Krampus

Imagine the faces of the 14-17 year olds being followed (and coaced) by adylts. Really felt for them.

@@MattR We too expect the Scouts to know their core skills. We have the "participate in the discussion" by being able to demonstrate those skills. Like your math rules, once you learn to divide in 3rd Grade you cannot forget in 6th Grade. Same with the Scout-FC skills. We may ask a Scout to come back if they are not fully prepared, however, since we focus so much on knowing their skills during the Scout-FC trail, they usually know them cold. What is happening in the other thread is you have adults denying a signature of a Scout who has shown he has completed the requirements. To draw an analogy using your own example above, it would be like you not signing off on a Scout's completed requirements because he didn't tie the Square Knot the way you liked it, NOT because he didn't complete the requirement. There's a HUGE difference there. The first is insistence on completing the requirement. The second is completing the requirement YOUR WAY. The latter is all that is required. If he can tie the know why not sign his book?

Nothing says spooky like a black hat and drover coat.

Of course you did...you can see all the slow Scouts from the pack of the line.

I'm surprised a mere mortal could pick up Thor's wallet! @@Stosh, my Scout found $40 at our hotel in Disney World and turned it in. They found the owner and the resort gave my son a free no-line pass...which he turned down. His sister didn't forgive him for the rest of the trip. We received an invitation to the castle for dinner. We were told we "won" it in a contest. Had a three hour exclusive dinner with about 10 characters in a private room at the top of the castle. At check out I was told by the GM of the property (an Eagle Scout) that he wanted tor reward our Scout and knew he would not take charity for his good deed. I tried to pay for the dinner and he simply said to make sure the Scout grew up to be an honest and responsible adult doing good deeds for others.

Actually, the facts are in evidence. See below. The facts are well in evidence: The Scout has done his Eagle Project and needs signatures. The adults are withholding signatures until the Scout camps more. That is a violation of the requirements for Eagle. No where does the GTA allow units to add requirements to any rank. The Scout has been active as a Life Scout. He's attended troop meetings regularly. He is registered, in good-standing and appears to be active. UNLESS the unit has a pre-established "active participation" level documented, then he should be considered active and having fulfilled his active participation requirement. The adults don't seem to be honoring this requirement from the GTA. So when you have a unit adding requirements AND refusing to sign off on completed work when requested by the Scout (which is required, by the way), how is it this unit is NOT totally out of control? I would say adding requirements and denying signatures on complete work is out of control. It certainly is not part of the BSA program I promised to uphold.

Was at camporee recently. Most of the troops sent parents around with the patrols to the competitions...and not just the NSPs. We simply cut ours loose, told them we'd see them at dinner and let them have fun. They hit each event, the trading post, sat by the lake, came back to make their own lunch and even were back in camp at the designated time making dinner (late, but still, they're kids). While they only won three or four ribbons, they all said they had a blast. I'd rather they experience life on their own than have two adults shouting at them how to build a fire the fastest when they should be learning for themselves. You are doing the right thing. Enjoy the fruits of your labor and don't let anyone tell you you're doing it wrong.

Careful...that live class he may wish he was exsanguinated by a toothless Chupacabra.

One of the many reasons I won't move back to the Northeast.

If the slow Scouts are really slow then break up to two groups. Now, if the fast Scouts are really too fast -- and you've calculated what your pace should be to get to your camping spot -- then you slow down the fast Scouts by forcing them to walk and the pace of you intermediate paced Scouts. As others have said, it is about enjoying yourself but getting to where you need to in time. I've reminded our Philmont guys how much mom and dad spent to send them to Philmont. It is not a race, it's about memories...good memories!

Don't go to Europe, especially anywhere east of the Rhine, or Florida.

If you can see your skin below the ankle then you're wearing sandals. What department are they sold in? If beachwear, you're wrapped helicaly around an inclined plane. If sold in the Hiking Dept you are covered.

Today was 2016 Philmont trek selection day. I will say this loud and clear: The website was simply BRILLIANT!!! They allowed you to log on early. 15 minutes before the opening of registration you could pre-select your treks. At the exact time the registration opened you could hit "Save" and your registration was completed. Using some simple re-routing over a faster backbone to their site allowed me to complete my registration in MILLISECONDS!!!! Exactly 3ms to be exact. If I were the BSA staff I would hire the guys who built that system to redesign and manage the ENTIRE BSA constellation of technology. They have it right.

I've had mixed results. The ones made in Bangladesh have held up fine. Kudos for that. Equal kudos to the Magellan ones which were half the price and worn just as often. Same condition. The one pair I have that was NOT made in Bangladesh fell apart fairly fast...less than 3 months.

But Beavah we are talking about a very delicate situation here. First, who knows how long before this kid's clock ticks to 18? Is it next year, next month, next week? Second, we have the unit totally out of control, so resolution within the unit is likely not possible. Add in the first scenario and alacrity may be the name of the game. Third, how many other Scouts has or will these adults impact? How many have quit, given up or wrongly been denied advancement? If you don't bring district or council in, how will they know they have a rogue unit? National would want to know if this unit was off playing bubble ball against the prohibition, so certainly they'd want to know if the unit was violating the advancement process. Lastly, I will disagree with you on the outcome of conflict within a unit. I have seen many successful resolutions. The Scout may or may not get what he wants but normally the process works. He can go to another troop and get Eagle. The council can correct his current unit and show them what they are doing wrong so they don't hurt anyone else. The council can grant the EBOR on their own. All of these would have positive outcomes for almost everyone...EXCEPT those adults applying the program wrong. And, forgive me, but they don't deserve any benefit out of this situation other than watching this young man get his Eagle.

url=https://imgflip.com/i/12rnrt%5D[/url]via Imgflip Meme Maker

I think you miss the other type of volunteer @@Beavah. You missed the volunteer who is the antithesis of the BSA policy nerd; the one who is in to fiefdom-building and doing things the way they THINK that BSA wants them done, or under some mis-guide recollection of how it was when they were Scouts. Either way, from the OP and subsequent posts, they clearly are not "focused on da kids" but rather focused on dem selves. Sticking strictly with the OP, I don't see where they are doing anything based on the youths' (or is that 'yutes'?) best interest.

