Krampus

Baseball for kids is getting out of hand. We have a Scout who earned his Webelos, but has not been back since. He has practice every day, unless there is a game, which he has at least 2 a week...sometimes 3. I get you want your kid to learn a sport and if the kid likes the sport then let them do it, but come on...when do they get to be a kid if they are always playing baseball? Everyone has their own choice for their kids, just IMO that's a little crazy.

Not just baseball. In my area EVERY sport is year around now. Nearly EVERY sport has gone from mostly rec leagues to mostly select leagues. No one is average anymore and EVERYONE is special so they are on select teams!! It is stupid. Parents are like sheep because they think their kid is the next Pele or Pete Rose. The level of play in the select leagues has gone WAY down hill. They may call it select but it is just rec with a super high price tag!!! A bad select soccer team will cost you $2000 a year to play. That same team cost you $150 for two season not 5 years ago!!!!!

School is just as crazy. Band, orchestra, choir, etc., all have mandatory weekend practices and such!!! Band? What the heck? Right? They "compete" too as young as 6th grade!!!!

I don't know where we went off the rails but we as a society just won't let kids be kids. Worse, we won't let them be AVERAGE!!!!

Which takes us back to badges-for-nothing, badges-for-trying rather than badges-for-completion.

Give that kid a trophy and a "promotion" to the select league!!!

And the adjective "frickin" seems to have become acceptable in polite conversation.  We all know what it's a substitute for.  I guess "gosh darn" was the analogous phrase in our parents' day.

Unless they really, truly want Gosh to darn something. Socks always need fixin' and Gosh does a helluva job.

[Can we say helluva?]

I find the copious use of "Oh MY GOD" (OMG) to be just as offensive. I had to remind one scout (who was devout Catholic) of the Third Commandment and he was like, "what are you talking about?"

I have a Hindu Scout with a great sense of humor. He says "Oh my gods" instead. I've noted his humor and appreciation thereof, but asked him to refrain from using the phrase.

Central WY Council's camp Camp Buffalo Bill, has no tents and costs more than my local Council camp.... and as an out of council troop we would need to pay $100 more, another $25 for late registration and the adults aren't free.  There's a big difference one has to check out when looking to go to any Scout Camp.  When one can do 9 days in BWCA at half the cost of 5 days of summer camp, the Scout is Thrifty comes into play rather quickly.

They are near Yellowstone so they charge a premium. Medicine Mountain is near Rushmore and is only $270...a better deal. We found the same thing with Colorado. BDSR was far cheaper than Alexander and, IMHO, in a much better and more scenic area.

I think the key is, if you look around you can find some great deals.

LOL.

 

Not sure why yeh feel there's such a thing as a BSA Bible.    That's a hoot.

 

Practically speakin' this works exactly the way I've described, eh?   It happens often enough these days with COs droppin' units.  Remember, all da individual registrations remain in place, eh?  So do da insurance contracts, since they're paid for.  Yeh might say yeh have a whole mess of lone scouts and lone scout leaders who are lookin' to find or form a troop. 

 

Don't sweat da small stuff, eh?  This is small stuff.  Nobody cares about precision, just about helpin' things work out well.  Just keep things goin', figure out what yeh want to do and move forward on it.  If it gets around to recharter time and things still haven't gelled, da DE will either find a friendly CO to temporarily charter yeh as an additional unit or will help yeh do a "Friends of" charter. 

 

Beavah

@@Beavah, I get your commentary. What I am asking for is the proof that your statements are correct.

If you no longer have a charter organization then parts or the Charter Organization Agreement cannot be fulfilled. Without a CO unit leaders cannot be approved. Without a CO there is no representation at the council level. The CO is the mechanism by which Scouting is executed and they are the signatory to the charter to enforce all the rules, regulations, bylaws and other policies of the BSA (the bible).

I think you are dead wrong to ascribe the non-existence of a CO as being "small stuff". Who's insurance covers the unit? Who makes sure the unit is following BSA directives? Who is accountable? It's not the unit because the unit belongs to the CO, without a CO you have a violation of the Charter Agreement.

I appreciate your speculation, but I am seeking actual proof that a unit could go the rest of the year without a CO. *If* that is actually the case, who assumes the liability and risk that the CO would normally cover?

I'm sure there are UK scout leaders that don't drink, I don't drink much, it's got to be said, but we quite often go to the pub after the meeting for a pint of beer. Maybe that's why we don't get many volunteers..."sheesh, if he needs a drink after a 2 hour meeting...I don't need that in my life!" 

