T2Eagle

The worst SPL my troop ever voted into office set the tone for better SPLs for years to come. The scout was a nice kid and very popular, but he was just a terrible planner and leader. Half way through his tenure (I found out later) there was serious discussion among the older scouts, including his friends, about whether they should hold a recall election. After his term the scouts took elections more seriously: qualifications, including attendance, how well someone had done in a previous position, and how well they performed in helping plan events at PLCs, were seriously debated and contested before each election. Personal popularity stopped being the main criteria. It was a rough couple months at first, but even before his tenure was over true leaders among the scouts were stepping up to make things better, and our troop has had a higher standard for scout leaders ever since. If you're concerned about scouts taking on leadership positions that they don't then fulfill, which is a legitimate concern, then make sure you have performance criteria, including attendance requirements, in place so that each scout understands what expectations they have to meet WHILE THEY'RE IN POSITION. In the particular case you have, what does "only 14 events" mean? Was he at every campout but not many meetings, did he miss a big chunk in a row because some particular sport or other extra curricular activity conflicted? Does he maybe have a plan for making events more interesting so that more scouts like him are motivated to attend? The bottom line is yes you would be wrong to interfere in the elections, but you would not be wrong to ensure that there are high standards for performing a position once a scout takes it on.

Here are the (partial) quotes from BSA. http://www.scouting.org/filestore/boyscouts/pdf/Troop_Leadership_Positions.pdf "All members of a troop vote by secret ballot to choose their senior patrol leader. Rank and age requirements to be a senior patrol leader are determined by each troop, as is the schedule of elections." "The senior patrol leader appoints the assistant senior patrol leader with the approval of the Scoutmaster. He serves in place of the senior patrol leader at meetings and events when the senior patrol leader must be absent." So for summer camp, or any other time, the troop elects an SPL, and he appoints his ASPL. If the SPL isn't attending camp then the ASPL takes over. On the one occasion I can think of where nether of the two were at camp the PLC decided who would be SPL. We consider everyone holding a leadership position to be part of the PLC. If I recall correctly they picked the person who was the Quatermaster, who did go on later to be elected as SPL in his own right. The key really is that this is a choice made by the boys, however they go about it.

I found a 2009 version online, it didn't shed any light on the subject. Someday someone will explain to me why BSA makes documents harder than they need to be to get, either through cost or lack of convenience, but that day hasn't arrived yet.

I've never had an issue, and so haven't seen a need to provide guidelines, but one dead dog letter would probably have me add that advice to put his name on everything including underwear. Today, I figure most kids are, for better or worse, in some level of electronic communication with home. I have reached the conclusion that there is no one size fits all solution to handling homesickness and more serious separation anxiety problems. For some scouts more contact is better for some its worse. I try to get to know both parent and scout before camp and talk frankly, especially with the parents, about how they think their son will best be helped to have a good week. But no dead dog letters, and your other points, do seem like pretty universal good advice.

What gaps were there/are there that would have helped? Have they been filled since then? It is a flaw in our system that we don't publish after-action reports that show where and how something went wrong so that we're aware, and can avoid, mistakes others have made.

Also, if any of the moderators could fix my typo in the title I would appreciate it. Thanks,

We have a water sports weekend coming up, and one question we have is whether one of our scouts can drive the boat while another scout is skiing. It looks to me like he can. He is 16, has a boating license from the state where we're boating, is a competent and experienced driver and will have a qualified adult in the boat with him. Safety Afloat seems to say this is OK, but never specifically addresses a scout driving while another scout skies. Anyone know a definitive, sourced answer?

I knew as a kid it wasn't true but it was enforced anyway, at least as long as we were pre-teens. I always figured it was a way for adults to ensure themselves time after a meal to relax and socialize around the table before they had to act as lifeguards. I'm dubious of it as a Boy Scout founded myth, that's just an easy data point for someone to find

It used to be in the GTSA, then it moved to the Tour and Activity Plan. Not sure where it is now. The essence of it is that if you are trying to stay in one position in relation to one or several other vehicles you will drive in a way that is not that expected or predicted by other drivers, and that is the surest way to end up in or causing an accident.

http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/CubScout_Insignia.pdf Here is the official insignia page. I would have the bear overlap the pocket, and I would sew right through the pocket and give up any pretense that he's ever going to actually put anything in that pocket.

Good videos. I agree with Schiff that price is an important fact to be included and that the two burner griddle, or at least two pans side by side would serve a better purpose than illustrating things with single pots of water. You can include boiling time as a fact rather than showing it.

