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@mrkstvns, Powder Horn, even an exciting one, inspires folks to up their skills and open their minds to new opportunities. That could allow their older scouts (e.g., those of you with a bevy of young Eagles asking "What's next"?) to form a leadership corps that puts in extra time to master particular activities. There's nothing stopping a troop like @ArmyScout's from allowing older scouts to have the space (e.g., letting them be in one patrol or form a leadership corps) to do that. But, wanting to master some super-activity doesn't is not a reason to start a crew. I went over this with my SPL and a few of the older scouts at cracker-barrel this weekend. I made it clear how demanding being a venturer was for a scout already in a troop. They have some ideas of activities and friends who weren't scouts who might join them. And I encouraged them. But I didn't whitewash the brutal honesty that very few of their friends outside of scouting have developed leadership, so it will fall to them to get the crew flying. And if they have leadership positions in both troop and crew, then both SM and I (assuming that I can't find someone more capable than me to be their advisor) would not lighten up on their workload. Now, what do I have to offer these scouts? I told them it was "leadership" as opposed to "leadership development". They will lead from day one by recruiting advisors and committee. They will lead as I push them to serve and Council, Area, National, and maybe even Global levels. They will make the phone calls, reserve the camps, feed really good ideas back to the troop and do most of the heavy lifting for implementation. (Regarding STEM: Scuttlebutt from my relative with two boys who transferred to TL/USA is that many troop dads are engineers in the space industry, and their is some pretty manic home-grown gear that appears on camp-outs. This should come as no surprise that STEM=excitement. After all, the Super Soaker was invented by a NASA engineer.)

So, the labeling of injector-type tools needs work. I suspect more of them for diverse needs will roll out as time goes on, and there will need to be international symbols for each type of emergency injection. Then, we need to train scouts on reading the symbols, identifying the conditions, and applying the treatment. (This is nothing new, by they way. It wasn't that long ago since we all had to add universal precautions to our kits.) I guess the "holy grail" of emergency drug delivery systems would be a device that first samples the subject to determine what's needed then deploy the appropriate drug. The system would then need to be returned to an apothecary for sanitizing and replacing spent capsules. (Although, based on my experience at Jamboree, the device could just put out a beacon and have a drone retrieve it in exchange for a fully-stocked device.) Let's put our STEM scouts on that one!

So, our state is trying to get overdose recovery kits to likely responders ... Is this the new "epi- pen" that scouts should be prepared to use?

Ditto @Eagledad on the first aid. Being prepared to help others is part of the gig. More people, more odds of needing help. I'm pretty sure the former "runaway horse" first class requirement was aimed at scouts walking through town, not in the deep woods or open prairie.

The thing about pen-knives and other tools, if you are planning to visit a court house, police barracks, or town hall, you might be slowed down at metal detectors. You really do want to see if you can schedule a visit with some public officials. That adds a lot of value to town hikes. But, that also means keeping a small notebook and pencil (or pen, since I guess Texans don't usually have to worry about ink freezing), as the scout might want to record some observations. Sure, phones can do that, until the battery drains. Oh, and bring extra patches. You might want to give them to someone as a gift for a pleasant conversation or courtesy to the scouts. And a spare neckerchief. All the cool kids are wearing them! The really cool kids have one to give away on a moments' notice. Don't be dismissive about matches or lighters, sometimes strangers might need help lighting their cigar!

I'm sorry. I'm the leader who got the phone call from a Life scout whose committee chair said "no more" (to fraudulently completed badge work) and would not sign the boy's app. I asked, "Did you do the requirements as written?" His answer was "No." We stopped the deception there. Called it for what it was. Remained friends ever since. So, I'm jaded. Sometimes boys lie. When they build the up the courage to report their actions and observations with brutal honesty, they become scouts. It's a long hard road. But @my_three_sons's scout has time to prove himself to be first class (the concept, not the patch). Either defend the facts that he completed the reqs or face the facts and be trustworthy going forward.

This isn't hard. The scout said he didn't do the requirements. Your records corroborate it. The blue card is fraudulent. Either the counselor was lax or the scout was deceptive. Get on the horn with the counselor and ask if he/she remembers your scout. Maybe yes. Maybe the counselor doesn't know how to fill out a partial. In which case the completion signature is null and void. Or ... Maybe the youth lied to the counselor about having done the course prequisites. If so, that youth is not a scout. (By definition. See Scout Law, point 1.) In which case the scout should be suspended from MB acquisition retroactively from the time of deception until he decides to actually be a scout and request a blue card for an honestly earned badge. That should get the scout talking about exactly how he fulfilled the requirements.

