scouter659

I think that if you handled the situation at the time all should be well and good. I do want to share something that we do which pertains to your subject. I'm involved in a Boy Scout Troop & every April we run a recruitment weekend camp for the Webelos-2 & their parents. One of the features of that weekend is to instruct the Webelos-2 in 'Totin'-Chip'.Now, Webelos-1 Scouts attend as well and they see the 2nd. yr. group receive the cards & training. It does 2 things: One, it makes them understand knife & ax safety at an early age & it makes them look forward to next year when they come back to the campout and get the same training. You can't emphasize training enough. Recently, we have placed more of an emphasis on the bow-saw as opposed to the hand ax. We seldomly use the hand-ax anymore unless we're just trimming small branches off a larger dead branch...but we use it sparingly and more exclusively.

Hello. I just read the replies to your problem...what more do you need to know? No one in their right mind will advise you otherwise!

Hi-I don't know if you're still looking for these things, but there is an ad for them in the Oct. 2000 issue of 'Scouting' magazine...in case you didn't see it.

I have a few thoughts. Our Troop operates in two ways. One, there's programming which is the Troop Leadership. Working with the boys, activity planning and all the rest. The other is the Troop Committee which is really the parent's group 'behind the scenes'. They do the fund-raising planning, approval on how money is spent and other issues but they are governed by their own set of by-laws which they strictly enforce. You may do well to suggest an idea like this so that the committee has a stronger direction and more of an identity in what it is they do for your Troop.

We have over 40 active boys in our Troop with an advancement chair. & and assistant and we do let them sit in on a Board of Review. Like an Eagle Board, we try not to place asm's who work closely with the boys to sit in. As long as your advancement chair. isn't working too directly on their step-by-step advancement, we think it's OK. The only other thing our advancement chair does is that she's a counselor for swimming & lifesaving merit badges.

We have a very elaborate attendance system. If a Scout misses more than 1 meeting a month without contacting either the Scoutmaster or attendance officer, we don't allow him to go to the next campout (and we go on a monthly basis). We use basically the same criteria for Scouts we consider to be 'active'. Sports are somewhat seasonal & if we have a boy who participates well with us when he's not involved with sports, that's fine. But if we feel that a boy is missing a meeting because we think he'd rather see how many points he can rack up on a Playstation game at home, we consider that young lad to be inactive if it happens too often.

Scouts who excel like that at a young age is a tricky one. In our Troop, we seem to have 2 very accelerated boys (both 13) who are determined to make Eagle before the end of this new Scout year. They are friends, they came up together from Cubs and they aren't getting special help from parents or leaders...they're just doing it. Interestingly, other Scouts in the Troop have recognized this in them and have accepted it. We are a multi-generational Troop with, I'd say, about 6 or 7 moving toward Eagle (In a Troop of 47 that's not bad). I guess you have to play it by ear. Our Troop does place a huge emphasis on JLT. We run a very, very elaborate JLT program for 2nd yr. Scouts on up. We probably wouldn't let these 2 young men to move to Eagle as quuickly if they didn't have our training which lasts all year. But they're both very good Patrol Leaders and are trained. In their case I say, "God Bless 'em".

In response to a Scouter's question about singing off on requirements: We allow our "Trained" Junior Leaders to review and "Initial" a Scout's book. Later, the skill is reviewed by a 'Trained' adult leader before being signed again and dated. We subscribe to the idea that a boy learns well from his peers, but we do constant review. We also work-in many Patrol Competitions which cover requirements at our weekly meetings.