Twocubdad

I like Beavah's approach. The conversation in December isn't about when to schedule your SMC/BoR, rather when you are going to rejoin the troop. Start showing up for meetings and campouts for a few months, then we'll talk. If the Scout or his parents don't like that response, we'll be happy to help you with the infor you need to transfer to another troop. I have that exact situation with my CC's son. He hasn't been to more that four meetings in the past 18 months. Come recharter he's either active or gone. I won't put the troop in the positions of tap dancing on the head of the advancement policy book. If a Scout cares so little about the program as to not attend in eight months, why does he care about advancement? And why do you care to have him in the troop?

If I walk in and am hit with a 14y.o. Eagle with 103 MBs, his dad's the SM and his project including rebuilding a bridge capable of supporting a firetruck, I'm going to have some questions too. The sarcasm is uncalled for and perhaps some of the questions should have gone unasked. But asking how the Scout earned all those MBs is a reasonable question. Verifying the requirements are complete is part of any BoRs job. But then you need to have a conversation about the boy's experience in Scouting. This fellow has an unusual Scoutign career and it's silly to ingore it. If I Scout earned Life and 20 MBs by age 13, then earned the last MB two days before his 18th birthday, it's reasonable to ask what he did for five years. EBoRs should be challenging and thought-provoking. Any Eagle Scout should be able to point to his record with pride and answer questions about it. If you're just going to ask non-specific canned questions, just have him fill out another form and mail it in. But it sounds as if your Scout handled himself well. Good for him. Another point of pride in his Scouting career.

IMHO, the "active" requirement is noise. That's an interesting perspective. Are there other requirements you consider "noise"? I'd suggest to you the previous definition of "active" did, in all practicality, change the requirement to mean "be a registered member." I will assume the folks rewriting the advancement guidelines had the opportunity to change the language of the requirement to reflect that. But they didn't. I'm okay with the "reasonable expectation" idea. When you get down to it all the requirements are based on the resonable expectations of the unit. The lack of national standards in advancement is a fact of the program. When was the last time someone from the advancement committee ran an audit of your troop to see if your sign-offs met national expectations? Properly -- and I think wisely -- there are as many different definitions for what is "good enough" as there are units. You want your son in a more warm and fuzzy troop? Think he should only attend when he feels like it? I'll be happly to help you find one. That's not being snarky, that's just the way it is. Long time ago I learned I'm not going to be all things to all people. The leaders and parents in our troop are rather old school and want our boys to work hard and overcome obstacles and adversity. Sometimes that means our expectations are tougher than in other units. We're okay with that. (And as an aside, I'm sure there are elements of our program others here would judge easier. We're not an especially big backpacking troop, for example. You want to pound out 150 miles a year? I'll help you find a troop like that, too.) BSA sets forth broad outlines of a program the chartered organizations leaders and parents extablish units which meet their needs and fit their interests, abilities and personalities. I can't tell you when I have ever checked a Scouts attendance records prior to signing off on the requirement. 50% attendance is such a low mark, the truth is the boys below that level are on their way to dropping and advancement really isn't an issue. It's really somewhat of a circuit breaker which rarely trips, rather than routine operational control. Actually, I'd call it more of an "expectation" than a hard and fast policy -- hmmm... there's a thought. The Scouts are aware of it and perhaps they use it as a marker in judging their own attendance. And perhaps that's the real value. Young people need boundaries and guidelines. We're giving them one.

We've always had the expectation that a Scout seeking advancement should attend half of troop meetings and campouts. No, we're not going to turn someone down at 49.9% attendance, but then a Scout with 50.1% attendance will probably get the same level of questioning regarding his participation. And while we're pretty lenient about excused absences, I'm not sure how we will handle the new "worthwhile activities" stuff. You can make a case the just about any organized activity a Scout may participate in complements Scouting. But there must be some boundaries somewhere. Not sure where they will be.

I really don't see the conflict. From a practical standpoint, our guys are getting far beyond the minimum hours for Star and Life. Double dipping? How about the guys who put in the hours many times over? We had 15 guys do some landscape work at the CO today. No idea if any of them will want to apply the time to service requirements, but I know a number of them were fulfilling requirements for gardening MB. Is that double dipping? What if they count it as an activity for the Tenderfoot requirement? How is that different from counting the service hours for a school requirement?

