qwazse

Sounds like someone filled your BSA experience with a lot of BS. Assistance can come in many forms, if they didn't specify the source (council, your CO, anonymous), and the pack didn't keep records, there'd be no way of figuring this out. Communication? Attend your district roundtable.

Backyard adventure doesn't sell Jamboree slots.

The other challenge that youth this age have is that few are in a position to commit an entire week. You may want to consider 4-day programs. Possibly starting on different days of the week.

It varies. Camps with full-time Rangers seem to be more flexible. Camps with camp masters or volunteers ... Not so much. State parks have specific rules about reserved campsites, but that just has to do with breaking camp, if the boys wanted, they could use other facilities (fishing, hiking, etc ...) after the campsite is clear. Farmers, well they all are different with how they want their land to be occupied on a Sunday.

You're welcome. And, yes, I get that look. Fortunately, the older boys have plenty of stories about following an adult's navigation ...

You are gonna need to work the VOA a lot harder. Ask if any would help develop a program of tier II adventure. They (or venturers they know who would like to start something big) might spend a day with you walking through camp and thinking up program ideas. (Food provided ... you might even have to work in dutch oven cooking and an overnight.) To help you understand the market dynamics of this sort of thing, the following started out as a venturers summer program but only blossomed into a viable multiple week program when older scouts were welcomed: http://lhc-bsa.org/Camping/Boy%20Scout%20Programs/Eagle%20Base-%20High%20Adventure What might work with the new awards program is not to have a specific program at all. But, offer tier II and tier III opportunities that venturers would have to plan starting the fall before camp. It might include training opportunities in the spring. Some would have to get first aid certification, others life guard certification, others food safety, others campmaster training, large animal care, NRA/NAA safety, etc ... In other words the Worlds Best Venturing Summer Camp would be one the youth assemble and staff on their own. You just provide a list of consultants in the area and some suggestions for backdating and minimum skill-set requirements. Each crew provides the program that they want to have and commit to providing/acquiring the requisite staffing for it.

My kids balanced sports, athletics, and academics, so I'm throwing neither under the bus. Now, we had a scout who loved serving at our spaghetti dinners. Asked if we could hold more of them. Quit after two years because of Athletics. Still a nice kid. Tried college full time, did poorly. Is no part time at community college and bagging groceries and greeting customers in a big box store... Actually is really good at the latter. I had a similar scout pass on the athletics and stick with the troop. Got in the habit of selling anything including water to fish and was decent at auto service. He finally landed a full time job at a dealership and can support a wife and kids. I suspect the first scout will eventually find his level and surpass us all. But, there's something about the inward focus of high school athletics that can arrest development. We could probably say the same for any single obsession. Scouting may help pull a kid out of whatever hole he might try to hide in by forcing interaction with a variety of caring adults.

@@T2Eagle, I consider the blue cards to be BSA's advancement system. Everything else (e.g., that 4th data entry person, if you will) is just redundancy.

Well ... At least the guy's consistent. So, son should call his Cit. Nat. MBC and ask if he/she wouldn't mind sending a copy of his record. Lacking that record, son can ask him if he/she can sign if she remembers him completing the requirements,, or if h/she will arrange another visit to recap how he did the requirements. Point is ... Your son has a plan B and C. From copies of that, the SM an enter his advancement.

Your member status says "validating" under the square that would hold a profile picture. Never seen that before, but it may have something to do with it.

Sorry I missed the part about your son having his part of the card. Good news! The system is working! Your son has all the proof he needs to advance whenever he gets that project done and fills out that Eagle application! Like @@Krampus said, he holds onto those until he knows the troop has filed the advancement report. But, if that never happens, he's holding the trump cards. And, the reason he's holding them is because your SM was smart enough to follow procedure in April. So, go easy on the guy, and have the boy remind him from time to time that his sash feels a little light. Trust me (or trust my brother who, in the 50s, had an SM go AWOL with all of the troop's paperwork), it could be worse.

Doesn't seem like the code was written with "monster flags" in mind. I'd ask POTUS for and executive order as a stop-gap, until some amendment could be passed, but that goes against my rule #1!

Last time I checked, TX is part of my country. So, if there's a pledge to be said while I'm on its soil, I'll gladly say it, if I can recall it.

Good news is he doesn't need to have his merit badge work in order to start a project. SMs can be temporarily confused for quite a few weeks. I know this is like forever for a boy. But, patience and persistence is the order of the day. To the SMs out there, why would you ever take a blue card without immediately signing it at giving the applicant his portion? I know summer camp may be one situation with hundreds of cards at once and any number of end-of-week interruptions. But during the year, isn't the whole point to make sure the boy has a record in case yours gets misplaced?

When scouts retire the massive flags at our HQ (Flag Plaza) they are told to fold it thrice, then fold either end over into the middle, then fold it into a rectangle. I always council my scouts that if they are having trouble with the triangle fold, for whatever reason, unfold the diagonal folds and refold rectangular. Or, ask a fellow color guard to take your place. Either way, no disrespect would be intended, and we will help figure out what the problem was later.

