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As long as the boys work well together, and are willing to loan one of their members for a while to guide the other, younger patrol, support their plan. I would, however, try to disavow them of the notion that a troop of two patrols needs an SPL/ASPL. If each patrol fields a PL and APL, these four come together to form your PLC. If another boy is good at being scribe, he joins them to take meeting minutes. Don't rush advancement. Focus on helping each patrol find skill-appropriate activities. Have fun.

Yeah, I usually manage to keep my college-age venturers connected for about a year, then their free time is swallowed up. Glad to have them regardless.

Yes. Although we try to encourage scouts to involve other scouts as well as classmates and members of the community in their projects, sometimes it just doesn't work out that way. If the "club" included other students, make sure the scout sends thank-you notes recognizing the hours they served. That may be important for the student's nomination to honor-societies or for senior projects.

Nobody's stopping Chevy owners from buying Silverados. Any Chevy owner can proudly own a Silverado as long as he tips his mechanic to be on call 24/7 because, after all, it's still a Ford . It's no less an award designed for boys if we permitted the the occasional female (or adult leader) to earn it, because after all, it's produced by the Boy Scouts of America. The real question still boils down to: will we in the US serve more boys (or the same number of boys, only better) by catering to special interests? All evidence to date suggests the opposite.

On one level, I agree with @@Stosh. I thought our crew blood drives were something that every crew in council should replicate. Mainly the youth were at the age where they could consider becoming donors. The theme "Venturing for Blood" came to mind. Only the first one or two required some serious leadership development. The rest were boiler-plate, and in fact youth in the community happily imitated it once they saw how it was done. The fire safety campaign, getting thousands of people to change their behavior and install and test alarms (not just for function, but actually to see if family members will respond effectively) is serious work. I am wondering if this year's young life lost in our community could have been spared had such a campaign been more successfully implemented. That's a project that is not easily imitated and every roll-out requires creative planing and leadership.

Last day of Son #2's cub resident camp (I think his first year). Very wet day. The boys dashed from the last afternoon activity to camp and set up a perfect teepee lay from carefully found/sequestered dry twigs. They asked if they could light it. (Camp rule said no cubs with matches ... for the usual reasons.) Some parents looked askance as I said, "He who stacks the kindling has rights to strike the first match." The light in their eyes was priceless. Their fire was pretty bright too!

I had a scout do a clothing drive for an Eagle project. Leadership involved mobilizing his friends to circulate announcements in the community, and volunteer to collect and deliver clothing. Just because they thought it was a good idea, our crew has done blood drives, the responsible youth works with the blood bank to find a location and date, prepare advertisements and circulate them, then coordinate with youth to volunteer during the drive day. Regarding Fred's point about impact: The impact a scout might take credit for could be number of first-time donors or number of youth who might learn about donating blood. For my ventures, they made these kinds of drives routine for youth to plan for student council/senior projects. (Basically, the high school took over our gig, and that was okay.) So, this kind of project needs to be evaluated in terms of the scout's community. If in their area, donation days are routine, it might not be Eagle caliber. On the other hand, if the scout is trying to mobilize a community who hasn't done this before, it might be Eagle caliber to the point of saving lives.

... with his face and body painted and wearing a loin cloth and one feather in his hair, danced with real excitement ... There we have, in nutshell, the argument for -- and against -- allowing adults to participate in rank advancement! It's a fortunate troop that has a leader with such a long view.

So ... IOLS now ... isn't a bunch of record-keeping? Plus, money has to exchange hands! And, is there any real verification of skills mastered? Has anyone flunked an adult from IOLS who couldn't tie a sheet bend the day after it was taught? I mean, seriously, if you're getting that kind of quality instruction and verification out of your district committee (especially considering your troop size and the number of adults you all must be sending to training), please get them on this forum so they can show the rest of the world how it's done.

Not sure where you're seeing the layer of bureaucracy. One grabs a handbook. Works with fellow moms and dads until skills are mastered. Instead of a weekend away from the troop, they can work on it at a troop adult campsite 100 yards distant from the other patrols. Loan field specs to anyone who needs to observe the youth in action ... youth-focused is instantly increased depending on the quality of the binoculars. I agree this might create some knowledge gaps, but there is a build-in solution that doesn't require entire weekends away from troop and family: round tables. This is where scouters find out who can fill in their skill deficits or give them refreshers. How much more engaging would that be than power-points on internet rechartering?

it's not about the philosophy!It's about ethics, which at times can be about philosophy, but many times is about what the Almighty is telling the people what to value. Well, values may not have a great philosophical underpinning. I value human life. There's no reason to do so that resides in pure logic. It just seems that I'm called to do so and compell others to do the same. So, obedience must necessarily play out in a direction that perpetuates that value. Heeding commands that stunt virtue (e.g., kindness, helpfulness, bravery, or reverence) reduces obedience to little more than automation. As to the question regarding the 12 points being enough to carry one through adulthood. Well, a compass in itself, won't get you through the wilderness, but using that in places familiar makes it easier to use other tools (sun, stars, sextants, trigonometry) in strange lands. You never abandon that compass, but the other tools in your navigator's kit mesh nicely because fiddling with that needle and accompanying protractor early in life helps you know when to call on something else later.

