Twocubdad

Right. And I'll add the counselor (and apparently the new troop) is doing it correctly. He's doing his job and holding the Scout's feet to the fire to complete the merit badge properly. There need to be more counselors like this guy. Looking back, the people in my life who made a difference and really taught me something were the mean old SOBs who held me accountable and required me to do my best. For the MBs I counsel I don't accept the worksheets either. They are a lazy way out for both the Scout and the counselor. Depending on the specific requirement (do, show, demonstrate,

The Scouts should show up anyway. Play the game. Make this idiot go through the public spectacle of throwing a bunch of children out of her meeting. The boys then go outside and make their presentation on the sidewalk focusing on the number of low income Scouts served and the service projects which benefit needy families in Queens.

Predictable. Once again BSA will try to have it's cake and eat it too. Instead of grey area youth we will have grey area adults. You don't think they're really going to clip the already-flawed Venturing program of all its members over 18? We all knew a year ago there would be strange contortions to the program to accommodate an illogical policy. This is one of them. There will be more.

These survey results are meaningless.

More than one unit. Your event has been a district/council event all along. The only issue is that it is unaccredited, which is fairly common. Our council ran official district camporees for years which were unaccredited. The only down side is the council can't count the 1000 nights camping toward their program totals. (Which usually results in a sarcastic "woop-dee-doo" from most involved.) If the council doesn't care, I wouldn't sweat actual accreditation too much. However, from a liability and peace of mind standpoint, someone who understands the process should be looking at

No, it's really not that hard. Pretty basic unit management. At the meeting, figure out where the pack stands, financially. First thing is to get through the year. Figure out what you owe the outgoing CC and the cost of three months worth of awards. Look carefully at the awards. For example, our pack had a policy they would only present one belt loop, regardless of the number of times the Scout earned it. Given the financial crunch, maybe you only award rank badges and not all the other bling. You then have a couple options. Off the top of my head: Send letters to all th

Oh please, Stosh. You really think commitments work and school are equal to those of sports and Scouts? Or that parent's shouldn't set the priorities for their family?

Come on. There is a difference between troop leaders sticking with the Youth leadership philosophy and parents asserting their prerogative to determine their family's schedule. The troop may be boy lead, but families aren't.

"But mom, I couldn't possibly study for exams this weekend. The PLC decided we're going camping and we're BOY LEAD!" Ah, the inevitable conflict between the boy-lead Scout troop and the rest of the world. We solved this years ago by declaring, with few exceptions, the first weekend of every month as our usual camping weekend. Yes, way back when it was probably an adult directive. But at this point it's just SOP not a decision point. Between two public school systems, charter schools and private school, we have Scouts on SEVEN different school calendars. Add sports, church, holid

All responsible parents teach our children things like not touching a hot stove. I bet with most folks that lesson is taught in multiple ways: 1) standing in front of a cold stove generally discussing home safety; 2) with the stove hot and the child in the kitchen learning to help with cooking; and, 3) with the stove hot and the child's hand reaching for the stove. Number three is going to include my taking positive action to stop my child from touching the stove. Same with the bad guys out there in the world; there's the general discussion of bad guys and the precautions to take to avoid

This is less than helpful. Seems to me having emergency info readily available on smart phones instead of lugging a six pound file box around improves safety. Consequently, our troop is looking at some of the smartphone-based modules for TroopMaster or Scout Tracks so we can keep limited medical info on it. We wouldn't technically scan the forms, but would enter key info from them. I mainly want emergency contact info (truth be told, the only thing on the medical forms you really need with you), but it would also be handy to have key details like serious allergies and medications (I don't

You are playing their game, Fred. I agree your first step is to sit down with the parents and explain the purpose of the advancement program to them. Explain to them that their sons going off reservation are spoiling the program for both their sons and the others in the den. It will probably fall on deaf ears, but this conversation is prelude to step two: New rule: you don't accept sign-offs by phone or email. Make it face-to-face. The Do, Show, Demonstrate and Discuss stuff needs to be done, shown, demonstrated and discussed WITH YOU. Even the stuff where the kid only had to

Asking someone like that is a TERRIBLE idea. They may take you up on it.

