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I'm not an MBC, but in some ways being a crew advisor is worse because the amount that I'm really good at is a small fraction of what my venturers want to do. In that case, I surround myself with good people, keep numbers of who I think are the best outfitters, most reliable trainers, etc... I do my part by trying to keep my lifeguard certifications up to date. So, pick one or two of the badges you are most interested in and focus on those. A fun counselor can give a boy some idea of what he knows, but also refer him to people or groups who will really make for an enjoyable experience.

Okay, here is where I'm parting ways. This sentiment is a scouter's burden, and we should encourage every boy with that heartfelt desire when we see them faltering. Same holds for coaches, band directors, youth leaders, etc ... But, it's not a mom's place. A boy needs his parents to only focus on the REALLY important stuff. Things like wanting to quit school., improper relationships with the opposite sex, despising religion, debauchery, violence, self-harm. If your child has steered clear of those, you are really blessed and should be extremely pleased. Your very competent son needs to know that you care about him enough to not care about awards and recognition until he says it's time to care about it. Just let his SM or a scouter he respects know that he could use a little encouragement. I would not know what to think about having earned Eagle if for a moment I thought that I would cause Momma an ounce of anguish bu not making it.

Yep, you just lost me there. Look, I don't need my troop to brag about how much service they've done. I don't need my Eagles to be burdened with anything except understanding the concept of man-hours in a relatively straightforward task. (Having tallied their project, they may be better aware of or the "cost" of other public works. Hopefully that knowledge will make them better citizens.) I've got no problem incentivizing the process of logging hours so national can have bragging rights. Talk up the Good Turn for America all you want. But the minute it turns into some mandatory exercise for some accountability or bragging rights is the minute bogus data starts to flood the system. It's a lousy one-page form people! Eyeball your numbers. Circle the rating you think fits your troop in each category. Run it by your youth leaders to see if it's about right. Boom. Done.

@@zuzy, it sounds like you have two problems: 1. A burnt out young man. 2. An SM (and troop) who are stuck in a rut. For the first one, support your son by assuring him that this (along with NYLT beads, etc ...) is entirely his award to earn or shelve. In the broader scheme of things, he needs to decide his priorities and work on those. That might mean putting sports aside for a season so he can be part of a troop he enjoys. Or it might mean putting sports first, then these scouting awards will come slower, or not at all, and that's okay. It's his program to operate how he sees fit. It is really hard for many mid-teens to fit in with their peer groups. It often takes much more time than boys realize. I suspect that the boys in the troop have a feeling that for your son, it's "just bushiness" ... that he's only gonna put in the time he needs for advancement and nothing more. Few boys will invest their time in someone like that. We can discuss that further if this really seems to be part of the problem. For the second one. Your husband rightly stepped away from excessive involvement as a UC. That position should have been assigned to someone else in the district the minute his son joined that troop. That way he could serve as a committee member in good faith. However, he can still give a call to the SM, let him know that the boy is feeling like throwing in the towel, you all don't quite know what to do, and ask him if he or the troop's SPL could give the boy a word of encouragement. Don't ask for signatures. This isn't about that. It's about the boy realizing there are caring adults around, and he may be one of them in not too many years.

Those pencil and paper badges are not nearly as complicated as they seem ... especially for an avid reader. There is plenty of time between camping weekends to work on them.As far as the outdoor activities themselves ... they give a boy a microcosm to practically work out what it means to be a good citizen.

Welcome! Hope you all enjoy this new regime. We're here to help with wisdom and experience that may apply about half the time! And don't worry, @@Zaphod, As long as your son knows where his towel is, he'll do just fine.

http://www.resourcefinder4u.com/basic_knots/snell_knot_a.php Or something close to that. When I first tried it, I thought, "I'm wasting a box of hooks today." But it held on my ultralight rod for quite a few fishing days, snags and all.

Honestly, however, the profusion of youth clubs and taxpayer-funded outdoor-ish activities (e.g. our school installed a climbing wall) the flawed thinking of Pack camping as a recruiting tool. Take the school climbing wall. When that came in, I had more youth already safety trained so that we could hire a guide and hit some rocks first thing ... knocking out a hearty climb in one morning. But most of those youth looked at the opportunity that our crew provided and thought, "Meh, been their done that. How much different than school can it be?" My pointing out that with us, you learn your figure eights and rope yourself in, you hug real granite, road trips are cool, we cook better than the cafeteria (don't say that too loud, SM's wife is a lunch lady) ... does not add enough value to the event to someone who can arrange for all of those sensations without lugging biner and rope. Well, cub family campouts are not much different. Families team up to knock out some weekends camping. That itch gets scratched. Parents continue make plans to bring you and your buddies to the family cabin. Why bother doing the same thing in a troop?

Ducks don't cost as much, and they give you something for your dog to fetch.

Wall tents work best when (high winds and rains excepted) the front and side flaps are rolled up. Bugs fly in one side, they fly out the other side. I'll leave others to discuss netting.

We have a lot of class variation in our units too. My kids, it was by the book or not at all. But it was also clear that was the rule I applied to them, and we all could dole out grace to other youth. For other kids, I might flex a little depending on where they were coming from. If the requirements aren't serving the youth who, keeping with this example, might be setting up a carnival with some boxes and a cheap football for the kids on their street after school, but mom is pulling double shifts that month and dad's nowhere to be found and Grandma can't drive at night to the pack meeting, then I will not make any bones about flexing the requirement for those youth. Other youth who just decided to add basketball and baseball to their schedule and are just fitting scouting in in the side ... I figure those are the ones who need to flex for the program.

Got a link? 'cause somehow, peoples' wires are crossed when it comes to this data.

