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The reduction in paid adults no doubt added to the increase.

@@HelpfulTracks, we know from @@ItsBrian's other thread that these are not funds "in excess" of the project budget. The gift cards are in effect a conditional grant. A low-tech grocer could have easily said, "I will give you up to $175 for every dollar that someone in your troop spends at my store this week." My rule-of-thumb with any gift card: liquidate ASAP. That includes to the beneficiary, if possible. They can claim the gift cards for the equivalent in cash or the direct purchase of the materials for the project. If at the end of the day the scout holds excess cash, he can give it to the beneficiary to spend however they please. Everybody wins. FWIW - I am also the same with coffee punch cards. I tell the owner, "If you see me here more than you can stand, pull me a shot gratis, or give your staff a bonus. Just don't make me carry another piece of paper."

I don't see that as a big problem. Check in with the patrols in your troop, or some packs and Girl Scout troops, ask them if hey we're going to buy groceries for some upcoming events if they would be willing to buy your gift cards. I think the grocer would like to attract more customers, and other scouts knowing that his/her store supports Eagle projects is the return on goodwill investment the store manager is looking for.

You're gonna think I am pulling a fast one, but really I tapped the plus one, nothing, tapped again, hit the minus. We still should allow a little room for grey area. Is this a "sick day"? Or, is this a shift in priorities? Has this happened with other SPL's before? SMs can be a bit like ground bees, the nest gets stirred by the lead hiker, but the guy taking up the rear gets the stings.

I recently met an Alumni of Scout's Pakistan. He said going to World Jamboree was their "apex" event, and it was contingent on accumulating badges given out over the scout's career for attendance and skill challenges. That how their scouting organization made sure they put their best face forward. I suspect that also discouraged attendance by thieves and brigands.

Occasionally, we have not promoted the O/A activities simply because we came up with a bunch of scouts who were not interested. We always invite an election team to come promote. And we encourage youth to step up and represent the chapter for the troop. But we see it as the youth responsibility to drum up enthusiasm. I will say this, about half of my arrowmen who were also venturers would rather attend venturing events than lodge events. They didn't make it about equal rights or anything. It's just a matter of which group they were tight with. If they saw it as a responsibility to get the women in their life hiking and camping, the lodge offered them nothing that could help them do that.

That is frustrating. Like I said, I never felt short of that kind of assistance. Even as a youth we always had one or two scouts (and an occasional ASM) with disabilities. For each one we figured out how to support them. This came easier to some boys than others.

My guess is this is the brunt of LDS not automatically enrolling every male child on its rolls.

Our district roundtables routinely cover special needs scouting. We have several folks dedicated to informing themselves and others on the topic. We have a special needs troop in our council. Their leaders have presented topics at universities of scouting, board meetings, etc ...

I don't think the new information changes my thinking. You have an otherwise good SM who doesn't share the scout's priorities. Unfair or not, the next step is to help the scout respond to that. If the scout weren't doing much behind he scenes to be sure the activity was a success, then handing over his SPL patch to he next in line would definitely make sense. If the scout is still fulfilling his position in all but a couple of areas, he should find out from the SM if that is acceptable. Being self-critics and asking for feedback is part of the leadership development process. In this case, the SM beat him to the punch. If the scout thinks he should still hold on to his patch he should respectfully disagree with his SM, but be willing to face elections if he SM sticks to his ground. But then, there's that whole Christian thing ... being a peacemaker, give the shirt of your baceven if only your jacket had been demanded, etc ... the boy needs to consider the significance of his witness in the face of an unfair request

It is technically possible to change your rechartering month. But, I agree that three months is an aweful short time to determine which campout scouts should cut short to meet expenses.

@@ItsBrian, FYI, when I was a scout, we held pancake breakfasts, and the older scouts ran the kitchen, doing all the cooking. Parents kept scarce except for the charter org rep who made sure everything was working for us and the SM.

