Twocubdad

Hmmmmm.... When I would do recruitment talks at school roundups, one of my main points with the parents was that Cub Scouts was a program which gave them the opportunity for meaningful interaction with their sons. One of the first requirements is to sit down with your boy and go over the child abuse awarness phamplet. This can be a difficult conversation and not all parents know what they need to cover. Cub Scouting not only lays out safety program for you and your son, but gives you a reason to sit down and have that conversation with him. The same is true for all sorts of stuff like home safety, phone manners, first aid, faith, nutrition. Not only does Cub Scouting provide parents all the nuts and bolts for these activities, but presents the material in a way that is fun for the kids. "Fun With a Purpose." It seems like a usually got a good response to that pitch. But it now seems all along parents were just looking to unload the little toad for an hour a week. I suppose I'll have to change my sales pitch. (Thanks to Eamonn for the "little toad" tag. I'll use that again.) Retention is great. We can't instill Cub Scout values into boys unless the boys are in Scouts. But isn't family involvement one of the values of Cub Scouting? Are we just throwing in the towel on parent involvement? One of you guys who has trained on the new program help me see the light here. If I want to understand this, which of the online training modules explains this best. (I won't sit through DL Basic again, but I'll invest an hour on the computer.)

Most conferences for Eagle are pretty much a victory lap. Another day and time I might have brought a couple cigars to the meeting. :-) Usually we just chat for a while. I'll tell the young man what to expect and how to prepare for his board of review. Under the guise of prepping for his BOR, I may ask what he's learned from Scouting, what it means to be an Eagle Scout, how he will apply the Scout Oath and Law to his life, etc., etc. I say "usually" because the last Eagle SMC I did was not like that. The kid came right down to the wire and did a thoroughly marginal job meeting the requirements. Lots of problems with both his project and POR, but there's no need to go into details here. That conference had a fairly stern tone. We spent much more time talking about the problems he had encountered and how he could have done things differently. No victory cigar -- more of a "I-finished-the-race-but-in-last-place" discussion.

A couple years ago we had one of our older scouts do the research for us on this and came back with a recommendation of Eureka Apex tents. I think his biggest reason was they were recommended and used by several other troops in the area. Our local ourdoors shop owner (a former Scoutmaster himself) recommended them for troop use as well. The committee made one change which was to upgrade to the Eureka Pinnacle tents. Pinnacles are the same tents as the Apex except they have aluminum poles and a heavier floor fabric. I think it was about a $20 per tent upgrade, but the committee felt the added durability was worth the extra cost. We bought a mix of 2- and 3-man tents. Each patrol has one 3-man tent to accommodate an odd number of Scouts or the bigger tent goes to the PL as a perq of the job. In hindsight, I would have liked to have all 3-man tents. When they tell you a tent sleeps two, that mean two very good friends sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder with your gear outside. The Apex/Pinnacles have nice-sized gear vestibules on both sides of the tent, but I still like a little more room. Beyond the purchase, the best thing we did with the new tents was to buy enough as if we have 100% attendance, number each tent and permanently assign tents to patrols. Previously, we only had enough tents for the number of guys who attended an average campout. Consequently, they were all kept in one pile and guys just grabbed one. There was no accountability with that. If you had a problem with a tent, you just dumped it back on the shelf and hoped you wouldn't get the same tent next month. With the new system patrols have the same tent every time. Fix your problems or deal with it next month. Now, when kids come whinning about missing poles or pegs, I just shake my head and tell them, "they're your tents. You're responsible for taking care of them." Twice a year, a PL election time, the troop QM does an inventory and inspection of all the gear and the patrol members are responsible for paying for loss or damages.

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting the boys should handle the descipline with the two problem kids. Subject to what I wrote before, they need to take their concerns to the SM and committee and let them handle it.

Sounds like everyone is happy with the situation except you. What does the crew do? Shooting sports?

There ARE stupid questions -- the ones for which you could learn the answer for yourself with a little effort and thought.

