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This is sort of why I started the Crew. To allow us a program that can hit the skids if the youth step back. By hitting the skids, I mean we just do a little camping, a service project here and there, whatever I'm interested in at the time and is pretty easy on my wallet. In other words, if you want to act like a patrol that hikes and camps with your mates, fine. If you want to do something bigger, here's who you call. There is no way adults would allow me to do that with the troop. Now that I'm the old guy in the room, I can nudge them away a little. The den moms and dads think I'm a little crazy, but usually a little chocolate and coffee fixes that. The general excuse is the boys are too busy to focus. If they said that to a sports coach they'd get a line like "Well, I guess he can focus on the bench." But somehow, that's an acceptable excuse for not putting in their own hour a week.

Looks like the Girl Scout guidelines for campsite selection (which explains why so few go back-country.) I like @RemeberSchiff's link a little better because it pulls together multiple sources and frees scouts and scouters to think for themselves. @@Krampus, Thanks for the link to Bryan's blog. There was a fresh reply about "If we can’t offer the Boy Scouts service hours for helping out the Cub Scouts then why would they volunteer?" How sad that people think so little of our boys.

@, forget the vote. Either you're gonna support one more set of parents or you're not. Make up your mind and lead accordingly. It might help if you touch base with a few pack parents who have five year olds.

Some of these private communities are quite large and parts of them can be neglected by owners and managers. The impact on those niches can be quite large. They could just as well be a trailer park where everyone takes care of their 12by24 plot and that's it. Really, it's the SM's call.

"all ice and no cream" Oh, never mind.

First and foremost, discern if this is the boy's goal. If so, go to the mat for him. I'd call National and have scout net change their business logic. Because sure-shooting there's some troop out there that takes quite literally "3 months" and will back date or fore date their BoR because the tenure requirement says nothing about "plus however long it takes your troop to organize its adults." They'll figure that putting around waiting for a BoR to happen should be tantamount to adding to the requirements. Now if it's all mamas' smoke blowing, by all means relax and tilt at other windmills.

Ya know, there's nothing saying you can't have the board of review before the three months are up. Here's my take. If the kid's continuously active in the troop. If he's gaining leadership skills, if the required number of MBs are locked in well before the required tenure, if he's growing up strong and good ... smooth this BoR thing over as best you can. So, the boy stunk at paperwork? It wasn't paperwork I ever had to fill out when I was a scout. So his palms against mine, I'm not seeing a difference, except he had to be more officious than me. He has a crack at 10, I'd do everything I could to make sure logistics aren't in the way. Let the mom know you'll stand by the boy. If he wants to try to push the paperwork to get this MB train back on track, you'll help him. If he decides he'd rather slack there and do something different with his time, you'll help him.

Youth that age aren't stupid. I'm sure your silence spoke volumes. Pity the chap. He'll be brunt of the kids' jokes for years to come. Now, regarding enabling your kids to disentangle those issues for years to come, you need to find how to touch on the core difference where you part ways with this fellow. Then, find the moment, and it will only be a moment, where you can lay out to the youth that distinction in the most respectful way possible. At that time, you can ask them if they'd like to bring speakers in to talk about various views. A while back @CambridgeSkipper did something of the sort. It's a lot of work, that path. Sometimes you do need to speak up just to quiet things down ... I once, at summer camp, fended off one dad's conspiracy theory about a certain popular leader's religious persuasion by making a strong theological argument that I knew he believed. Later, another dad came up to me and said "I can't believe you just called him a Muslim!" I replied, "Not an insult in my world view." The week went much better after that.

It's nice to learn something new at someone else's expense. Because I don't know beans, thought I'd ask ... Anybody just cut the corner of the bag, fill will water and hang it or set in a small pot overnight? Just trying to think of ways to light-weight/leave-no-trace this activity.

I'm imagining my boys collecting pampas grass to start weaving at this very moment!

Palms are fun. When I was MC, BoR's for palms were the most fun, IMHO, because the boys were more knowledgeable about scouting and world events and less stressed. Back to the application http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/58-709_WB.pdf, which -- since it is not spelled out in the requirements -- is not what the scout needs to complete to have a BoR (but sure is convenient if he does): it's a lot like an MB application, the scout fills in some blanks, SM others, Comittee others, and council others. So what would I do with this? Have the scout and SM fill out the paperwork, ask the SM to back-date his signature to the point at which he felt the requirements were fulfilled. Have the board of review ASAP. Have fun with it! Ask the scout where he think that communication failed. Ask what he thinks you could do better next time. Ask how important it is for him to go for that 9th palm. The date of the BoR is the date of the BoR. Fill it in. Add a note that that the BoR had been delayed for two months and you consider the boy having passed as of the target date. (What else is that white space for?) If the scout is doing a great job and is indeed halfway to his next palm, schedule another BoR for three months after the date of the SM's signature. Get the application filled out. On it the scout can say he passed the board as of the intended date. By way of disclosure, he can put a footnote "see previous application regrading Troop __ committee's approval date." If council gives you push-back, say "Your problem, not ours. The boy's been providing continuous service full of scout spirit for the past six months. We think he met the intent of the requirements. You can expect another app three months hence on our stated schedule. Give national a call if you still think it's a problem."

