qwazse

As I said with my son and all of his coaches: “This is an issue between you and you coach. Speak your desire plainly and courteously, ask if it’s possible to achieve your goal, and if so, how. As your parent, it is my obligation to say nothing but know that I’m rooting for you.” Half the time coaches would take the time to explain a negative decision for me. I made it clear that it wasn’t necessary and I am encouraging my child to talk to him/her directly. Still, them letting me know their thinking allowed me to not take things personally. Finally, we direct contact leaders don’t meet with scouts alone. At most we have one-on-one conversations in a public area.

It’s also worth noting that things aren’t always in a negative direction. Over the years, I’ve seen us cycle between stellar classes of youth, and class that could use a little polish.

Suspension is a very important tool. Some youth need time to decide if they want to be scouts, or something else.

I’d never get one as a collectors item. But it’s a stout kit. I’d encourage a patrol to get it if they were willing to put down $50.

I think it’s fair to tell the scout that his behavior in public places disqualifies him from participating in the corn maze. Then you need to get advice from the committee on how to handle this. IMHO, suspension is an option. A scout like this owes his fellows an apology for not representing, but he has to that conclusion on his own.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this happened before, but was kept from the press. S Korean media is very good, and they took two months to run with this story.

I did not write anything about edible bio-fuel because the troop no longer participates. But we’re capitalists. If a kid can hawk a couple hundred orders, there’s hope for a lucrative sales career.

You say this as if that’s a good thing. Some of us find it patently immoral to shirk the teaching of marketing, salesmanship and service industry to our youth. Our yearly dues are under $200 to cover registration and awards, then from our meatball hoagie sales at community festivals and a car wash offered by a local lawn, garden, and feed store, we cover most weekend camping costs, the occasional party, and capital expenses. Aside from increased community exposure (in both directions, citizens meet scouts and scouts meet fellow citizens) this inspires some older scouts to find jobs or start their own businesses. Among my world jamboree troop were two scouts who raised their big-ticket funds by worked at their CO’s soft drink stand during weekend festivals.

Many churches and other non-profit organizations have to do emergency drills for insurance purposes.

It’s like I have an evil twin five years later. Bottom line: how involved is the CO? The intent is that resources stay with the CO for the purposes of scouting. How does he COR think they will support scouting going forward if the troop folds? Does the CO have parents with teens? As far as implementing this: Your treasury is too deep. Presumably these are funds that existing scouts and parents earned. Pay fully for everyone’s registration and the scouts’ summer camp. Schedule outings with the other troop so the scouts can get to know one another. Pay for the cracker-barrel for any older scouts so that same-age scouts may get to know one another. IS THERE A CREW or SHIP nearby? Introduce your scouts to those opportunities. They may want to become one.

I'll let others find the sources, but there are two opposing concepts that apply to the field uniform: A uniform is not required to be a member of BSA. The intent here is that we are not to discourage from membership a scout without means to buy a uniform. This goes way back to when the uniform was the most expensive aspect of membership, and a neckerchief of a particular color was the bare minimum. The PLC decides on the troop uniform. This typically involves neckerchief design and how/when it should be worn. It also involves defining the activity uniform. But in effect, if the PLC, for example, refuses to wear standard issue pants or shorts, what are you going to do? Furthermore, the SPL leads uniform inspection. How does an SM handle this when the SPL is okay with patrols showing up at ceremonies without their field shirt? On the other hand if the SPL has got the PLC gun ho about that impeccable head to toe De La Renta look, how does an SM tone down expectations so that scouts with limited means can feel that sense of belonging? So, if it's being initiated by the boys with the endorsement of the SM, we can't keep a troop from trying to look sharp. But, my suggestion to such a troop is to maintain a spare set of field uniforms so that scouts in difficult situations (either financially, or they are just coming straight from football practice ot a meeting) can have something they can put on when they get to the scout house.

It was a pleasure traveling with the female scouts in the World Scout Jamboree USA contingent. They made a higher percentage of Americans compared to 4 years ago. Many had also attended National Jamboree. Unfortunately, some had to reckon with abysmal leadership. I attribute this to female leaders not seasoned in BSA’s (and WOSM’s) culture. It’s one thing to come in with decades of experience as an adult leader … it’s another thing to have the memory of attending Jambo aS a youth on top of it. I hope some of these young women take their experience to heart and make a better environment for future youth under their charge. We’ve come a long way. We have a long way to go.

Our ASM found this in a mug in a rarely-used patrol box while the troop was clearing the garage tonight. Does it jar any memories? I think I found local article related to the event.

