TNScoutTroop

My Scout son is doing really well rising to the challenge of being an SPL of a new troop, with 2/3 of the Scouts NOT native English speakers. But, he & I have an ongoing if good natured dispute over whether I'm excessively enthusiastic about Scouting. This note -- which he read first -- was attached to his gift to me this morning: "'A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.' This present is a testimony to my personal Scout spirit. I have showed my trustworthiness by not getting this gift

"Scouting changed and Wood Badge changed with it" There are plausible arguments for the position that the modified Wood Badge was a stealth hijacking of Scouting, and was used to change Scouting. The evidence that the no-woods Wood Badge *reflected* change already present in Scouting seems pretty thin. The evidence that those pushing the White Stag quasi-religion (adopted in the early 'leadership' Wood Badge) intended to use it to produce NEW change in Scouting seems substantial. It's worth noting that when an ORGANIZATION changes as a whole, and publicly, they often name the 'new' p

Scoutbox wrote, "The older courses were labor intensive (patrol cooking) and outdoor intensive - so we were essentially eliminating those who were less outdoor prone from participating, and we were taking too much time in teaching outdoor skills rather than leadership skills. Both are needed, but there are other venues for the outdoor piece." Yep, that's precisely the attitude we've found here in our Council -- outdoor skills can be taught in "some other venue". Unfortunately, that venue is IOLS, where those skills are taught by the WB'rs who are "less outdoor prone" . . . but well tra

Does anyone else, besides us, see this article, and these type of incidents, as an argument for re-focusing WoodBadge on actual outdoor leadership skills, rather than on corporate training? TN Scout Troop

Speaking personally, I try not to trust the news much . . . except for the aforementioned "what, when, where". Without exception, every nationally reported event of which I've had personal knowledge was significantly distorted, even before political bias was added in. Likewise, I've never seen dependably accurate and useful analysis of current cultural issues where I have expertise and personal knowledge. Here, the problem has been that the writers simply did not have enough expertise in the realm they were covering to do any valid analysis. Particularly, it appears that there are

Sort of like a constitutional amendment requiring all new laws & regulations apply to legislators for 12 months before they apply to anyone else? Works for us!

Moosetracker, a THREE hour test that sampled Scout skills (which is what tests typically do) rather than requiring testing of each and every skill would be way above 100% more than what's required of IOLS . . . INFINITELY more, since there is no testing at IOLS. If you can convince National to introduce "WoodBadge 1900 - the REAL version", staff it with instructors genuinely competent in Scoutcraft, and offer it to our leaders at an affordable price . . . we'll plan to attend AND pass your test. But, right now, what we want is something that's a step up from "IOLS - the butt-chair ve

Moosetracker, it's our understanding Wood Badge (the week of Scoutcraft training) was replaced by Wood Badge (the weekends of corporate management training) . . . not IOLS. As we understand it, the old Wood Badge DID take Scouter to the point of POSSESSING First Class skills, but we're not aware of any other class that has done so. You seem to be coming up with a test that would be valid after a week long Scoutcraft Wood Badge. IOLS (in our Council) is a "butt credit" course (if your butt's in the chair at the right place and time, you get credit) taught by people who often don't have the

"My only requirement will be that to be a tester, they have completed the IOLS test themselves." Entirely reasonable. But, the problem is that in our Council at least, not one of the 20 - 25 Scouters we know well enough to judge could themselves pass the IOLS test. No doubt there are some Scouters in the Council who could. Several rural troops who keep to themselves apparently have high skills, which suggests that their leaders do, too. But, among the highly visible active leaders, none could pass. Oops. Backing up -- there's a retired Marine who's started a new backpacking onl

Moosetracker, it's not clear what your Council is like. But, the testing requirements you suggest are a HUGE step up from what's required (or demonstrated) at IOLS here. In our Council at least, there would be several problems. 1) Who could test that way? Given that our Council cannot assemble a team of of Wood Badgers who can do things like sharpen a knife correctly or use a compass competently . . . where could they find competent skill judges? One of us has already had a son turned down for advancement by one of these instructors because he "incorrectly identified 'boxwood' as the in

"Teach the Scouts to look at all the spiders in the leaves and pinestraw, by seeing their eyes reflecting light. I have found using a headlight works well." Cool. We'll have to try that. We've already scheduled a hike with a local amateur herpetologist for this spring to look for snakes. But, looking for spiders systematically is a new idea!

Clear evidence of National's clear vision and competent follow-through. . . TN Scout Troop

We're looking at doing at least one of the Hiking MB 10-milers at night . . . partly because it's cool, and partly to generate 'bragging rights' for our new Scouts and partly to develop a practical awareness of what it takes to move around at night. Had anyone else done this? Some of us have hiked 5+ miles at night with no lights, but none of us have done it with boys before. TN Scout Troop

Zero clue how this happened -- was posting in the "trainers" thread.

