Sentinel947

I left my wood badge for a very early mass on Sunday. Cleared it with the Course Director ahead of time.

I'm for sure a "conditional Scouter." If I need to reduce time volunteering with Scouts for work, family, friends, or the church, it happens. If my troop starts making programmatic changes I disagree with, it's my obligation to step aside vs create problems. If the BSA starts mandating policies or rules I can't live with, I again, have an obligation to step aside for the good of the organization and my own sanity. Sounds like a cudgel to bully people into doing things they don't want to do. I'm cautiously optimistic for what adding girls into the BSA will do for girls, and if my troop decides to launch a troop for girls, I'll help them with that. I volunteer on the council level for various things, and will continuing to do those programs.

Nobody's asking so in my troop it's BAU until a family asks. We're transitioning a new scoutmaster in, so most of our adult focus is in that direction.

Thanks Schiff. Hiding the post would be great. A mark of shame for poor reading comprehension. 😂

Aye! This is why to not post on websites late at night! It'll have to statyas is, I'm past the limit to edit. Sorry @Zebra123. If you've already tried those channels and you suspect abuse, the police would seem like the next step.

Agreed. You need to work the established channels so they can't deny they knew.

In my line of work we call this "Desirable Separation."

Anybody know if those of us who completed WB21century will need to do this updated course?

My preference with WB beading. Unless you're the Scoutmaster I don't recommend getting beaded in front of your troop. It can be long, and the boys won't care. I got mine at our Council Wood Badge dinner, with my patrol, course and friends from around the council, and saved my Scouts from the long winded agony of my Wood Badge course director.

Look up those dignitaries online, and write to them via email or snail mail. When I earned my Eagle I wanted the people from my troop to come. I didn't care if dignitaries came or not. I had some teachers, my grandmother, my parents, and about 75 scouts, troop families and leaders there. I wrote my own script by googling popular Eagle Court of Honor scripts. My parents bought a cake and light refreshments. We used the sponsor of our troops church's fellowship hall for free on a Sunday afternoon. It doesn't matter why the troop isn't doing what they usually do. That's a them problem. Your family can plan an Eagle court of honor just the way you want it. Invite all the folks your son wants, and have a great time. I'm happy to share my troops traditional recycled script if you want.(No it's not the one I wrote.) Use the forum's personal message system and send me your email.

What a shame. Young too.

Resurrecting the thread, already posted this a few times throughout the forum, but I like this thread concept. I staffed NYLT this summer, I noticed in the development weekends that the SPL of my course and Scoutmaster didn't see eye to eye on some things. As the new adult to NYLT, (and 24 years old) I mostly filed that information away for future use. Besides, I was struggling to pick up my job as Adult QM advisor. On course, that situation didn't improve much, so I offered to help bridge that communication gap. The Scoutmaster was willing, but the SPL brushed me off (politely), saying that it was fine. So I backed off a bit, but continued to provide advice and praise when I was around the SPL. Mid way through the week, the stress of things somewhat got to our SPL, and the Scoutmaster surprisingly tapped me to have a chat with him. ( I don't think of myself as much of a nurturing type, I have pretty good conflict resolution skills, but my Scouts would laugh if somebody called me a nurturing type.) Our SPL responded well to that, and his communication with our Scoutmaster improved somewhat going forward. After night course was over, we had a staff recognition/party thing after the participants left. The SPL came up to me, gave me a hug and told me something like "I'm glad you were here, I wouldn't have made it through without you, you need to return to NYLT staff next year, and one day you'll make an great Scoutmaster." That's had a huge impact on me. It was quite the surprise "Assistant Scoutmaster's Paycheck." I learned some very valuable lessons about working with youth, and about myself and my own abilities. I went from the mindset of that NYLT staff would be a one time thing for me, to trying to fit it in between work and starting Grad school next summer... Gotta love this Scouting stuff. What Scouting wins have you had the last year or so?

