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My kids loved Latin! (Much of the credit for that goes to an enthusiastic teacher.) And, although they are die-hard science majors, English was their strength. (Especially Son #2 who outright disdained the humanities to his English teacher. In turn, she said he was one of her more enjoyable students!) I wished Latin was offered in my H.S. (told some teachers so at the time). I made do with French. I was always too chicken to take it or Greek in college. Loved learning Arabic, though. (Best way to get small classes at a big university at the time.)

Definitely what we are teaching boys with this is "legwork PR." It's a profession that some companies value highly. When Son #1 was in high school, he got a job just like this for a pizza joint -- putting flyers in apartment boxes, etc .... As for the CO letting some boys have a meal on them, well, lets just call it "product testing."

I think, in general, UC's who get together, share data, and plan specific near-term actions that they can do as a team (like calling a sample of boys who drop from a roster, promoting a scout-driven recruiting campaign, highlighting some district or council program) will be more effective and efficient than waiting for a plan from National. Some people will balk at training, but if there's a routine cycle of problem-solving that they can get in on, the training can be slipped in while some "work's getting done."

I'll agree with Stosh that Mr. ho-to-quit, as described, is not a bad apple. Boys and their little insurrections rarely amount to much. I disagree that the protest could have been averted. New SM is bound to do something that'll light the fuse. As to what to do next ... Contact the boy ... Ask SPL or PL or buddy to do it ... Contact parents ... Have a committee member or old SM do it ... Those decisions are best settled on with the help of caring adults until the new SM grows a "gut feel" for his scouts. I'm sorry, but a bunch of old farts on the Internet do not qualify as caring adults!

The Eureka series has served our family well. But then again, so have hardware store tarps and para chord. Of which you can buy quite a lot for the price of a retail tent.

Probably the best strategy to implement uniforms: Wear yours. Apologize to the boys if for some reason you are at a meeting out of uniform (e.g., you get stuck at work with no time to change). Teach the SPLs to do the same. Thank them when they look sharp. Train your SPLs in using the uniform inspection sheet, and have them put inspection night on the calendar. Pass out copies of the sheet one week. Give the PLs a chance to practice inspect/fix problems the next week. Have the SPL do overall inspection. Have some little flag-totem for the patrol with the highest average score. Spout off uniform trivia from time to time. (You'll find plenty of it on this forum!) You really don't have to do inspection often. Our troop hasn't done it in years. Uniforming has its own momentum.

Every SM has two options: filter in the boys who fit the mold he wants to stay in, or grow with his boys as he learns how to positively reinforce his vision. Now, I suspect Mr. How-to-quit was just itching for a reason to oppose change. So I disagree with Stosh that the opportunity "just walked out the door." Whatever boundary you would have drawn, he probably would have balked. Anyway, this is where your other adults come in handy. They need to give you his back-story. Then you need to decide if and how to flex for this kid. Again, nothing any of us on this side of the Internet can do to help you with that decision. Your people, and maybe the kid's parents, can give you an honest appraisal such a boy. (Yep, there'll be more of them.) With my oppositionally defiants, I usually emphasize skills acquisition. I tell the kid that It's not about the patch, but is he able to do something this week that he couldn't do the week before. Regarding uniforms, BSA recently allowed boys to wear neckerchiefs independent of their filed uniforms. Your boys might not be interested, but it's useful to know. Oh, and your dad? It's like I have an evil twin! I started announcing soccer games to improve my behavior!

We've used a similar event with our local Wendy's. We usually schedule it for our meeting night. It's optional for families of the boys to come, but we encourage it. Boys show up in uniform for a given hour and thank everyone for supporting the troop. It's a great way to get your friends and neighbors together to meet the boys. There is a unit fundraising application that you are supposed to file with your council, but call your DE to see if he thinks that's necessary. It didn't net a lot of $ for the troop, and it took them a while to figure that amount on one occasion. But it was a fun change of pace from the usual meeting night. Around here, most of the boys would go out like that anyway once a month or more, so we didn't factor in how much they ate the profits.

Maybe ... A change in uniform. Maybe UCs should only wear BSA dress (blue blazers) when fulfilling their duties. Keep them them from walking into the room with a row of knots and WB beads and a commish patch. So, they enter the room looking very clearly like they are not an integral part of troop life. They look like service people not field people. They aren't a unit's "spare SM". They shouldn't look anything like one.

Round here? Unless it's that one BBQ that upper-middle-class folks are afraid to go in, take the rodent ... seriously.