First of all, yes you CAN be removed from a troop for eating someone's chips. (See "last straw" theory.) The thing you have going for you is that this seems to be a ground swell from he boys. I would encourage that. But I also remember from some of your other posts that the adults clearly run the troop. It makes me wonder how receptive the leadership will be to the Scouts' input. You need to have a real heart-to-heart with the Scouts. It this how they want to handle the situation? What have they learned in Scouting which applies? What are the pertinent parts of the Oath and Law? Have they been Friendly and Kind in their dealings with the tw knuckleheads? Or maybe they need to be thinking about the younger boys in the troop and how they are affected by the behavior of those two. It needs to be an honest conversation. Maybe they decide to try a different tack with the two guys. Maybe the decide they still need to go. If they decide to proceed, make sure the boys understand what they are getting into. It could get ugly. They need to be prepared to see it through. This isn't a fight they want to start then get cold feet. What's the end game? Are they prepared to leave the troop over it? Are they prepared that this is the kind of thing which can tear a unit apart? Still in? I would have you son -- with the other guys physically with him -- meet with the committee chairman. They should ask to speak at the next committee meeting. It is wholly approrpriate for you to help coach the boys with their presentation -- expecially their tone. Kids can be like a whole herd of cattle in a china shop. It would be easy for their complaint to be received as an attack on the leaders' performance. (And maybe they should, but you understand that the leader's handling of the situation is not the problem you're trying to solve -- for now.) This is a real-life application of what Scouting is all about. This isn't working out a menu or solving a dispute over who cleans up after dinner. Good luck.

We recently had a Scout transfer from a neighboring troop chartered to a rather conservative Protestant church. One of the things he didn't like about the other troop (or perhaps more accurately, that his father didn't like about the other troop) was that they don't participate in OA as they thought it to be un-Christian. Who knew?

Well imagine my surprise at the UK world jamboree to find the first thing inside the main gate was a biergarten sponsored by the German Scouts and just inside the entrance to the staff area was a massive pub tent. As one of the US Scouts said, "They have beer AND girls?!? My God, we'd have 400 kids in our troop!" The co-ed program is probably the most obvious difference between the programs. Going to jamboree I was prepared for that. What I was not exepecting were the ages of the "adults" in the UK -- and the rest of the world, for that matter. The staff area of jamboree was like a big college fraternity house. I may not have this right, but it was explained to me that in the UK the Venturers and Rovers (to age 25) run the programs. Much beyond age 25 or 30 folks are somewhat discouraged from being what we would call "direct contact" leaders. Most older adults tend to serve in committee positions or as Scout Group leaders. Two of my work mates at Jambo were a father and son. The son was in college but still very active in the Scout Group. We concluded that one of the differences is that American kids tend to go away to college, creating a fairly hard break with their Scout troop about the time they reach 18. In the UK, simply because of geography, the kids tend to stay closer to home for college and are able to stay active in their Scout Group. The son asked my why all the American are so old. Of course we know that the typical "career track" for most BSA volunteers is to become involved when their sons reach Scouting age. Not too many folks stay active from youth straight through. According to my jamboree buddy, one of the problems with this for the UK Scouts is financial. Since most of their volunteers are in their 20s, they don't have the disposable income the older American volunteers do, who are more into their higher-earning years. And perhaps to your point about budgets, Ea., maybe it is simply that there isn't the same amount of money sloshing around in the UK Scouts Association. Scouting in America has been a capitalist enterprise from the beginning. The story of the Unknown Scout is largely bull. W.D. Boyce may have been helped through the London fog by a Boy Scout, but the idea that this was his first exposure to Scouting and from it he decided to bring Scouting to the US is buncom. Boyce was a publisher and went to London looking for new material. He clearly saw "scouting" (small 's') as a way to tap the market for boys books. Initially, all the money was in the books. I rather imagine the early days in the US like the dot-com bubble a few years ago. Lots of start-ups to begin with, merging, consolidating, disappearing, until the market leaders rose to the top. Beard, Seaton and the YMCA all had similar programs which merged into Scouting. Beard's program (what was it, Daniel Boone Boys?) was helped along as a column he wrote for Ladies Home Journal. William Randolph Hearst (another publisher) ran a separate scouting organization up until World War II. In the very early days, BSA operated much more as Eamonn describes. Local Commissioners were "commissioned" by the BSA to charter units in their local area and served much the same function as the current professional staffs and service centers. The story is that the volunteers hired-out fundraising and membership to paid staffers. That's largely myth, too. West very intentionally set out to establish BSA as a national organization and to put it on a business-like footing. The implementation of the current system of professional staff was more deliberate and top-down than the story would lead you to believe. But I think all of that is a cultural thing. That's just how we get things done in the US -- by building organizations. We don't name camps after folks who were den leaders for 40 years. We name camps after independently successful business people who donate big bucks and spend their one hour a week on the phone getting other folks to donate big bucks. (And please don't send me a list of camps named for long-time den leaders. You get my point.) The structure of non-profits in the US also makes a big difference. I certainly don't know anything about the UK the way Eamonn does the US, but I was surprised to learn at world jamboree that in the UK there is no such thing as a "charitable deduction." There was fairly little corporate involvement at jamboree because there is no incentive for businesses to be involved, other than through a pure business relationship. The only two businesses I recall at jamboree was the company which had the contract to run the staff dining halls and a grocery chain which sold sundries on site. In the US, "non-profit" doesn't mean "no money." Folks can make a very comfortable living in the non-profit sector. No one is going to get Bill Gates rich working for the Scouts, but save a few new-hire DEs, I don't see anyone starving, either. You guys are right about advancement. At jamboree one of my standard conversation starters was to ask kids what rank they were or if they were a Queens Scout. Here, that's a perfectly reasonable questions. There I'd get a look as if to ask, "who cares?" They would have to pause and think before answering.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

