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No worries. Still falls under youth protection. It was right to notify the camp director.

Not quite following your logic here ... the ban was originally a central decision that overrode decisions of chartering organizations. An insistence, if you will, that BSA choose sides in a nation that is divorcing itself into "restrictive" and "permissive" camps. Each one fervently desiring to constrain the other's movements. That fervor has not diminished. A lot of us are cynical about the vision of scouting promulgated by National. We don't trust that they will find an equitable uniform national policy that will instill confidence in our nation's parents. Folks like @@Oldscout448 and @@AZMike were looking for BSA to endorse their "restrictive" camp. Well, that's no longer part of the package. I hope they find a way to get youth hiking and camping independently, but for parents to entrust them with their children, they may need a moniker other than BSA.

I have one coadvisor who was really concerned about maintaining her continuous membership transitioning from youth to adult. Still haven't seen her put service stars on her uniform.

Trail Life, huzzah!

A bug juice by any other name ...

To be fair, scouters who've taken the Train the Trainer course seem to come back with better presentation skills. Before this course was widely available, some of those presentations were real sleepers. It's on my bucket list, but meanwhile I'm having too much fun in the field. Unfortunately that means re-updating BSA guard and Wilderness first aid every other year. Other scouters have a lot to do in their respective fields. I'm pretty sure updating this one every three years is not on most of their agendas.

Oh, I have that. And maybe a year from now I'll transfer the pics from It!

A group picture of their kids. In a card with the boys, signatures. Trust me, when those boys graduate from high school, it'll the most sought after gift from whatever drawer it got tossed in,

For things like this and other reasons, scouters requested Heritage Reservation to cease scheduling family night. Week 1 SMs seemed to be very pleased with the decision. This is very simple, mom needs to write a note to the boy and his family for overreacting to his misbehavior. Lacking any remorse, she should be banned from troop activities. If she's truly contrite, she will want to find a way to communicate to the boys that she was wrong. It's the SM who needs to decide what to say to the aggrieved scout. That's all for a situation where mom had a bad day, and just maybe has come to her senses. If there's some kind of feud or whatever that's been boiling outside of scouts ... Well, prayer is probably your only hope.

Stupid happens fast. Your youth leaders need to get on top of the situation, and here's why ... On the last day of a week-long super-activity you won't have that edge, your spouse may not be there, and you youth may be within earshot of your rant. Discipline in a crew is the responsibility of the officers. That doesn't mean that the officers dole out a complicated list of punishments, but they are to take pride in their crew coming back without injury. That means you pull together the officers for after action review. Go over what went well, what didn't go so well, what would they do differently. This first couple of times, you may have to give them categories that they can "thumbs up or "thumbs down" ... one of those categories will be health and safety. Bottom line: the crew moves forward when they show discipline. So, regarding your rebel, you need to thank her for knuckling under and doing her part. That the crew's "next big thing" is contingent on her doing her part. Regarding that parent, tell him to do everything in his power to ensure that his child gains physical strength and discipline. 2nd degree burns are a failure not to be repeated. You have a very unique crew. I personally, am envious. Don't let the negative nannies bring you down.

'Skip, I'd promise to one-up you next week. But ... My phone ain't that smart. To date Dolly Sods's interior hasn't offered any bars. Red Creek's high, not sure if any crossing will be kind to electronic devices. But winds permitting, I'll be able to ask you to imagine a similar sight view, interrupted by the trunks of a red-oak cathedral.

So, what I said earlier ... advice to the family if they need it. For the boy, tell him you can coach in a number of ways, ask him what specific help he would like from you. I personally would offer to coach the SM and him into a better SM-SPL working relationship. This would boil down to asking "What one thing in your job would you like to do better next month?" You might want to advance-warn the SM so that he might be prepared with his own goal (e.g., better prepared SM minutes). Get him to manage the troop a few more months, and that should help him put the other pieces together. But if you have strengths as an educator or something else, you might be able to offer to coach one of those outside-of-scouts problems. Regardless, pick one thing. Chip away at it.

Oh my heavens! Day (maybe week) 1 of kindergarten, daughter comes home mad because 1. She can't read. 2. The bus driver told her to keep her feet off the seat in front of her. I said ... 1. Well, you'll just have to watch your teacher more closely and figure out how she does it. 2. Well, when you see the bus driver tomorrow, apologize, then thank him for me. Let him know I'd like him to yell at you more loudly the next time you misbehave. We had to ask Son #2's teachers to *tell us* when he's underperforming. (As in, he's not turning in homerwork, etc ...) We don't mind! You deserve kids who do their best. If not, they deserve to bring a note home from the teacher -- via E-mail to us CC'd to him is just fine. Come home with a 'B'? "Sorry you flunked. Do you know where you failed? Okay! Better luck next time." Evidently lots of parents didn't have our attitude. They think Little Johnny or Jane can do no evil. I'm sorry, if they had no shortcomings, I wouldn't pay taxes to get them and their friends educated. I certainly wouldn't bother asking volunteers like @@mashmaster to help me cover things I might have missed.

@@Eagle94-A1, getting 1st Class for Philmont is not "advancement oriented". It is skills oriented. Especially with the new requirments and Philmonts use of mobile devices. Do you want those boys out on the range without their cyberchip certification?