Welcome to the light side. After a couple trial separations, I made the same leap you have. Never missed a beat. Truth is, they need you much more that you need them. You haven't called your DE 12 times in the past two days, have you? Although I haven't been to a district committee meeting in nearly four years, I'm still listed as Vice-chairman and receive a membership card to that effect every year. Went cold turkey on Roundtables, too. After 10 years of near perfect attendance (and only RTs I missed were do to other Scout commitments) I had enough. I announced to the troop committee I wasn't going back and if they wanted someone there, they needed to send someone. They never did. And guess what? We haven't missed a thing. If it's important enough, we get an email, or someone calls. Truth be told, I went to Roundtable this week for the first time in years. Our district Advancement guy was supposed to do a presentation on the new Eagle work books and advancement guidelines and I wanted to hear that. But guess what? I knew as much about it as he did. How? Scouter.com. I was the only person in the place who had read the entire book. So another two hours of my life I'll never get back. But let me make this point with you, BD: don't cut your nose off to spite you face. While my Scouting efforts are strictly directed at the troop, I will still take advantage of district and council activities IF it suits me or benefits the troop. I'd recommend that attitude. Cherry pick. If there is something which appeals to you, take advantage of it. You have every right to do so. My rule is if it benefits the boys or the troop program, fine. Otherwise, forget it.

The advancement method doesn't stand alone, but is integrated with the other methods (and other elements) as part of the overall BSA program. To think the woodscraft requirements of the T21 ranks don't relate to the Outdoors method is silly. That a First Class Scout has the skills to handle himself in the outdoors is a rather reasonable, real-world integration of the advancement and outdoors program. While you may not find that statement as policy anywhere, you will find evidence of it in lots of places -- like the requirement that Scouts attending national high adventure bases, or jamboree be First Class. As an ASM for jamboree last year, we absolutely expected that the Scouts in our jamboree troop had mastered the basics. Our training and shakedowns were geared toward teaching the exceptional parts of jamboree camping, not the basics. Of course that expectation is based on the First Class requirements. We're not expecting Bear Grylls or Jerimiah Johnson, just a First Class Scout.

Sorry if I'm interrupting your cat fight, but back to the OP .... Why the heck would anyone put up with that crap. Someone here ought to sell t-shirts with POUND SAND in large letters. We could make a fortune. Somehow, the threat of getting "fired" from my Scouting job just isn't something which effects my daily operations.

Keep the faith!

In 8 years I can only remember cancelling one campout, an April trip with all the just-crossed-over new scouts. The morning of there were severe thunderstorms in the area and tornado watches issued. I knew our location was either open fields or marginal wooded areas with lots of widow makers. We bagged the campout and spent the day at the hut running the activities we would have on the campout. Short of a clear and immediate forcast such as that, I wouldn't forsee cancelling a campout based on the weatherman. Personally, I don't change my own plans based on weather forcasts. I may adjust my preparations (an extra change of clothes or extra blankets) but forcasting severe weather is too broad. Here in the southeast, if we cancelled trips based on a chance of thunderstorms, we would never go camping in the summer.

