qwazse

Last year was only a 2% drop in youth membership (http://www.scouting.org/About/FactSheets/YearinReview.aspx), and mainly among cubs and venturers. Boy Scouts had only a .01% dip. We've lost a Jambo contingent of youth. We don't know which ones. It will be interesting to see the breakdown.

Does this mean a judge in CA can't council a Citizenship merit badge? Sounds like the statute is counter-productive.

This is, once again, why I prefer having elections at summer camp. We can review the requirements on day one. Announce the list of boys who we think are eligible that day. Then on day two, we can make any corrections necessary before the election committee comes into camp.

Ya know, if someone dumped this on my son, he'd call his patrol together and they would be camping on the next three consecutive weekends. Fact is, not camping for the next two months is unacceptable. I'll wager that half of his bad attitude comes from keeping cooped up all winter! If the camping requirements had been given to the boy when he earned Life, I would call this "borderline reasonable." Well, your son has two options. Cheerfully go camping (which honestly, I think he should do regardless) and wait out this storm, or call your council and ask how to file an appeal for a bo

Thanks. (Although I get my greys from Lands End.)

We're feeling that, only in reverse. Crossovers are going to other new troops. I'm not counting those boys. Troop members have parents who absorb costs if they can, and we have managed to blunt the rise in cost through the troop treasury. I'm mainly focused on the crew, who are more pay-as-you go and membership dues 95% to pay for registration. I'm also concerned that 8th-10th grade boys who would have joined any of the troops in the neighborhood years back are not doing so.

If by profit, you mean: BSA funding more professionals so that they can promote the program the way everybody whines about them doing, I suppose you're right.

Do we have the break-down by program yet? Charters are coming in late, so I wouldn't be surprised if the stats get an adjustment by the May meeting. Smell the roses, people. I'm sure mine isn't the only unit whose membership would be 10% larger if the price of admission increased at no more than the pace of inflation.

Gotta ask. How many of you have a scout who goes without a POR for more than a month once he gets to 1st class? I understand boys may back off for sports season, but ours usually pick up another responsibility as soon as the season ends. Even before we had the crew, there were plenty of jobs to do. We NEVER worry about timing elections. EVER.

That'll be a relief to crew presidents who have trouble pronouncing "-urers".

Thanks. Pity this 64-bit machine did not come with speaker drivers!

Drop in on one of their activities. You hardly know anyone unless you've spent a night in the woods with them. If the SM asks, make it clear that your boys expected to sit in on a meeting, and that was not what happened.

'Bout twice a year seems to be the norm. Most boys are already in leadership by the time they make star, so their POR is jus a continuation of what they already are doing.

Try typing your post in a text editor, copying it, then pasting it into your post.

I tried my hardest to get a couple of boys to have their ECoH together in a panel discussion format. I'd put them, the SM, maybe a couple of junior ASMs in the "hot seats", and have the MoC collect questions from the audience.

SN, here's how this happens. 1. Some scouts never seem to be at service projects. 2. Some adults gets their undies in their bunch over it. 3. Some of those adults, instead of camping with those boys and maybe figuring out the kind of service they'd like to do, become administrators on advancement committees. 4. They get the idea in their heads that "hey we can use advancement to force boys to be better scouts." 5. Nobody told them how much all the bean counting can be come a drag on the program. 6. Someone asks for a rule. 7. Someone else makes it. 8. The rest of us have to live

It's up to the scout, and therefore is often based on CoH's that he's already seen. I try to encourage scouts to think out-of-the-box, but most of our boys like an adult Master of Ceremony, a youth Sergeant at Arms, and a mixture of adult and youth participants. For a recent one, a boy's sister (also a Venturer) offered some special music. That was nice. Bottom line: Have fun, honor the Eagle, don't sweat the details.

Me neither. Sometimes I give advice based on how I've seen others accomplish a task, but the Sea Scout units I've seen in my area are fairly short lived. So, on the level of starting ships I will defer to other scouters. But, on a broader level, have you taken Venturing Leader Specific Training? This course covers starting crews in general and also outlines the Sea Scout program in the context of Venturing.

Well, with Boy Scouts an Venturing the ratio is 1:10 with a minimum of 2. But you have a point. I would suggest the SPL be responsible for collecting those signatures. Slots for boys don't open up until you have two adult slots filled. Then only open the number of slots for boys as the adults say they have numbers of seats. On a big-ticket adventures, slots are only opened when money is put down. If you bail, YOU DON'T GET BACK THE MONEY YOU PAID IN. You can sell your slot to somebody else -- presumably for what you paid, but that's none of the troop treasurer's business. If you don't se

perdi, I know how much stuff costs. A black-and-white cover costs less. Our best monographs in my field (statistics) are 2-color at best. Why? Because very little of value gets conveyed via color, and it is more important to ensure accessibility to members of the field with limited resources. If BSA wants to get back in touch with cost-conscious parents, they need to convey that with a show of minimalism in their publications. Christine, as a counselor, you should get the book. The content is really designed to help boys who are new to the material. But, you may have a better book o

Judging by the excessive number of hours our boys have logged (and that's only the tip of the iceberg compared to what I know they have actually done), they would not take it rhetorically and reply with a resounding "Yes, sir, of course!" The older ones -- who may be attuned to subtlety -- may take offense that you would even suggest such a thing. They would certainly not say anything. Well, maybe the more clever ones would reply "Respectfully sir, I'll let the MC's also joined in that project attest to my motives after I've left the room. Or, if you would rather table this board until you'

First of all, thank you for your service to our boys. And where your gonna get any juice to carry on. Those aren't just your boys your tending to. Your troop needs help. Your not getting it from those parents, your best bet is to ask around other troops for an ASM, maybe a reliable 18-20 year old, to help you on outings with the YP issue.

It's fair to say it's a little of both. There have been a growing number of Christian youth leaders who have been less comfortable with working in traditional models. The thought that "we can do something like this on our own" has been festering for a while.

Doesn't change how I'd do things. There's always an SFF or some other service opportunity somewhere, and who knows what else this young man did? Maybe he was most proud of this opportunity and he wanted to it to count. I can relate to Stosh's example. Our kids would duck out of church service once a month to pack bags from the food pantry for folks who would need them. Their only reward was missing the sermon. To my knowledge, they never counted that for credit for anything. Nobody said they couldn't, they just wanted their on-paper service hours to be other things like helping on Eagle

Oh, and they don't have any policy explicitly excluding homosexual boys from membership.