bourne

Hi SWScouter! You wrote: "...no offense, but that's just a darn lousy attitude. Have those leaders who gripe about the training done anything about it? Well, yes, they go do training with outside agencies. We use the local ambulance services EMT class, the University's outdoor club's leadership and basic skills class, the local paddling clubs for water safety certifications, and so on. The reason is there seems to be a greater value in receiving training for actual certifications by outside agencies. Most of the BSA training is designed fairly well. Look at the syllibi for

Beavah, as usual, is entirely correct. The issue with BSA training isn't the actual amount of time it takes. The problem is that a good bunch of folks, me included, just don't feel it's worth their time. Thus the "I'm to busy for training" bit is really just a polite way of saying "You know, I don't think this is worth my time." Lots of other organizations have worthwhile training. In our unit, the same adults (and some scouts) that pay hundreds of dollars for a SOLO WFR class or EMT-B cert are the same ones that tell the story of "that awful BSA training" for years. It seems to me like B

Interesting discussion. My experience (as someone who's only 19) has been that not only are all of hops_scout's points true, they're generally the norm. My question back to all those who advocated total supervision as the solution is how does that teach your kids to make the decisions they'll face when they turn 18 and leave for the real world? To me it seems like a temporary solution. It'll work until (1) they get smarter than you or (2) they leave home (forget college, think library and school). In my experience, the only way to do this is is to educate and prepare. Start by s

With all due respect to Eamonn, I'm going to gently disagree with his post. There are some very good reasons to set limits on troop size. The biggest that I've noticed over the years is that it depends on what the adult leadership is comfortable with. There are plenty of troops that run with only two active parents and less than a dozen scouts that don't actively recruit, don't seek new leadership, and when all the scouts move on, the troop folds. Since this is scouter.com, I'm sure somebody with more spaghetti on their uniform than me is going to complain that they've "failed in their mi