Glad you finally got the answer you were looking for in the first place. You probably won't like this one. I see it as part of my job to help Scouts get the most out of the program. Sometimes that means declining to authorize a MB until I feel the Scout is ready for it. While I'll authorize any elective MB for anyone anytime, over the years I have come to draw a few lines in the sand around the required MBs. The only RMBs I sign off for at summer camp are Swimming, Camping, EnviroSci and Emergency Prep (and we're in the process of taking EP in house). Why? Beav listed most of the reasons. Quality of instruction is a big one. But mostly I don't think it's asking too much for our Scouts to put some real time and effort into the 12 RMBs. I want them to meet with a real expert in the field (not the 16 y.o. at summer camp who drew the short straw). I want them to go through the process of setting and keeping appointments. Our counselors typically provide experiences they don't get at camp. Our Personal Mgt. counselor teaches the Scouts personal finance stuff I don't know -- and no, he's not adding to the requirements, he's adding to the education. We're also noodling with the idea that Scouts will only work on the required MBs they need for the next rank they're working on, Star excluded. In other words, we're not going to have 12-y.o. Tenderfoot Scout complete all the RMBs up front. The exception with Star is we encourage all our boys to complete First Aid and Swimming in their first year, in order to fully participate in all the troop outings. Again, why? Because you get more out of the program at an older age. PersMgt is the classic example. A 12-y.o. with a $5.00 allowance and a parental requirement to save half isn't going to get as much from the MB as a 16-y.o. with a summer job and a goal of buying a car. While PersMgt is one I encourage the Scouts to save until they are older, I don't worry too much about which MBs they do for any given rank. Advancement is supposed to present the Scouts with progressively more and more difficult challenges. Even though the requrirements are the same in black and white, our expectations for an older Scout -- and more importantly HIS expectations for HIMSELF -- are higher as he gets older. Even for an "entry level" RMB like CitNat, the discussion about rights and responsibilities is very different for a fifth grader versus a high school senior who will get to vote in the next election, maybe has older friends in the military, and may have been confronted with some legal issues out and about with his friends. Yeah, I can read the book where it says any scout can work on any MB at any time, bury my head, wash my hands and gloss over the role of the Scoutmaster. But I would not be fulfilling my responsibility to delever the best program possible to out Scouts.

Our former SE always ended his standard stump speech talking about the loss of donations due to BSA's values with the line, "Our values are not for sale." Of course they're not for sale. They've already been sold. You just have to understand the real currency.

ALB -- isn't this you new CC who's obsessive/compulsive about you doing your job and not getting involved in her committee functions? Is that not a two-way street? Why is the CC programming your campout? But to the movie, per se: the critical questions is "how does this support the mission, aims or core values of Scouting?" While a movie night may have it's place (we do one following all-day junior leader training in August) and I suppose an argument could be made that a particular movie could be said to teach a lesson on citizenship or perserverance or whatnot, I have to say showing a movie on a campout seems like a really lame waste of a camping opportunity. Kids can watch movies any old time, but particularly with Cubs, they only get a few camping opportunities per year. I would prefer doing NOTHING than a movie. Nothing will naturally turn into talking with their friends, joking around and developing friendships. If you CC wants to watch a movie, suggest "Stand By Me."

I like shortridge's approach. But the rules state that in the absence of membership in an organized religion, a reference letter from the parents instead a religious leader is acceptable. Failing shortridges' suggestion, it seems reasonable to apply that to educational references too.

Which put them up one paid employee over my troop! All of which is beside the point. WHO is on the committee is unimportant. BD's issue is that his district committee is under the impression that BD works for them -- that he should be supporting their program and following their directives. NO! THEY work for Basementdweller. Their job is to go to him and ask, "how can we help you deliver a great program to your unit?" But maybe BD is like me and just a crudmudgeonly old so-and-so and just wants to do things his own way. Fine! Then leave him the heck alone. If he wants to go out of council to a Webelos event, "have fun. Here's your tour plan." Don't create roadblocks for him. Shoot, they should be saying to themselves, "that's 16 kids who are going to camp that we don't have to worry about." You run training, right moose? So if there's a unit on the edge of your district and it's much easier for them to train in the neighboring district, what's important here? That their leaders get trained to deliver good Scouting or that they stroke your ego and help build your empire? (And I'm not saying your ego needs stroking or you're into empire building, but if you were.... You get my point.)

I understand the requirement for Cubs to camp at approved facilities, however that requirement isn't intended as a weapon for the district/council to limit a unit's activities. The district exists to support the unit. Let me repeat that. The district exists to support the unit. If a unit wants to camp at a particular location, and if the camping committee is doing it's job, it will work with the unit to make sure the facility meets standards and the unit is able to conduct it's program as it see fits. If that means someone has to get off their fat office chair and go inspect the site, so be it. It for dang sure means that if a unit can provide evidence from another district or council that the facility meets BSA standards, they should gladly accept that. But as I suspected, BD's district have their Scout shorts in a knot because he's not attending THEIR event. If they were meeting his needs, I suspect he would, unless the well has been so poisoned that he just doesn't want to work with these people. Frankly, he seems justified feeling that way. And I disagree with the notion that if you're not happy with a district program you should jump in and fix it. No thank you. Cubmaster and/or Scoutmaster is plenty. They do their jobs, we'll do ours. Unit leaders' obligations are to run their units as best they can. If they can utilize the resources provided by the district or council, fine. But if not, the unit isn't there to support the district's programs. Districts exist to support the unit. Did I mention that?