STEM: measure the circumferance of a sphere in paces, from the inside! Estimate how far you could travel by rotating in a sphere. Determine the relative efficiency of traveling by propelling oneself from in a sphere across various liquid and solid surfaces. Develop and implement experiments to test these results.

An Eagle palm application? Where is that in the requirements? Did the scout ask for a BoR? Have the BoR ASAP after the scout requests it. How is this complicated? It's not mom's business. Ask the Eagle Scout what he thinks is fair.

Based on the things that actually show up in public health statistics, our suburbs are no less risky than the city with one exception ... gun violence. One of our local TV personalities was fired for editorializing this issue with racial overtones on social media. Lot's of back-and-forth on the fairness of her dismissal.

out of the mouths of babes! The positive: you've made "the adults" a synonym for "anything I don't like happening." The "sorting hat" approach is likely to catch a boy off guard, but so is anything a boy relegates to his buddies. The truth is any team that makes adjustments is an easy target for pessimists.

Oh, that's funny! Your best bet, after reading the manual cover-to-cover ... and about your adventure specifically, is to call the captain of the base. The lighting during the summer is really good, so you should do well with fully charged batteries. Consider getting a back-up charging system. Solar works. The real challenge is keeping things dry and salt-free for a week.

I love helping at projects, so I don't mind being the adult on record if needed. But, the projects we dealt with growing up were loosely supervised at best. For example SM introduced me to the COR who gave me the catalogue to order specialty parts from. I gave him he order with my address as the recipient. Then it was up to me and my buddies to get the work done. Which we did without any adult having to be pulled away from their businesses (or whatever the retired guys were doing to occupy their time). It was basically a patrol activity. I didn't pick that up from strangers. The other projects I worked on had the same limited supervision, unless the beneficiary requested otherwise.

So, what if the project is framed asa) an independent patrol activity? b) a religious activity (e.g.restoring a shrine) where the unit leaders' presence might be a desecration? Thoughts?

So, in the next ten months?

I didn't do any pranking of my own. So, I decided to nudge Stosh's along for the remainder of the day! It was a tough call: "build" or "bust" on it? Figured I'd leave one small crumb in case someone more responsible than the lot of us was in a funk of excessive soul-searching.

At the HQ, where you are provisioned and assigned your guide, there will be dozens of other units coming and going. So there's a chance to make an exchange with someone from other parts.If your stopping along the way, say Miami Beach, learning a little Spanish goes a long way. I know of one crew who kayaked to the island. Once there, all cell phones and watches (except one) were stored in a dry bag. From that point forward, everyone operated on "Seabase time." If you were tired, it was nap time. Hungry? Supper time. Curious? exploring time. The better your boys are at teamwork and making decisions together quickly, the more fun they'll have.

Common kids, the sun'll come out tomorrow?

Well, if the grand arc of Church history is any indication, whatever date you choose will be imbued with Christian meaning. As far as getting paid goes, if there's money to be made, but an unwilling work force, there will be overtime to pay. I'm certainly not grudging Joe athiest or Jane gotta-get-away-from-the-in-laws Christian for taking advantage of that. I consider it part of our secular Christmas dividend.

Trying to think of an OMG emoticon that wouldn't offend. ... NVM. I&P topics usually boil down to someone wants things one way, can't understand why they aren't that way, so someone tries to explain with limited success, some folks get defensive. Learning that a country is bigger than whatever bubble we normally float in isn't the worst lesson, but it can be a hard one. I think you all haven't used the tools at your disposal. Even if not a moderator. I've -1'd posts that undermined what I'd expect from civil discourse. I've also personally messaged some of you who persisted in doing something inappropriate for a forum. The behavior changed. End of discussion. I've stopped replying to a topic - without fanfare - because I realized I was sucking up all of the air in the room. At times I'd apologize for a harsh generalization. At other times, I'd reply publicly about why I did not think a statement of mine deserved some cliche`d label that a forum member gave it. We don't have to throw a public gauntlet down at every offense. We can arrange a private one-on-one conversation. "Leave your gift at the alter and reconcile with your brother." We can ask our spouse/significant other to review what we wrote, and apologize publicly if he/she says we went too far.

Heritage Reservation was at capacity with 5000 for Mountainfest weekend. I'd hate to see it pressed upon for an entire week with 6-10 times the numbers. For those flying in, it might as well be Beckly.