I've not yet studied the new requirements, but honestly I don't think that question would have occurred to me. Thinking about it, I'm scratching my head over who is going to track the different examples over time. "Let's see, Jim. You used Helpful, Loyal, Brave and Reverent for Tenderfoot and Trustworthy, Friendly, Clean and Courteous for Second Class. For First Class you have to use Kind, Cheerful, Obedient, and Thrifty." I just don't want that level of organization in my life. More to the issue, I think, is that many folks are accustomed to a certain level of precision which you're just not going to find in Scouting. In many cases, BSA makes things fuzzy to accommodate variations through a national volunteer organization. Often this is intentional. From a liability standpoint, very precise policies are only going to serve to hang volunteers. Plantiff's Attorney: "Mr. Smith, BSA policy specifies that Scout axes should weigh no more that 1.85kg with a Rockwell hardness of 65. What were the specifications of the ax in use at the time of the accident?" To make matters worse, there has always been some level of internal contratdiction among the BSA documents. The Internet has greatly compounded that. All the tertiary web sites, FAQs and training modules seem to be written several derrivations from the actual policy documents. Anyone care to define "active"? It can be tough for folks in professions with exacting standards of precision to learn to loosen up roll with it. But after all, it's just Boy Scouts.

Perhaps the appeal was turned down and MD is disgusted with Scouting, us included. Or maybe it's gone legal and her lawyer told her not to post anything else. Who knows? I'd like to hear the conclusion of the story, too, but MD is nder no obligation to provide it. Just another risk of life in cyberspace.

Unless you want to get into tax returns and financial statements (and you don't), it's a tough call. In the end, you just have to trust people. There is almost always someone in the unit -- a den leader or committee member -- who knows the family and can vouch for them. We clearly tell new parents that finances should never keep a boy from participating in Scouting. If there is a real need, the troop has a number of options to help a boy out. Our first option is to offer families payment plans. Troop dues are $100 and due in Feb. Summer camp is $250 and due in March. That can be a big bite, especially if a family has two boys in the troop, so we let them spread the payments out, if they like. We generally sell very little popcorn as a troop. But we offer Scouts the option of selling popcorn and applying all the proceeds to summer camp. We dont' offer this to everyone (because we don't want to get into running individual scout accounts) but treat it as a financial aid thing, available on an as needed basis. Because summer camp is the big ticket item, folks most often need help with that. We REQUIRE families to submit scholarship applications to the council. First, with all the FOS presentations I've made and all the FOS checks I've written, we need to avail ourselves of that resource. Secondly, the council application asks for financial details we're really not comfortable getting into. We feel that if the council approves aide for a family, the troop can confidently do so as well. Generally, the council scholarships are for half the cost of camp. If requested, the troop will help a family with another 25%. As you note, Scouting expects a Scout to pay his own way, or at least part of it. Families need to keep some skin in the game. I remember a few years ago when I was Cub day camp director a whole ScoutReach pack applied for scholarships to day camp. Because the council had already awarded all its scholarship money, the day camp was asked waive part of the fee for the boys -- essentially provide them with scholarship out of the camp budget. I think we waived all but $25 of the fee, feeling that the Scouts needed to pay something. But the council paid the $25 balance for the kid out of ScoutReach funds, giving them a free ride. NOT ONE of the boys ever showed up for day camp. Of course we called and were told that they just changed their minds. Do you think if their families had been on the hook for the money they would have blown it off? Or at least let us know they weren't coming in time for us to save some of the money and provide a refund? The other thing we do is maintain a large uniform closet. It's open to everyone, regardless of need. The only rule is if you take something, donate something back -- even if a year from now you return the uniform you took.

