qwazse

I guess this boils down to the SM's opinion of "double dipping." Telling the boy those hours won't count for rank advancement may cause him to skip his ordeal! If he does than you probably just spared the brotherhood one more slacker. If he does the ordeal anyway, it's probably in he right spirit, so when he comes back with his lodge flap, let him know you've changed your mind and decided to count it.

I have a low vew as service hours being required at all, so I'd have no problem counting it, but ... Don't any of his buddies have an Eagle project (or girl friends, a gold award) happening between now and then? Encourage the boy to rack up hours sooner than that. You never know what virus will hit once school starts.

Some kids just can't conquer separation anxiety with immersion therapy. (Son #2's best friend had similar issues. Resulted in him quitting scouts.) Give the boy a chance for the next weekend camp, but don't get your hopes up. Talk seriously with the mom. If this is happening in other areas of the kids life, it's probably time to talk to a psychiatrist.

Anybody remember having their Bobcat pinned on upside down, then once you did a good turn, your parent(s) would allow you to turn it right-side up? For some reason, I remember that being a tradition when I was a kid, but 4 decades have produced a fairly muddled memory.

After my crew had been going a few months, a scouter asked me how it was going, to which I replied with a list of activities that the youth accomplished and planned. He said that's not what he meant, and I replied that there were surprisingly no issues there and the whole co-ed thing was a positive experience so far. It was all I could do to keep from saying "So far all the pregnancy tests came back negative." (It was one of my prouder moments where I kept my actually kept my mouth shut.) Based on that experience, I would check your friend's sarcasm meter.

I'd take up Mac's "throw the bums out" mantra if I saw it working. That is if, as a result, contraband would never show up at camp again. If it didn't result in a gang of kids bragging that they are the "kicked out of BS" gang. In general, MattR's more cautiously balanced approach is more likely to yield the desired result. The road off the cliff rarely takes you to the summit.

More packs are doing resident camp as well, and a higher adult ratio is needed, which means possibly drawing on adults who may need electricity on site for medical reasons.

One other thing: ask for some wall space near wherever they serve coffee and doughnuts. Put on it a poster of photos of the pack's activities with maybe one picture of the boys holding a sign "Thank You ___ Church for All of Your Support!" Definitely take up your church on their offer if they have a space more suitable for one of your activities. Our Pack uses the facilities of a number of churches in the area. For example, the B&G can't possibly fit in the CO's hall. I wouldn't abandon your CO yet. You haven't found the "back channel" who would serve as the "not-just-on-paper" COR, but with a little persistence you will.

Here in western PA there's an even split between troops who choose patrol cooking to those who choose dining halls. So, Heritage Reservation maintains both (as well as a "street" of model homes for "campers" interested in challenging outdoor activities but not nights under canvas ). Supply and demand. Plus as more communities rise up near scout reservations, EPA regulations demand better sewage management, so out with latrines and in with flushies.

I misunderstood. I thought the 11-year-olds where a whole other troop. Our boys don't meet in the summer, so usually the leader holds on to blue cards until we reconvene in the fall. Depending on how industrious the boys are, there could be 90+ cards ... some of the partials ... that get returned on the SM the last day of camp. Trying to distribute those AND break camp and make sure that all the boys get home safe is too tall of an order for must of us. I suspect that's the same situation your leaders are in except it sounds like your boys are meeting during the summer. So, be patient as they sort things out. Part of this whole process is scouters in their units sharing their vision of how things should work and coaching each other accordingly.

I don't know the details of the new cub program, so I'll let others expound on it. Every camp is different, so talk to your camp director. He/she will have a good idea of what parts of the program are tailored for cub advancement. Glad to hear your family is having fun with the program.

Last survival manual I read mentioned nothing about needing an act of congress.

That requirement was scratched in 2006: http://usscouts.org/advance/changes/advchanges06.asp This isn't the first post where someone has pre-judged the camp program based on a requirement that is not (or is no longer) there ... .

KDD, welcome to the dark side! Stosh, how do you manage 'skeeters? I get by with a spritz of Deet, but am wondering if you hike where they might be a little more aggressive.

Long way to fly to watch a movie! As burned as you may feel, are your guests still having a good time.

NJ! You just got BS'ed. Remember your lines "Show me where it's written ..." Unless it is an overnight activity, one adult present at a meeting of multiple youth is in full compliance with YPT. (Key principle: no one-on-one contact.)

Well that's the mom's burden, isn't it? Thanks for bearing it.

I couldn't agree with you more, except for one thing: it could just as easily turn out that our sons are the perpetrators. So all of us best only withhold forgiveness to the degree we won't need any ourselves.

Or, is it the other way around? Is the proliferation of "specialty" PORs getting in the way of JASMs? Say I got a boy who steps aside as SPL to give some other youth a crack at it, then guides one month, instructs the next month, and competently does both while adding a little spit and polish to the QM the third month? Here I am swapping out patches all the time because this boy is so seasoned and skilled he fills in the gaps wherever he finds them and is almost as good a coach as the SM. Plus he's great company around the adult campfire at the end of the evening. Gee, too bad I can't use the ASM patch before the kid's old enough to fill out an adult application. I wonder what I could hang on kid's sleeve that really gets the message across about how he's serving the troop for the next few months? There's gotta be something ... he assists the SM better than I do, except he's my junior. Hmmmm ...

Problem is, S, scouts in our communities are being asked to participate in pride events. Having a thread where things are hashed out helps us to be prepared to address folks who won't like our decision. (Because, no matter what's decided, someone is going to approach us about it.)