gumbymaster

Leadership is a very interesting concept. Most people have a preconceived notion of a leader (and not all the same). Some leaders are take charge, here is what we are going to do, and "follow me boys" types. Some leaders are great organizers and planners, but not necessarily extroverts. Some leaders are hidden behind the scenes. Empowering those under their direction to grow and succeed. They are often missed because they don't sing their own accolades. Some leaders might not work well in a large or even small groups, but they mentor and teach another person very well.

My father used to say when he hired people that he really didn't care what their college degree was in, because he would have to retrain them anyway, but that they had the degree showed that they could commit and follow though a long term goal. I am not a fan of the parlor or paper eagle scout as they are known; however even for those as @@Beavah has described above - simply meeting the camping requirements, sitting though the merit badge classes, etc. They have still shown this commitment (even if driven by parents) to completing the Eagle award, and lets face it, there are a lot of dist

Thank you for taking on this great responsibility. If you do not want to burn out the boys, as others have said, give up on the notion of Ranks by the Blue and Gold. Just let it be a birthday party for the Scouting movement as intended. Some packs might double up and run their pinewood derby at this event. In our case, this year we ran a carnival (so the bears could complete a required adventure), here each den and some of the leader groups set up booth games. It worked out wonderfully, and the Scouts did not miss that advancement did not occur then. Instead, we have converted o

The problem with not having zero tolerance, as our school board has tried to explain, is that when "circumstances" and "rational thought" processes are applied to the situation, statistically speaking, the punishments/consequences are racially imbalanced, with white children tending to receive lessor punishments than minority children. By treating everyone the same, regardless of having a reasonable explanation, they hope to avoid the discrimination lawsuit. And yes, we are the paranoid school district that suspends an elementary school child for a "finger gun" on the playground a recess.

My years on summer camp staff, even the year I worked dishes in the kitchen, are some of my favorite and most fond memories.

Doesn't really help the conversation @@Stosh, but we do rent Kayaks from the Canoe Outfitters here.

There is an option for a bee keeping (or at least the skill there of) component in the Gardening Merit Badge

@@Stosh, This is not true everywhere. Several states have (or at least when it applied to me did have) a "duty to respond" exception to the Good Samaritan laws. When they do, medical professionals (including off duty EMTs) often fall under this category.

I haven't read the current uniform guide on this specifically; but my thoughts are that this is not necessarily a bad thing. I know some adults wear their woodbadge patrol patch there - that's not what I am talking about. When I was a youth (80's), in a fairly large, boy run troop, there were always too many adults around. So the Scoutmaster organized them into a patrol - complete with patch. They had their own tents, chuck box, cooking gear, etc., just like any other patrol in the troop. They cooked their own meals, and setup their own campsite (probably not 300' away, but not right w

The only advice I can offer that wasn't included in @@Sentinel947's is leading by example. As an ASM, offer to be "in charge" of one of the events, camping is a good choice, but others can work as well. Once you are in charge, make a challenge to the Scouts to take part in it - things like which patrol can put together the best menu, etc. And then once there, maybe patrol cooking competitions to get more into patrol rather than troop cooking. For an Adult looking down, You are still the Adult in charge, they are doing their activities according to your plan. For the Scouts, they hav

I don't see this as likely. Even if they had a great study and other data to support their assertion, they wouldn't want all of us to reinterpret the data or question the findings (they are not scientists after all). So it really comes down to "this is our decision, end of story".

I was an aviation explorer, Post 767. Most of us in the post went on to do ground school at the local community college (16 years old, still in high school). Learned a lot of great things. My most vivid memory, even more than taking the controls and flying the Cessna, was the donut I did on the runway as I over compensated while pulling off the taxiway.

My statements still stand, but I have always been a pretty literal (and gullible) person. Besides, after the exit of Bad Wolf's account last year - I could have/did believe it.

@@Stosh, I hope you haven't left yet, or that you otherwise may still visit as a lurker, but in any case... You and I have not always agreed on our positions, and on some others we seemed to be of one mind; but I have always respected your opinions either way, and have greatly valued the contributions you have made to this forum. While I might not do it the way you do, yours is the constant voice in the back of my head that makes me ask, could I/we be doing an even better job of "boy led" or trusting the Scouts with the implementation of the BSA program.

