Brewmeister

The issue as I see it is that this is not the SM's troop, it is the boys' troop, and the boys want the chance to participate in OA. The scoutmaster is not acting in the expressed desires and interests of the boys and is therefore not acting properly in his capacity as SM.

If the CC won't step in your only choice is the chartered org, who may not have any idea what's going on (or care to) either. If the PLC got the troop to present a completely unified front, would the SM still stand in the way?

To me, swimming laps to earn the mile swim would be like walking 40 laps of an oval track to do your hiking badge 10-milers. It's just not the same, and there is no "course" involved with swimming laps in a pool as the mile swim award asks for.

No way. Even someone with a modest push off the wall can easily glide a fair length of the pool before having to start stroking again. A moderately capable flip-turner even more so. Absolutely now way that lap swimming in a pool would ever be more tiring than contending with open water under any conditions.

It depends what your goal is. If your goal is to give the boy his patch, by all means have him swim laps in the pool. If you want him to learn how to swim in actual conditions that he might be faced with in Scouting, have him swim in open water as the requirements imply, but do not technically demand.

Well, not every boy...there seem to be a fair number out there whose moms are motivated by patches, who want a box to check on their college application, or who lack the ambition or desire to leave the school cafeteria and go for a walk.

I don't think swimming in a pool meets the intent of this award. Take it from someone who does (ok, did) triathlons: pool swimming is WAY different than open water swimming. Requirement 1 mentions "distance swimming over open water": Tell what precautions and procedures a swimmer and escort must follow for distance swimming over open water. Requirement 4 talks about a measured course. That clearly implies that a "course" is involved rather than 32 laps.

What draconian helmet rule? Oh yeah, I think it's the one we've never heard of...

How about "This weekend I'm going as a liberal. I am going to take all your candy, eat 50 percent, give 40 percent to other kids, and give 10 percent back to you."

I read that too. An Eagle that wants to give his scoutmates a gift? How about actually staying with the troop once you Eagle?

Ok, so you've convinced yourself that the requirement has nothing to do with helping a Boy Scout advance despite what it says (because again, Venturing scouts can't earn 2nd or 1st class), and that "he" is just "generic" (because after all, girls can neither advance nor earn merit badges), why stop there? Maybe there is a Girl Scout somewhere who doesn't know her knots. Or it would really just be easier to do this requirement with mom and dad. This is really funny stuff coming from someone who likes to criticize everything that anyone else does that doesn't follow the book. But whatever, yo

Very selective of you...but whatever helps you sleep at night.

Sounds an awful lot like you guys are "lawyering the requirements" to me... If you want to do something different, goodie for you but you haven't met the requirement as written.

We spend a lot of time in these forums talking about doing the requirements as written and how all these "high speed, low drag" approaches are killing the sanctity of advancement. So then, the requirement says: teach a younger Scout the skills from ONE of the following six choices, so that he is prepared to pass those requirements to his unit leader’s satisfaction. ​Since a Venturing scout cannot pass second or first class requirements, clearly this requirement involves working with a Boy Scout. So, go out and find a troop and offer to teach those requirements.

Yep, the porcupines will have a 4-person group limit next season, or so I was told by the ranger.

That was an actual slide in one of the many interminable PowerPoint presentations we sat through. I remember it well.

Yes. For instance, in the Porcupine Mountains, there are 60-some dispersed campsites but most of them are a fair distance apart. That works with different itineraries IF you have the skill set among your scouts where you can trust them being a mile apart. If not, you need more adults. You can camp anywhere away from trails and established campsites in that particular wilderness, but group sizes are again limited to 4. When we had set up our trip in spring the maximum group size was 12. By the time the trip rolled around they had cut that to 6. Next year it will be 4. With a group size of fo

Any unit should not pay for Wood Badge, period. Wood Badge is not about position-specific training. In fact, one of the messages we got on our first day of WB was "It's All About Me." In other words, you spend all your other scouting time doing stuff for others, Wood Badge is all about YOU. Since it's all about you and the befits to the unit are tangential at best (ticket items notwithstanding), why would any unit pay?

Well, then I guess we have brought our patrols in line with BP's suggestion. Now to see if it works....

Group sizes can be limited in certain wilderness areas. However you could easily have enough interest for an outing within a troop where you would be 2, 3, or more times the group size. For instance, the maximum group size per site in the Porcupine Mountains is 4 per remote campsite, which is not even a full patrol. So, what are the ways you deal with this? Many patrols with different itineraries...limit participation...other?? I feel I'm overlooking an obvious solution somewhere as this must be a common issue.

jblake, you're using an extreme example again. We don't have 6% attendance, we have 60%, and often more. So the problem was going from a 4-boy patrol to a 2-boy, not from a 100 to a 6 in your example. We reorganized from 6 patrols to 3 patrols of 8. History has shown that we'll get 5 to 6 boys per patrol at any particular event and that is a very functional amount in my opinion. At least it's a place to start.

To some extent you can address that problem by letting your go-getters set their own pace in getting to a predetermined spot for the day. When they get there early they can do their own thing. That's not feasible with every destination and itinerary I suppose.

An 8-10 mile day with a pack is a lot for a new crossover scout, let alone a 65# scout. You are out to have fun and enjoy nature, not train for the Marines. A scout that has a miserable experience on a first backpack trip will likely not want to take another one any time soon.

OWL training is not REQUIRED for anything--even to take Webelos camping. But it is a good idea if you do so.