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Community service does not do much to fix these problems. In fact, I've known quite a few "druggies" (as some have called them), who joyfully volunteer for this stuff. Now if in the process of that service, someone gets paired up with a mentor (e.g. a NA sponsor) who will be on that person like white on rice, and there is a 360 evaluation of home, social relationships, work. and school environments over an extended period of time ... then that changes the landscape. So, the boy did not give up his "someone". I've had scouts with discipline issues and they often pointed to doing something "for their friends". To which my reply is "You either lead your friends, or follow them. One will help you soar, the other will drag you down." In a sense, the boy is failing to show leadership in his project, because he's choosing to be led by others. Thus, from an Eagle scout's perspective, this isn't about drug possession. This is about "giving up command of one's vessel" (a lesson learned from Seabase's Captain Steve). He needs to fend off the mutineers whom he's called friends or associates, hire a loyal crew, commit to them, set new coarse, and catch a wholesome wind. Some back-slidden 17.5 year-olds can take back command of their own vessel in time to rightly be awarded Eagle. Many will find themselves unworthy. There is no way to tell which you scout is from this side of the internet, but I can say this: being found unworthy is sometimes the best gift a fellow can get.

It certainly has robbed my sons of the privilege that I had of walking students from the women's colleges home after they had joined us in the University campus activities.

There is something to the maintenance of fitness at each rank. Moreover, attention to detail is something I expect from through-hikers. That includes record-keeping. (E.g., small note-book and pencils are required equipment for wilderness excursions.) I'm sorry that E-94's son had a clock reset. But if it was a result of him not being willing to stay organized starting from day 1 after Scout rank, then maybe he needs to think about how that may affect his performance on an adventure. For my venturers, it's pretty organic. I approve plans based on their commitment to training and sharpening their first-class skills. We have established land-navigation days months in advance, half of them are blowing off that commitment. This directly impacts their vision for independent hiking in wilderness areas. They have to earn the trust of myself and one other adult before we allow them to insert on their own and rendezvous with us in the evening. So, in their case, physical fitness is not the problem (in fact their sports commitments are what's affecting attendance), but map-and-compass savvy is. Don't get me wrong we'll still hike in the same area, but I'll revise their plan if they don't sharpen the skills as I expect them to. Anyway, that's how I transition our youth from "be prepared" to "lead the adventure". It's not about some oval patch you earned once upon a time. It's about years later being a first class scout, the concept, not the patch. So back to E-94's young son. If he goes to his leaders, points out that he blew off the fitness tracking requirement, but did all the others, and has been exercising routinely regardless - including conditioning hikes, and can boldly say that having learned his lesson, he is their 1st class scout, patch pending ... I'd like the leaders to consider scheduling SMCs for at least one or two of those ranks at some point(s) on the AT.

My general impression is that camp usage does not directly impact sustainability. Most of the fees collected from scouts go to food, liability insurance, and staffing. Capital funds are collected separately (i.e. FOS). So, councils where units have held insurrections against capital campaigns, have less capital and do not improve facilities (note the White House pictures in 'Schiff's' link). This makes units perceive they are getting less for their FOS dollars, which reinforces the cycle. Requiring scouts to attend an undesirable camp, is not a great way to generate alumni who will donate to that camp. Maybe the JTE should give points to the number of adults who visit a camp of their youth and contribute to that council's FOS.

FWIW, scouts can still work on rank advancement in juevenile detention. Talk to your scout executive if this is a possibility where you are. As Frank mentions, don't let this one kid bog down the rest of the troop. It's past time for him to start acting like a first class scout. There is room for redemption, but probably not in your troop. Prepare to transfer records.

Let's be careful what we wish for. More signatures means more time away from important things, like camporees and roundtables.The EBoR is when the district reviews and signs on the package. And, in this case, you were able to wrap that up without obliging the scout to jump through more hoops. Do you really want to meddle in the affairs of hundreds of Eagles for the sake of one whose writing is shy on detail?

Is the question how long can scouts go without the extraneous adults in camp? I'd say decades. Is the question how long they can go with only an SM in his hammock a couple stones throws away until they devise a catapult that will land an empty water bottle on his fly? Took mine about two hours. How long can they go according to YPT? Until Taps. Then they need two adults. Things are different as troop sizes get larger, I suppose. But in general, as long as there have been one or two adults in camp, that's been all of the resource the boys needed. So, adults may check out for any number of reasons. Their money, their time. It's nicest to have then all around the fading campfire at the end of the day ... that tends to be when older boys become more reflective and come around with questions that no single adult has a good answer for.

i never blame the failures of the students on the teacher.There is a book. Read. There is rope. Tie. There is a weekend. Camp. There is food. Cook. There is land. Navigate. There are your fellow scours. Lead. The minute I picked up my handbook, I knew exactly the minimum time it would take for T2FC. Still took me more than a year, and my patrol leaders were the best. But, on Saturdays, there was cartoons, sci-Fi theaters, and Wide World of Sports.

Having been brought up in a troop where the SM had no children of his own, I found it natural that half the MCs all but one ASM had a child in the troop, The notion that an SM would be a scout's dad was somewhat odd until Son #1 crossed over into our current troop.

If a patrol wanted to hike and camp every other week so that their new scouts would wrap up T2FC ASAP, I would load hem up with locations, maps, first aid drills, gear, activity plans. ... Whatever they needed. I might even suggest rescheduling meetings for the morning they depart/return so the rest of the troop could see them off!

First, are you sure your off the district's list of MBs? Around here it takes the failure to complete YPT or a phone call or two to drop an MBC. I would backdate the blue card. It's true to what actually happened.

I see your point. Users aren't showing leadership. Dealers on the other hand ....