While we don't use scout accounts (a fact for which I eternally grateful) I do think we're over thinking the ethics of how the money can be used. First of all, a princple of unit fundraising is that units may not solicit contributions, but must earn money providing valuable goods and services. As such, if you buy a product from a Scout, it's none of your dadgum business what he does with the proceeds. It isn't a contribution. From a practical standpoint, I realize many folks don't really need or even want popcorn, first aid kits, eight-pound chocolate bars or whatever the scouts are selling. They buy the stuff as a gesture of goodwill to support scouting. As such, a little more transparancy is in order. Saying the proceeds of a fundraiser benefits "Scouting" or "Troop X" or "the Scouts in Troop X" is both honest and sufficient. For me personally, I don't care if the money is going toward the troop's operating overhead, helping to defray the lump-sum costs of a trip, pay an individual kid's way to summer amp or buy him a new sleeping bag. It's all part of the same elephant. On the other hand, it would bother me if troops allowed boys to cash out their account and spend the money on whatever they want. When my boys sold popcorn with the cubs, I told them to be prepared to answer folks who asked what the money is being used for. I taught them to answer that the pack used the money for things like campouts and Pinewood Derby cars. If they had a particular premium in mind (like a Cub Scout knife or a backpack) that was a good answer, too. When they were really little and would tell folks they wanted the glow-in-the-dark yo-yo, I was nearby enough to add that most of the money supported our local pack and the local council. People are cool with that.

I guess it depends where you live.... Gazing out widow by computer: Great Egret (a big sucker, too), Snowy Ibis, Blue Heron, fiddler crabs by the thousands, eastern oysters. On walk: Welk (shells and egg sacs), Skate case, coquina shells (some folks call them periwinkles), sandpipers, laughing gulls, brown pelicans and a bunch of different terns (I don't really know the difference between them). Last night: deer munching the landscaping in the road medians (there are more deer around here than mosquitos .... of course the mosquitos are bigger.....)

Ed, you didn't really expect anything to happen much past the second week of November, did you?

Ditto what NJ said. Even with youth, I think most folks refer to the job as a "leadership position" although that's not technically correct.

We go through the same issue with the church's version of youth protection every second or third year, when the members of the responsible church committee turn over. They want us to complete applications and agree to background checks. We take them copies of all the pertinent BSA stuff and explain that BSA leaders are all subject to background checks by BSA. One year we had to have our DE call and explain the background check process, since the troop doesn't have any paperwork to show that everyone passed. The clincher is when the church folks realize that between the troop and pack we have upwards of 60 registered leaders and what the cost to the church will be to run that many background checks. Eventually they agree that the BSA program is probably superior to that run by the church anyway. Of course I don't know what precipitated WAKWIB's situation, but many times problems like this pop up when new CO leaders are confronted with a problem in their unit. "What do yo mean they're on our insurance?" "What do you mean they're operating under our tax ID number?" I don't think, and I certainly hope no DE or new unit organizer would intentionally mislead a potential new IH, but human nature is to soft-sell the risk in any venture. The technicalities of the CO relationship is fairly deep in the program. Even trained leaders may have heard that the CO "owns" the unit, but unless they've worked through a problem, tried to open a bank account or document a 501©3 status, I doubt most rank and file Scouters have thought much about it. One thing to note is there seems to regional differences in COs across the country. In the south, it is rare of an organization other than a church to sponsor a unit. I think it generally relates to facilities. It is very rare that social or community groups other than churches in the south have facilities like those in the northern areas. And because of the Bible Belt's traditional tight controls on alcohol sales, the many civic club facilities are defacto private bars. Our local VFW hut is really just a big party room with a bar in one end and not really suitable for Scouting. These clubs also tend to keep odd hours, with the bar open for members instead of just for their weekly meeting. I know of only one pack in our immediate area not chartered to a troop. It is chartered to a civic club which has no facilities of its own, so the pack meets at a church. Most folks just assume the pack is sponsored by the church anyway. And certainly some denominations, like LDS and Methodists, have very strong insitutional ties to Scouting. Their sheer numbers give them particular sway at national. During the heat of the BSA v. Dale debate, our Scout Executive's standard stump speech ended with the line "Scouting's values are not for sale!" I always chuckled to my self that they're not for sale because we've already sold them. You just have to understand that the coin of the relm is in members and units, not dollars. (And please, I don't intend that as a knock on the LDS, Methodists or anyone else. Neither am I trying to open a debate about BSA selling out. It's is only an observation regarding where the power lies within the organization.)