Shhhh....BSA might put out a press release banning Axmanship to be done only at district or council events.

The only confusion here is your inability to read what people are posting. As @@Stosh likes to say, with all due respect, you are missing the point by a light year. Zero tolerance policies are written by lawyers and administrators. They work for the school board and the district. THEY control how they are written. You CAN write a zero tolerance policy that achieves the spirit of the intent of the community (keeping drugs and drug dealers out of schools and communities) WITHOUT eliminating the common sense that goes with the application of the INTENT of the policy. See the elementary school kid who was expelled for bringing in a single Tums antacid. The INTENT of the policy was never to harm that kid, it was to keep the dope dealers and users out of schools. So if the school board was listening to their constituents and implementing the INTENT of what they want, but ALSO working in common sense in to the policy, you CAN have zero tolerance policies that actually achieve their objectives. Only an extremely naive person would want, or think someone wants, absolute zero tolerance on any issue. There will always be exceptions.

Well, perhaps. I am not a staunch defender of the BSA and how they implement certain policies when it comes to things like bubble ball and water balloons. And I will add I think there is a difference between professional staff and how they react to things versus volunteers. In this case we have volunteers going off the reservation and implementing their own policy. It is not a zero tolerance policy, it is an incorrect reading of the policy that exists. They are essentially doing their own program. Then, as @@Sentinel947 points out, when the kid uses an established escalation procedure he chastised by a few here as "lawyering up" of all the ridiculous things! So in their view, the adults who DON'T follow policy get no rebuke, the Scout who DOES follow policy is labelled a "disloyal" Scout. I have to shake my head sometimes. I think policies and rules are good things. We need to take them as written and implement them. Where we disagree we work to change them to find common ground. The adults in this scenario are not doing any of this. The Scout is.

Far be it from me to argue the BSA side of things, but the NCAC and national itself *has* done just that in their strategic planning. I love our volunteers, but BSA does not have a good track record using volunteer committees to affect real, successful and cost-effective change...especially when it comes to IT road maps and technology implementation. For that, yes you need experts, but not volunteer experts. You need a professional, high-level company that can help. The annual report for 2014 does not spell out what is spent on IT but from what I know much is spent poorly. For example, why have hosted servers at L3 when you could have cloud-based servers on Amazon or elsewhere? It is cheaper by far to do the latter.

I was noting a fact of the incident. If the administrator who suspended him bothered to use an ounce of the brain God gave him, he'd realize that such a person (a Scout) would have a plausible reason for having such a tool in his car and might, just might, exercise some discretion in the situation. Frankly I don't care if it was an Eagle Scout or Joe Hunter, but the fact it was an Eagle Scout makes him less likely to use that tool for purposes other than for which it was intended. Cannot say the same for Joe Hunter. Good. Well done and rightly so. He's likely one of that 1% who does not honor the Oath and Law. Probably a paper Eagle. Who knows what motivated him to do it. Regardless, inexcusable. Meh...your inability to understand one's point some times is frustrating. Just like in the other thread about the adults ignoring BSA policy for their own agenda, I will make it clear here: We are talking about zero tolerance and how, if administrators and teachers and lawyers use their head, we can avoid them looking like complete prats by suspending and expelling kids who obviously made a minor mistake OR where the adult in authority is reading too much in to the situation. We are NOT talking about OBVIOUS cases where kids, no matter who they are, break the spirit of the rules as they were INTENDED. We are NOT talking about allowing those who break the rules to morally justify breaking the rules ("I cheated because my dad beats me if I get bad grades"). Hope that clears up your confusion.

Exactly my point @@Stosh. Parents want zero tolerance about weapons at school. In no one's mind should that cover a Kindergartener using his finger pistol at a teacher or other student. Should he be spoken too? Of course. Expelled? That was NEVER the intent of any sane, rational person. Let's not put this back on the student or constituent. The fault lies with how the policy was drafted. That's the lawyers and the school board or maybe the superintendent. They are the professionals who should know all the policies on the books. It starts with the policy was drawn. It then moves to how the policy is applied. If it was drawn with a common sense review by the teacher, administrator, principle or district supervisor, how many of these cases would have made it to the school board for review? Remember, we are not talking about the obvious cases of infractions (e.g. the school drug dealer getting caught selling X in the bathroom). We are talking about the Eagle Scout with the pocket knife in his glove compartment left there by mistake.

Zero tolerance means that, for example, they don't want drugs being dealt and used at a school. It does not mean they expel a third grader that forgot he had a Tums in his pocket, left over from the weekend because he had an upset stomach, just because he happened to be wearing the same pants.

It would be nice if it was the ill-informed parents that drafted up the zero tolerance policies, implemented them and managed them but that's not the case. They are drafted by lawyers and managed by administrators. Sometimes they have hearings before that happens and sometimes they don't. I cannot recall many cases in recent years where administrators went on record to oppose said policies. Why don't the teacher's unions shout from the roof tops how bad zero tolerance policies are if they support their members' stance? While parents -- and I would argue that the number that support zero tolerance is not as large as implied -- may support some zero tolerance policies, it is the lawyers and the school boards who draw up and implement the policies. There ARE ways to make such policies address the intent of what the parents want without punishing the innocent like the Eagle scout who was suspended. The lawyers and administrators can draw up policies that have common sense review as part of a zero tolerance policy.