That's what I'm coming up with also. On the summer solstice (when I'll be at camp) the sun rises at its furthest northeastern point and sets at its furthest northwestern point. It travels in an arc that is then south of directly overhead. So I think east-west is the best orientation. https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://solar.physics.montana.edu/ypop/Classroom/Lessons/Sundials/Images/SummerSol.gif&imgrefurl=http://solar.physics.montana.edu/ypop/Classroom/Lessons/Sundials/summer.html&h=233&w=470&tbnid=UCBoF6d5XLDC_M:&tbnh=104&tbnw=210&usg=__LhM3jKmQViBL6awpatyjPT7xT7A=&vet=10ahUKEwj29P-JrcPUAhUBVz4KHUtZCusQ9QEILDAA..i&docid=W0_3-LCfcXhsUM&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj29P-JrcPUAhUBVz4KHUtZCusQ9QEILDAA#h=233&imgdii=JUhycdIzOvW-_M:&tbnh=104&tbnw=210&vet=10ahUKEwj29P-JrcPUAhUBVz4KHUtZCusQ9QEILDAA..i&w=470

I should have clarified: big lunky summer camp and Jamboree dining flies, roughly 10x16 or maybe 10x18.

So I've puzzled about this for years, and I don't think I have the information necessary to arrive at the right answer. When setting up a dining fly to provide shade this time of year, would you set it north-south or east-west? As a second consideration, if you have two rectangular flies (flys?) would you run them perpendicular, parallel, or serially?

"agencies across the nation brace for a particularly high-population tick season" I can attest to this, in Northern Michigan last week I hit double digits ticks on me --- and I was wearing long pants.

Obama never threatened to not sign certificates. Here's the Snopes report on that. There are plenty of other similar debunking references. Production of new Eagle Scout certificates bearing President Obama’s signature (in addition to the signatures of the National President of the Boy Scouts of America, the BSA’s National Commissioner, and the Chief Scout Executive) got underway in late 2009 for distribution to Scouts who obtained Eagle rank in Spring 2010. As many Eagle Scout award recipients (and their families) have noted, some Scouts received unsigned certificates if they earned their award in the interregnum between the depletion of the President Bush-signed certificates and the initial issuance of the President Obama-signed certificates: Best guess would be the same lag between change of administrations is going on here. Does anyone know whether it was possible to go back and get a fully signed certificate.

I can't view the videos on this computer --- I will later, but I can make some initial comments. One thing I think you should be very cognizant of is making sure that any tip or trick you give follows every BSA guideline, like those found in YPT, the Guide to Safe Scouting, and the Guide to Advancement. Equally important is that you be sure not to perpetuate any urban legends, myths, etc. that may be floating around your own unit, council, or district. The reason it's important that you be so careful and cognizant is that materials like yours tend to become the reference that other folks use rather than original source material. In just the examples you give, for instance, if your emails are truly only between leaders and parents than there are no YPT considerations, but as soon as you or anyone includes a scout than there are YPT guidelines that should be considered. As a second example, there is a very recent thread on here about someone asking if it's OK to counsel their own son for a merit badge; the information she had received from another, supposedly knowledgeable, fellow volunteer scouter, was either incorrect on its face, or at least incomplete. Remember Schiff refers to scout accounts as being a frequently discussed topic here, that's an understatement, but it is probably worth taking into account that there is a wide variety of opinion as to whether scout accounts are appropriate, or even legal, and the guidance from BSA is at best muddled. You can do with that what you want, but I would hope that you would at least make mention of the question when you are designing a program that someone else may look to as "expert" advice. Good luck,

Here's the rule from the GTA. 701.4 "The National Council does not place a limit on the number of merit badges a youth may earn from one counselor. However, in situations where a Scout is earning a large number of badges from just one counselor, the unit leader is permitted to place a limit on the number of merit badges that may be earned from one counselor, as long as the same limit applies to all Scouts in the unit. Approved counselors may work with and pass any member, including their own son, ward, or relative. Nevertheless, we often teach young people the importance of broadening horizons. Scouts meeting with counselors beyond their families and beyond even their own units are doing that. They will benefit from the perspectives of many “teachers†and will learn more as a result. They should be encouraged to reach out." In our unit we encourage scouts to seek out counselors that aren't their parents, and discourage parents from being counselors for their sons. The exception is the situation you describe, where a group of scouts want to work on a merit badge and the counselor's son just happens to be one of the scouts in that group. In that case why view it any differently than a SM with a scout in the troop.