Are you talking about camping at Uncle Joe's farm which happens to be geographically out of the area, or are you attending camporees and other Scout functions out of council? Either way, "pound sand" is likely the appropriate response.

Whew! That was close!

Meetings are 90 minutes, but most elements last no longer than 20 or 30 minutes without a change. As a SM myself, the best way you can aid the program is to coach your son and the other families whose ear you may have to pitch in and make it better. If the meetings are boring, your BOYS need to go to their PLs and SPL with ideas for improvements. Lead, follow or get the heck out of the way, as Captain Courageous used to say. Secondly, help your son understand the nature of Scout-led troops mean that the guys leading the meetings are learning their jobs too. He will be at the front of the room one day and will appreciate some consideration from the younger Scouts.

"He (the Eagle candidate) does the project outside the sphere of scouting." Advancement Committee Guidelines, Policy and Procedure, page 27 "All Eagle Scout service projects constitute official Scouting activity and thus are subject to Boy Scouts of America policies and procedures." Guide to Advancement 2011, page 22 We do not run ESLPs as troop activities. We do, however, as I have noted before, ask the Scout to include a cross-section of troop members in at least one workday. Personally, I attend at least one work day to observe how the Scout leads the project. The rest is between the Scout and the beneficiary organization.

Last winter, in the throes of college applications, I ran across an article on "predatory lending" by colleges. A NYU graduate was complaining that the school had used predatory lending practices to get her into debt far beyond her ability to repay. The school had the nerve to notify her anytime an new loan program opened, of if she somehow qualified for a larger loan amount. The girl had something like $250,000 in student loans, her mother's house was hocked to the hilt and she couldn't repay the loans. Of course she had attended NYU, one of the most expensive schools in the country (I know, OneCubSon considered it for about two seconds), live in Manhatten for four years, majored in Womens' Studies, then moved to San Francisco and took a job as a receptionist in an art gallery. Clearly, the university was at fault for her financial hardships. Conversely, one of my sons greatest lessons learned in high school was from his art teacher. A really great guy, this fellow took out student loans to attend Savannah College of Art and Design at a clip of $40k per year. Graduated and got a job teaching high school art. His constant **** ing about not being able to pay the rent, put new tires on his car, or go out for dinner was a far better lesson in economics than the actual AP Economics course my son took.

I'm having flash backs to 10-year-old debates with Bob White. I had a long post ready to go but moose and SMT224 summed my experience and how our troop operats rather well. And I think Beavah pretty well nailed the arguement regarding national's statistics. Before the financial industry screwed us the last time (remember the S&L crisis?) I was in marketing. The old guy I worked for summed things up well -- a long chat with your best customer is worth a room full of MBAs and computer printouts. In other words, don't discount the anecdotal data. It represents real-life experience.

