qwazse

[double post](This message has been edited by QwaZse)

BD, it's like backpacking. You and I know it's just glorified walking with the most important comforts hang at the ready from your shoulders. But for someone who's spent their life hopping in and out of a car to the nearest solid artifice that will provide food or shelter, it's downright radical. For venturers to lead it, you may need to pitch it as something "adventurous".

It'a not so much inventing as it is co-opting. Marriage between a man and a woman served as the ideal metaphor for the novel relationship proposed for the Almighty and His people. (In this context, gender identification is significant, but that's a different thread.) Regardless, Christians reserve the right to impose their will on the rest of society. The distinction between spiritual and legal is, in some cases, specious. This may be one of those cases. For my part, all marriages should be gay. I've seen some folks in dismal ones. Is it really that hard to dig up a little joy every day for one other person?

One really cool thing that I saw was a display case of all of the religious awards, the scouter who made it offerred anyone in our district to contact him and make arrangements to use the display in their own presentation. You might only be able to put together a smaller collection, but the boys would have fun seeing it. so what if it doesn't relate to your LNT goals? Maybe your vision is tHat your pack have knowledge of the variety of programs related to the BSA.

...The old BSA guys absolutely hate it.. Well, what a surprise. Hopefully they'll wise up and shut up before the youth hear them. Most kids don't get that even a disagreeable adult can be supportive once they see that the youth really care about a situation. If you have a couple of mature venturers (one male and one female is fine), you should approach them with the offer "How would you like to start something completely different ..." Wahooker: one of the hypotheticals that folks blew smoke about (fanned by our former UC) was my crew being a drain on the troop treasury. We had separate books from the start, but ya know what? When there isn't a problem, someone will make one up just so they can have something to fix. It's called putting the BS in the BS of A.

Eng, at some point ask your scout about the CoH. Try to see if the disruptive boys "got to" him. Is it routine? The same kids? Point is, if it's giving you a headache, that's one thing. If it's making other boys feel less than proud about their unit, that's another. And, that's info the SM will never get without you letting him in on it. Our CoH's are short and to the point. (Light some candles, make mom proud, get awards in an envelope, shake SM's hand, run downstairs for ice-cream and cookies.) Still, one CoH, a couple of older boys got "the giggles". I was thinking of reading them the riot act, but knowing their parents, I figured they'd catch all heck for it. Guess they did because so far it hasn't happened again. With truly ADHD kids, I find that adding lots of "bells and whistles" -- skits and such -- only makes it worse for them. Better to streamline the ceremony so they are only stuck in the chair for 20 minutes. Calm and efficient with minimal distraction is the order of the day.

Co-ed civil unions. There's a controversy on par with female leadership for boy scouts!

BD, stick with your model and pretend that's the way it works all over the country. I got blow-back over suggesting something like this for crew/troop. Old SM: "I don't want to hear anything about the crew in this [committee] meeting." Not blaming the guy. He was trying to accommodate everyone and their stupid boundaries* -- plus he had to reckon with me who was not about to care. New SM and I just let the committees pretend they are running their separate units, and we pool resources whenever the kids ask us to. It kinda hurt membership (new troop spun off as a result), but the kids and parents we have left are civil to one another. Fred, the basic hindrance to the one-unit concept (aside from the pettiness) is that BSA doesn't have a program for 7 to 13 yo girls. This makes it a bit of a leap for a female Venturer, for example, to be a den chief. Chances are she never was even a "Pack sister". Regardless, she has a learning curve that she may not want to surmount.

Oh, but the little fiefdoms! What would people do without them?

You need a better lodge flap!!! Don't get me wrong, I think the OA should have business at every roundtable. At the very least, the chief should be asking scouters if things are going well with elections, ordeals, signing up for conclaves, etc ... Make sure scouters ask their boys what they like about the program. Lodge reps should knock on the door of every troop that doesn't show up at roundtable. They should host a cracker barrel or social hour at camporees where every arrowman wears their sash. If they are serving as arrowmen, wear the sash. Dirty it up a little. Then, when they regroup with their unit or patrol, the sash gets stowed for the rest of the weekend. Just like at summer camp, the boys only wear them for call-out night (which happens to be our visitor night). I'm not going to stop a boy from stowing his sash on his belt at a troop CoH, but if he has it on his shoulder I'm going to expect some O/A business to be conducted. That's the way we roll, and nearly every boy in our troop wants to be elected (the younger FC scouts sometimes ask to wait a year). Some boys are quite active. Their enthusiasm with or without the sash is a top sell.

