DuctTape

That workbook, etc... is awful. Just this week I was helping a scout with it. What a disaster. I recall writing a project report not trying to fill in boxes. If I could do one thing at BSA it would be to 86 all workbooks. Scouts is not school. Even in school we don't use workbooks. It isn't 1982 anymore.

"cry's of inconsistency" -Using a straw man fallacy. "age-appropriate guideline" -Is a claim. Lacks evidence. A circular argument. "been in place for a long time" -An appeal to history. "really similar to" -False equivalence. Incomplete comparison. "broad why's" -begging the question Still zero rationale for why a two-night campout is inherently more unsafe than a single night to the level which necessitates its prohibition. Grading this essay for my 8th graders would get a failing mark. Grading the GTSS as a whole would get at best a C-.

What is missing is a rationale for the prohibition. Absent a clear concise reason, the prohibition of a 2-night campout appears arbitrary. Coupled with the volume of other clarifiers, the abitrary nature makes it difficult for folks to interpret how to implement. More "clarifiers" is NOT the answer. If us volunteers knew a good reason why a 2 night campout is prohibited for some, we could apply that rationale to help understand any appearance of conflict between different areas of the gtss. Because the rationale either does not exist, or at the very least has not been clearly communicated, us

I think more importantly is "why not?". For the GTSS to have real buy in, all restrictions should have at their core articulable rationale for all restrictions. All restrictions, rules etc... must be written succinctly to not require a 19 page FAQ attempting to explain how to follow them. If any appear to be arbitrary (or worse) then those tasked with implementing the gtss will ignore parts they decide are arbitrary, "up for interpretation", or just plain ridiculous. This makes the gtss ultimately just a list of suggestions. This failure is owned by those who penned it without meaningfu

One possibility is to have some sort of "invitation to become an ASM".

Yes, I made my comment earlier.

I believe that the insurance is for the BSA and not for individuals. When sued, insurance covers the BSA. The question at hand is whether volunteers and/or staff are indemnified under the policy as well. One can be certain that a lawsuit will name everyone and everything and let the court sort it out.

My #1 gripe is using the term "leader" vs Scouter or "Adult Supervision". The scouts should be leading. The adult Scouters are there for supervision and safety NOT to lead. (Except for cubs). And YES this matters.

The reason I do not use pointers for astronomy is to provide scouts et al better opportunity to appreciate the greater cosmos, and to become a guide themselves and not simply an audience. Imagine using descriptive language and the stars as pointers as the main guide. The purpose is to have viewers not just see a particular object, but see it within the greater cosmos. Also the joy experienced by a new sky viewer when they finally "find" the stellar object themselves. Sooner or later they then begin to describe to others how to find it. This creates a cycle of not just pointing out specifi

Yes. That is what I would preserve, and wish national and councils would advocate for instead of chasing quantity.

I think the focus on membership numbers (ie collecting dues for national) has allowed a corruption of the program. I would rather see national and the councils focus on promoting quality programs instead of quantity of units. It may be true that youth desire other activities, however there are some who still desire a quality scouting program. We should aim to provide that instead of trying to change the program to attract others. I would rather we have 10% of the current membership and units delivering a scout led, patrol method, outdoor based scouting program than increasing membership number

The next step of the process is the scout being tested. They would go to their SM (or whomever the SM has granted authority. I prefer the PL) to be tested on the skill they practiced. The sign-off occurs when the scout successfully passes the test. The sign-off is NOT from the practice or the skill building activity, it is a personal test.

In most cases it seems to always boil down to programming at the troop level, vs programming at the patrol level. Example: Troop decides to do district camporee and half the patrols/scouts do not attend because they have done that camporee multiple times. vs Patrols decide individually their campout some choose the camporee some do a different campout. Some argue that there aren't enough adults to do separate patrol activities. This could be true, but unless the troop is using a bus or multiple 15 passenger vans, they will need 1 adult to drive (at most) 4-5 scouts whi

Hit or miss. Same with boys. For those in stand-alone troops with a quality Scouter who understand the program, then yes. However what I have witnessed is these rare cases are the SM is a successful scouter and created the troop for his daughter. Now that the daughter is out, he is as well and the troop is suffering from a leadership and experience vacuum. This happens in boy troops too. The more common girls experience is a "linked on paper only" and typically joined a dysfunctional boys troop with a poor quality program and the introduction of a girls patrol made the bad situation

Awesome!

I was trying to be brief without getting into all the technical aspects of filtering, purifying, etc...

If there is a water source, I advocate for filtering. Only carry water for dry camps.

The concept of linked troops was good on surface and if managed well, likely quite successful at the sharing of resources. In my experience, the implementation of linked troops was not even close to the ideal. The reality I have seen is co-ed troops instead with adults using linked troop verbiage. These troops struggle with the implementation not because of the introduction of girls, but because they did not have a strong (or even basic) understanding or use of the patrol method. Basically the girls troop implementation was less than successful because they joined a boys troop which was n

In our area students all take a course in HS called "Participation in Government".

Your post prompted me to go look at the date for my Songbook. Much more recent 1966.

The cooking example was just that, an example. I am not trying to dicker around about what badge(s) are more important than others. The example was illustrative that any badge can be broken down into multiple badges with a more intense focus. It is my opinion that citizenship as 4 separate badges is grossly over-represented in the mB line-up. I have no intention to argue over my opinion. You have yours, we disagree.

Even if the mB is more knowledge based, the reqs IMO should have the scouts do something with that knowledge whether it be during the acquisition of the knowledge, and/or after the fact. Almost 25% of mBs in one topic is too much IMO. I would also not like it if they had 4 mBs for Cooking. Cooking for family, Cooking on open fire, Cooking International Recipes, Cooking for a Patrol all as different badges.

Some scout activities are not for every scout. We should not force a scout to participate in activities which they do not enjoy. If the patrol want to sing, and one scout does not want to sing, the patrol could find another role, such as "hold the flashlight as a spot light on the patrol". As an aside, I have been playing with the openAI bot. Here is my latest prompt and the AI response. (This thread was the catalyst for the prompt). write a campfire song for boy scouts and include the guitar chords and music Here is a cam

IMO, no merit badge can/should be done via powerpoint. If it *can", then the badge is really no more than reading a condensed book. IMO not worthy of a mB which should require scouts to DO more than just "repeat". Second, the mB program is predicated on adult association as a method. A mB reduced to a ppt presentation more often than not has little/no adult association. (It is extremely rare that a mB counselor is skilled enough to use ppt and provide meaningful adult association, mostly b/c if they have the ability they would not choose to use ppt in the first place).

Well, I would not have kept every single requirement. 😬