Time and pressure. One can be a positive influence for change without being destructive. Work within the current system and within your role to affect change. With a nine year old, you have the potential of influencing this troop for 10 years. Do what you can. Be a MB counselor. Go on the campouts and hang out. Sooner or later they're going to need ASMs. Sooner or later they're going to need someone to spend a week at summer camp. Sooner or later the CC or SM is going to move on. Wait for an opportunity. That opportunity may be as simple as leading a Second Class hike with the

Late to this party. Sorry. Camping all weekend with the troop. Bare minimum, this man and his wife's attendance at a Scout function was grossly inappropriate and incredibly insensitive. Do you think a convicted KKK member should be welcomed at a NAACP meeting? It is inconceivable the wife, as a BSA employee, could be so amazingly tone deaf. From there one can speculate on what his ultimate motives may be. Personally I don't think those speculations are out of line, but they are speculation nonetheless. Absolutely, he should have been asked to leave. Absolutely the wife shoul

Well, I was trying to by coy, but yes, that's exactly how we handle it. I ask my guys to complete as much of the final plan as possible. For nuts and bolts projects this includes "before" photos, plans or drawings, a materials list, a budget and a schedule (not calendar dates, but day 1, day 2...) No I can't require the Scout to do that. But then, no one can require me to sign the thing. I look at it this way (and OBTW, I'm told this is how the district looks at it as well) -- I want to make sure the Scouts have a reasonable chance at success. Not guaranteeing success, but a re

Yeah, this is why camporees suck. My suggestion to our district activities committee was a gathering of district SPLs and let them come up with the program. I was basically called a communist and dropped from the email list. I have no problem with a concert -- who says campfires have to be built around stale jokes and lame skits? But it needs to be music the Scouts plan with the adults running for cover and/or earplugs. And someone tell me why the camp master is telling Scouts what they can and cannot do? If I'm okay with the Scouts in our unit heading back early, it's none of his dang bu

Guys, guys, guys..... Such crazy talk here. Scouts calling counselors, knowledge retention, quizzes..... Crazy I say! Do you not all know the merit badge program is under the National Advancement Team and their High Speed, Low Drag advancement policies? Anything, ANYTHING!, which stands is the way of a Scout checking the boxes in the most efficient and minimalist way is absolutely forbidden.

M-brau, Unfortunately, according to the letter of the G2A, once the proposal is approved, there is no requirement the Scout have any contact whatsoever with anyone in the troop or council before beginning the project. The proposal is the only point of contact before submitting his final EP report. It is equally unfortunate that the Eagle Scout Bill of Rights (or whatever that page is called) instructs Scouts and their parents they should ignore any Scoutmasters or local Scouters suggestions contrary to the minimalist national policy. I don’t think there is an 1-800 hotline for sque

Is it me or has the problem with the quick auto-logout been fixed? Thank you , thank you, thank you!!!

We participate in Scouting for Food in the winter with the council and do our own project benefitting the local food pantries and soup kitchens in the summer. Over the past three years we have collected something on the order of 50,000 pounds of food. In the fall we do a day of service at a local quasi-public park where we camp regularly. And we average about four Eagle projects per year we require at least two work days each.

1 -- probably just semantics, but getting hit on by a sleaze bag outside a work environment I don't think is sexual harassment, it's just sleazy. As the object of such sleaze, you handle it is how you handle it. Had this guy come on to you at a neighborhood party how would you have handled it there? How about, "Really? What would your wife say about this conversation?" Or of course you can always threaten to stuff various parts of his anatomy up his nostrils and pull them out the opposing ears. However, as the committee chairman responsible for the good administration of a Scout tro

More or less, yes. About 8 or 9 years ago, when I became SM, I set out to hold the first "JLT" the troop had in years. At the time, BSA had phased out all the old, cheesy '90's videos with the promise of a new JLT syllabus. But all they ever produced was a set of wallet-sized job description cards with instructions for the SM and SPL to read them to the individual Scouts. Bleeh. So I wrote my own syllabus. It was based on much of the then-new Wood Badge leadership material, but also included stuff I felt our Scouts needed. Like how to organize a meeting. And how to best deliver a

The time-out function seems to be only 7 or 8 minutes. Not being one for one word responses, I frequently get disconnected while still typing. Instead of the little auto-saved flag blinking, I get something about no server response. I have to manually log-out, log back in, find the thread I was on and reopen my response. Fortunately, my reply is still in there -- at least up to when the auto-save feature quit working. But sometimes not. Frequently, after being bumped several times I just say the heck with it and give up responding.

We've done it a couple ways. One is to give patrols a larder of food for the weekend and they have to take the ingredients and figure out a menu for the weekend. Usually there are a couple obvious menu solutions, but we give extra credit for think outside the box. The other is to make it more like the TV show where the patrols cook one meal using several required ingredients but with access to a variety of extra spices, ingredients, and cooking utensils. One thing we did with this was to recreate the Iron Chef stadium by having all the patrols set up their patrol kitchens in one area