Good advice from strangers on the internet. But, this is where you need to call on your depth chart. Identify the committee member (maybe the CC, maybe not) who is not related to this scout and who you can talk to as each twist in the problem arises. Or, a seasoned SM at your district round-table. (Your DE might be able to suggest someone.) Feedback is a gift. Nothing worth doing in these circumstances happens overnight. And when it happens, it requires a lot of back-and-forth discussion. The Eagle project? Sometimes it can still go forward in crises like this, sometimes it absolutely cannot. Depends on the facts on the ground, and you're only getting that data from people who know the beneficiary and know the scout and know how your school's "grapevine" works. For example, in my school district, the scuttlebutt would have certainly reached every valley, including the beneficiary's by now. Two districts over, the story would have taken a far back seat to whoever is on the run from the last shooting incident. Our troop/crew has scouts from both districts. And, that makes a big difference in what the scout is up against.

I agree with Col. Flagg that this is the sound of a big tent ripping. How big of a rip? In our neck of the woods, I can't think of a single church group of any denomination that sponsors a GS/USA unit. Some may give them space if asked. But, troops are generally home-based. A leader may ask the church she attends to borrow a room for meeting from time to time, but that's about it. What will be interesting to see going forward: how many parishes promote new AHG units.

TF, you seem sure about how the $ went out. Are you equally sure about how they went in? In other words, are you sure that the former CM/DL's didn't put in, say, $700 the year before? Either way, that issue is not yours to resolve or reconcile. Either way the past lack of accountability stinks. What matters is if everybody is willing to go forward differently once you ask for more transparency and accountability.

Just saw my first fidget spinner last night! One of my venturers found it abandoned at an ice-cream stand. I'm putting it far down on my list of worries, considering that some of my officers were being distracted during the meeting by texts from a petulant member of the opposite sex. I warned the president that next week, I'm taking their phones and texting back with a pic of my ugly mug included. If they want to interrupt our meeting, they are welcome to do so in person.

A lot of folks are gonna cringe when they read this: In the grand scheme of things, 900 bucks ain't that much. You might be thinking it is lots of kegs of beer, when it is a few kid's summer camp fees. This isn't a council problem. If your CoR is ambivalent, it isn't even a CO problem. If the CC and CO don't want to go after the former CM for the coin, it's on them, not you. At your committee meeting, report that X dollars was given to the last CM, and only X-minus-unaccounted dollars had receipts or was otherwise approved expenditures as recorded in last year's committee's minutes. No judgments. Just letting everyone know on record in one sentence how things were done in the past by way of explaining the starting balance in the treasury. It's just a footnote in a year-end financial report. But even if it were $90, your problem is nobody has in writing what it was, so the pack can't make better decisions going forward. Then, make clear that you want people to expect more accountability from CM while you're holding the patch. That means the committee should decide a budget, decide how much they want to be discretionary on the part of the CM, and decide on a Treasurer who they trust to hold you accountable. Your underlying principle: parents ought to know what they're spending their money on.

Actually, I think @@dfolson's council is acting in a way that makes the scout (and his SM) the quality assurance people for the scout's project. I know boys who are very uncomfortable with the thought of adult strangers in some office somewhere pouring over their write-ups for weeks without telling them. Letting the scout (and the SM) know that there are only a fixed number of adults in the process helps them. That's why promptly scheduled EBoRs are important. Finish your workbook, turn it in, be prepared for your review in a couple of weeks, know that those reviewers will only have a few minutes prior to read your materials, and they will ask about your project anything they couldn't grasp from your write-up. So, read what you wrote and be prepared to fill in the gaps. Along these lines, Bryan's forums have an interesting discussion regarding online vs. handwritten workbooks. Some of you may wish to chime in there: http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/forums/topic/eagle-scout-workbooks/

Or we can order the powder from their tusks from the Asian medicine shop. Really, the world's elephants have far worse threats than being seen up close by children who mar, for touching them, grow up to be their cousin's protectors. Percentage wise, more Americans have touched and smelt African/Asian animals than Africans and Asians have. Sometimes I wonder if the Asian attitude is "We got it on video, that's good enough. Now mind your business, I need a male heir."

Well, hopefully that's the OP's council, or his council has something similar in writing. I always though the forms from national were sufficiently clear regarding this. Evidently not for some folks.

Welcome, and thanks for all you do for the boys.

Thanks @@ScouterNorth, I had a bit of a time navigating your organization's website. Best of luck with that new program! NJ, I think there is a boundary age around 10 to 12 of sorts where boys become more reserved around girls they know; meanwhile they are idiots around "new girls". Then another milestone is passed where they figure out the kind of character they want to be, and they learn to be steadfast. That age is somewhere between 13 and 63.

I guess nobody's told you that Boy Scouts love paperwork. Our boys simply made clear in their workbook that materials were purchased by the beneficiary or the scout. No fundraising necessary. But, districts may differ on this. If their asking for the form anyway, complete it even though you're basically saying fundraising will be by opening one's own piggy bank. This is not a hill to argue over.

So, I was mistaken. Her uniform was not Venturing, it was the scout uniform of Scouts Canada (their Venturer uniform was blue), probably taken before she turned 15. (Although, I am not clear about when that transition happens.) The Chief Scout award would have been earned then. So, old news. For Venturer Scouts, "The Canadian Path" (the organizations name for their cub-through-venturer progression) includes a personal growth model not unlike the BSA's recent ALPS model which includes, but is not limited to, the Queen's Scout award as well the Duke of Edinburgh International Award (to which youth from anywhere in the world may also apply).

you are in the unenviable position of having a parent problem that no ought right ban will fix.