All due respect to your friend, Bill, but I disagree that well delivered programming naturally produces First Class Scouts in a year. Take the FC cooking requirement. In a new Scout patrol of 8 or 10 boys, for everyone to complete FC in a year, someone will have to attempt FC cooking at least by the second campout. So when did they learn to cook? Have they had an opportunity to experience a number of different camp menus, or do they cook something they already know from home? With everyone focused on FC cooking, when did they complete the second class cooking requirements? Of course you can split the patrol and have two or three cooks on the same weekend, but that's not really the requirement. And what does that do for patrol teamwork? That's not advancement resulting from activity, it's activities being adapted to advancement. It's an adult jumping in and figuring out a cooking schedule so that everyone has a turn before next January rather than the boys stepping up and volunteering to serve as patrol cook when they feel they're ready. I believe a well delivered program allows all boys the opportunity to grow and develop regardless of the level at which they begin. Back to the cooking example -- a Scout who is a great cook and accustomed to cooking at home, jumps in and serves as patrol cook right after crossover. Now what? He doesn't have the opportunity to serve as cook again until the rest of the patrol finishes FC cooking. Sure, he can help teach the other guys, but HE doesn't have another opportunity to show his stuff for a year. I've written about it any number of times, but over the past couple years we've been working to EXTEND the time our Scouts take to get to First Class to something approaching 18 or 24 months. As a new SM, I took the training and was a big proponent of the new scout patrol system and FY/FC. But now having finally completed a full cycle of scouting (meaning I've worked with a class of boys from crossover to age 18) I think FY/FC is a bad idea. I do not believe FY/FC helps retention, in fact just the opposite. Encouraging boys to earn FC in one year then Star, Life and Eagle a year each removes one of the great motivators we have for retaining older Scouts -- ADVANCEMENT! Clearly, many boys are motivated by the challenge of advancement and goal of reaching Eagle. Making Eagle is one less incentive for remaining in the program. And I believe boys who are that focused on advancement early-on probably don't take the time to develop interests in other areas of the program which may sustain their interest through high school. So what's the rush? My ever-evolving philosophy is Scouting is an experience and experience requires time. It's not a process or product, and certainly not a check list. I saw a t-shirt recently that said if you're going to drink all day, you have to start in the morning. If we want boys to slow down and experience the trail not just the destination, they need to start at Tenderfoot. You can't push boys through FC or Star in a year or two then expect them to slow and enjoy the Scout experience. Adding First Year First Class as a "responisbility" of the unit is misplaced. It should be one program option which may be emphasized or not, depending on the needs of the Scouts and the philosophy of the unit leaders and chartered organization.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

As I said, I generally like the new guidelines, but I'll have to say this section on "Give Leadership...." is one of the weaker ones. It's a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, harking back to the old definition active -- long on what we can't require, but silent on what sort of leadership we should expect from a Scout. Committees abhor bureaucratic vacuums, so when establish a requirement to "give leadership" but only define what that ISN'T, folks are going to insert their own definition of what it IS. The old suggestions that ESLPs should be of sufficient scope to allow the Scout to demonstrate his leadership abilities, was better. Of course that led to folks defining "scope" as 100 man hours. But depending on how that was applied it's not a bad thing. My job is to estimate construction projects. I can look at a project and tell you how long it should take. My rule of thumb is if two qualified trades people could finish a project in a day or two (that is, about 25 man hours), it's probably a decent Eagle project, (that is, something over 100 "scouthours" -- Scouthours being considerable different from manhours). So back to the new description of "Give Leadership" -- it basically defines leadership as anything goes, as long as two other warm bodies participate. I have higher expectations than that from my Eagle candidates. As a Scoutmaster helping boys develop their proposals, I ask they plan for at least one of their workdays include a cross section of the Scouts in the troop. Particularly if physical labor is involved, leading three other guys from your football team is a much different leadership problem than leading 10 11-year-old Scouts. And of course, involving Scouts from the troop is a beneficial thing for those Scouts and the troop program generally. It's not an unreasonable request and I will continue to request it. That approach is what I'm liking about the new guidelines, but is what is missing from this section. The old book seemed to be written broadly to cover the last 0.001%. The new one generally provides the broad principle which should apply in the main, but also some flexibility and with exceptions. I like that it usually provides some reasonable discussion of the ins and outs of the policy. Unfortunately, I don't think this section does that.

How will the national advancement team enforce these changes? Because our council EP review committee works about the same as Moose's. One size fits all and it dang well better be extra-extra large. They have had stuff rejected on appeal at national, but six months later they're right back at it again. I'm generally pleased with the new manual. But can already hear the ignore, evade and side-step machinery cranking up. I think it's pretty naive to think these guys who have spend YEARS creating our byzantine EP bureauracy will go down without a fight. I'm not optimistic, especially when the new guidlines leave the appeal of EP proposals within the council. They're not following the current guidelines, why should we believe they will follow the new ones?