@@Krampus, what's your source for the 2014 numbers? Here's part of a reply to my posting of your figures on Bryan's blog. ... From the “Reports to the Nationâ€, available here: http://www.scouting.org/About/AnnualReports.aspx, which include headcount by program, I pulled the following: 2015 2014 2013 2012 Cub Scouts 1,261,340 1,295,527 1,417,034 1,528,673 B.S/Varsity 840,654 854,692 888,947 910,668 Venture/SeaS 142,892 157,655 192,080 219453 ———— ———— ———— ———— Total Trad. 2,244,886 2,307,874 2,498,061 2,658,794 Change from Prior Year -2.73% -7.61% -6.05% -2.39% ... To be fair, I followed that link and, in the 2014 annual report, cant find these numbers either! (Only round numbers are presented )

Sounds kinda steep, but I think we see similar drops. Nothing new, I think.nabout half the dads I know went only as far as Cubs.

@@UncleP, sounds like a good plan. Glad to encourage. I still remember getting my first Cub Scout uniform from my aunt for Christmas. (I can almost remember the color of the paper.) Typically, lacking any imminent threat, even parents don't know much about their kid's counseling until the kid is ready to talk about it. That's kinda the point. So don't feel like you're that much more in the dark. Thanks in advance for all you'll be doing for your nephew and his fellow scouts.

Really, the knots you use depends on the gear you have. For example, if you connect everything with snap swivels, you'll always use a palomar knot. Run out of swivels? You'll probably go to a fisherman's knot right quick! Hook's didn't come tied? Snell knot. Without an eye? Modified Snell. I never remember them. I follow the back of the package (stash any instructions I can find in a baggie in my tackle box). Lose tackle with at the knot? Never tie that one again!

Now why didn't I think of that when I took in and raised that baby black snake that annoyed Momma so much? I remember one thing that we did at camp was stack brush piles (as opposed to the common practice of dragging them to a meadow and burning them) to give cover to ground mammals. Not sure how the Hawks felt about that.

We got the 3000 flags placed one evening earlier this week. I think we had 15 units (packs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts) and 150 youth. When riding the bus by there in the evening I tell my fellow passengers, "Those flags? our scouts." Just saw a picture of my nephew doing the same with his troop!

@@heat4212, I get your frustration that BSA did an overreach. Correcting it, however, involves a little more than working around the one-size-fits-all mentality that sometimes spews from National. It's really not that tough on your boy for him not to get an award. When someone changes the rules on him, you either teach him to ignore the rules to suit his style, or turn down the award because he's accomplished his goals in ways the rules won't recognize. I'd be inclined to teach the latter, as a result my kids have grown to "work for smiles" in their volunteer efforts (and when they've been graded unfairly in school, and when work puts you in ethical dilemmas.) And trust me, when BSA National realizes that Cubs are having fun but packs aren't buying awards because the requirements aren't flexible enough for how families actually do scouting, they'll change their tune.

To be fair, most of the "indoor" badges have some useful activities that help a boy put himself out there (e.g., community service, visiting a town meeting, talking to a scout from another country, writing your congressman, etc ..,). Even the trail to first class involves a bit of involvement with your scoutmaster and fellow scouts. We've had boys from some pretty crappy family situations. The "one day at a time" (really one rank at a time) strategy works best.

Yeah, @@jr56, this is one of the last things I'd bother an SE about (unless there's a discount for bulk purchases and he'd likely go in on you for a set ). Nobody in the venturing world is gonna bother you for trying to color-coordinate. (There aren't that many of us left to make a fuss over ).

There is nothing wrong with goal-setting. And I think that's the best thing that uncles can do. Some things:Find service projects that could be done in the community. Start simple, with a community litter pick-up or maybe volunteering at a food pantry. Then move on to maybe painting a room or organizing a food/clothing drive. Then, there's camping. For him to earn Eagle quickly, he will have to rack up lots of camping nights with his patrol or troop. Most of those will have to be weekend activities. Do you or your buddies have a nice place where 8 boys and a couple of adults could hike to and camp? Teach him to invite his friends to scouts. Everything is easier with a buddy. Get to know his troop leaders, support them any way you can. Often times we're looking for merit badge counselors. You might consider Personal Management. Help your nephew find a job where he can earn money to pay for an additional camp or merit badge university. Cut a deal where you'll match whatever he earns. Buy him his uniform, his handbook, pay his registration or Boy's Life fee, at each rank advancement, buy him a merit badge book. At 1st class, buy him the BSA Fieldbook. So, those pencil-and-paper badges? I have a theory. In he '60s there was a shift towards Eagle being a boys-only award. (Prior to that, men serving the troop could earn rank along with their boys. They were rare, but probably enough to give feedback on what truly gave value to the award.) With that shift came the notion that we have to be redundant to what the boy should be learning in school. Plus we were at the height of the Cold War and reckoning with this global crisis was in everyone's minds. So, some required merit badges like Bird Study were moved aside for more detailed Citizenship. (Which is a pity, because one of the better markers of various global crises in this Post-Modern era is the shifting bird and insect populations.) Finally, constructs like equity and fairness came to the fore and the observation was made that Eagle rank would be "too easy" for adults and "unfair" to boys. The age 18 deadline was made hard and fast. One consequence was an increase in the academic burden of the rank that continues even in this century (you will note the EDGE and the need to log service hours and, most recently, cyberchip).So that's how we got here. On the bright side, I have seen scouts really enjoy these badges, and they might suit your nephew quite nicely.

@@Krampus, The 2015 annual report info-graphic (a.k.a. screen real estate hog) on http://scoutingwire.org/annual-report/ actually has the number of venturers: 142,892. So, there's room for confusion.

Thanks for the re-cap. You saved me hunting them down. I posted the figures in reply to a post praising the supposed signs of "stop loss".

Bye E61. Thanks for opining! All the best to your scout.