qwazse

Not Just any YPT. It's gotta be Venturing YPT! They also have to complete BSA adult application. But I've skated by with one app if the boy is also serving in a troop.

So, finally got my DE to find out why my crew's roster got pulled ... Turns out my 18 year-old's only had Boy Scout YP (since they were serving as ASMs) and they needed Venturing YP. And even more drop from the charter ....

Well if it were the Izod patrol. There was no love lost between me (grunge before they called it that) and yuppie wannabes back in the day ... So, like I concluded in my previous post: If your son thinks this will be emblematic of how the patrol operates, then he'll start a new patrol soon enough. This is where an SM guides a boy through to the heart of the matter. If it's a patch name, but his buddies are stand-up guys, get over it. If they have rough edges, help him point that out to the boys in ways that helps them do better next time. If these guys are keeping him on the outside, help him find guys who will want him in their circle. Sometimes an SPL is mature enough to guide a boy. Sometimes not. So, you may give the SM a "heads up" and make it clear that you don't intend to bring up every little thing, but since this simmered for more than a week, you thought he ought to know.

Importantly, you can collect receipts at the end of the campout, and -- if you choose -- tally the balance and write the checks then and there.

Unless someone comes forward with another printing attached to at least a few more pages (or even the lowly binding), we may not ever know.

Plus, BSA guard, COPE/climbing, etc ... some ASMs/Advisors are very busy getting trained in what might forestall death. They have precious little patience for "fluff" training. A training coordinator needs to get to know his/her audience and accept that some guys are gonna have to be brought in by stealth, others are gonna have to be rubber-stamped to make up for some IT snafu, others are on the way out the door -- so don't bother. Deal with those (or write them off) and a quick phone call to the rest once a year is the best you can do, and probably more than anyone else has ever done.

You all are beginning to make me think that a few rounds of British bulldog has more leadership training potential than most of what we pawn off as such ...

@@scoutldr, based on what I could read, it seems the use of advancement for adult recognition varied greatly by councils. So, many of us may have never seen this sort of thing while others would have been on the "tail end" of it's use in their area. It is interesting that once all councils stopped using it (presumably by national consensus), insignia for adult training began to appear. Nature abhors a vacuum?

Peanut butter jars with the massive indentation at the bottom.

Pardon the severe clipping, but you see where I'm going with this? Modify every lesson in ISLT into a wide game. Simple example: the Telephone game should be played with each member spread out at least 50 feet (preferably vertical as well as horizontal) from the next. The best "home grown" training I ever did was on a crew backpacking trip. Nearly all of the youth had shown some leadership skills in the past few months, so the "pump was primed". So, I put key words from the Venturing Leader's manual on index cards, folded them and sealed them and gave one to each hiker. These were "break passes". We would only stop and rest so long as one hiker would pull out his/her card and give an impromptu speech or lead a discussion on the subject. As soon as that person stopped talking we had to up and move.

BSA's ageist policy toward rank advancement began around 1964, with a nation-wide ban enforced by the end of the decade ... a harbinger of changes to come. (Here's a decent official posting on that adults who earned Eagle during the first part of that history http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/07/02/10-times-history-adults-earned-eagle-scout-award/with links to sites devoted to that history.) Some scouters on these forums do have memories of the odd adult being awarded rank advancement. I would recommend any SM/ASM to make a good faith effort to complete 1st class (only without bothering over the patch) ... Getting his/her advancement signed off by the SPL.

Welcome! Thanks for your service to the boys! I've ASMed so long they made me a crew advisor, so here's the advise in a nutshell ... Assist your SM as best you can. There's one way to make coffee ... Strong as love, black as death, Get trained as much as you can. But don't be in a rush for Wood Badge. Try not to act bored when the fire-starting demo at IOLS fails, that terrible instructor is a great council advancement chair. Go to roundtable often. Go camping more often. On rare occasion use a tent.

The thing I remember most about cub scouts was walking to the den mom's house. Then when I was a Webelos we had a state trooper for a DL and had to drive me there, but it was all good. That guy taught us to shoot a 38 special. That's a huge difference from then and our now post-modern nomadic culture. We just don't trust the folks within a five block area to be good enough scouters for our boys. So parents are looking for that one location where they can take their boys to be among perfect kids. That means more demand for programs that will consolidate time in those moving metal boxes!

I was using Chrome for iOS. I'll see if I need to run updates, then give it another shot the next time I want that feeling of nails in my forehead. There should be a MB on clean coding.

Welcome! I generally just hit the ground ... unless I've set up a hammock.

@@fleep, I'm friends with some scouts from Central Europe. They stay at my house on a school breaks. Your English compares well to theirs. "A Message to the Chief" is merely a text depiction of the activity: a scout relaying a message to his leader. But, it could also be an excerpt of text from a national report: the equivalent of what chosen scouts now present to our President as "The Report To The Nation" (http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/category/report-to-the-nation/). One reason for the inverted printing may be this was a cover to a flip book (bound at the top). The text seems incomplete. It looks like the bottom margin was trimmed. So it leads me to think there may have been more pages. I know of no such book, but maybe someone else could comment to that possibility. Could this be a notebook about signalling?

