T2Eagle

It's not your scouts, it's not the UK, and it's not just kids. Humans are social animals, much of our behavior is determined by the dynamics and perceived structures of the group we're in at the time --- how we see ourselves in it, how we see others and their status or position in the group, and how those others see themselves and us. Kids generally are in groups where there is a defined or assumed authority based on age, and they behave accordingly. In groups where the norm is to have some hierarchical structure it is more challenging than in a pure peer group to speak up and try to o

I’ve been doing recharter now for 15 years, so I’m used to the inefficient, illogical, and kludgy systems that constitute BSA IT. But the new and different ways that the systems manage to be inefficient, illogical, and kludgy will never cease to amaze me. As part of recharter this year I needed to register two adults who are currently MCs with the pack as MCs in the troop, I needed to register one new scout, and I needed to clean up the registration of one scout who crossed over earlier this year but for a variety of reasons never got registered in the troop. Our unit opts in to online

That sounds cool and old school until you've got a troop full of kids with it coming out both ends because someone served or prepared food with dirty hands. I've been there, and do not want to return.

You want their hands clean before they eat. So have an adult stand at the line right before they receive their food, and squirt a BIG dollop of hand sanitizer froma big bottle onto each kids hand as they approach the serving area. Also, take a moment just before you start to have an adult demonstrate how they should use the sanitizer --- all over fronts and backs, in between fingers, etc. It should take about 20-30 seconds for them to do thoroughly before it dries.

According to Linkedin the average salary for a DE is $40,000. At 55 hours a week that's under $14 an hour, which is a tad more than my kid gets at Best Buy part time.

I have long thought that any organization where virtually everyone in it has been in that organization and that organization alone since they were in their twenties is going to be weaker as a result. Every organization needs folks who have seen other challenges and other solutions, been exposed to different ideas, had to design and implement different organizational schema.. The BSA model's for selection of leaders is stuck in the seventies. There's probably no organization of comparable size that uses this model.

Your CC has a gavel? Man, I need to talk to my committee.

Pick a small number of people who either know or will learn quickly what will work best. If you really feel like the committee needs to vote make it an up or down vote on the proposed tents. After a lot of research and some missteps our troop has gone to ALPS Mountaineering 5 Person Outfitter tents. Three scouts and gear comfortably for weekends. One of the reasons we went with them was when were still researching and experimenting I had purchased a four man version, and after a wild thunderstorm mine was the only tent standing and dry . The less fortunates included a couple Timberlin

There are very good reasons for Statutes of Limitations. Some of them were previously too short regarding this issue. It's a close call to me whether a "window" law like NJ's is a good or bad idea. But, and I say this as a Catholic serving a Catholic unit, what's really going on here is all of us paying for the sins of the Church. For decades, and as near as we can tell universally throughout the Church, the leaders of the Church actively protected members of the clergy who they knew had raped and abused children. This isn't some modern view retroactively applied to past acts. Thes

There's nowhere on an Eagle Scout application for the MBC names, how do they check? And if the council's official records which are in scoutnet show the merit badge what argument would they have to change it?

Lazarus is located in the heart of the Columbus suburbs, and one of those camps where the area around it has become completely developed. If they have 60 acres that they really don't use it's likely they could get a very good price for that property, and stabilize the finances for Lazarus for the future. Our council did this with a very similar piece of one of our camps, and the endowment set up from the proceeds of that sale was a big part of what allowed us to opt out of the Michigan Mess. I've never been to CLR, but 1100 scouts at summer camp seems like a low number considering h

I doubt they can know the 2021 numbers yet. The big unknown is how many LDS scouts and scouters will stick around. It probably won't be a lot, but it doesn't have to be a really high percentage to make a significant difference. Does anyone know if councils are making any concerted effort to get those folks to rejoin? Of all the recruiting that could be done they would seem to be the most fruitful group to target.

I would be surprised if the percentage of 11 year olds who have EVER cut raw chicken at home exceeded the mid teens; I would not assume at all that they have any knowledge of how to handle raw chicken or any other fresh meat. Most of our younger scouts have never cooked anything more challenging than pancakes.

