Tampa Turtle

I think we have a winner.

I am using it on PC; it is OK...no biggie.

I cannot, in good conscientious, blame the Woodbadgers alone. My Methodist Church does the same thing, my kid does it if he is pitching a new purchase to his Mom, power point like presentations are everywhere. I would give a boy extra points if he used sock puppets at this point.

First Tiger Cub sock lost at campout. First time 'invisible bench' skit was presented at a campfire. First un-staked tent in a lake. First time 'Scout-Juice' smuggled on a campout. First claim of 'Beaver Shark' sighting.

"We have met the enemy and they is us". I am as guilty as anyone else and while trying to be helpful short-circuited what was occurring organically.

Boy Scout Troops, Patrols etc are fascinating laboratories in human organization; I think I learned more in hands-on scouts than most of the very expensive training my employers paid for.

Smart split from the original thread Moderator. I digress too much in face to face conversation as well.

I agree that the problem(s) seem both logistical and cultural. I concur that this fat little Turtle should not go on some hikes with fast mover teenagers; in fact I may be a liability no matter what my desire may be. So I often hike with the Newbies...I can still beat an 11 year old LOL. Eagle 94-A1 we have done similar things as well, sometimes we had two crews, a senior and junior, moving in opposite directions and crossing near the mid-point. Anyway...

Oh good lord please do not reference Management training. BLEECH! You just ask some questions to your self, fellow scouters, or other scouts: Start with do they appear to be progressing in the scout law? Are the boys having fun? Are they passive or engaged? Are they jumping up and doing things themselves or are they waiting on direction? Do scouts start things on their own or are they waiting on adult prompting? Do they laugh at meetings? Do they seem glad to see each other? How is attendance? If they have time conflicts do they tell anybody or propose work

We did do that, every year. I KNOW all that! Weekly training backpacking hikes (lots of stairs because it is flat here) and you had to do 2 out of 3 field hike with the equipment you were taking. This was the rules that the boys made and we had used for a while. But we had some Mom's, who had lots of day hike experience but not backpacking, work their way into the AT trip at the last minute and they were not just not ready. The Boys are not going to tell an adult they cannot go. The SM should have been willing to be the bad guy but caved to keep the peace. On the AT the newbies could not just

Wisconsin, the problem is that the Troop cannot support two different hikes logistically up to the AT each summer. (we have had two crews a hard/easy before but it has proved harder in recent years to pull it off) The newer/weaker hikers want to scab on to the more ambitious program because they just do not have the skills/confidence to do it themselves but instead of planning to work up to it lobby to water down the entire hike to the point that the hard core hikers loose interest. The SM should set up boundaries but is adverse to causing bad parental karma and in a way the proble

Qwaze, I agree with your points and we used to do all that. I did that, I had to work hard 6 years ago to train and earn my stripes. At some point, and well before BSA started talking about 'Family Camping' we slipped up and started letting almost any parents join in some of the activities. While I think the intent was well meaning more than one carefully planned adventure was ended early when a participant-often a parent-was not up to the challenge. It has been smelling like Webelos 3 for a while. The SM talks a good Boy Led game but what I keep seeing is that the key Boy Leaders

At the Troop meeting last night it was interesting to observe some of the reactions from the decision seeping into the Troop. A number of the Mom's of the younger to middle scouts were saying they thought it was great that females would be more welcome in the program. (OK so far). At that point there was a leap that Mom's could now be more welcome at the campouts as visitors. Three of them said that they wanted to go on the annual AT hike with their 11 to 13 year old sons and lobbied the Committee Chair that since the boys were young and the moms were fairly new hikers could they plan an easie

I thought some of the comments on the video like the one "what can I do this year to integrate girls to my troop" was exactly what some folks were concerned about. Those folks will be lauded by National for rolling things out ahead of time and if some girls get credits for camping outside of BSA they will look the other way if it produces a feel good story.

In my limited Scouter career this has been mentioned to me at least four times by single mothers of boys as a primary reason they put their son in scouts.

All good threads come to an end of their natural life usually marked by some incoherent comment by me--perhaps I am one of the four horseman of the thread-pocalypse. I would wager 'teletubbies' a fellow rider.

Sorry for muddying the waters...back to the regular program.

No kidding but it always gets volunteered AFTER they are already there and the tent is up. I do not miss the "tent ghettos" of our Pack of 150 family campouts. There were always a few couples who 'performed for the crowd' behind thin tent walls. Awkward.

We try to bring them just in case though no one has ever looked at them, ever. The book on the other hand has been browsed at a couple time.

My real world experience in Cub Scouts is Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts, "Friends with Benefits" (even had a former scouter neighbor) show up on family campouts not always the classic nuclear family implied in a term like 'Family Camping'. It gets messy.

(My OA Lodge already has a number of women and it is not that big a deal.) I just don't want OA to create a mess that will strain the love-hate relationship between OA and BSA National.

I think if they leave this at the Lodge level there will be uneven and possibly discriminatory behavior that will blow back toward OA...I hope for a uniform and fair set of guidelines from National. If asked I would be opposed to any 'camping credit' towards a candidate who camped outside a BSA organization.

Perhaps the issue is a lot of us are very sensitive to what National is saying and National is not very precise in it their terms. But, regardless of what National is TRYING to say, in our Troop I have observed two conclusions (and frankly I do not want to talk about it there because I get my fill here): 1- The adults for the most part think Boy Scout Troops will have boys and girls in it either has boy and girl patrols or mixed gender patrols. They think this is two years away. This has been reinforced by Media coverage and GSUSA comments. 2- The boys, who are mixed on the girl i

Then we get into the additional issues and expense of fencing off limited access areas...it can be a mess.

We found we needed to ease them into it, leaders included.