mashmaster

of course not. sad, because here in Central Texas we have the best Brisket around 🙂 That should ruffle a few feathers....

Certainly is regional. In our district we are doing better than last year. The luncheon I attended, they got around $60k from the room.

Our faith in another deity, no all of us are Christian

The problem is that this requirement is a slippery slope. Atheism is probably the only thing that distinctly differs from the law. Unless BSA were to say you must be religion A and fulfill requirements 1,2, and 3 what does this requirement really mean? We all know many Christians that either never go to church, or go twice a year, or even worse go often and the minute they leave church they don't follow the golden rules. So in my mind, someone that is honest and declares being Atheist carries more weight than Christian (or others) that are completely fake.

It is sad for sure. I know in my district, the LDS units don't really follow the program. Adults run it more like cub scouting, they don't camp or participate in district activities. Very little of our fundraising comes from those units. I know this sounds very negative, I am not trying to be. I have many LDS friends that are scouters and they complain to me about the same things.

Honestly, it was in January and I expunged it from my brain. basically the results matched their decisions. but as someone who has done marketing before survey results can support just about any thesis if you do it right.

results

Our Scout Executive showed them to us at our last University of Scouting.

A scout is respectful. If the boys decided as a group to say were the Whites are and get shirts made, would you support that? Even if you happen to be all white, I very much doubt you would allow that. What are they protesting? A name change....seriously?

Ask my boys and they all want BSA uniform gym shorts and gym pants!

Saw this on USSSP facebook: We have been giving the "high sign" to inform all of you of a significant national announcement TOMORROW (2 May 2018) around 10am Central Time (11am ET/8am PT) concerning the future of the Boy Scouts of America and in particular about our young youth program (called Cub Scouts) and our middle aged youth program (which will have a new name revealed tomorrow morning). Those volunteers and professionals who attended the previews for this national event are excited to share the infomation but we've been embargoed to say very little more than "the details are coming

I like this one:

Writing down my last SM minute, it will be longer than a minute. It will be a wierd time.

Thanks all.

but it doesn't state that for the devices, isn't that adding requirements? The scout hasn't asked yet, but I know he will. He has already asked how his swim team of 5 hours a week could count. A gold device may be earned for each additional 25 hours of aquatics activity listed in requirement 5. A silver device is earned for each additional 100 hours of aquatics activity. The youth may wear any combination of devices totaling his or her current number of hours of aquatics activity.

Question on interpretation of the requirements. For a scout for requirement #4 the 25 hours doesn't mention auspices of BSA, so swimming daily an hour a day for a school swim team would count. Right? For requirement #5, it states that requirement, so time sailing at Seabase would count. For the gold and silver devices, it just states activity so hours on the swim team would count? What about all the hours on the Seabase trek? 6 days sailing minus 8 hours per day sleeping = 96 hours. Could the scout count the 50 hours for requirement #5 and 46 hours towards the gold device?

I am already a VP on the District committee and have staffed or led some training courses. If I can't get along with the new SM, I may switch over to being a commissioner or full time trainer at courses.

Some of the boys have asked me why can't I stay as scoutmaster. Adults and Scouters have told me that they think I have done a great job, I feel pretty useless right now.

Well, my son is taking a major step back from scouting which makes me sad. That being the case, I have stepped down as Scoutmaster for the troop I helped start as the first scoutmaster. It is certainly a very weird feeling not being the sm. I will still be an ASM and support the new SM who already does things radically different from me. I will need to remember to keep my mouth shut and support the new method, but it does worry me and the new approach already seems to be more strict and school like rather than boy led. I typically dealt in the grey area, where the new sm thinks everything

There should have been an adult OA member there that could have helped them when the request happened. I am all for boy led, but most of the time the boys will be respectful and also intimidated by a forceful adult.

For my son it was easily Aviation. He got to go up for a flight and they handed him the controls. Between the hands on of doing the preflight check and flying, nothing even comes close. After that it is the usual: shot gun, rifle, archery, blacksmithing, and lifesaving (The instructor was a very cute co-ed in a bathing suit, the 4 boys just drooled the entire time) Funny, the most hated merit badges are the Eagle ones..... Cit in ... Family Life

For those in Texas, I heard that Texas will still accept the old YPT classroom training for camps this summer since the classroom part for YPT2 is not available yet. I also heard that they are in discussions on if the online version is good enough to satisfy the classroom requirement in the future. This is from our council YPT champion who is getting it from someone at national.

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the input. His parents have him seeing professional help, I don't believe there is an abuse issue going on or major family event that caused this. He has always been an introverted boy, it just slid downhill fast since the start of this school year. Part of it I am sure is being 13 and all the lovely changes in body chemistry but part of it isn't. I am hopeful that with help and tools from the counselors, we can help him feel comfortable in this space. I have already begun talking to our more gung-ho ASMs that like to be rigid in rules and boy-led to rethink

Yeah, parents are starting professional help. I pray for this boy daily.

My problem with merit badges and advancement were reinforced at lunch today. A fellow dad was complaining to me that summer camp didn't offer many Eagle merit badges. I mentioned that first aid, swimming, camping, cooking are and he said his son needs the classroom ones like the citizenships. I said why doesn't he do those outside of camp, lot of opportunity for classroom and just book study for those. He is at summer camp, shouldn't he be doing things outside? It is one of those things that dad is pushing kiddo to get Eagle merit badges for advancement with merit badges. He is also the