We get as low as 20% and as high as 90%. Scheduling conflicts with sports and exams are the primary challenges. Sometimes we're intentional about that. 50% attendance gets us at about 9 scouts, which is ideal for most backpacking trips. It gets the boys who aren't into NAND or sports up and moving.

Our "library" is a couple of carry cases that we keep in a back room at the meeting place. It's available to the boys if the librarian is absent. It holds MB pamphlets and other reference material. I see absolutely no problem with filing the MB councils list on a shelf where every boy has access. Since the ideal way to teach a skill includes referencing, SM should coach the scout in looking up counselors and once the boy finds the page for a particular badge, SM identifies the counselors the boys should call. Boy then copies the contact info while SM is filling out the blue card. Boy returns list to library and checks out a MB pamphlet. He is then ready do start his journey on his own time. What you don't want is parents with unfettered access to that list. As it is, parents constantly ask me who is MBC for what. Even after hearing my "I don't know, but I'm sure mr SM will find the right counselor for your boy" for the umpteenth time, they keep asking.

MT: We all know that foxes bat at low fruit first! Hey Snappy: I'm starting to get the feeling that your pack is competing with my crew. How about sending some $$ our way? The IH and COR need to get on the same page. Just to warn you that swapping CORs does not always work out. Doing it behind closed doors makes it miserable for folks. And, if everyone can accept the fact that badgering from a crazy scouter can bring out the worst in every one, maybe a little cool-down time is all that anyone needs. Bottom line: although things seem to be going downhill fast. Change one variable at a time, if at all possible.

Where does the SM keep the list? With the troop librarian, of course! The POR description doesn't say the librarian gives out contact info anymore than it says he is expected to recite the requirements in each MB pamphlet! He just makes sure the list is someplace where the key adults can find it.

If I had a dime for the things that need "all the help they can get." Our lodge seems to be doing quite well for itself. They have a full page in our council's newsletter, while other districts, including Venturing, have had articles about their program intentionally rejected. (There is a reference in the middle of the rag to the web page URL for district calendars.) Still, I think their success is mostly due to the enthusiasm of the youth members. Anyway, our boys do not wear OA sashes at troop CoH's. That's what lodge flaps are for. If there is a portion of a meeting devoted to lodge business, they can put their sashes on at the time. When they are not wearing it, might they "carry" it on their belt for convenience? That way, it is available for those district/unit meetings in which a portion is lodge business. Otherwise it is neatly folded and at the ready on their person. Does the guide offer any other way to keep the sash when not being worn?

I'm feeling Fred's pain. We're just getting one or two boys because our CO's pack is feeding another troop. But none of our boys are members of the CO, so maybe they are feeling a little pain too. Maybe if we made a public display of boys sing for stuff they lost, we would attract those Webelos.

Short does have a point. So much of this is above the boys, they can't go there, so don't worry about it. When they are old enough to have an FB account and find out what's been said about their pack, they will hopefully have positive memories of you to offset anything that was typed. If you think your COR is ignoring the facts, you need to sit with both him and the IH in the same room. Remind them both of the number of smiles from "four footers" that you saw at the last meeting. Make it clear that at the end of the day, *that* is how you would like to be measured. If anyone is actually doing work in your unit (i.e., serving not just telling folks how things should be done), get their opinion. If they say something is important, do it. Everyone else gets back burner status -- no matter how many E-mails they write!