E., I was hopeful the other thread you started, Fussin' and Fightin', would stick more to the subject of COs, but it seems to focused on Fussin' and Fightin' so I've quit reading it. I am rather of two minds when it comes to BSA's concept of chartered partners and I suppose that's because there seems to be a lot of positives and negatives to the system. The whole thing seems to be an anachronism going back to the early days when BSA needed other, established organizations to get Scouting off the ground. The wide-spread support Scouting generates through its relationships with many other community organizations is a great positive. The resources BSA taps into through it's COs are also tremendous assests. Our troop has free run use of our scout building which we share with the den meetings and a couple GSUSA troops which meet during the week. Were it not for the use of the church facilities, I rather doubt the troop would be around. Everytime I think BSA should ditch the CO system, all I have to do is look at the Girl Scouts to see what life would be like. Without our COs we would likely be bunch of patrol-sized units meeting in homes and garages (something the hard-core patrol method supports may like). But that leads to many, small, unstable units. Of all the girls we know my sons' ages who were in Girl Scouts, none remain. None of their troops even exist anymore. We do a joint School Night For Scouts with the Girl Scouts. Every year most of the girls who want to join are told there is no room for them and are placed on a waiting list hoping for new troops to form. Because our CO gives us as much meeting space as we want, the Cub Pack has always taken all comers -- sometimes ending up with 120+ Cubs! Too many units take their CO relationship for granted. How many units run into problems when the demographics of their CO change and most of the kids in the units are no longer members of the CO? We're somewhat in that position and have to work to make sure the church members see the troop and pack as an important part of the church's mission, not just another community group looking for meeting space. A presence at Scout Sunday, helping out with church fund raisers and steering Eagle projects toward the church are important. I look for excuses to stick my head in the minister's office and update him on troop happenings. Invite the minister to Blue & Golds and Court of Honors, even if you know he/she probably won't come. For all the positives our COs bring us there are some negatives to the system, too. Of course, over the past few years units charterd to public schools or municipal departments have been an problem due to discrimination policies, but I think BSA generally got out ahead of that and has tried to quietly convert most of those units to other COs. I think BSA uses the CO system to hide from problems within the units. Councils are more than happy taping into local units for volunteers and money, but when there is a conflict within a unit's leadership or over money, the council folks look like my father-in-law when the waiter brings the bill for dinner -- they dive for cover. They're pretty quick to throw up their hands and hide behind "that's a CO problem," as Eamonn notes. Councils could change that if they wanted to. While the relationship between BSA and CO have been compared to a franchisor/franchisee relationship, local councils need to see their role like that of a broker. They should earn their "commission" by maintaining the relationship between the "home office" and the "customer." How many of the personality or money problems which are posted here could be solved by a knowledgable council representative (vol or pro) if it weren't for artifical barriers. When the cubmaster is feuding with the chairman because a den leader and treasurer are foolin' around and ran off with pack money, is the chartered organization head really going to be upset of someone from the council office steps in and helps? And what has to be the biggest joke in Scouting is that the CORs are the official voting members of the local councils. Why not allow a CO - or for that matter, each unit -- to send a small "R" representative to the council annual meeting. Maybe instead of having 10% or less of the COs representated at the meetings, they would get active, involved Scouters. Why not? Because they would also get the p'd-off volunteers who spend a week at summer camp without a shower because no one at council knows what a septic pump is, would show up armed for bear. You don't want to get too close to your customers, do you? I realize some of this is probably buried in the bowels of the national charter and bylaws, but those things can be changed.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

Seem like a fairly reasonable course. I can see our Ranger teaching it in a few hours during Beaver days. I don't see where there would be a huge expense for anyone. I don't own chaps and don't use them. I know our camps have them and would make them available to anyone needing them at camp. Personally, I'd like to see a little more guidance in the course as to what to walk away from. I've helped maintain our family's timber farm for 30 years and there are more trees I WON"T fell than there are trees I'm willing to cut. I don't do this kind of work often enough to have the experience to take on the tricky stuff. If it's on my insurance policy, I'd limit volunteers to cutting down wood or trees less that 6-inch dia. without the specific approval and/or supervision of the ranger. The same jackass that buys a saw at Home Depot and thinks he can run it is the same guy who takes this class and thinks he can drop a two-foot tree next to the dining hall in a windstorm.

le V -- where are you looking at the course? Is it online somewhere?