We must be suckers in Steeler country. I've paid every dime for my training. Just like union dues. 8)If I wasn't paying (i.e, teaching) I paid by following up with a coffee with any students in my course.

Tried to get into the venturing training, Gave up after a dozen clicks and loop after loop of errors thrown up by the iPad.

Okay, so maybe we were too nice at the get-go. Always remember this: you don't have a problem with other parents. They are bringing your boy some buddies ... one or two who may be life-long friends ... even to both of your sons. You have a problem that there are so many good things this group of boys could do under the rubric of cub scouting, that it overdraws your collective time budget. Those excuses? They are just a common way of saying, "I don't want to invest time in your vision." Ideally, that would mean "I have a different awesome vision for our boys, and would like to invest time in that." But, usually it's just burnt-out-parent-speak for "I can't see beyond the here-and-now unless my son is screaming and jumping up and down to do it!" In other words, they don't see the return on their investment from chipping in on their time budget. It would be nice if they up and said it. My best scout parents were the ones who did. But, at you're age most everyone is too polite (hint: this is annoyingly true among church circles) so a leader like you sees heads nod then gets your hopes dashed when they don't follow through. The best you can do: Stop talking to the parents. Have the boys open to the page in their book. Give them a bookmark. (Sticky notes are good.) Send them on their way. If they come back with "Nada", say "That's okay, this is a new week, let's pick something else." Let your ADL run with her one idea that the boys seem most excited about. It has nothing to do with requirements? So what? Worst case scenario, you all show up at the Pack meeting saying "We didn't get any awards, but Mrs. ___ got us into __ and it was a blast!" Chances are that one idea will be a light distraction, and will allow the boys to relax and feel good about trying something by the book the opposite week. Recap: With what little time you have, and what few resources the parents have spared ... cheerfully keep a laser-like focus on the boys, the boys, the boys! Not the requirements, not what's left undone, not the folks who let you down. Do that, and twelve years from now, you might get an note from an Eagle scout who will remember that for one hour a week, you were all about him.

But you'd have more fun swinging a live one!

You're not going to get details until you hear from older boys at higher ranks. Our boys give us feedback like: When can we go back to Dolly Sods? More camping, please. My other troop was adult lead. I like being trusted with QM here. All of which we already knew. What's important is that the continual feedback from the boys offsets constant pressure from adults to do other things.

Welcome to the forum, and thanks for all your service to the boys! I once had a relative on the phone in frustration about this ... he was a leader of one boy and it looked like his other son wasn't going to earn Bear. My answer was of great comfort "Then he doesn't earn, Bear ... so what?" Your job is not to make sure everybody earns their awards. Your position as DL is to show the boys the opportunities they can take with their parents. If they don't take them, it's on the boys. (Trust me, if the kid really was gun-ho about the activity ... Mom or Dad would beat down the door to make it happen!) As far as you are concerned ... only plan trips that you and your son will enjoy. He is having fun with you on these activities, right? Come Pack meeting night, give the boy whose earned it his award. If it's your son, thank him for being your buddy on some fun activities. For every other boys, give him a handshake and let them know "you are just X activities away from earning your award" and leave it up to him to read his book and figure out what he'd like to do with his parents.

There is this from national http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/19-673.pdf "The recommended use of this form is for the consent and approval for Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Varsity Scouts, Venturers, and guests to participate in a trip, expedition, or activity. It is required for use with flying plans." So, recommended, not required. My kid's troops and crews never used them for routine campouts, bowling night, shooting sports days, etc ... Usually for activities that are more strenuous (skiing, whitewater, climbing) the outfitter requires its own release forms, so I treat those as permission slips. Growing up, SM handed us the slips (not nearly as much verbiage as the form linked above), SPL read the activity info, and we filled in the blanks. Then we got the 'rents signature that evening and had it in our handbooks ready to turn in (along with fees) at the next meeting. Beneath the signature was a line like "I can drive __ scouts to and __ scouts from the activity." So the slip was as much about securing transportation. So I suspect for some units it's been the routine for time out of mind. For others, a handshake would do,

Drop #3. There is no way, for example, that you can know that a 1st class candidate can still swim 100 yards in a strong manner, or that he can only navigate 4 miles. At the best, you can ask him if there is any skill that he has problems with, then ask him what the troop or his patrol could do to improve everyone's skill in that area. After the boy gives oath and law, we have him take a seat at the table and give us his book. I think your concern about making him stand the whole time is valid.

Back in my day, we just chose from several dozen standard issue names. I can't even remember how we settled on "Wolf" for the patrol I started. Goes to show how permanently scarring this kind of thing can be. It does sound like the ASM inserted himself unnecessarily. But it could have been to settle the boys down as best he could. On our troops, by reasons I cannot fathom, the patrol picks their name. We adults don't get involved. Some years, it takes them so long to settle on a name, they have minimal enthusiasm for it. One year, some boys didn't like the formality of roll call, (e.g. "Flaming Arrows, all present and accounted for, sir!") So they chose "Hey Chris" for their name. Rejoice if it's something they can cheaply find a patch for. If your son thinks this will be emblematic of how the patrol operates, then he'll start a new patrol soon enough.