I think there are two ways to do a Court of Honor for an Eagle Scout. One: Have the Eagle Scout rank awarded during a Troop Court of honor. Maybe have the Scout say a few words, his parents, a troop adult of his choice. 10 minutes or so. Two: Have the Eagle Scout and family plan a separate Eagle Scout court of honor. They can have it be whatever they want and invite whomever they want. It can be as long or short as they'd like. One thing I do know. We have between 3-12 Scouts a year earn Eagle. Nobody on the Committee or the Scoutmasters/Assistant Scoutmasters has the time to plan that many extra court of honor, nor should it fall on the SPL. The Eagle Scout and his parents are the logical choice if they want a separate event. To the OP: plan a separate event for with your son, invite his friends, the troop and the troop leadership to attend. Be happy and celebrate his accomplishment, and don't worry about what the Troop adults do or don't do.

My understanding of YPT is no one on one contact and two adults gets conflated. There's nothing wrong with a merit badge class at camp having 1 adult or no adults, so long as the adults are not alone with youth and if there are no adults there are at least two close enough to be summoned if a need arises. They are two separate but related rules. 1. No one on one contact between adults and youth where a second adult or youth aren't present. 2. 2 Adults on every outing. Otherwise every vehicle transporting Scouts to camp would require two adults.

Sure is. How an organization rolls out changes.

Glad you are still with us. Hopefully your son will find some activity he finds fulfilling.

I think @bearess 's phrasing was a little odd, but I think the point they make is sound. Parents get weirded out by the idea of having a young male work with children, (like Cub Scout age children) vs teenagers- Boy Scout age. At least during my time in the public schools, I didn't start seeing male teachers until about 5th grade. I personally have no desire to work with cub age kids. I'm not great with that age group, because I haven't had kids yet. Teenagers I can relate to much better, and them to me. Even with teenagers, I had the opportunity to throw my hat in the ring for Scoutmaster of my Troop. One of my reasons that I declined, although not the primary reason, is I think it would hurt our recruiting efforts to have a 24-25 year old SM. Parents that don't know me would likely be a bit turned off by that. I still think the BSA National and the Council's need to provide better guidance on working with 18+ young adults. We have a lot to offer the program, but Venturing in most councils is a underutilized mess, and the transition from a youth member to an ASM can be hard especially if the troop adults don't know how to manage that.

I think I've posted this recently, but my most recent Scouters paycheck was after NYLT, the SPL of our course gave me a hug and told me (paraphrasing) "I'm glad you were here, You need to come back next year, and you'll make a great Scoutmaster someday." Pretty high praise from a Scout I've only known for 5 months or so. I do really like emails or letters as @Jameson76 said. Helps my terrible memory hold on to things.

Would make a fun topic if it hasn't been done before. "Scoutmaster's paycheck."

Not our experience with camps. I've seen some understaffed and underpreapared staffss, but the boating, swimming, fishing and shooting was all still part of the camp experience. Shop around. Vote with your troops feet and wallet. Some feedback for the Program Director may be a good idea if it's given in the spirit of improvement and taken as such.

The creator of that blog, was a young man about my age. I think he got busy with college and a bit separated from the Scouting Movement. He'll be back at some point I hope. It's pretty typical for folks to age out, and not come back till they have kids. The BSA doesn't do a very good job guiding troops on how to utilize young adults, 18-25, so most of us go on to do other things rather than hang around where we aren't utilized. My troop was somewhat of an exception, so here I am. We had such a shortage of ASM's nobody had a problem with the 19 year old Eagle Scout becoming an ASM.

I'm not an expert on anxiety issues, so I really can't understand what you're going through. You've given it a shot. There's plenty of people that never even step up to the plate to take a swing at it, so kudos to you. Possibly you might be able to serve on the pack's committee? Is there maybe a more experienced volunteer who can walk you through what to expect for events so that you can take on your anxiety? All I do know, is thank you for giving it a shot, and I hope you keep your son in Scouting for as long as he'd like to be, and support his journey in the program.

And then create a stink in the media when rules are applied based on those Catholic values.

That's totally valid. I can carry the few non-troop roles I play with my troop uniform, but I can see how that'd be different in your role.

I was regretting my one uniform shirt at NYLT last week. It was a hot sweaty week. Had to scrub the black sweat stains out of the collar with 409 before washing.