You got good people! That's 80% of it. Another 10% will be figuring out ways to thank them as often as you can without annoying them. What you all actually do with the boys is the rest of the equation. How do I state this politely without repeating the other replies? THIS HAS TO CHANGE For you and I, as Eagles, the goal was to make Eagle. We were first class scouts, the Eagles around us were good eggs, they devised cool projects, we wanted to devise a cool project, the troop needed leadership, we were gifted in providing that leadership, the folks didn't need much help minding the store ... it made sense for us to round it all out and get that bird. But that will not apply to every one of your first class scouts. That may be the goal for all of the boys you met last night, but that's them. That may be the goal for every boy's parents, but that's them. But that's not your goal for them. It can't be. Otherwise, there will be no point in keeping a 17 year old boy with Star rank. There would be no point in keeping the boy who barely avoids robbing a liquor store to buy drugs. Your goal ... for every boy ... is that he be a first class scout until he ages out. First class if he's ranking. First class if he's not. First class at meetings. First class at school. First class in the woods. First class at home. First class even if he never obtains that rank! That "Eagle churn" that you heard about? It's because the SM had the wrong goal. Everyone bought into the wrong goal. Suddenly boys who had no business making Eagle their goal forgot about being first class -- and parents were okay with it.

This is where your view as a scout and your view as an SM must change: the goal in scouts is not Eagle rank. That was just your personal goal. The goal is to be a first class scout (the concept, not the patch). That's what you're calling the "end goal." That's why there are no time requirements on First Class rank anymore. It might take a fella 5 years to make second class, and one month to finish 1st. First class scouts get caught up in all sorts of things ... Travel, service projects, positions of responsibility, merit badges, all manner of activities in other programs .... only a few of them will balance it all to earn Eagle. But all of them will be accomplished scouts.

UC is a good idea, if you're a good listener.

I did talk to our AoLs who visited tonight, and they did not have a name for their den.

I think the step down began with the name. At least with the Silver Award, anyone who had seen an Eagle Award would make the connection. And folks from the military might make the association with "Silver Star." I'm afraid not everyone makes the association between "Summit" something grand and glorious -- at least not until they've seen a 14k peak with their own eyes. If anything, given the "One Oath Initiative", I would think calling it "Venturing Eagle" or "Eagle Venturer" would have conveyed a greater sense of intrinsic value. But, the venturers who cared about naming awards also cared about being distinct from boy-scouts, thus the names we have. I doubt the name-choice is precisely why the current medal might not look as noble as earlier awards. I suspect there was a change in manufacturer due to uncertainty in demand. On the other hand, the award now comes with a patch ... so it could have been cost containment. At the next Area summit, I will try to pay closer attention to what youth who actually earn the awards think.

Our Pack's Weblos dens never did. If I see the current WDL's, I'll ask. There was a period when our troop re-organized patrols, and they would sound off as patrol #1, #2, etc ... and I would comment, "Den's have numbers. Patrols have names!" I think you have the right strategy, Let your Bears lead by example when they move up. If the boys are enthused by it, keep it up. If you find it to be a net negative, drop it. Then pass on what you've learned to the next DL.

@@SSScout and @@Eagledad, the OP was referring to the 'classroom' training, not IOLS. And the question was not if he should, but if he could. I see no reason why not -- considering there are limited opportunities for that course throughout the year. Get the boy trained before he goes off to college or war, and fitting things like this into his schedule will be difficult.

don't worry, there are plenty of yanks who wouldn't know either!There is a Chemistry MB, just not an advanced one. The official list is here http://www.scouting.org/meritbadges.aspx

From my days as a PL ... Material: used pillow case. Medium: spray paint. Method: stencil. Cut from a paper bag. Case slips over staff sews tight. On tac on the bottom, tapped in with back of pen knife. Done at summer camp, day 1. Do differently,: turn in spray can to SM. Scouts like to make flame-throwers.

Stosh, I think CP is saying that seeing "Eagle" on a kids resume, HQ will presume he's qualified for a position without considering if he actually is gifted in that area. I've seen that happen.

I'm sorry, did I offer a reply that you didn't like? I have been advising a crew for a few years and in spite of being enthused about the awards program myself, have gotten strong push-back from my youth. So I've dropped the discussion with them. They love meeting other venturers in the Area, they love challenges, they love service, but they couldn't possibly care less about the awards -- the exception being one young lady who earned her religious bronze. I have, on the other hand helped other youth as they worked on these awards, but have yet to make a single court of honor. I also keep in touch with pro's and volunteers on a regional level. So, if they bring up the topic, posts like yours are about the only thing I have to go on. I wish you had replies from other folks who were a little less ambivalent -- one way or the other. You didn't. That doesn't mean my reply constitutes a troll.