ROFL...in my area you'd have MORE volunteers than you could register if that was the weekly ritual. 

Some of the camps we have been with charge you the same if you use their tents or your own. Also no difference in price if you eat in the mess hall or cook on your own.

Wow, really? I thought the largest cost of summer camp was the labor (staff) and the food.

Maybe it is just our region but summer camps with mess halls are more pricey than those where you cook on your own. Likewise, camps where you bring your own cot/mattress are slightly less costly than camps that provide them. Maybe it is a southwest thing.

Ok,. I amend my original statement about swearing in foreign languages...if you swear in @@ianwilkins English is does sound better than American English.

Some how, "I don't give a toss" sounds much better than the American equivalent.

Thank you all for the comments, we are going to Quivera Scout Ranch and as far as I know there is not big tents provided.

I do sleep in an eno double nest hammock with a Yukon fly over it, don't get me wrong I love it but sometimes it sucks getting in and out of it.

I found the leader guide. Was surprised to see tents not provided. Very unusual but maybe that's Kansas?

Side note, I found the price pretty high for not providing tents and cots. Are similar camps in your area that high too?

I'm going from memory, so bear with me. When a CO dropped their pack like a hot potato while I was a DE, the CO gave the pack X months to get their stuff and find a new home. basically it was the end of the school year, May. That left 7 months on their charter, and they were good according to my boss.

Who signs applications for a COR not there?

Similar case in 2013 our DE gave the unit 90 days to find a home or no charter.

Surely someone has the BSA bible on this issue.

Dang it? Not likely to raise eye brows.

Frack? We know what they are substituting it for so that would raise eyebrows.

Foreign words for English words? May sound nice in French but it still means *#%?.

The question was about possible new NOVA awards. Posting information about the existing awards is not helpful. As is offering opinions about the suitability of such awards. It's like I asked for directions to the gas station, and you gave me a road map of Michigan and told me Detroit sucks.

The word "maybe" conveys a possible explanation for the "new" award. Since you don't have the answer, any one who posts their opinion and fancies a guess is just as correct until the answer is available from BSA.

Lighten up, Francis.

Nah, relax on dat score, @@CNYScouter.   BSA unit registrations are for da year, eh?  You'll need a new CO to re-register, but there aren't any worries about accidents or insurance or all the rest.   That stuff runs on the BSA side for the duration of the current charter because yeh already paid for it, eh?  As long as da BSA still exists, we have to live up to our end of the bargain.

 

Beavah

How can you be charted to an entity that no longer exists? There's no one to sign any forms and such.

I haven't seen the BSA regs on this but I wil wager when your CO goes belly up you have X days to find a new one. This happened in 2013 when the church of Christ was booting out units. They had 90 days I think to find a CO for the charter to be valid. I am sure someone here can find the BSA reg that says what the process is.

Ah, good.  And the original question was about rumored new awards, Nova Boy Scouts: Jamboree, etc, looking for information.  At which point you posted an unhelpful link to the requirements of the existing award.

 

If you read I wrote "maybe it was about...", that's offering an opinion. Adding in the links to the requirements was to note for those who may not be familiar with them exactly what NOVA, STEM and Philmont had to do with one another.

I am sorry if you find offering information helpful.

Which is why, I'm guessing, that they are creating a new NOVA award option specific to Philmont.  Like the Road Biking/Mountain Biking options for Cycling.  But please, belittle me. 

Look, you snarked in with the "gee, I didn't know science doesn't happen outside" retort to a clearly written post about the obvious incongruence  between the actual NOVA requirements and being at Philmont. That is why I put the link to the requirements in there and drew your attention to them. It makes no sense to have a NOVA course at Philmont when 90% of the requirements have little to do with being outdoors.

Now, if the NOVA award was more focused on nature, weather, forestry, wildlife mgmt, etc., (all outdoor badges for the most part), then I could see the reason to be at Philmont.

I am rather confused though, don't summer camps have the tradition Platform Canvas Tents?

I agree. Every place we have ever gone have the tents and a platform. Most have cots and mattresses. Only one time in 8 years did we need to bring our own cots.

Science doesn't happen outside?  That's news to me.

Why don't you explain to how the NOVA award can be earned while outside at Philmont enjoying the outdoors. See the links I posted for your clue.

