Krampus

We use the rule of thumb, if you wouldn't say it in front of your priest, rabbi, etc., then don't say it.

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I wonder if we should ask for a ruling on these?

 

Virtually unlimited constant rate of fire. Variable cone of destruction. Burst mode. One very potent weapon.

Hey! That was my side arm when playing "war" as a kid. My brother had the cool pistols, I had to settle for the garden hose sprayer.

I am wondering when BSA is going to outlaw sticks. Every CS camp out I see kids running around with sticks as guns, pointing them at everyone. One day I am sure they will point them at the wrong person.

In fact, I found this press release from BSA...

Press Release.pdf

Maybe the shoebox is a fine place to store the awards, but having and possessing the awards reinforces the memories of the event/activity done to accomplish it.  I see an interesting pin/patch on a boys uniform, I ask them what they did to earn it.  Last night I awarded our Webelos Den their "Webelos Walkabout" pin, and the Scoutmaster asked what they did to earn it.  Most of them shrugged, until he added "it looks like a guy hiking", and then all of them erupted in a story of the 5 mile hike they took at the State Park last month.

 

If the actual award is meaningless, why do the Boy Scouts award 130-some odd merit badges, and a patch for every campout and jamboree?  Maybe the Silver Buffalo should be replaced with the "Silver Head Pat"?  (Boy, there's a double meaning.)

So your own posts proves the point that the patch is meaningless. It took a verbal cue to remind the boys of their fond memory. The PATCH didn't do it, the verbal reminder did! So why the patch? If the patch is supposed to be an "immediate gratification and recognition" it is NOT doing its job because the boys had no clue why they got it.

MBs are not meaningless if the Scout is the one driven to take the class. As for the other 130+ badges, they usually have requirements around them and are not just awarded for showing up.

Camporee and Jambo patches? Other non-requirement based patches? Totally agree...no place in Boy Scouts EXCEPT as a reminder of the event and NOT as any real achievement.

Adult awards? I saw do away with them.

I understand B-P gave each Scout who attended a meaningless patch to boost their self-esteem and encourage them more too.

That is where the Bling-for-Nothing movement started.

Then let's keep the awards to a minimum--Bobcat, Wolf, Bear, AOL.   And eschew the participation ribbons and "I Tied My Shoes!" type of patches.

 

The boys do not need an award every time they do something.  Most will see these things for what they are and assign little to no value to them.

 

Scouting memories come from experiences as the result of a solid, active program, not the abundance of cheap awards.

Exactly. 90% of those patches went in to a shoe box in my Den. The big awards were what they wanted. As long as the meetings were fun, that is all those kids cared about. Wearing the uniform, the hat and shooting off water rockets and playing with water balloons (smaller than a ping pong ball, of course) was all they cared about.

Extra patches?

[insert stolen line from Blazing Saddles here]

But for my question - does a PL who is not reelected feel demoted, and lose motivation?

Sure. That is only natural. It is up to the SM to work with that Scout to motivate them and help them find another troop level position.

Our DE is pretty clueless. She is a very attractive recent college grad with no Scouting background.

I have heard she is very good at fundraising (and daddy was a golfing buddy of our old SE)

The only thing I really see her do is forward messages from someone else about stuff happening n our council (usually 3 or 4 days after everyone else in the council sees it)

See? Cute Communications majors *can* get jobs.

I suspect if the CO merged the disposition of your charter is likely tied as to the official (read: legal) entity that now makes up the two churches. If your CO was integrated under the other church's legal structure then I don't think there is a charter anymore because the original CO is gone. If, on the other hand, there was a new entity created -- and they agreed to assume each others assets, debt, etc. -- then you have a CO and a charter, you just need to transfer your charter to the new entity.

An unattractive DE would have known this and already helped your unit.

So a good DE waits for this situation? How often do CO's go out of business in a given district? Since maintaining the units is the DE's job, this should not be a surprise...nor an issue.

No where do I see anything on what YOU can do for the CO. This is VERY important because, after all, Boy Scouts are supposed to Do a Good Turn Daily.

I would look for opportunities where your unit could do things for the CO. Do they have any annual events where your unit could help? Are there any repairs needed or on-going ministries (e.g. food pantry, clothing collections, etc.) where you can help.

I would emphasize that Scouting and the CO is a symbiotic relationship where both groups can benefit. That way you look less like a burden and more like an extension of what the CO may do.

I'd have thought the DE would be all over getting you a new CO before the old one went defunct. Doesn't that put you without a valid charter? I imagine there is a grace period for units that lose their CO, but without a CO how can one have a valid charter?

Your DE should be doing their job and helping you. Ideally they would have known about this issue and take care of this in advance.

5th grade graduation? Gawd, my generation was spared this. I had no public school graduation ceremony, well, until it was over in high school.

We opted out of the Kindergarten, 5th grade and 8th grade graduations. Went to Disney on vacation instead. Other parents thought we were silly for "denying" our kids the ceremony.

Every summer their kids are at our house complaining on how utter stupid those ceremonies were.

..heh yeah sometimes though kids get a little discouraged and need a little reassurance that they are doing something right. plus it gives them as goal to work towards and can achieve them.

Beyond ranks, merit badges and other awards which they earn, what "reassurance" in the form of awards are you advocating?

ROFL...I would be "sooooo bored" at those too.

