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Thanks! I do like BBQ. And gravitate to suspect hole-in-the-wall joints. I think my daughter would simply like a nice campground to pull in late and leave early ... splitting the drive in half or 1/3. We'd be leaving first thing Tuesday (or late Monday if we can get the title transferred quickly), and I think she reports to work Friday.

So, in a couple of weeks I'm driving daughter's car to her new job sight. If we manage to spare a day (or even a couple of hours between shifts driving) where would be your favorite stop?

Never had to deal with a forest fire -- just hurricane force frozen winds on an appalcian plateau. That sense of panic came on and there was a desire to try everything except plan A: a four mile hike in the open through blistering winds. Fortunatelly I found us a laurel thicket where the troop could gather and think without getting an ice-blasting. Every boy had managed to find a bite to eat, had water that wasn't frozen. And was ready to move as a team, and regroup once the trail turned to the lee of the ridge. I could not imagine that same place on fire, but it had once been. Finding those clearings and boulder fields if you had not done your homework would have been nigh impossible. Digging in and hunkering down in that hard grown? Dreadful. But, I guess that's where you call up that 10th point of the law and do with a hope that you can make it through.

I dunno. It might be worth figuring out what in a smart phone has incendiary/sharps potential.

I've refused to use the word in that context. My line to the kids as the went out the door on school days: "You have ___ days of publicly funded education remaining to you. Use them wisely." They did. In fact, friends who I know were on welfare never considered it free. They did their darnedest to make up for lost time and get an education, get employed, and start "paying back."

It's not that far fetched. I have crew youth who want to negotiate some steak dinners with a ranger for service time fixing up a rather neglected camp. I forwarded the youth the phone #. It's on them to give him a call and figure out a reasonable date and exactly how many youth he wanted to extend this offer to. (Actually, the one youth turns 18 tomorrow. So, he could negotiate that legalese.) No reason why a PL or QM can't do those work-for-food contract negotiations. Most of us in these parts accept handshakes as binding. For the rest of the BSA-required hoops, my preference is to have youth assemble all of the necessary paperwork. Fill it out. Come to me for review and a signature. No reason why a patrol can't achieve that level of proficiency (where THEY tell ME the plan) for most camp-outs.

KDD thanks for the update. Glad your back! Retest everything? So are these SMCs held on 9sq miles of navigable land with a staffed aquatics area?

Thanks for spinning this off of the original discussion. So, it seems that after a cumulative SMC and BoR, you are uncertain that the boy is indeed a first class scout? I'm not about to throw stones, because we all know that, lacking the authority to repeal a rank at the first failure to demonstrate a First Class skill, we have a nation of shirts a large percentage of which aren't living up to their patch on the left pocket. Oddly, your adults suddenly care that the competencies match the patch. As far as I'm concerned ... no more adult intervention. Politely ask your lead boys to help fix your screw-ups inasmuch as they can. First, I would ask the PL/SPL if they've seen the boy demonstrate any of the skills in question. For example, mom may have signed off on the swimming requirements because the boy showed her his buddy tag at camp. Well, if that's the case, maybe the PL remembers him taking that test. Same for all of the other requirements. It was their responsibility at the time to work with the boy from his book (even if the adults stole it from them), it's their responsibility now to sort it out. Given that you're being swamped with first years anyway, this would not be a fruitless exercise. It shouldn't take too much to determine if the boy "is all that". If so, water over the dam. The wrong signatures were in the book. But if not hers, others would have been there. Second, if those signatures were under false pretenses, I would get in touch with the troop he's transferring to.and tell the SM there about the entire debacle. Refer him to this forum if he wants advise beyond his ASMs/MCs to sort things out. And one more ... treat the boy like the patch he claims to be. Have him demonstrate his skills to some tenderfoot.

No football was ever harmed in a game of British Bulldog!

Don't let this stuff overwhelm you. Going by the book actually frees you and your ASMs to focus on important things ... Like finding stuff for your boys to read to help them pick their next adventure. When I was a kid, I read Boy's Life cover to cover -- especially Green Bar Bill's columns. It seems that boys gloss over that stuff these days. So creativity can be stifled. Part of my job is leaving maps and brochures of state and national parks spread out on a table for patrols to "stumble upon."

Small town life: Thing about being the beer distributor's kid (and -- as part of his master plan, I now realized -- having worked there at age 11 over the summer): you couldn't go anywhere without someone telling your dad they saw you. If you didn't have tacit approval to be anywhere, it would come back to bite you by end of business that day. If for some childish reason, you wanted to fly under the radar, the best strategy was to hang out with friends of tea tot'lers. Their folks were less likely to have ever seen you before.

Solution: put the runners in bubble balls as they round the bases!

Last meeting, former SM and I spent as much time talking a crossover mom "off the ledge" about her boy going to summer camp as we did coaching the boys with fire starting and knife sharpening. Her son chose to attend the camp of the "old guard" patrol instead of the camp all but one of his den-mates were attending.