There are ways to encourage insignia placement ... Thinking globally, a complete uniform is an excellent trading item! One fellow from outside the US shared a picture of the BSA shirt that he acquired from the Jamboree. Based on the insignia, I was could explain most of the history behind the scout who wore it (a PL from the late 70's who was active in his council and attended Nat. Jambo at Moraine State Park, Philmont, etc ...). I also gave some suggestions of online sources that may have a picture of that very uniform and the scout who wore it. He was very grateful for my armchair anthropological assessment! I've often told scouts that decades from now they will have so much fun showing their shirt and collection of patches (assuming they survive whatever journey through life the scout takes) to their kids. I can now tell them that a half-century from now, their shirt could tell their scouting story to someone far away.

One thing that rankles me is when adults turn uniforming into a binary affair of "in" vs. "out" of uniform. I send them to a standard issue inspection sheet (https://mediafiles.scoutshop.org/m2pdf/50015_Leaders_Unif_InspFNL.pdf) and say, "So our epic ASM still has his rank patch from way-back-when. Dock him 5 points." This epic scouter is 95% uniformed. I am on the verge of being an epic scouter. But, in the winter I'm usually 75% uniformed. (Pants and belt. Sorry, but the Amish leather-worker down the road from my in-laws works some very thick hides into simple masterpieces that have outlasted every other belt that I've had.) Maybe 70% if you want to hack at that mentor pin. Closer to 90% when I'm in my venturing uni because standard issue pants aren't required. So here you have two epic or near-epic scouters: one 95%, the other 75% uniformed. But, I make the best coffee you'll ever find at a World Jamboree. I win. :) Yes, I am fine with a good scouter uniforming at 50% ... especially if such a scouter has a cobbler waiting for me at the end of a long day guiding youth to success. I think the best thing we can do for our youth is try @The Latin Scot's suggestions for looking sharp, yet be honest with our scouts about our grade on the inspection sheet. Encourage them to grade themselves honestly, and see how they develop over time.

I keep telling you all, electronic ink fabric is the future. No badge sewing or shirt swapping. As soon as the BoR chair shakes your hand, the event is automatically relayed from shirt-to-shirt over an ad-hoc troop network and the new rank appears on the left pocket. Courts of Honor? A an image overlay of a sash will appear across the shirt with scrolling MBs on the front and every temporary insignia the scout has ever earned on the back. The minute the shirt hears the scout talking lodge business it wil fade the MB sash and project the O/A sash. Want to trade a patch? Slide the image of it to the edge of your sleeve, then bumps sleeves with your swap partner, whose name you won't have to worry about because you social media profile will be exchanged in the process. Scouts will have an extra frond in their Eagle Palms for every thousand exchanges. Hackers will produce pants and shorts with electronic ink for those scouts who think favorably toward hanging sashes on a belt (or, as I call it, sash rack) when they aren't on a shoulder. Embrace the future and make Uniforming fun!

Note: Sea Base didn't have much in terms of facilities in Marsh Harbor, slips were rented, captains were for hire, some housing for staff, but all of us who've been there surely have broken hearts. The Bahamians who I had met there loved the scouts. Lifelong residents have fond memories of being scouts. I hope the one cab driver who I gave a patch to still has it as a token that I'm praying for him, and looking to send a donation in that direction. Things like sailing adventures are that community's life's blood. Restoring their boat slips can't happen soon enough. It's not going to be pretty for a long time, but If they can make it safe enough to visit, I'd encourage any scout to plan an adventure as soon as they open again.

I get that "on the brink of throwing in the towel" kind of feeling. Then my stupid PLC says "We'd like you to present Venturing to the troop, some of us are thinking we want to reboot the crew." Who do these kids think they are? The challenge will be finding replacements leaders willing to pay the cost of registrations. I might point out to the Son #1 and Daughter-in-law the weekend spent helping on a really nasty remodel job. Plus, next year, the cost of registration fees to have gramps babysit during meetings may be worth it!

@Onslow, I don't want to dismiss you or others and the trials you've gone through ... But we've come to the same conclusion: the parent may attend activities, but is disqualified from leadership. I also agree that this is something to run by your COR and DE. I doing mine would give me anything other than vague support for whatever decision I'd make. The vaugaries of what constitutes leadership in a pack confound this issue.

Well, now that dodgeball moved from ideal opening activity to pariah sport, let's have a gues at which "throwing TO sport" will be stricken from the record next year. Let's be clear, again, the BSA is not concerned about the potential abuse that could occur in your home as a result of needing a house guest in order for you to comply with YPT. It is concerned that it will be held liable decades from now for should you, your spouse, your son, or your daughter turn out to be predatory. Should that happen, they want to be able to say, "We told them so, go sue their church, school, or other civic organizations who condoned sleepovers."

I have given a reference in the app. Not sure where the scout gave his scouting experience.

Those challenges make it hard for a troop to grow beyond its maximum, which makes it harder for a girl in a troop that's shunned an outdoor program to join the troop that's embraced one. Of course BSA YPT is now also regulating along the same trajectory. Both organization have youth marching off arm in arm having a great time on their own.