It seems that one can infer what one can known by the breadth of what could be written about a character. For example, in the book of Judges, nobody was beyond an ignoble caricature. Japheth was rash with no regard for life under his charge, Samson was impetuous and skirt-chasing, etc ... In other words, if someone had a motive that mattered, it got written. Ruth's designs on the owner of what was to her a foreign field were ostensibly to avoid offending so that she'd have enough food to fend off hunger. Like my feminist friends tell me, a girl means "no" until she tells you "yes." This criticism applies regardless of if you'd rather treat the stories as legendary narrative. You are bound to derive conclusions by what the writer tells you. If you'd rather conclude something differently, I'd recommend finding a different narrative.

Okay, CP, let's suspend Hebrew scholasticism for a moment (which IMHO is only tough for Americans because most don't make the effort to learn other languages to the point of fluency), which clearly lists a dozen words that all get translated to "kill." The English text -- any translation -- is chock full of killing ... some of it explicitly sanctioned. Merlyn has gone to great pains to point this out. However, only for some of it do any prophets condemn explicitly. Most passages give soldiers a pass -- even enemy warriors who took Israel captive -- some of whom actually receive miracles.It's not that hard to grasp that the Big Ten were an attempt at civil law: presented to readers as forward-looking to a time when the land would be settled, and having to contend with sworn enemies could be put aside.

@@afbrat52, welcome to the forum! I would definitely follow Stosh's suggestion and let the police or fire department in your community know what you are trying to do. They might show up with some "tools" hat would interest your boys. But they may have ideas on how to beef up your exercise. One I would suggest is that your boys try start with a search of a moving target. (Someone who panics and doesn't find a place to sit, but keeps moving in circles.) Then they should try and find a target who gets lost and acts the way a scout should when lost.

I attend to minutia, so yes your instructor is right; nevertheless ... Unable to resist, I put a mentor/parent pin on my shirt collar.

@@Scourge, it's like my daughter has an evil twin (except 7 years delayed and civilian family)! I've met a lot of GS with that kind of disappointment, but few have acted on it and some, like @ya lazima vumbi, tried but got discouraged by the lack of crews nearby. You deserve credit for taking action as soon as @@desertrat77 helped you find the opportunity. Now, some advice, - The disrespect you felt from those older scouts, it can happen in the BSA as well. Be on the lookout for it and work to squelch toxic behavior. Let your fellow scouts know how that made you feel, so that they can better lead younger scouts. - Right now you sound like you are at the "taking it in stage", and definitely you should get every outdoor experience that BSA offers and you can afford. Then look for challenges in acquiring new skills and practicing leadership, Why? Because there may be that Girl Scout mom who would love someone like the leader you'll become to help break the cycle ... Teach some outdoor skills, and get their daughters comfortable in the wild lands. Giving back is sometimes the best way to get even!

This is why the "shuttle diplomacy" between you the COR and maybe even the institutions organizational head needs to happen. You need to feel comfortable that you are sending the committee on a fruitful search that will not be repealed by the CO! A couple of one-on-one conversations will do that.

On tradition that I had from my scouting years, was that the boy selected three or four speakers to discuss the meaning of Eagle or the boys scouting career. (3 to five minutes each.) They were seated up front. Once the court was convened, the MC would take the Eagle award and ask each person to hold it as they spoke. Then hand it to the next person. Finally the MC would get the award and hand it to the boy's mom so that she may pin it on him. Needless to say scripts were kept to a minimum with this format.

Don't worry, you might get one or two back after they are so concussed they can't play sports anymore. We do have some excellent athletes in our troop. But, they also miss a lot of stuff.

First: who's asking for a venturers-only summer camp? Like @@Stosh, my crew never asked for a summer camp experience. I offer them some isolated location for five or six days, give them a map, and some phone numbers of potential guides. They don't make the calls, we just drive to the site and wing it. Sometimes they just want to hang at a camp and help the ranger dig ditches. The venturers who want to go to a council camp usually want to do so in conjunction with when their troop is going to camp. They do their thing, then meet up with the boys one or two nights. The importance of social time cannot be underestimated with this crowd. In fact, half of my hike plans involve getting these guys away from cell phone reception so that they can have the most uninterrupted meal of their young adult lives.Second: have you talked to your council's venturing officer's association? Don't look to advise, look to be advised by your leading youth. That social time bit I mentioned? Not my idea. A VOA President told us "we need plenty of structured unstructured time." It is no adult on council's responsibility to plan anything for venturers. So if that's what you're doing STOP NOW. Find those venturers who are willing to commit their time to something bigger than their crew, and walk them through your resources and the weeks when you have them. Direct every adult in council to act only under the authority of the VOA, and in a year or two, you will have a youth developed program that taps into what folks like best about where you all live. Oh, in working with VOA's you might want to set aside an ample pizza budget.

Sounds like you're heart's in the right place. What you need to grasp is "scope creep". How many other WB patrols will be there with folks who will have finished their ticket? Each of them gung-ho to stamp and tramp and caw (or in my case, go "oooh shiny")? If you have it at your troop campsite maybe with the adults while the youth are doing more important stuff, you'll get what you're asking for. But these WBers love to swarm and be indignant that you wouldn't have it with everyone in camp, because after all we want to get the "outsiders" thinking that this is a great fraternity, etc ... Someone might want to do it at one of the boys' campfires, which suddenly gets hijacked with a song and their leaders acting stupid . That's why your winter-camp director would be top on the list of people to talk to.