I am as disinterested in the Eagle or Scouting brand as it is possible to be. It is not one of my goals to strengthen any brand, nor is it one of my goals to weaken it. I don't care what impression people have about what it means to be an Eagle Scout. I also don't care whether any, all, or none of my scouts do or do not make Eagle, and I am vocal about that at every opportunity I can be, with parents, and more importantly one on one with scouts. If you join our troop and come camping with us you will have all the opportunity you need to advance, if that's what you want to do. You are just as welcome to come camping with us and not advance. I believe any time a kid is camping with us he is spending his time better than almost any alternative choice he has. My goal is to use our program to help each kid that joins to be a significantly better citizen, family member, and part of society than he would have been absent my efforts. The brand I care about is that individual.

One of the things I think we're missing in our analysis is the sheer size of the marketplace we're now competing in. Youth today have a much wider array of choices of ways to entertain and occupy their time, and as a society we are dedicating a tremendously larger share of our resources: time, money, attention, etc. to those activities. When i was kid there were the big three sports with one defined, non overlapping season each, and anything else was a small niche that had very few participants. Today, those big three sports have an ever increasing time --- and money --- requirement than they did before. And there are probably a dozen other sports or activities that are now also readily available, that also require, or more accurately allow, that same level of time, energy, and financial commitment. And there really isn't anything bad about any of them. Wherever on the scale of virtue you want to rate being on the soccer, band, or robotics team, you can't really argue that any of them have any vice to their participation. When I became an Eagle Scout in 1976 the top TV show was Happy Days, 31.5 % of everyone watching TV watched the show. Thirty years later, in 2006, the top rated show in the country was American Idol with 17.8% of viewers, and last year, 2016, NCIS was number one but only 12.8% of folks watching TV were watching. I've never seen either of the latter two shows, and I watch more TV than is good for me. It's 2016, kids have 500 channels/activities they can do, and they are all a lot of fun for the kids participating in them. We are never going to have the participation levels we had in the past, and the number of youth in scouting will probably continue to drop so long as the number of alternatives can be expected to grow. We need to continue to care about the number of kids we serve, but we also need to understand what those numbers really tell us about the relative success of our program. We also need to remember, and proselytize to others, what makes us unique. A football team that cuts players because they aren't good enough, or let's them put on a jersey but never spend meaningful time in a game because it would imperil the chances of winning, can not credibly claim to be concerned about building future citizens from either the cut or the bench-warming player. But our program cares about, and works at building citizens out of, both the Asperger's kids and the star athletes that I just spent three days canoeing, climbing and camping with.

Before you relax, you, or your son, should probably have a discussion with someone in the troop about this. As NJ mentioned, Eagle Boards can sometimes be full of people who have a very narrow and specific idea about how boards should be run, and that may not be in conformity with what the guidelines indicate. If this is going to pose a headache for your son it would be better to find out and lay the groundwork for dealing with it now rather than a year or two from now when your son may be pushing up against his 18th birthday.

The problem with Boy Scouts is that we let people run it who aren't BOYS. Stand for the whole BOR is a new one on me. If you asked me what the ideal setting for a BOR was I would say some folks sitting around a campfire having a good discussion with a boy about his scouting experience. My troop rarely achieves that, but it seems the further away from that we are the less well we're doing it.

I agree with the spirit of Skeptic's post that knee jerk reactions are unwise. But I'm beginning to think that the reaction for this particular product is warranted. Last night a parent showed me the packing list for Jamboree, it specifically indicated each camper should pack Zanfel, the mother was asking me if I knew what that was, and because of this thread I did have some idea. Note the packing list didn't say pack a poison ivy scrub, it specified this one. This morning I went looking for more information about it. I cannot find any scientific basis to the claim that this scrub works any better than other scrubs or soap and water, but I did find reason to be skeptical of the claim. From Wikipedia: "Many home remedies and commercial products (e.g., Tecnu, Zanfel) also claim to prevent urushiol rashes after exposure. A study that compared Tecnu ($1.25/oz.) with Goop Hand Cleaner or Dial Ultra Dishwashing Soap ($0.07/oz.) found that differences among the three—in the range of 56–70% improvement over no treatment—were nonsignificant (P > 0.05), but that improvement over no treatment was significant at the same level of confidence.[17] And here's the kicker, this stuff costs $30 for a 1 ounce bottle. And someone else could maybe help me out here, can anyone think of a significant chance of encountering poison ivy at the summit? I'm sure it's there, but the trails were wide and well beaten, you'd have to go looking for that trouble to find it.

Just remembered, the best advice for summer camp is to make sure he understands that it is CRITICAL that he put on clean socks and clean underwear every day.