We used to have have COH's that were like watching paint dry. They would go for 2 hours or more, until one day. One Scout was doing the COH for his Comms MB and asked if he could redo the script. He was told to "go for it". He looked at the process of MB, rank and award distribution and streamlined it; even added in some pomp and circumstance. The result? He was able to reduce the COH by 1 hour!!! This was the end of summer COH which had all the MBs, ranks and other stuff from summer camp. Oddly enough, no one felt rushed or short-changed. There were photo ops, etc. When the COH was done everyone looked at their watch in amazement....literally one hour!!

It has now become the template for all of our COHs. No more bored Scouts. No more lost Sunday afternoons. Once we got rid of all the adult BS we found we had so much more free time.

Those two-man wall tents that summer camp just can't beat the patrol tents we had when I was in scouts.  All 8 of us in a large wall tent.  We didn't know it but I think we originated the basis for glamping with those things.  They were great. 

Yeah, but you just can't find good Civil War surplus anywhere anymore.

He can drop out of his patrol for 4-6 months, his buddies hold his spot, do the PL thingy and then go back to his original patrol, too.  This is how my troop officers did their shot on the Leadership Corps.  They got their shot at POR, did their thing and like playing a season of football came back to their buddies.  None of these switches need to be locked in stone.

But all of this was the Scout's doing. It was his request. He was one of four guys that spent Tiger-AOL together. They crossed over together. One day he said he wanted to switch patrols. A new patrol was forming and he wanted to be part of it from the ground up. That took guts. BTW, this was my Scout who recently passed. He was all that and more!

Anyway, since it was his request I let him move...and he was brilliant. In fact, that patrol would not have become the cohesive unit they did without out.

I would argue that this approach is ALSO how the Patrol Method should work. When guys decide on their own it is time to move then why not? I mean, we don't stay 12 forever and we all grow up. So too must the Patrol Method grow and develop. As long as it is still based on the boys' decisions I see no issue.

ROFL, so ins't ALL firearms and ranges sports training "training for war" activities?

This "ASM" wouldn't last 5 minutes in a Texas troop.

@@Stosh, if you get a patrol with all superstars, and superstar #5 wants to be PL, he may have to wait a long time to get PL. Make the switch and he might get it faster. Guess what? He did.

Spot on @@qwazse. In my community guys do go to school together. However, they tend to join Scouts from their packs in groups. We try as much as possible to keep those groups together. They get to select their patrol based on interactions with the various patrols at open meetings. Of course, there is always "the cool patrol" and you cannot have 22 guys all join the cool patrol...but you CAN help them figure out what makes the cool patrol "cool" and help them create that for their patrol.

We have found that, by the time most kids hit 7th grade, that which patrol they are in really doesn't matter. We've even had kids leave their initial patrol because they wanted leadership opportunities that they could never get in their original patrol.

I think you can revise the Patrol Method from B-P's era just a bit so that it doesn't have to be the neighborhood "gang". It can be a geographically disparate group share similar view points. That was B-P's point in the first place.

My two cents.

This was kind of the point to why we (my patrol) chose this project. It is very unclear as to what Scouts can earn. I noticed that some "awards" said that they cannot wear them on their uniform and some didn't say they could not. I believe that if they meet the requirements then they can do it.

You can wear these awards on your uniform, they are just not BSA issue.

Really?  I thought this was supposed to be something the individual decides is important to his scouting contribution, not someone else's. 

You answered your own question.

How do you think they find those qualified for Irving employment? 

I think the issues of BSA having their head in the sand with regard to accepting needed change has to do with their organizational culture and willingness to accept change. I think the other part has to do with ivory tower syndrome you see in many non-profits. If they got out more and listened --  and were willing to accept real change that the members want but organizationally the professionals may not want -- they might embrace real change.

It sounded like a patrol project, not a ticket item.  I'm going to be really surprised to find out that the WB instructors are dictating ticket projects nowadays.

 

In my area they "suggest" your goals for tickets. [wink, wink]

 

oh, and here are some better more Scout worthy options to compare to that 1st one I suggested..... just stumbled across this headline at lunch, and thought i'd share

https://gearjunkie.com/head-turning-vehicles-overland-expo

That's too close to the English past time of "caravaning" for me.

Serious question from a non-WBer:  

 

What was the point of the assigned project?   Though I appreciate the hard work that went into the research and page building, frankly it seems like a big homework drill.  

 

The criteria for all these awards can be found in current BSA literature.   A search engine can find them quickly. 

Probably was one of his goals for his tickets. You see a lot of projects like this done in the name of WB ticket completion.

Beavah, with all due respect to Mr. RichardB, the last few times he provided links or supporting documentation from National, it didn't work so well.   Weaknesses and loopholes big enough to drive a truck through.

 

Not blaming him personally.  I don't think he did it on purpose.   I think he and his fellow pros are in the unenviable position of having to carry Irving's water...which is part of their job, true, but Irving is famous for issuing poorly written/disjointed policy.

Let's see the data on the correlation between the use of SuperSoakers and teenage gun violence, or the use of water balloons larger than a ping pong ball and larger, more acute injuries during water balloon fights.

There's just some decisions that cannot be supported with any amount of data...and that is why BSA's policies are laughed at quite often.

I'm not defending our friends in Irving, but stupidity has cost the BSA MILLIONS over the last 20 years in liablity payout.  As @@Beavah has reminded us time and again, BSA is self-insured for the first million each incident.  Those liability dollars out came from something else, generally called program and support.

I can tell you from my recent experience, your state's minimum insurance standards also play a role. When you allow folks to drive with a pitiful amount of minimum insurance AND they have fly-by-night insurance company, you know it is OUR insurance (and BSA's) that will pay.

Until THAT is fixed, having good personal insurance -- and BSA's secondary insurance -- will be all you have to protect you.