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@CPT_Wesleywelcome to the forums! And, no matter if you manage to get hold of the insignia device, congratulations on your hard work toward an award of distinction. After the dust settles on all of this, let us know your impressions of this program.

There are well controlled national surveys (e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/index.htm) of high school students, but they aren’t exactly asking all of your questions. Even if they did, communities have quirks, and very few answers from the best surveys will capture exactly what the youth in yours are up to.

Sooner or later, one runs afoul of uniform specifications. Someone doesn’t like how scouts or scouters apply insignia, and go on about a “third world general look.” Be that as it may, someone violates my rule #1 and asks for a rule about it, and all of a sudden that sixth and seventh row of knots is non-standard. Now, someone like @Mrjeff isn’t merely flamboyantly leading a small army of scouts in messaging peace, he’s treating the Insignia Guide as, well, a guide. Oh, the humanity!

@Cambridgeskip, growing up, our local airport had some wooded property beyond the runways. It was great for camping either as a troop or a district. On occasion we would visit the facilities. I loved those opportunities. Unfortunately, like land around many airports here, that property has been converted to industrial park.

Let me give you three words: Friends With Farms The best outings IMHO have been on someone’s back nine. We ask the farmer what project would be a couple dozen boys could help with. Often, we are asked if we could burn some brush and scrap lumber not worth chopping for firewood. They usually can knock that out in an hour, and then we have the coals we need for Dutch ovens.

Asking anyone how they chose to come up with their choice of dress d seems to be a far more productive use of “capital” than trying to use event organizers as a persons cudgel. To be clear, I’m not really trying to interpret the scout’s motives. I’m trying to boil down the observations of scouters who took the time post their experience of this incident at that event. Knowing now that BSA rattles off uniform standards in hope that someone besides them will enforce them, how would any of you want someone to approach such a scout if he/she were from your troop? For me, it never involved uniforming. I have been in the position of, at events, approaching a scouts’ SM when the scout was spending time with my venturers. By and large, that was met positively because it helped us both to understand who was supposed to check in when and where.

I found networking to be the biggest benefit of WB. Regarding camps, I’ve come to learn that they have rises and falls. The reasons for them being in a particular phase are varied and complex.

I’m hearing a different concern other than scouts disregarding uniform standards. It sounds like scouts were trying to promote an alliance that some did not want to be promoted, and some want BSA to sanction those scouts. To be fair, scouts want some scouters to favor a position against their conscience. And they want to have an outsized voice by promoting an individualism that can’t be expressed through standard uniforming.

There were a number of adequate replies from several fruitful angles here … Hold on. Not everyone agreed on “inappropriate and just plain disrespectful”. @Eagledad the OP is in the context of a regional event. (One reply on the original thread claimed to have witnessed it, and it wasfor only one day of the event.) There are quirky actions and bad actions. Putting on a uniform more suitable for ballet is quirky. I want my SM to spend capital on averting bad decisions like Carelessness with knives, fire, rope, water, wildlife, projectiles … Using and dealing drugs, Speech that engenders rage or sorrow, Falling in with bullies or predators, Turning a blind eye or being downright cruel to those in need, Mocking someone’s faith based on what they’ve concluded from biased excerpts, Repeating their parent’s inappropriate behavior, Being inappropriate to their parents … The list goes on, each demands a lot of personal capital and the coordination of people with high integrity for assistance. I would be very concerned if an SM set aside any one of these to scruple over one scout’s quirk in uniforming. The real problem here is that the event organizers did not have the stones to tell @Mrjeff that they felt that they didn’t see it tarnishing the event or scouting in general. They passed the buck with “hands are tied” language. They made a rule with the expectation that someone other than themselves would enforce it. And folks, this is the general truth: BSA uniform standards are made-up rules that BSA will never enforce (unless you’re infringing on the their copyright).

Welcome. And thanks in advance for all you'll do for the youth!

MBP costs started to climb rapidly once BSA began to print full color covers. Still, the point of a troop librarian is to collect and organize MBPs and other literature for other scouts to use in ensuing years. It’s okay if the scout is reading a slightly older edition of a pamphlet, as long as he or she knows the current requirements. Thus, the web page on scouting.org. Regarding being a counselor, it’s a good idea to keep up with training and to follow Advancement News.

My apologies if I didn’t mention Camp Potomac, although it would have added miles, and I’m not sure if there is a safe enough back-country route to it. On the other hand, IQ did not PM me to arrange delivery of some outstanding espresso.

I know these are rhetorical, but since you "asked" ... Sing "My Last Cigar" to him/her, Let him/her know that Putin is on the hunt, better run. To look good in the next election cycle. It's embroidered between the fletching and the arrowhead. The standard is the standard (a Steelers training camp reference). The reality is that people make rules hoping that everyone else will enforce them to some degree, but not to the point that it discourages a scout from self-expression -- even self-expression that you or I find to be a distraction. So ... using a parallel example brought up earlier ... If a district could only schedule an Eagle BoR immediately after a scout finishes work at the marina, and he shows up in flip-flops, shorts, and a flowered shirt ... he meets the criteria of neat appearance. The only question I'd have for the scout is why he didn't invite us to have the review on his boss's yacht!

I pitched the build-our-own summer camp to our scouts ... no takers. But, I would just like to point out how special the scouter.com "bubble" is ... How many of you learned about home-grown camp weeds from your ... District Roundtable, Council Newsletter, University of Scouting, or Powderhorn?