@@Loomie and @@ItsBrian, welcome to the forums! And I'm all thumbs with this tablet, so that -1 was meant to be the opposite. :/

We give SPLs a lot of latitude. That said, Son #2 saw that he needed to shift priorities for a season, and asked the boys to accept him ending his term early and ask another worthy scout, who was due to age out around the next election, to serve as SPL in the interim. But, I also happen to have a Son #2s buddies freeloading off of us this weekend. A couple were scouts from different parts of PA, so I floated this question by them. One young man expressed that he felt that SPL, executed well, is a behind-the-scenes kind of job. Mentor the ASPL and the PLs, get them working like a well-liked machine. Wind the clock let it run, let them know you'll be chilling at your hammock if there's a problem. The SPL is acting responsibility in actively delegating. The other fellow said his troop elected SPLs for one year terms - starting at the end of summer camp. Those two months until the fall were pretty quiet. However, the entire year as SPL was credited to him. Given that in his position, he got two months "down time", he felt this SM should cut an otherwise active scout a break. (This assumes that the scout was only missing the activity and could show up at meetings and preside over one last PLC.) So, yes, it seems that pushing a boy to resign is unnecessary; however, it is a wise boy who recognizes his term should end early, and for the good of the troop passes the mantle for a season. Mom is job #1. If that means he gets recognized in a position of responsibility for one month less than planned, that seems to be a small sacrifice. He can take this opportunity to find other ways to serve the troop. Or, he can pick off where he left off once this season passes.

Except not change. It leaves our daughters in a frustrating stalemate looking on the outside at troops with exciting outdoor programs. But IMHO, that's better than no troop/pack at all. Last week, our troop's CC forwarded the WaPo coverage of GSUSA to the committee. I sent out a "let's all keep cool heads" response over the weekend, providing a little context based on what outdoor-oriented girls in the community told me over the years. One dad thanked me for it. So, I'm not saying there's no chance of warming folks up to the idea. But, there are lots of ways to do it that will make volunteers feel railroaded. We need to be brutally honest about that, and pick the way that does the least harm. I still say challenging our scouts who go to World Jamboree to ask insightful questions and bring what they learned home will get us a much needed perspective on best practices.

But that's the point, isn't it? Train interested scouts and scouters in better risk assessment. Look, these boys are going to own property and build buildings of their own someday. Hands-on experience is not that far-fetched. If we go through the safety routines in our program, we may save countless lives outside of it. Regarding natural resources. Lumber is harvested and sold all the time. Putting aside reserve for scout-craft is part of land management. If that is a "real" problem, I have two words: composite logs.

@@Hawkwin, true, if one is dismissive of evidence, one cannot draw conclusions. Regarding 1. In my experience, it is sheer folly to dismiss leaders who abandon your organization. The vacuum left when it comes time to rally the troops in the following years is palpable. Meanwhile, some of them are fully capable of bolstering whatever non-BSA youth program they desire. Lose leaders, lose boys. Take decades to recover. Period. Pilot programs? Like Scouts UK? Venturing? Suppose there is noteworthy recruitment of boys on a pilot program. Why wouldn't the "it's not the girls, its the {insert excuse here}" logic apply as well? More credible market research would involve national polling of parents whose boys have not joined BSA and seeing how many would sign them up if they could enroll their daughters as well. It also involve polling parents who have a relationship with BSA. And parents of girls with no relationship to the BSA. BSA says there's a market out there, but they haven't described how they know its there or what size they think it is. Regarding 2. Membership growth = registration fees, more donations, publicity, etc ... which means professional staff stop getting fired (or asked to take on absurd workloads) ... which means better service to volunteers. On the other hand, membership decline = less $$, fewer professional staff, fewer camps, more burden on volunteers to get "busy work done", etc ... which means these girls we propose to enroll have a far worse program on their hands that probably will take them and their children to restore. It's kind of like ignoring the small polarized states in a presidential election ... very efficient, until your opponent sees the potential in electoral votes from places with more land than people.

