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This SM is creating a we/they scenario that most of us don't live by. Give other troops in your district a call. I'm sure one of them will welcome you on short notice.

Unless these scouts are all in their late teens, ten miles per day is a big chunk and, honestly, not much fun. The first hike need not involve a trailer or much transportation at all. Identify the campsite nearest your meeting place. It could be a community park or someone's wooded lot. Meet, prepare, go there, come back. You may have to identify property owners along the way whose land you might need to cross and give them a call requesting permission to cross it. The second hike could be the nearest state park with a good trail system that you drive to, hike in 3-5 miles, camp, hike out. If you have multiple patrols, each patrol can take a different trail or loop. Then, get a trail map of your state. (Maps are these paper things that unfold and spread over table.) and have your boys highlight the trails within an hour or to of you, then research them. In all of these, do after action review. Use that to help boys decide the next move. Also people from your neighborhood are your best resource. Go to district roundtable and ask scouters there what their boys prefer to do. NEVER hike to a food drop, like your trailer, etc ... and call it backpacking. That's not backpacking. That's general infantry. That can be fun (e.g. 5 mile land navigation to a campsite where supplies are in a lock box), but it's a different animal.

And this is why I despise self-serving stipulations in MB (and other advancement) requirements. The SM is merely imitating the control trip that BSA started. Go camping, have fun, tell your boy to take his blue card to a different MB counselor.

Thumbs again! I'll never get this hand-held and it's moving targets! But, following on T.Hawk (who is worthy of a plus, not minus) ... it's not just one home. The second home is a must have. The in-laws really could benefit from our watchful eyes, either here in PA or at their other child's in FL but they won't countenance sharing a roof in the towns where their kids live, but none of their childhood friends have moved. Worse, we've stopped reproducing. So that soft-hearted grandchild who loves to caretaker and needs a roof is harder to find. (Thank God for the immigrants who have come to fill in our voids.) Then, there's the cabin in the woods someplace (a given for many WPa families). In our case, it's a lake house that we're trying to keep in the family. Live like kings? Gotta work to maintain it.

Every scout is different. Some like their own cup/water bottle. Others want their own knife/compass/fire starters. Some boys have a preference in bug spray and suntan lotion. If he wears glasses, don't forget the case! Fishing? Include a knot guide in the tackle box. Nail clippers come in handy for cutting line. Needle nose pliers for extracting hooks. An old denim rag for grabbing fish. Don't forget that small bait box. Dad might want to pack a filet knife. Spare batteries! Cloth laundry bag.

Not wasting my time analyzing. From other (equally long) posts, I gather she's been told the boundaries, is trying to stick to them, but thinks her situation is unique. (Don't they all.)

S2FC for "Scout to First Class", or T2FC for "Trail to First Class" if you want to keep the old shorthand under a different meaning. I outright banned participation. (Okay, not exactly banned. Strongly emphasized that no 1st year had to attend our camp's program.) Those scouts who already learned first class can occupy their free time teaching our those skills to 1st years. If nobody in camp knew a skill, they could then schedule an open period with the S2FC camp counselor. Or not. I didn't care and the SM was okay with that. The downside: because we went through three years of cross-overs going to another troop, I am paying the price now with a few venturers who are week on the orienteering (among other things). That limits their program choices. But it's a mixed group. Some who attended the S2FC program at camp, some who didn't. The real problem is a "once and done" and "no time for next level challenges" attitude that had set in. Since they weren't under the gun to teach a bunch of first-years at camp, they blew off camporees and such and got pretty rusty.

Welcome! I look forward to viewing these later. - I used to be a crow ...

IMHO, you should drop that one here: https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/forums/topic/hornaday-badge-talking-son-awards/ It's from a mom trying to figure out when to step in vs. when to step back. The fact that she's asking the question is a good indication that she's trying. But, hers is a perfect topic for a story like yours!

Wish I could more than +1 this ... Getting a flashback right now as I read it.

There's a wide variety, depending on personality. I preferred mostly to be alone. Groups took work. Fortunately, I had friends who wouldn't leave me be!

The problem is that we've been given the wrong vision, and if we're not careful, we hand that down to our scouts. Getting a pin on your shirt from Mamma is not the pinnacle of scouting ... not by a long shot. Nor is that trip to Jambo or an H/A Base. BSA and NESA may say otherwise, but all other awards ceremonies and big-ticket scouting activities are side-shows to: the pinnacle scouting experience of hiking and camping independently with your mates. We need to be very intentional about talking up that kind of behavior. We had one SM who, when asked to speak at an ECoH, would make it a point to recall something about what the candidate did on one of those many campouts that set him apart from the rest. I learned to follow suit. Usually, those defining moments were when the scout was still on the trail to first class, and one way or another the boy pulled the rest of his patrol/troop together. The gist of each story boiled down to, "Having seen him do ___, of course we'd expect he'd rank up, and we'd be here today." I'll edit to add: At my kid's sports banquets, the coaches would not talk up stats or letters. They would talk about what distinguished the character of the athlete. Sometimes it was on the field, sometimes off. Kids' hearts hang on those words ... more than the varsity letter.

@Col. Flagg, that's exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for. It was only a few years ago when the first rule was, back-up your disks! Is that still a thing?

I'm spinning off of the other discussion about making the new Cyberchip requirements work for crossovers. The question is what can a scout learn via the existing curriculum that gets him somewhat prepared to help someone in need? And, what does a boy need to master to be prepared to help someone? I'm asking because I'm not involved in guiding scouts through the Cyberchip program, but I have scouts who are the "leaders" in their families in internet privacy/security issues. (That's good and bad.) Is this the 21st century equivalent of the old "how to help in case of a runaway horse" requirement in First Class first aid?