I suppose you're right ... what someone does should always be eclipsed by their station.

Sign them up as MBCs or reserves, depending on their particular skill sets. See if the local college's APO will give them the social structure they may desire.

Some of our scouts retake a class even after they've earned the badge. So that's never a problem. @@DadScouts, I understand the temptation to micromanage. Resist it. If a scout thinks you have his partial from last year when in fact he never earned it, his helicopter parent is going to blame you when he is 17.9 and has only earned 20 MBs.

It's actually 2% of venturers in general. A lot of crews, like mine, find about one in forty youth are interested in bling other than their Eagle or Gold award (in their BS or GS troop, respectively). Then.you get every 40th crew that's all about everyone earning one award or another.In a sense, this was how Boy Scouts was when I was a youth regarding upper ranks. Troops could go for years without anyone earning Eagle, then one scout would "crack the code" and make rank, and the rest of the troop would follow. The challenge for me, as an advisor, is I'm all about the outdoor activity, but the crew doesn't need to be that. I can drop in any troop and anywhere and pretty much know what to do. I'm not always sure if what I have to offer is what any given generation of leaders in my crew wants to pursue ... That's what makes it interesting. So a piece of me may be finding solace that through venturing I don't have parents shedding tears over their little girl not making it rank. It's nice having a cluster of youth who want scouting skills for scouting's sake.

I'm in a symposium on health literacy of k-12 youth in distressed communities, and a retired doctor is approaching the problem of community health using after-school STEM clubs. I can see how a scouter might see how rolling out STEM scouts might serve the needs of his/her community.

NJ, the problem with your idea is that most venturers want to be different. There has never been a groundswell to earn Eagle among members who weren't already Boy Scouts. So making the award attainable by the few venturers who fulfill those requirements caters to special interests at the expense of the vast majority of Venturers who don't want a program bogged down by micromanaged rank advancement.

1. Lead a horse to water. 2. Drinking it is on him. Those instructions on the blue card? That's the process. The point of partials is to help a boy who wants to earn a MB do so at his own pace in multiple venues of his choosing. Meanwhile, if by getting a partial, a boy at least tries a new skill, he has expanded his horizons. Have your oldest scouts give tips on how they keep track of partials. When a boy earns an MB by completing a partial, while you're awarding it to him, ask him what he did to complete it.

At the Cub level, that may be. With older age groups, BSA has hyped the advancement method to the point that more than one or two Boy Scouts have told their Venturer sisters that their Silver (now Summit) or Quartermaster or Ranger or GS Gold means nothing compared to their Eagle (should either group earn it). This in spite of SM's and Advisors trying their darnedest to promote both equally. Now the Quartermasters and Rangers in our midst aren't about to be bothered by some runt poking the bear. But, I suspect that rhetoric gets under the skin of potential Silver awardees. So, I can see why "because we can" is as good an excuse as any for the girls who've been slighted this way to become a special interest. Fortunately, this is not a pervasive attitude among Boy Scouts. But the NESA marketing is enough to make target audiences gloat and unintended audiences salivate.

We always need to be clear about this: some girls are asking why they can't be recognized via the Boy Scout advancement program. The majority of gilrs couldn't care less. This is a matter of special interests. I personally don't think they are malicious. Nor do I think they are morally bankrupt. As far as I can tell, they are mavericks.They are principled. They often don't appreciate the loss of market share. This weekend, a family member asked what I thought of BSA's recent membership changes. I pointed out that 10,000 boys are no longer being served nation wide. She said, "Well, isn't it better to do the right thing? Those numbers wont be missed." As much as I think the "bastion of virtue" mentality held by unisex proponents has multiple shortcomings, I am more certain that the "scorched earth" mentality held by pro-inclusion folks will alienate more than it will ameliorate.

That puts us back on topic !

Sorry for your troop's loss. With all the catch-up from paper to digital, chances are you are going to stumble up some other missteps. As is often the case, what you could do (or as some would view: could get away with) will split in multiple options. But what you should do depends on the scout in front of you and the sharpness of your leaders. For most continually active scouts this would be a tempest in a teapot. It probably is for this scout as well. It can't hurt for the boy to know how to tie a sheet bend. One final strategy: talk to his patrol leader and see if his buddies are willing to go through these last few skills with the scout. That way the boys who didn't have to do the requirements can come along side and do them for fun.

Are we making our own rules? Or, are we reading the GTA as it is written, and proceeding accordingly? You seem to want to ignore all that verbiage about not holding up a boy because of adults' shortcomings. You also seem to want to ignore the experience of folks who've seen how this stuff has gone on appeal. Isn't that akin to cheating? Yeah sure, @@Stosh, but this isn't about the kid's 18th birthday and 7 years as a tenderfoot scout. Lacking other information, this is about the adults not getting their acts together in December to help the boy avoid this situation. Unless @, you all did tell the boy to line up his BoR, and he blew you all off.

Rule #1: never ask for a ruling.He had his SMC in December, right? The board is not a re-test. So ... Wrap it up. Get a few adults together and meet the boy wherever, find out from e boy what he thinks of your program, give him a few pointers .... Including the new FC rank requirements. Move on. In the three months of prevarication by adults the boy could have done those new reqs and more. If you do have council HQ call national about this, let us know what they say.