You can't sue the same defendant for the same tort covering the same facts in two courts. Or I suppose you could but the defendant would be able to have the suits consolidated. If you could, people would have been doing that all along suing in both their home state and Texas. So, no, you couldn't sue the BSA in both PA and NJ for instance. You could sue the local Council in PA and also sue the national BSA in NJ, but you would be doubling your costs of litigation without changing what you could recover so there's no incentive to do that. If you can bring suit in your home state because th

We do cold weather layering training by having one scout put on very oversized clothing in the wrong order and then have the other scouts have to tell him to transfer the clothing in proper order: (wicking, insulating, shell) to another scout. I use the most outlandish but still appropriate clothing I can find (I have a pair of neon purple ski pants from the 80s that I keep just for this purpose). Remember to include gloves/mittens and glove liners, hats and hoods, and insulated boots to show that the same layering technique works for every part of your clothing.. We use the same tra

I would say it's zero tolerance of being unkind. One way we've helped scouts think about it is to say you don't have to be friends with everybody, but you do have to be friendly or nice to everybody. I'm not sure I agree that there is a line between innocent unintentional actions and real hurt. Rather it is a continuum. We want to prevent bullying, but as a component of that we want to stop other hurtful behavior. The lack of intent doesn't mean something didn't hurt. In the case you cite, it is possible for singing happy birthday to be embarrassing to someone because they don't want

Building a long term explicit culture of zero tolerance, practiced by everyone adult and scout alike, is the best preventative.

I think the worry is justified. One of the differences between now and a decade or two ago is that we better understand both the severity and longitudinal harm that bullying causes. It didn't happen to everyone, but we understand now how deeply affected were the folks it did happen to; that's the reason to take it seriously. Social media and electronic communications are force multipliers and accelerants that can make the bullying experience take off faster and be even more devastating, and so they add a level of both danger and complexity to a preexisting problem. It is possible

I'm on my HOA board. We pretty carefully plan the "public" meeting to avoid debate. I would point to the Cit in the Community list and tell the scout to convince me if they want to deviate from that list for Communications.

A couple years ago I had a conversation with one of our senior pros about a related issue. Our diocese requires that we get a new background check every five years. I asked if scouts ever reran background checks and he said no. I've been registered as a scout for just about two decades, I've had a number of positions within our pack and Troop. I forgot to ask whether they do a new check each time I've filled out an app for a new position, but I know there are scouters in our unit who haven't changed positions and filled out new applications for 20 years at least. We have no idea for sure

Uggh!

This is the key. This is a scout led function not an adult led function. There are as many variations on how to do it as there are scouts. There are plenty of scripts available to be found online to get ideas from. Most commonly for our troop a scout who is working on Communications Mb will do the heavy lifting in order to fulfill requirement 8). "Plan a troop or crew court of honor, ... Have the patrol leaders’ council approve it, then write the script and prepare the program. Serve as master of ceremonies." For refreshments we sometimes but not always have something simple l

Hmm. I would put the pocketknife, or more accurately a multitool, back in the pack; if you don't need it yourself it can be good for doing a good turn for someone else. I would also put back a small flashlight, they're almost no weight and can be handy for finding things and other uses not just walking in the dark. The rain jacket is a close call, it rained here the other day when there was only a 15% chance of rain forecast, on the other hand, in Austin in September getting wet would be a bit annoying, but there's no chance of hypothermia or anything like that so the cost of not having one

In our troop, one member of the patrol acts as "grubmaster" and picks up the food for the menu the patrol decided upon. Usually this person is working on either rank or Mb requirements, if no one in the patrol is then it's just a volunteer. We reimburse the costs from the fee for the campout. We don't have a specific budget for the weekend, but it averages out across the year. We used to have the scouts get reimbursement direct from their fellow scouts, but it was very uneven in its success rate so we switched to the current system.

The answer to your question is kick this up to your Chartering Organization. Concerning the rest of the discussion, FGM is illegal in Michigan (and 34 other states). The law making it illegal passed prior to the Federal case being thrown out. It was never clear to me why the feds rather than the state brought the prosecution, but it's possible most or even all the conduct occurred before MI's law went into effect. So, you have someone credibly accused of having committed a crime. This is not sufficient to convict someone in a court of law, but it's generally sufficient for other