordinates and we can arrange an event." That's basically what the outdoors does for humans ... it gives them time to build trust, let their guard down, sound off, meditate, and grow.

@@Eamonn, my depth perception is getting the better of me, so I -1ed when I wanted to +1. I always tell my scouts that the first thing to find at camp is the kitchen ... not just because of the food, but because that's where the best stories are told.

Furthermore, providing an adult training "intro to merit badge counseling" at camp might help new parents "raise the bar" for their camp and their kids. Leveraging volunteers residing at camp who are "tried and true" MBCs is also helpful. Camp staff can introduce the volunteer as a "guest counselor" for the week.

I think camps can step it up one more notch by reinforcing 1st class skills. So, like the swimming requirement that must be done every year before starting in on an acquatics MB, each year ... The five scouting knots must be tied before qualifying to take scout craft. Tool sharpening before qualifying for handicraft. Rights and responsibilities before qualifying for shooting sports. Identify 10 animals/plants for nature badges. Etc ... Basically, any MB being offered should only be done so after a scout demonstrates skills related to that badge. That might be one way to reduce class size - meanwhile ensuring that students arrive prepared to learn.

Excuse me, but I don't consider take reductions in promiscuity, drunkenness, and wasted money on vehicles and insurance they can barely afford -- to be signs of a flawed developmental pathway. Unmentioned is an increase in health-professional, and advance placement studies, and service-earning. So, we have fewer kids bagging groceries for pin-money and more volunteering with EMT, hospital, starting their own online businesses, or junior apprenticing with trades. Where did they learn how to do this? That inter-web thingy put "ideas" in their head. Not gonna lie - a lot of my friends got derailed by 70's culture - thinking they could always dig coal or roll steel or something to pay for their beer and weed. Decades of life wasted (their words, not mine). If more kids these days are thumbing their noses at that kind of culture, there's hope for this country.

One fine point @@Hawkwin, up until recently, Home Repairs was the one MB where parents could (and usually would) automatically serve as the scout's counselor. National's YP paperwork demands have got in the way of that. So, that's been revised with a footnote: Either a parent or the merit badge counselor may supervise the Scout’s work on any Home Repairs requirements. How that actually works out on the ground is between the parent, the boy, and the MBC. But it does show that we as a scouting family are permitted to use our wits to make it work for everyone involved!