Those horror stories will manifest regardless of the tools that you provide. File: adults ruin everything! I do think we have a generation of adults who don’t know how to measure anything. Do take time at a troop meeting to teach hand-washing. Alcohol base requires 20 seconds; soap and water 30 seconds. Singing “happy birthday twice is a good metric. I recommend the glee club dirge version: “Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Sin and sorrow everywhere, death and dying and despair. Happy birthday. Happy Birthday.” But, I find what churns most of my scouts’ stomachs is a failure to drain grease from their meat while cooking. Demonstrating that at a meeting where you all cook up a bunch of sliders is a worthwhile exercise. Showing scouts how to manage heating and seasoning of different kinds of frying pans will also pay off in clean-up time! Then, there’s the scout who eats seconds of everything then wakes up in the middle of the night with incredible stomach aches. I have yet to find a fix for that.

We use soap, bleach, and sun. (That last one can be hard to find.) Backpacking, I just carry soap. I look for something biodegradable without dyes.

Winds can be tricky. Seabase sailing adventures include the Sea of Abaco in the Bahamas — nice islands, but far from many amenities including top tier medical facilities. Yes sailors do try to take care of one another, but the time to rescue can vary. Seabase tries to keep participants from hurricanes - just like Philmont keeps participants clear of wildfires. So, emergency evacuations in those scenarios may require some minimum fitness for complete success. That said, the fitness for swimming, scuba, or sailing has different parameters than that for hiking/backpacking. Those parameters aren’t entirely aligned with body mass index. Kayaking and canoeing come close to having the same stressors as hiking, and therefore the height/weight may be relevant. So, when in doubt, contact the HA base before committing to a specific adventure.

Seabase let me slide. On the other hand, I was BSA guard certified and only slightly over limit. No big deal for sailing adventures.

In case you think knots are too arcane for your budding bio-engineer….

Far from it. If you wanted such compensation, but wouldn’t admit it. That would be dishonest. To nod my head in agreement to any side in this, that would be dishonest. To shrug off losses of assets and pretend that that is not affecting the youth who are most at risk for abuse in the home, that would be dishonest. Therefore, to say that monetary payouts are objectively “fair” to victims would be dishonest in two directions: 1) It gives the false illusion that this somehow prevents future victims when in fact it could be making safe havens inaccessible to future victims. Moreover, I’ve seen payouts for pain and suffering help my friends and family who’ve received them, but only after a lot more pain and suffering. It seemed that the payments just served remind them that they were kicked down and should stay down, until some other tragedy jolted them into using what they’ve garnered to slog forward. And 2) Secondly there’s no upper limit on the amount needed to compensate for pain and suffering because money is a terrible vector for transmitting compassion —compassion being the thing I know that helps with pain and suffering. The reason we even bother is that money is the best vector we have to transmit compassion beyond our physical reach.

How it “sounds” is purely subjective. I know you want empathy in the form of unanimous agreement that dollars should be paid out above and beyond mitigation costs. It’s not an ironclad argument when cost-prohibitive to youth becomes a program that many find to be a temporary safe haven from psychologically destructive family environments. From their perspective paying a past victim puts a number of current kids at risk. And then a whole cycle of counter-arguments ensues. Again by people who think differently. At the end of the day, your opinion is yours, and as it seems to be in solidarity with many other victims, it deserves to be aired. But after talking with leaders of other international scout associations over the years I feel in less of a position to say what sounds fair than I ever did.

We need to get beyond this. The only way we can help victims is to accept that in the pool there will be a few frauds who nobody will screen. It certainly galls survivors as much as it does the majority of us who never drew the attention of predators. This is the cost of actually being helpful. (This, and being more attentive to our youths’ environments.)

The other problem with having every parent registered is that some are simply not qualified to chaperone our youth. You need to find a balance. But, especially for girl troops, you need to search through all of the female parents/grandparents/adult siblings to see who would commit to becoming an ASM. Family camping is kind of a recent trend in BSA marketing. It’s a square peg that takes some pounding to fit in the round hole. Not worth my effort IMHO. The only parents who need to be in camp are those of special needs kids — and then only until the scout learns how to address his/her difficulties independently or with buddies.

Send an urgent request to your district/council camping committee. When I was a crew advisor, I often leaned on other units for that second female adult.

Having just camped adjacent to Swiss (who shared excellent teokbokki with us while we scrambled to raise camp), I spent a good four days sharing coffee with their scoutmasters and learning about their program. One important thing to note: they receive government funding, and their program provides sports education (similar to BSA’s defunct varsity scouts).

I was impressed with the number of scouts in my Jambo troop who earned Eagle ... many earned it more than a year ago. Now this could be a biased sample of scouts whose families engage the program more, but it's clear that this lot is not flying away. It's not clear that there is a "great majority" disappearing after obtaining Eagle. Looking at my troop, about 1/4 who earn Eagle before age 17 find other things to occupy their time. That's not much different the the number of older scouts who quit without earning Eagle.