Sometimes these warnings are overblown. If the SM approved you to counsel the boy, it should not be a problem. Problems do arise when the same signature is on multiple blue cards for one boy. Contact your district or council advancement chairman to find out what they really consider to be red flags. If this is a real concern, just contact another counselor in your district. (Again your DAC should have a list.) Have your son meet with that person to complete the badge. Really and truly, I found have the fun of earning MBs outside of camp was meeting scouters from other troops.

Obligatory is relative to what you want out of something. I'm a little concerned that I've had to "dumb down" our impending wilderness backpacking trip because the boys in the crew have not proven their orienteering skills. (Instead of multiple teams with multiple insertions and rendezvous, we're down to single insertion/extraction.) That's mainly because soccer conflicted with the times available to master land navigation. (Girls and jobs are in the mix, but secondary. This bunch are not really into cars.) I could hear the frustration in my crew president's voice, as he's learning about his friends' consecutive club seasons. He's beginning to see what I've seen in my kids. The one kid is having a great time with the sport, but is quite some distance from scholarship material. On the flip side, there aren't a lot of entries into college for junior survivalists! But, this is venturing. I can live with youth having to work with each other and build a united vision.

Good point @@SSF. But at the Webelos level, we're trying to build sportsmanship so that they will be prepared to use completions to build fellowship, not isolate the disadvantaged.

@@Stosh, that was supposed to be +1. (Monday night hockey thumbs.) BSA has shown an inability to retain Venturers. That's not a failure of co-Ed per se, but it does show that the demand among COs for a coed you-led movement is thin. Without expensive promotion to gain national recognition over a number of decades That's another issue: there's $ for STEM. Where are the big donors to maintain the steam for @@NJCubScouter, I'd interpret AHG's #s two ways: 1. They haven't had a meteoric rise (although they were one of the few organizations BSA wanted to work with), so what evidence is there tha BSA would have any greater growth? 2. They have had growth while we haven't. Does BSA really think they'll cede their market share?

you've heard my "it's a big country" spiel which serves as my reply to the variety of local experience we see reported. I'll not belabor that point. I think the real 900 pound gorilla is American Heritage Girls. They are enabling sponsors to configure these joined units (at least at cub level) without the stress of forcing change on either organization. For a change to be profitable to BSA, they would have to win back those girls. I don't think counsels have it in them to compete against that model.

Won't help. War or college come calling on 18 year olds. If they haven't learned pass on high school activities, they won't be able to as adults. If scouts is a priority, boys will learn to call coaches on the carpet. If the boy is all that, seas will part. If not, it might be good to know it's time to occupy oneself elsewhere. Jambo conflicted with my senior year of band camp. Explaining that to the director, he said if I'm not at camp I can't march. I shook his hand and said, "No problem, I understand." I promptly went to the guidance counselor to change my schedule, and he asked why. (I don't even think I discussed this with my parents, because as far as I was concerned it had nothing to do with them.) I explained that it wouldn't be fair to the band, etc ... Something must have happened behind close doors, because the next day the director gave me an out and said he'd hold my spot. (Literally, there were photos of camp of with a gap in my section where I was supposed to be.) I didn't thank my counselor directly, but I did ask him to speak at my Eagle CoH. We are trying to solve the different school thing by getting patrols to schedule some activities on their own. Their problem is that a lot of boys pick their patrols for to be with their friends who they don't see in school all the time. So we haven't cracked that code. Bottom line: none of these extracurricular balancing acts are easy, but we shouldn't back down on what we expect from boys. Especially if over the years they've told us their goals, and we have picked up a sense of what it takes to achieve them.

I've called BS on all of that. Girls? I made a crew, bring them along. In fact, the current SM in the troop is quite easy going about that stuff. Girlfriends help on Eagle projects. Cars? Scouts use them to drive to meetings, camp, instructors, etc ... Jobs? They pay for camp, uniforms, the cars to get to camp, their family's needs, and a tithe at church. Or all of that stuff can get a guy some beers and bad romance. It's about priorities, and I have not met a coach (acting, band, or sports) who was bothered of a youth dedicated to scouting.

You mean that time when I'm asleep and some token incompetent (or worse) male adult could be up to no good with one of my boys?What risk do you think I'm taking by having a female adult if she is more trained and trustworthy, and the only one available? (Full disclosure: in my current cadre of adults, trained and trustworthy males are more available, so this is a non-issue for us - most always male youth - at this time.)

It seems to me that the girls who are asking for this are asking for the same program: requirements, warts, and all.The problem remains: how many such girls are there? Enough to offset they boys of parents who count on unisex membership as the selling feature of the BSA and GS/USA's brand? It's not about feasibility. Rogue scouters are doing this already (bling notwithstanding). So, it can be done. It's about market share, and in every instance except Indonesia at market takes decades to build. So, news, real news, would be ten thousands of families petitioning BSA for such a program for their girls.

Scot,By way of context, Foxtrot Base Camp is devoted to the Venturer's division of Jambo. Some in venturing have been pushing this vision for decades. These were the same who brought Venturers to the Jamboree as their own camp in the first place. So, the oblique statements of a CSE find resonance in this particular echo chamber.

@@Stosh, I have to confess, I don't follow my male co-leader into the bathroom all the time either. Sometimes the boys are stuck with one of us. So let's please keep the BS out of the BS of A.