The question begs another question: what would our youth be like today if there weren't scouting for the past 100 years? That presupposes that no military leader would publish how he succeded at espionage in a foriegn theatre. The consequencies could be dire. Empires could shrink because tactics went unshared. Boys on local excursions would be chased off landowners' property as vagrants. They would rush off to armies unskilled ... many to be fodder for the enemy ordinance. Some would master scouting skills, but would be sworn to secrecy, lest the enemies use map and compass against them. But eventually somewhere in the world their would be a respite. someone would publish their methods ... and boys, maybe girls too, would have a moment to dash out in the woods, dodging the mine fields, and spend an evening under the stars ... If all of the other technologies advanced during this time, they would be able to look up on their device precisely how to manage. There would be no overaching program. Just a crowd-sourced app with dozens of ideas and ways to mobilize adults in your community to implement them.

It boils down to this: Some people do scouting like it's the Almighty's work; others, like some high-minded bishop doled out more busy work.

Something's always gotta give. I have the rattiest lawn in a neighborhood full of meticulous gardeners. (Think victory garden gone manic and you get the idea.) Lots of other extra things fall by the wayside. Half of my vacation days involve being outdoors with youth. Nowadays folks are pulling double shifts to make ends meet. But some of those folks are buying season tickets to their favorite sports teams, concert tours, classic cars, high priced vacations, or even missions. On the other hand, there are dozens of young men and women who consider me their friend. I think I've made the better deal.

It's like my sons have an evil twin (triplet?)! From hindsight, if I were you, I would ... 1. Not worry. 2. Ask him if it's okay for you to give him occasional nudges as long as he says that's his goal. Remind him there are at lest a half dozen people ready to advise him toward that end. 3. Promise you'll back off if he tells you he doesn't want to hear it. 4. Tell him if he changes his goals, he can just let you know, no strings attached. 5. Help him get his driver's licesne and figure out a way to afford the insurance and fuel. He'll be better able to touch base with counselors, beneficiaries, his work crew, etc ... 6. Talk to him about choosing girlfriends who actually admire his goals. 7. Have him spend time with an Eagle scout. (We shipped Son #2 to Son #1 and his wife several times.) I put in bold the two practical things that I think a dad can do to help a boy regardless of where his in relation to rank advancement.

A coil of braided rope ... eye splice on one end ... end splice on the other.

... spoken like a modern man in a post-modern society. Someone must have made you drink too much "timeless values" bug juice.

Fine print says plan was to "revisit in 2015 after major systems were online" ... "no return on investment at this time".

What @@SlowDerbyRacer and @@Stosh are describing are what I'd expect from first class (the concept, not the patch) scouts. One of our ASMs while an Explorer was inserted in an undisclosed location of the Allegheny National Forest and given a number of days to extract himself and his post. (I think it was roughly a patrol. It may have been just a buddy or two.) The guy always carried himself like an Eagle ... it wasn't until years later that I connected the dots and realized he wasn't. A Vietnamese priest in our community described his nation's scout's 1st class journey as being taken out to the jungle with Dad to a clearing with a stump in the middle. The boy was to make camp on the stump overnight. Dad left him there ... in reality just out of sight in the thick of the jungle keeping vigil overnight ... and came back in the morning to wake his son, have breakfast, and go home. There are a lot of Eagles who forget how to be first class scouts . (Can you blame them if they have to finish their scouting carreer doing the pencil-whipping involved in some of those required badges and service projects?) Our job is to guide them beyond the ranks so they adopt a state of mind and body that many other folks avoid.

There's this vote-with-your-feet attitude on these forums. A "marketplace of troops" perception that ignores the boots on the ground experience. For many many people in districts across this land, troop hopping is not a clear cut option.Folks seem to want every troop to be frequent campers ... And they are frustrated by uninspired leaders. But there's also this: uninspired boys. Get a dozen of them and program slacks. SM tries to camp, nobody shows. Just a few tries, and his troop is playing kickball and polishing gear. The option of finding a group of inspired boys is out there. But this bypasses the blessing of discovering his inner natural leader. At the most I'd give the boy a list of SM's phone #s, and leave it to him to make the calls. Kid's 12. He doesn't have somebody laying out a schedule of camping. Boo hoo. He is now master of his scouting career, and can effect change. Right at camp start nagging the SM about setting up a wildernesses survival camp next month. See if a couple other boys are interested. If he's any sort of star scout (the concept not the patch), he'll show that kind of leadership. Or, stay at Life for a few years. Maybe get distracted being a shepherd or tending to younger siblings. No biggie.

I was on the verge of sending it to them. Instead I'll print it, Mark the 2014 changes, and pin it on a bulletin board.

For the merit badge, the nights (up to 6 max) from only one long-term camp count toward the 20. The remaining nights should be from short-term (no longer than 4 days at a time) camping trips. (Look here for more gory details and painfully hashed out arguments: http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/06/24/ask-expert-isnt-camping-night-camping-mb/.) Yes they may be with another troop. Or with just his patrol. It brings a tear to my eye to hear of a troop who doesn't camp regularly. It brings my palm to my face to hear of a troop who forgoes uniform. In either case, no excuses to your son. He gets to decide what kind of scout he wants to be. And if it means swimming upstream for the good of the troop, so be it. He needs to explain to his SM "This troop should be camping every month, and I'm your guy to make it happen. Can I see if there's another 4 to 7 boys willing to join me, while you find a couple of trustworthy adults willing to camp?" Second best: he needs to call around to other SM's to see if he can join with one of their patrols on some troop camp outs. If he's able to do this, and he demonstrates the skills to get the other boys up to speed, I got no problems with him being awarded Eagle by February. The position of responsibility has to be something other than bugler, but it would be a hard-headed SM who would not want to give a boy like that a PL patch. If all of this is too overwhelming for him, that's okay. He can wait few years while those nights slowly accrue.