You haven't read what these scouters have written, or talked to a wide range of scouters in your community. They say if BSA sanctions inclusion of girls in its packs and troops anywhere in the US, they will leave the BSA. I take them at their word. There was a rather insightful user, Back Pack, who abandoned this forum last month explicitly because of this issue. So you concede that including young did nothing to help Venturing's decade-long decline? By logical extension: including girls is unlikely to help reverse the trend for BSA's other units. You have not had to deal with parents of young teen boys upset that you were "bringing girls into scouting." You have not talked to parents of your son's friends who told you "my daughter is not camping with boys." You have had good scouters infuriated because your female youth might be sharing a 64 square-mile wilderness recreation area with their boys. Nor have you had to reconcile with leaders envious that your leadership wasn't fully devoted to their unisex program. A few posts back, you mention "regression analysis". A nice tool. I make my living off of people who can't do it. But, you are mistaken thinking that it is necessary to interpret data. It can sometimes help identify among somewhat independent causes how much variation each cause would explain. But, it can't -- in itself -- follow a causal chain. For human factors, that requires focus groups and qualitative interview. Talk to scouters, a lot of them. Then come back and tell me you don't have a one of them who would part ways over this. Then maybe you will have a data point to counter mine. For BSA to accept girls into packs and troops, it just doesn't need a majority of scouters to acquiesce, it needs existing and future scouters to enthusiastically endorse it. I see no evidence that we are there yet.

That award doesn't have a lick of value compared to her track record of public statement. She'll benefit more from being denied Eagle. I'd probably hire the kid if her resume came across my desk.

Well, that, and scouters like @@Stosh and @@Ankylus to be okay with it. As important as our daughters are, seasoned scouters of large and small units across the nation are equally, if not more, relevant to the success of the BSA. If they don't buy in in overwhelming numbers, we must go for decades without the human resources BSA needs for success. That's why venturing is floundering. Potential leaders, in spite of BSA's pitches, in spite of a cadre well trained young-adult females, do not see it worth their well to set aside life in unisex troops/packs to make outdoor programs for coed older youth flourish.

The male mystique! Here's an oldy-but-goody (except for the mispelled topic): http://scouter.com/index.php/topic/9491-the-male-mystic/

Tech questions! It's worse than that. The uniform isn't worn by the scout. All he'd need is a bar-code tattooed someplace obvious. Although with facial recognition coming along, maybe not even that. Everyone else would have to wear special glasses. (Or, according to my futurist prediction, have a wireless reciever implanted in their cortex.) Those glasses would recognize the scout, and project the appropriate uniform to the wearer. (Kind of like how sports broadcasters project scrimmage lines on football fields these days.) This would solve the issue of Uniforming in he acquatics area. Current estimates have the MCO never crashing. It either bounced off the atmosphere, much like a rock skipped on flat water, literally being lost in deep space ... or it inserted at such high velocity that it disintegrated. Any parts hitting the surface would hardly stir up dust, much less make a crater. The use of English measures of thrust per say weren't inherently problematic, but the ensuing lack of communication of units was (https://mars.nasa.gov/msp98/news/mco991110.html).

@@Stayseen, every scouter has a set of bad experiences that drive their tendency to over-caution. It's hard to judge them from this side of the Internet. Enjoy your time with your son. My father-in-law and his son wound up on a competitive circuit for a while as a result of being introduced to the sport while the boy was a scout. If you have time, join a sportsmans club and become a range safety officer. That way you can spread the fun to other boys and girls.

Two deep is intended for overnight activities. No none-one contact applies to meetings and other "waking hours." Patrol meetings need no adults present. Obviously, if the patrol is meeting in the deep end of an aquatics area, all specifications for qualified supervision and discipline must be met.

The USMC recognizes several awards, I forget which ones. I know two Gold awardees who enlisted, but I forgot to ask if that influenced their standing. Hopefully some recent recruits (or a current recruiter) will sound off.The thinking is that recruits with particular skill sets and proven discipline are better prepared to handle more responsibility sooner in their military career.