We could talk handbook and end the conversation, but truth is there is a lot of picking and choosing to what gets applied. For our troop: 1. Meetings are one hour consisting of a) flags, pledge, oath, law; b) announcements; c) theme/training: usually broken into ability groups/patrols, boys may work on requirements or schedule SMCs or BORs if time allows, d) sign up for events, e) circle up ans SM minute, f) clean up. 2. Involvement means stay registered, show up at meetings, camp with us. Leaders are expected to give advance notice of their absences and make arrangements for them. The boys are each other's worst critics, so we try to foster accountability at that level. Bean-counting committee members are largely ignored. 3. Leaders are assigned tasks in accordance with their position, and if we think they need them, mentors. The natural ability of the leaders dictates to a degree what our troop does. If the boys don't step up, many events wont happen. (E.g., we may camp, but not back-country, if the boys skip shake-downs.) We work pretty hard at keeping parents off their backs. We try to get the boys to reflect on what worked or didn't -- what they'd change. With 18 youth on the roster, this is a pretty informal process. When we had numbers in the 40s, we used sign-in sheets, etc ... It depends on the SM.

Fishman, I meet weekly with a Christian who's dad was a strident atheist. Based on what I've learned from him, let me suggest that your son is in the "too early to tell" stages. He has to grow into his faith just as you have yours. Take whatever compromises den leaders come up with. Let him enjoy the program. As he matures encourage him not to take vows he doesn't believe in. Stay honest with yourself as well. As you can see there are a lot of scouters willing to stretch for the both of you. Some of them are doing so out of their belief in God and what they feel would be expected of them at the core of their religion. Then, like the rest of us, bite your nails and hope the kid does right and maybe inspires something in you as well.

He started out with just one, but our proclivity for apples led to a need for more specific guidelines!

One thing that you can do while waiting to ask your SM or CC how you could best serve your unit, is to create an account with scouting.org and take the online Youth Protection course. Membership applications for adults need proof that you've completed it anyway. Once you've found your old or been given a new memberid number, you can log on to scouting.org and match it with your online account. This will give you access to a bucket load of other courses you may take.

The real advantage of dumping the time requirements, IMHO, is that the scout can focus on complete skill efficiency. So, for example, if a boy wants to nail down knots and lashings, he can spend his first few months doing just that. He doesn't have to think that for two months he only has to do tenderfoot requirements -- some of which may bore him. He can ace everything from the square knot to the square lashing. Then for a camp gadget, he can lash together a lounge chair and read up on first aid or aquatics safety. Another advantage: suppose a boy joins at age 15 and has some of these skills down already. (This happens to boys who never bother with the EDGE method and simply learn skills the more efficient way: by reading a book and practicing on their own.) He can simply knock off a rank or two by his first camping trip with the troop, and be on his way to holding responsibilities more suited to his maturity.

There are stock patrol patches maintained by the scout shop, and there are a bunch of online sites that market unique ones. There is also a blank patrol patch. We've encouraged the boys to consider them all. If you have a parent with the craft materials, the more you produce by hand, IMHO, the better. If there is a site to register your squads' designs, consider doing so. (It may make for patch-trading fun down the road.) Contrary to some of the above posters, I advise: DO NOT ASK HQ for a policy. If they have publicly offered something, then avail yourself of it. If you ask for a rule, someone will make it, and a bunch of folks will be miserable thanks to you. You don't want that. I think it's very wise of you to ask what BS and GS do and improvise from there.

Drop the cigs and drop the fat. You only have so much time with your kids, and you don't want to spend it waiting at the trail head. I'm sorry if that doesn't sound politically correct, but I'm not talking about dropping any old "weight." I could shed 30 pounds of fat, and that would translate into being able to carry some awesome gear in my pack, hiking some "weightier hills", not worry about mud-weight from bogging, etc ... Burn fat. If you shed 30 pounds of muscle in some screwball fad diet, that does your unit no good. Restore lungs. It really stunk for a couple of dads when I had to resort to "plan C" for our insertion into a wilderness recreation area and they realized that on day 2 the younger boys were not returning to base camp because the trail heads were still a mile uphill and the boys were hiking in another 2 miles beyond that! (Thank God the SM had that bariatric surgery and one other dad was fit.) It doesn't sound like much, trading in a lifetime of smokes for four miles through rocks and bogs and a night in the middle of nowhere. But, when that night is a chance to watch your boy grow and lead, it could mean the world to you. One of those dads has since sworn off smoking.

C21's is a by-the-book roundtable. We would all do well to read the following http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34342.pdf. Don't let the venturing label turn you off. Frankly RTs should be something that would attract some older youth. Also, geography matters. We are 20 minutes away from our meeting place. How distant is th farthest unit from the center of your district?