@@Stosh, with the current anti-religious environment this country is in, we may be moving in that direction. For better or worse, the School District here doesn't technically have the those holidays because they are religious, they have them because the lack of student attendance at school on those days is/will be significant enough to disrupt the teaching plans, so they give in to it. Thus, our winter break, days that correspond to many other christian and Jewish holidays, etc. While I don't think it happened yet, there was discussion about Halloween (as many of the Hispanic students in

Unfortunately, the forum doesn't have a good mechanism for an attachment, so this will be long, but this is what I put together for my pack and for a cub scout roundtable on the subject. These are organized by activity type not by adventures - thus easier for a pack leader to see what could be covered for different types of pack events. Pack and Den Coordination for the New Cub Scout Adventure Program Below are a list of Adventure Requirements that could or must be accomplished at pack events and that the Pack may wish to consider for coordinating between the Dens and the Packs. Campou

It isn't so much an issue of the religious badge/medal/knot, as there has been a UU Scouters Association that existed to provide that function for almost as long as the UU has been separated from the BSA. What the memorandum really means is that UU congregations would be invited to once again charter Scout units. The UU and the stated principles of the BSA were generally in sync, The problem, at the time, revolved around the "supplemental materials" the church added to the religious award worksheets that explicitly identified the inconsistency between the principles of the UU vs. the BSA

My experience with the UU was a little different ... While not related to Scouting, the members of my congregation were very ... almost militant ... in making sure that you believed in their causes and beliefs, otherwise you were made to feel very unwelcome ... So I could easily see where a UU family that wanted Scouting, might forgo it due to the peer pressure of the congregation for wanting to belong to that ... discriminatory organization. Hopefully, now that won't be so much the case.

Without actually being there it is always hard to provide an informed judgement, so please take my comments with the appropriate healthy dose of salt. In of itself, I do not think that going to the cubmaster instead of the person doing the task is going behind a persons back, nor do I view it as a violation of the scout oath/laws as some have suggested. Would it be better to have gone to the ceremony leader directly - probably (although it does sound like they may already be a history where where maybe that would not be a good idea). Timing could have a lot to do with it. Rather tha

Common sense aside, I'm not sure the that road into the Camp I used to staff for wouldn't be prohibited if taken to these extremes - at least after a rain storm (admittedly not often) as many passenger vehicles that were not 4x4 might have problems. I understand the road is not significantly different today. Now, when we add into the mix the staff trying to break the "beach to camp" time record to be in camp "on-time" after weekend leave ... well that can be a whole different story.

While I am sure there are others on the Forum here that are also Round Table Commissioners, I'd like to put out my take. For the cub scout roundtables, most of our attendees are relatively new parents who have just been drafted into their position of responsibility and really need/want a lot of hand-holding and affirmations of what they want to do is ok. Generally this works out well, and the topics encouraged by the National CSRT Guidebook are relevant to their needs. We also do a lot of "off-book" topics of interest. Things like local areas to camp, where to get resources, etc.

I suppose I should clarify my statement. First Class as a goal (admittedly not in official literature), at the time, was not about retention - although that too would be a worthy goal, but was that by the time a scout achieved that rank, we, as a program, will have tried our best convey what was deemed from a societal point of view, as the most important skills/lessons to our members before they get released back into the wild world around them. While I will also concede that achieving rank by completing the requirements may or may not translate into actually knowing the skills or embr

Eagle is something known and understood from those outside or movement. They have no way of knowing if the qualify of an Eagle Scout today is comparable to one in the 60s or not. I'm not sure I do. I had always understood that a true goal of Scouting was to get the Scouts to 1st Class. This rank represents that we as a program have taught the necessary skills of citizenship and civic responsibility (first aid, appreciation of nature, basic survival skills, etc). Eagle became much more about leadership and personal perseverance and dedication. As such, maybe we should be reporting the

I'll disagree with you on this one @@Stosh. The Supreme Court has upheld that Anonymous free speech is protected. https://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity Without anonymous speech, our founding fathers would have been tried and hung for treason, long before the country could be formed. Now, all that being said, is really that the speech is protected from infringement from the Government. For better or worse, there is no such prohibition on private individuals, societies, etc. from infringing on that speech - thus why activists take to attacking and shaming the supporters (boycotting adve

Well, since we've left the realm of turning the other cheek ... respectfully understanding what the objection may have been ( we think it is obvious, but maybe there is something else at play here ) ... and all else ... I say go for the rage quit - like many multi-hat scouters, I have the velcro badge of office, that makes it real easy to rip off the badge, hand it to the complainer and say "ok, all yours" and walk off. In reality no, but in practice My last read of the guide to safe scouting was surprisingly silent on this issue. As others have said, ask them to please show you wher