YPT does not prevent a parent from observing his/her child in scouting activities. So there is a balance. Lacking a restraining order, a parent can assert rights to observe what you are doing with his/her kids. If you think kids are likely to be harmed, tell the parents involved to get that restraining order. Otherwise, I agree that the lines are uncomfortably blurred. But we are not talking about a pornographer or predator. You want FGM to be criminal in your state, it's not. Attempts to make it so via federal overreach (into your state's rights and the lives of concerned parents) failed. I've already laid out a couple of scenarios where a doctor performing this may feel that it is the only safe option for the girls in his/her community. Would you be more comfortable with all the other doctors in your community who turned parents like this down resulting in girls deported, debilitated through infection, or dead? What if the kid's parent was a mohel and the rest of your pack parents were all anti-circ? What if the kid's parent performed youth sexual reassignment procedures?

Let's just remove the double-speak. The rule is there to curtail BSA being drawn into civil action from your misconduct. BSA can say that they did everything in its power to train you, but you went rogue. They are running a gambit that this will placate a judge enough to find frivolous a plaintiff's request to include the organization among the defendants.

Just to be clear ... I never felt bad about uniform police. Given as obsessively as I inspected my scouts when I was an SPL, I could have been called one. No problem, it was usually my dimes or my time that got whatever award I would give to the PL with the sharpest looking boys. But, I would call them on the carpet when they misstated a rule. Like when someone dressed down my scout for not having a standard issue neckerchief slide. I said, "You might not like it, but it is in uniform, plus the knot he made with real rope is 10x more valuable then that stamped piece of metal that can't hold a yard of cloth together for more than one rugged boy-hour on a good day." Scouts have learned that I'll give them a straight answer when they ask about insignia. And if I don't know, I'll get back to them with an opinion and supporting literature. So, as we mature, we need to be less uniform police and more insignia dorks!

Welcome, and thanks in advance for all you'll do for the youth! If even a half-dozen parents buy in and provide muscle, it sounds like you have a plan. Scouts love to sell their old stuff. They also love to buy other scout's old stuff. There is paperwork. You should contact your district executive about filing a Unit Fundraising Application. It will cover the basic "do" and "do not" items.

Put simply, the most vulnerable of our citizens -- our nation's children -- do better on any metric when raised by both biological parents committed to serving each other and only each other sexually and materially in the same home. Everything else is a compromise because the world is a hard place where adults think of themselves first and bringing up children second. Given that so many have compromised the ideal child-rearing, we scouters have had to put up with some really abysmal adults for parents. That said ... we all have also seen some of these same adults manage to redeem themselves in one way or another. I know that you want to apply a categorical label. It's convenient. It makes everyone feel "safe." But it's a big world. And so much of it winds up at our doorstep in a really messed up fashion. This doc might be constantly approached by families who would rather send their children to old-country relatives than let them "suffer" the indignity of "impurity." The resulting harm caused by parental separation, or the severe mutilation, infection and death caused by private "home procedures", might weigh on his/her conscious far more. This person might be as bad as he/she sounds on paper. But, most likely, predator does not fit as conveniently as you wish it would. I have welcomed others who seemed vile in my opinion (parents who frequented strip joints, fooled around, heavy drinkers, with anger management issues), and my kids have survived -- and sometimes even learned good things -- from those adults. I have no qualms telling them that I don't trust them to lead a unit. Mrs. Q and I have told a couple that our kids won't be going to their parties on account of nobody watching where the beer is going. But I also have no problems sitting beside them and and watching their kids grow up strong and good. Why? Because I know whatever lousy examples they've been, and however they may have messed with their kids' heads on account of their own selfishness, they have no intention of doing the same things to my kids. Plus, for whatever reason, they are cool with me being me with their own precious ones in the deep woods. Also why? Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

And I think permissive sexual ethics are a form of abuse. Hasn't changed my ability to welcome such "abusers" while promoting a restrictive sexual ethic. What if, it turns out, the spouse is no damn good? And this accused parent was stuck in a cultural vise? They both will stay "stuck" if you all can't bring them into your community and watch each other's kids race a wood block car down a track.

... and don't forget about applying clear repair patches for down sleeping bags. A leader showed me that this week. Mind=blown.

My advice: welcome him parent and child with open arms. There are some people who do things out of respect for their culture that we find reprehensible. Their kids still need to grow into loving and caring citizens. They need to abandon their old ways. Or, once legal proceedings have ended and they are free to discuss it, they will need to sit around the campfire and talk it through with people they've grown to trust. I dare you to be those people. Note: I'm not suggesting you ask the parent to be a den leader. I am suggesting that you probably have other parents whose behavior right now is far more harmful to their kids and their community.

You might get a better answer to your question on https://discussions.scouting.org/. It was rolled out this year to handle topics about scoutbook and internet advancement, but I think my.scouting questions are fair game too.