@@Adamcp, I generally agree with @@TAHAWK that an SM's best strategy is to stick to the standard BSA mantra. If the SM is willing to be flexible and let the boys self-organize with absolutely no stipulations as to which youth can be elected PL/SPL, he and his ASMs will have a more fulfilling adventure in scouting. This doesn't mean that things will be all roses. For a while, we had a time of it because the boys outright refused to segregate into patrols. They "liked each other too much." Deep down, I think this was a response to tragedy. And the boys needed to grow up and find their separate ways outside of scouting to realize they could still be united around their lost buddy. So, they aligned themselves on paper, and organized accordingly at summer camp, but by day 4 they abandoned their respective sites and set up pioneer bunks on the lake shore. Now that the youngest of that bunch are the oldest in the current troop, they see the sense in stable divisions.

I have never seen an adult-managed solution surpass a scout managed solution. Simple rules: no PL should ever be asked to step aside by anyone except the boys in his patrol. If things aren't working, the boys may propose a change at any time. If the boys involved in the change are in agreement, support them. If the Rat Pack patrol wants to continue with Frank as their leader until he ages out, let them, If Dean and Sammy want to take on six new scouts each and with them start two new patrols of mostly crossovers, give them your blessing. If the Panzer patrol really hasn't gelled, and wants to split and join the two pretty cool patrols, and everyone agrees, you win. If Jason is standing out from all the rest, would like someone else be SPL, and just wants to help the troop or his district, offer him JASM. It continues to amaze me the number of adults who believe every scout should have a turn at a POR with "Leader" in the title.

So much for those fire-starting contests ... Unfair advantage to patrols with pyromaniacs.

Bevenuto Guila! There are mostly adults on this forum. But I do hope some youth will go to your very nice website, see some of Carini 2's photos, and post a message to you.

Because, really, it's so much better when adults abuse authority. But, that never happens. Oh, wait, it just did! When we merged troops the young (and very conscientious) SPL asked me to sit in on a scout demonstrating a requirement. Scout did. I handed his book to the SPL and said, "Well done. You may sign it." The poor lad gave me a dumbfounded look and said "But, we aren't allowed to sign advancement." I said, "Well, looks like you just merged with the wrong troop!" I then assured him that he could sign the book, and I would inform the SM. The man already knew ahead of time how I'd be operating. He had taken the reigns from the boys after the PLs were abusing sign-offs the previous year. But with the troop doubling in size, he could barely manage the flood of boys coming to him for signatures, meanwhile his older boys (and ours) were needing some time from him in terms of SM conferences. He was ready to find a new normal.

My area exec told me we've shed a very large number of adults because of the mandatory YPT and state background clearances. I don't know how a charter that's held up by National will be added to the tally. I'm hoping after Pitt's finals week, I can get my 18+ y/o's to knock out that venturing YPT.

Part of the SMC is asking the boy who signed off on requirements and making sure I recognize the initials. It's not merely to validate the boy's progress, but to find out from the boy who did a good job teaching/testing.

But, when it doesn't, it can become a thorn in your side. I only give applications to adults who show leadership on my terms. For a person like this, it would take me a few months of ovserving behavior that offsets that first impression. The remainder of your advice is spot on.

Asking Yanks how to be subtle in Queen's English? You must really feel at wits end. Unless things have changed that much in three decades, Brits doing "blunt" was always lost on me. Anyway, with the SM patch comes a loss of subtlety. You really can't afford to treat adults much differently than you do youth. In the instance described, I would address the boys: It sounds like Mr. Helicopter has given enough for you three to get on. Would you mind if I stole him from you, and we let you finish up on your own? For the larger American audience, that roughly translates into: Why the blue blazes are you boys distracting my adult leader? Don't you know I need him to watch water boil? Now snap that tent up before we suggest to your PL that he/she should interrupt his/her nap to help you. Once the adult is out of ear-shod of the youth, you then explain the importance of letting the boys work the program and how you need any adult guests to be at the ready for emergencies, relaying football scores, and such.

We have bird houses all around our yard. Set them out for years. One that I built with Son #2 when he was just old enough to appreciate the concept, my starving-artist friend painted. Looks great in the lawn for all these years, never inhabited. Might have something to do with house pets! On the other hand, my 120 year old house with massive box-gutters, always has a nest or two in the decorative woodwork. I think in this old neighborhood, it's an avian buyer's market. Your boy certainly has the badge, so this is a matter of seeing if his interest will take this to the next level. He could put out an additional house every month. Vary the location. See which, if any, finally gets occupied. It could be a science fair project.

Nice thing about having a mom who stocked for Armageddon (and who had spent the last 30 years of her life feeding ravenous siblings), was that I didn't have to shop much. We all just volunteered to raid our respective cupboards. I remember shopping for some staples, but I don't remember collecting $ for it. Every PLC is different, and they need to define their style. If they review every month how the previous weekend's logistics served them, that will happen. But, that won't happen if adults intervene. Regarding prices ... our boys have smart phones and our stores have shopping apps! If I dare brag about getting a decent cut of meat from the local butcher, they can tell me how they can get it fresh-caught and flash frozen from Patagonia with a special code to waive shipping fees for half what I paid. They might even be able to have it delivered by drone to the trail head! I can't think of anything I can do that our scouts couldn't do better after a couple of tries. They just need the time "at bat."

Welcome to the forums! Let us know what your son's counselor says. If it's at camp, I should hope they try a little time bits watching ... Maybe at some houses the camp put up.