Clearly *some* of NOVA can be done outside, but you'd need to spend about 80% of your time inside or tethered to a work area to get the award done.

The point, since you missed how obvious it was, is that Philmont is meant to be an outdoor experience. Why waste the time and money to get there if you are going to stay in the PTC and earn an award you could do at the Kearney Holiday Inn's Grand Ballroom?

I just got a email from one of the Troop Committee members

The new church that bought our old CO's building gave our units 3 weeks to get all of our equipment out of the building or it's going in the dumpster.

This new church has been dragging their feet about units meeting there for months.

So much for community relations

Sorry to hear that. The good news is you have free gear.

If you DE has no clue on how to help you, you might want to reach out to the council SE to see what they can do. It sounds like you may not have a valid charter which would be a real issue if you get in to an accident (God forbid). I suspect that you may have a grace period to find a new one in BSA's eyes, but this would be my first order of business (clearing up my charter status) if I were you.

Good luck!

Maybe earn NOVA on a STEM trek at Philmont? Though how you'd do that when Philmont should be about outdoors and most of the NOVA award requirements are not outdoors-based. is beyond me.

The old Monthly Theme patches?  Those haven't been given out for at least 10 years, that I know of.

Nope, they were around when I left in 2010.

I did grab a stack of the "Take Flight!" patches out of the discount bin, and handed them out to Cub Scouts that came to our tour of the control tower at the Minneapolis Airport.  Was that wrong?

Wrong? That's up to you. But your own post pointed out that the kids do not equate a patch to an accomplishment, so maybe it was just a waste of money.

And aren't Merit Badges just a part of another patch, aka the required ones for Eagle?  Why not get rid of all the Eagle Required Merit Badges, and break out each requirement individually throughout S-L-E, like they are for T-2-1, chucking the unimportant "filler" steps used to pad out some of the lighter Merit Badges?

MBs are like Webelos old activity awards. You have to earn them for the rank.

IMHO the "activities" dumb down the whole process. I feel the old Webelos and AOL path was closer to what Boy Scouts do. The new "adventures" seems more like Brownie "Try Its". 

98% of the awards the scouts earn are not show up=get awards (from my list on the website I started the post with). They do actually have to do something to get it. The only show up=get one I like to get for the kids is the Wreaths Across America patch that isn't even a BSA patch, but we get it for the kids because it is really important that they do something like that (at least to me it is).

I don't know where the 98% comes from but CS used to have monthly patches scouts just got for being at the pack meeting. Maybe that has changed.

Sadly, it looks like CS has added a bunch of patches that are "earned" by doing requirements. They used to only do that for Tigers with the Tiger beads. By time you reached Wolf you got BLs or pins if you did work, then your rank. That was basically it for most ranks.

I'm not sure I agree with more bling just for doing requirements that, in the past, were part of another patch. That would be like giving a Star Scout patches for completing his MBs, completing his POR, his service, etc.

How can Adventure Loops and Pins at the Cub Scout level be meaningless bling but Merit Badges for Boy Scouts not?  Why do you have such a low regard of Cub Scouts?  If first graders should be satisfied with a pat on the head, why not the high schoolers?

Re-read what I wrote please. If the Scout is doing requirements, then the award is not a meaningless award. We were talking about show-up=get award type awards.

Just the typical things like for instance...I am taking my son to Summer resident camp so he can earn his Shooting patch and pins. This is a two fold thing. One, he has fun and two, he learns something important about weapons safety and responsibility. What I mean by saying sometimes they need reassurance sometimes is that it is a goal for kids to work towards, not a coddling mechanism as others put it. When I want something I work for it. My point is that it should be used to teach Scouts to work for something and not just give it to them for the sake of giving it to them.

Agreed. Shooting sports patch sounds like he has to earn it.

Showing for the day and getting a patch, not so much. We have far too much of that in Cubs. Thankfully not so much of that in Boy Scouts...yet.

What if you ARE the priest, rabbi, (minister), etc.???? 

If using Latin or Yiddish it sounds more profound!!

As in, "Mater tua tam obesa est ut cum Romae est urbs habet octo colles!"

I'm not talking the little stuff.  I'm talking the fires in Utah set by unsupervised youth members stuff.  I'm talking sexual abuse stuff.

 

Go to google.  Type in Boy Scouts of America liability lawsuit judgment

 

Watch the results roll out

I did...wow...just...wow!