I go with offering both. My guess is supply division did the math and figured out there are enough traditionalists out there to make the red wool jackets profitable enough to keep in the product line. Eradicating bright colors may have seem like a good idea, but hey, there's money in them thar' red woolies! Here's my idea for new jackets: go to Columbia or North Face and have them produce a whole system of uniform outerwear, i.e. parks and pants or bibs with zip-out fleece liners and tech shells. (I'm thinking like the Columbia Bugaboo parka and liner I just got my son for Christmas, if you want to look for an example on line). Make the shell some combination of khaki and green, but don't go overboard with the BSA insignia. I'll concede that if a kid has one good winter coat that fits, he may not want it to be an overtly Scout uniform part. If the insignia stays subtle, it could be a kid's one and only winter coat. The fleece liners could be bright red and would substitute for the wool jac-shirts. I'd like to see something like that become the standard BSA winter uniform. Sell them with the shells or separately. A kid could even sew all the patches on the liner, and they would be hidden when it's zipped into the shell. I realize a good Columbia or North Face system like this, jackets and pants, can start around $250, and there may be a limited market for the full monte. Not every family is going to be able to drop that kind of money on a rain suit for a fast-growing boy. But there are plenty who do. But by going to a little extra trouble to make it suitable for non-scouting wear, I think they could sell a decent number. Selling the shells and liners separately would allow folks to buy only what the want/need. My goal is to come up with an affordable winter uniform jacket. I hate seeing our guys show up in the winter with full uniforms hidden under a mish-mash of outerwear.

First of all, I agree with you all that it is a matter of preference and tradition. While I would like our ECOHs have more a feel of a unit event (whether that includes presenting other ranks or not) rather than the personal/family thing it has become, that's not a battle I'm going to win, even in my own troop. Not a hill I'm willing to die on. But on a rhetorical level, E92, would you allow a Life Scout -- or Tenderfoot for that matter -- to dictate the presentation of his award? That, too, is his achievement. Where I come down philosophically, is that it is NOT the Scout's Court of Honor, it is a troop Court of Honor at which the Scout will receive his award. While our troop will allow the Scout and his family great lattitude (especially regarding logistics and receptions) the troop has final say over the ceremony. But I think we debated this point pretty thoroughly a year or two ago specifically regarding whether or not the parents could serve alcohol at a ECOH.

I thought we were teaching citizenship, which includes both rights and responsibilities, and ethical decision making. In this case, the kid seems to be stuck between two sets of sleazeballs -- his friends who published some fairly vile stuff, and the principal who seems to feel his ends justify lying, intimidating. The kid is under no obligation to participate in a witch hunt. He does have a moral obligation to look at the overall situation and use his best judgement to do the right thing.

I'm aware of no requirements or specificatons for an Eagle Court of Honor. It's entirely up to the Eagle, his family and the unit. My preference would be for Eagle to be part of a regular troop Court of Honor. I think that says something about the unity of the troop and a sense that the Eagle award is a result of the efforts of the entire troop. That was the case in the troop of my youth. Eagles -- sometimes more than one -- were presented at the regular quarterly troop Courts of Honor. I received my Eagle at the same time as five very good friends. At the Eagles' request, presentations were repeated during services at the Scout's church. (Actually, prior to me joining the troop Courts of Honor were held on a DISTRICT level and could go on for hours. There were district COHs in which 12-15 Eagles were presented.) Unfortunately, that's not the tradition in the troop I serve. We've bought into the King For A Day theory of Eagle presentations. I'd love to see it go in the other direction, but unfortunately we seem to be upping the ante every time to that point that full banquets are the expectation. I see all this as a trend over the past couple generations. Weddings, birthdays, proms are all excuses to show off how narcissistic we can be.

This whole conversation assumes a level of sewing skill I rarely see.