"At the risk of being labeled a heretic... If I was in Mazzuca's place, and I was serious about these training requirements, I'd order all Wood Badge courses suspended until no units failed recharter because of a lack of training." Hear! hear! . . . and perhaps . . . "until no unit failed to offer EFFECTIVE IOLS courses, staffed by trainers SKILLED in Scoutcraft"! Tn Scout Troop (In our opinion, Scouting needs Wood badge just about exactly as much as it needs a MB in video games.)

@shortridge "How do you know what the quality of the IOLS training is if you don't go?" We know, because we DID go to what we were later told was the best IOLS in years. And, because we went to the "best", we're not going to send our new leaders. TN Scout Troop

Thanks, Eagle92. We're definitely keeping these links (with backup copies!) tucked away to pull out in the new future. Council just had our annual IOLS this past weekend, but I haven't had a chance to hear how it went. ASM162, you may consider it a disservice to those who worked on preparing IOLS; we can sort of sympathize. They did, and have, worked quite hard. Some of them have even worked skillfully. But, our obligation is first of all to OUR boys, and OUR new leaders. If our local IOLS actually fielded trainers who genuinely possessed -- and could teach -- Scoutcraft skills,

"Our troop is what I consider small with 16 scouts. We would like to see it grow to about twice that number which B-P considered to be a good working size for a troop." Actually, what B-P said was that 16 was as many as he himself could effectively handle, but that other people could probably do better, but that even so, 32 was the MAXIMUM. (not the ideal!) TN Scout Troop

We're aware that starting a troop with a close relationship with its CO, as we've done, is controversial here. However, none of us have had to work closely with our DE before. Doing so has been enlightening. We've seen the comments that suggested DE's were number driven, but we had no experience with that. Well, we do now. It has become crystal clear that our DE lives or dies by the numbers. Our impression is that this something they didn't choose. But regardless of where it came from, it's what drives them. And, it's what drives their relationship with us. Currently,

"So I really wonder about the claim that if gays and atheists were allowed, tens of thousands of church COs would drop their troops and packs and crews immediately." That's a local question, with local answers. Pollsters could probably find a broad answer, of course. However, in the years prior to deciding we needed to roll our own, so to speak, we collectively encountered a number of troops, with a number of CO's, mostly churches. NONE of the CO's were actively involved with the troops. The 8 troops we can think of quickly include 1 Kiwanis, 2 UMC, 1 PCA, 1 Church of God, 1 Roman Ca

There seems to be a common theme in the thinking of many posters here, that Scouting would be better off and more successful, if the influence of religious organizations was eliminated. But we see a rather striking irony here: there already IS a large American Scouting organization that has done precisely that. Nothing's certain till it's tried, but it would certainly seem probable that this alternative US Scouting organization would be willing to embrace an influx of ex-Boy Scouts with open arms. . . . and yet most of the same posters here seem not to like that Scouting organization ver

This thread probably does belong elsewhere. But having just read the original AP article here: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2010/1021/Boy-Scouts-group-removes-Mormons-from-leadership-roles-over-religious-beliefs it's hard to miss several striking ironies. Contrary to several posters in this thread, the LDS church has been involved in the BSA from the very beginning. It is simply ignorance to refer to the LDS church as 'corrupting' the BSA -- they were there, shaping it's development from the very beginning. But, they've always been exclusive -- in the ways

Mr_Boyce wrote . . . ". . wow, it's really amazing to be that a divinity school AND an ostensibly Christian denomination would deny the divinity of Christ!" Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not, so we'll take what you wrote at face value. It's actually very common for accepted and approved students and professors in denominational divinity schools to deny most of the articles of faith found in the Christian ecumenical creeds. It is common to doubt or even deny doctrines such as the Incarnation or the Resurrection. Of course, this denial is often couched in terms like "I inter

You wrote, "a member of the Presbyterian Church of America which separated from PCUSA in opposition to what PCA viewed as liberalization of PCUSA (read - support of civil rights)". It is likely some individual congregations like yours separated from the PCUS for racist reasons. Racism may have become a motivation for leaving the PCUS in later years (or the PCUSA even later). But in the years just before and just after the formation of the PCA race simply was not part of the discussion. During that period the "liberalism" being discussed never had a racial component: it was ALWAYS the

Packsaddle's statement about the PCA's division from the PCUS (the PCUSA came some years later) deserves to be corrected, or at least countered. His remarks, suggesting that the formation of the PCA was racist, no doubt accurately reports explanations given after the fact within the PCUSA. His explanations suffer from an ignorance of the actual motivations driving the principal organizers within "Concerned Presbyterians" and the "PEF", the parent organizations that formed the PCA. However, even more obviously, they reflect a basic misunderstanding of the historical and social milieu in wh