First, the personal axe to grind: if things turned out differently -- say a 21 year-old UCed three units whose SM's learned to better implement the patrol method on account of his experience with (and enthusiasm for) it -- you would no doubt open this topic with favorable words and an equal controversy. The commissioner corps is what it is because senior scouters across the nation have abdicated their responsibilities. Some have only UC'ed units in which their boys were members. Some put on the UC hat without taking off one or more other hats. Finally, some have tricked otherwise knowledgeable scouters into thinking that UCs are part of the unit key three instead of the Unit leader, the CC and the COR -- or that the UC could double in one of those positions for any length of time without the unit collapsing. So, I would tell a young UC that he's been set up for failure. His 7-10 years of experience in troop life is no match for an SMs 15-20 years. For him to have a chance of success he needs to ask to be assigned to one smooth-sailing troop for every two distressed ones. What he learns from the one, he passes on to the other two, letting everyone know he's operating off of limited experience but lots of hope. They can take a pass on following his advice, but he will promise to give them the best advice he can. He should wear no other patch. This should be his only volunteer role. No filling in for SM, CC, or COR -- not even for a day. Anything else he may do (say escorting a crew to Philmont or working a camporee is just for fun), otherwise he gives every other committee a pass. His best volunteer time time is to be invested in finding out what might ail his troops, how they are fixing it, and going to roundtable to learn how different SMs solved different problems. If he does not do that, he can turn in the patch. I would tell all of this to the young UC for one simple reason: to take the BS out of the BSA. If he knows he's been given the short straw, there's an outside chance he can make good. If everyone at HQ has been giving him attaboys for just signing on and that's all he knows, he won't stand a chance.

Guidance tech is awesome, but it pays to be a Luddite in that and other areas, for example ... Every now and then I grab my espresso pot without checking that it has all five parts. This is especially embarrassing when we have a bunch of Webelos dads to entertain. (Not that someone else wouldn't bring along their crap coffee, but it's important for new parents to make a fully informed decision about their troop ) Well, my fallback was Arabic coffee, which with a patrol kit coffee pot, wrap for insulation, patience, and very steady hand (grains float freely then settle to the bottom ... the trick is keeping them there), can brew up quite nicely in the wild. It payes to know first principle thermodynamics.

A lot of the details about what fundraising will work and what style you need to adopt will come from the people in your community. For example, everyone expects our boys to hold a spaghetti dinner fundraiser weather they need the money or not. Even though that particular church is no longer our CO, they would like the boys to hold it there. Most scouting is local. Go figure. I would recommend this little exercise (you might be buying quite a few folks' coffees): Look up your classmates who were scouts (even if it was just for a couple of years) in your troop, and see if a few of them can get together for an hour to talk about old times. Let them know what you are planning to do, and ask them if they could talk to you about what they liked about your troop and what they didn't like. Ask the boys who were only scouts for a short time why they left the troop, and those who were there until aging out why they stayed. Hopefully there weren't any terrible skeletons. But you might hear a few things that went on that you never noticed as a boy. Those will inform you as to the kind scouter that you may want to be. Maybe you'll be a lot like your former SM, but maybe there was some adult who you never gave much thought, but made a world of difference in your buddies' careers as scouts. If so, it might behoove you to get to know that person. There might be things your SM did that were really off-putting, or a situation or two he didn't handle well. By now everyone ought to be able to understand both sides of whatever it was, but it will help you learn generally what your troop will need from you as an SM. And, if you can't provided it, what you will need to ask from other adults to make troop and your district be the very best they can be. And from that meeting, you might just get one or two volunteers.

Okay, we've settled that you need to get a flowers and chocolates weekly subscription. Choose a different catchphrase about parents. You're asking them to give up their boys for entire weekends now. The results you're offering will take years to realize. Things aren't settled by an end-of-season box score. Parents who may not have served well on the pitch may be exactly who you need on your troop committee. You will need: A troop committee chairman whom you that your back and who will have the stones to tell you when you suck. A charter org rep who has a pulse on he people who own your meeting place. ASMs who live up to their title and are really yor assistants. A unit commishioner who will help you set obtainable goals. You and the wife and kids need to get up in those beautiful hills you all have in your backyard. If that ain't happening, you're doing it wrong.