Search “golfing in a tutu.” Brace for impact.

First … the rule is that a uniform is not required to participate in scouting. But … I think where I agree with @Mrjeff in that scouting should be a place where we set aside our personal agendas. I discourage scouts from wearing campaign pins on their uniforms. I’m okay with earrings, but when they are being used to set scouts apart from their fellows, it’s a problem. This includes behavior. I would not let a Venturer misquote the Quran to slander Muslims. I insisted that they not use “backward” when referring to those with a restrictive sexual ethic. The “protest tutu” is in that category. It’s kinda like the knot thing. Stack on too many rows, and it seems like the person is setting themselves apart from, rather than uniting with, other boots-on-the-ground of scouters. That said, an opportunity was missed here. Rather than grousing about someone not enforcing rules, it would be worthwhile asking the scout what happened that compelled him/her to drift substantially away from dressing like one’s fellows. It then would have been worthwhile to offer to help in any way that conformed to practicality nd conscience.

Kids don’t look at the press about abuse either, yet all you all worry about how it affects BSA membership. Why? Because parents write the checks. Parades are fun. Setting up camp in a park where your friends can stop in and see you do what you do is fun. Sitting on a dunk tank in full uniform is fun (even when you friend who pitches well puts a buck down for a few throws). Sitting and listening to some SM spout off about how great it is to have been a scout is as stupid as it sounds.

Hope this link helps https://extension.psu.edu/tree-of-heaven We have plenty of cardinals, and the mantis should be coming round soon. But it seems like most of the nymphs will have matured by then. Time to keep an eye out for those egg sacks.

About 24 KIA when I found them on a surprise ToH sapling that had grown up through my hedge this spring. As many escaped. I saw squished specimen downtown at a bus stop. Who knows where it was hatched from? On a walk around the block at work and I found another ToH sapling yet to be infested. Multiply that by as many blocks with hedges in this city, and that’s their habitat. We ain’t winning this one. Look out Ohio.

Examples of great marketing that we scouts did: Parades Ringing the kettle for Salvation Army in uniform Setting up camp in a community park Doing the same at the fairground for the week long Bicentennial, this included a gateway with every topo map covering a famous trail that traversed our county Reading the opening script for fireworks at said celebration Volunteering at dunking booths in uniform Giving a talk at the Elks club Regarding @Eagle1993's link. Thanks to friends who obsess about such things, I know several excellent cigar shop owners who would slap our moniker on one of their imports if BSA allowed us to use their brand. Over the past couple of decades dozens of movies and TV shows that had actors portraying characters in some kind of outdoor/patriotic/service organization, but their uniform is not Official BSA simply because of brand protection.

Or, the weak learn how, with teamwork they may thwart the strong. Don’t want our scouts learning that lesson!

Oh, help me out guys. Where is that ban on water balloons written? @Scoutcrafter we don’t have any of those, or super soakers. We only have portabke heat stroke abatement devices.

Regarding scoutbook, as an ASM, it took me all of 2020 to get used to it, two months to realize that I didn’t have access to the records of scouts who transferred from troop that merged with us last year, four months to realize that I didn’t have access to this year’s crossovers, a month to realize that everyone though I had access and fix it. We have one ASM who dedicated nearly all of his scouter time to troubleshoot all of the glitches. If it weren’t for him, we’d be toast.

@Cavan, welcome to the forums! @Rip Van Scouter, if you're still out there, you've dropped a pebble that's still rippling through the pond! So, there's these things called troop libraries that should hold old books, pamphlets, and magazines from well before Al Gore and I invented the internet. There was even a Book-Binding MB that showed scouts how to turn old copies of Boy's Life and Scouting into bound volumes. Moreover, may public libraries preserved them, and many of us who read the write-in sections even saw correspondence from girls who were avid readers of those volumes. Sadly, many libraries are in disrepair, and book-binding skill may be lost to history. The digitized versions, although they get lots of hits and likes, pale in comparison to the circulation of these magazines in their time. I have met young men in search of Boy Scout handbooks from well before their time, and I would have never imagined that they couldn't simply walk to the local library to discover what they were looking for. So, unlike you, I find it crazy that many a great correspondence from a century ago is relatively inaccessible to the average teen. Let that be a cautionary tale. Without the diligent assistance of your generation, all of this great literature spawned from the largest youth movement in history will be hidden from youth of the future.

By the way, now that we have 13 scouts in their 1st year, signing off each and every scout rank requirement is an exhausting proposition. Kudos to our troop guides who have accomplished that for most of the boys. The ones who completed it quickly had earned AoL and it was a matter of an older scout having a relatively quiet moment to go over those requirements. One scout told me he was having trouble memorizing everything, and asked if we could let him skate on requirement #1. He's very active and bright, definitely a fly-before-you-can-walk type. I made it clear to him that there are scouts -- much older than him -- whose brains cannot memorize things. He's not one of those, so on their behalf, he has to put in the work. Meanwhile, he's welcome to make it a priority mastering the skills for the other ranks until he is ready to rattle off the Oath and Law and Outdoor Code on his own. It might just take us another few months before every boy in the troop is at or beyond Scout rank. But, based on the skills that I've seen them accomplish, those who earn it later will probably be in a good position to earn Tenderfoot immediately.