mgood777

@@Col. Flagg The 1970's?!? Okay, then yes, that is a little odd. But they weren't required uniform items by then, so it must have been a local/unit aberrance you were dealing with, for which you have my sympathy.

 

Those were the standard (only, IIRC) BSA uniform socks through the seventies, up until the Oscar de la Renta uniforms came out in 1980 or 81. At that point we got the knee-high socks with the big red tops. And the red would eventually pull off.

 

He earned the merit badges before his 18th birthday.
His Eagle BOR was after August 1.

I don't see a problem with him receiving the palm.

 

That the merit badges were earned before August 1, or that he turned 18 before August 1, is not relevant, IMO.

 

If this had gone into effect 31 years earlier, I would have gotten a palm. But it didn't and I didn't. Such is life.

Recruit parents, aggressively as needed. Let them know you need their help in order to have a quality program for their sons. Also recruit within your CO. A good mix of both as mentioned above is ideal, IMO.

I know exactly what my pastor would say.  He would look the boys straight in the eyes and ask, "What exactly do you boys want to do that you can't do with adult oversight?"

 

 

 

 

When I was a Scout, I would have straight up told him we want to move faster over rougher terrain than our adults are willing or able to hike.

If I was held back by having to drag an adult along on every adventure, I probably wouldn't have stayed in the program very long.

Thank you for all the work you've put into Scouting over the years.

 

I've got 21 years in Scouting, 13 (almost 14) as an "adult leader." (I put adult leader in quotes because I'm really just a Boy Scout who never grew up.)

Venturing requires at least one male and at least one female adult for coed crews and coed campouts.

This was the rule in Exploring long before there was such a thing as Venturing. And it was as far back as I'm aware, the rule for coed Philmont crews. I assume if BSA makes Cub Scouts and/or Boy Scouts coed, the same rule will apply.

As far as I can find, there's no rule against having an all-male youth crew with all female adults, or an all female youth crew with all male adults. But if you have boys and girls, you must have men and women. I've always found this mildly amusing.

 

 

As it pertains specifically to this topic, what keeps a person born a girl, simply declaring she is a boy so that she can be in BSA already?

 

I've asked this question several times. I even asked National Commissioner Charles Dahlquist. The best answer I got was "A Scout is Trustworthy." The implication, to me, is that a girl who lies on her application and says she identifies as a boy just to get in Scouting, is not living by the Scout Law and not going to make it very far. Certainly others in her troop will know if she lives as a boy all the time or if it's just an act she puts on at Scout activities.

 

 

It doesn't provide any "assurance." None of the YP rules provide any "assurance" of anything, ever, and as far as I know the BSA has never claimed that they do. They use the term "barriers to abuse" and that is what they are.  Barriers that, unfortunately, can be overcome if a person has a combination of determination and luck in overcoming them.  The rules make things more difficult for someone who wants to do something wrong, and the hope is that the person won't take the chance, but there are no guarantees.

 

Like locks on doors are not going to keep out a determined thief. You try to make your home appear to be a tougher target than it's worth in hopes that predators move on. Same thing, YP makes it difficult for an adult to be alone with a youth in Scouting. Not impossible. The cynic in me says that it's all primarily to protect BSA from lawsuits. But at the same time it protects adult leaders from false accusations. (You have a witness.) As well as protecting youth from sexual predators or even physically abusive leaders.

I was mildly opposed to letting women be Scoutmasters and Assistants back when that went down. I have since been privileged to work with some outstanding female Scouters who have changed my mind on the subject. But once we had male and female Scoutmasters and Assistants, and women in the OA   I figured we should go completely coed. I'm surprised it hasn't happened long before now.

 

The Girl Scouts are, I guess, the reason BSA hasn't done that. But GSUSA is not providing the program many girls want. And professional Scouters are all about numbers, numbers which have been declining since the early seventies. They see this as a way to boost numbers. (Always keep that in mind when evaluating anything coming from a Pro Scouter, it's about numbers. One more unit, one more Scout, one more dollar. It is their lifeblood. It is behind everything they do. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. More units and more Scouts means the Aims of Scouting shared with more young people. More money provides the means. Someone has to deal with that end of things, and I'm glad it's not me.)

 

I agree that a lot of this has probably been decided, or if not completely decided, then pretty well agreed upon and they've put out feelers to see what kind of reaction they'll get. I know our Scout Executive showed up at our Roundtable to discuss this with us. (Our district usually has 5-8 people show up at Roundtable. The SE doesn't usually grace us with his presence, let alone take over 30 minutes of the meeting.) No, we didn't get any "inside information." He just asked questions much like those in this poll and invited conversation on the subject.

 

I don't know any more than anyone here, and probably less than some, but here's what I think will happen:

 

Tiger Cubs will become coed. The following year, Wolf Dens will be coed. And so on, staying with that one group as they move up through Cub Scouting. During the time they're Cubs, there will be discussions of whether we should eventually have fully-coed Boy Scout Troops or have separate girls troops and boys troops.

That's the part I suspect has already been decided.

 

Beyond that I predict something like this:

By the time these coed dens are Webelos getting ready to cross over, I think discussions of separate programs will evaporate and these Cubs who've been together since they were Tigers will be crossed over into Boy Scout Troops. At that point Scouting will go coed, top to bottom. Maybe they'll leave it up to the Chartered Organization whether to have coed troops or separate boys troops and girls troops. Maybe they'll encourage separate boys patrols and girls patrols within coed troops. We'll have several years to figure out how we want to handle that.

 

See Venturing for ideas. As Crew Committee Chair of a new Crew (among several hats I wear   ) I'm still figuring it out.

We have very few trained leaders. (Beyond the very basic training.) Our Council hasn't had NYLT in ten years. (Coming in August 2018.) No Wood Badge in almost that long. (Shooting for 2019.) Or Commissioners College in . . . maybe ever. (Scheduled in 2019, with the help of a couple of neighboring councils.)

I don't know if ILS-T is recorded anywhere. I know youth who've had it may wear the Trained patch under their badge of office. I don't want a bunch of people at NYLT who've never had any sort of orientation. I'm not going to kick 'em out, but I'd prefer that they've had some previous training.

 

I didn't mean to side-track the conversation. I was just using that as an example of things we're doing at district or council level because it's not getting done at the unit level. We're working to improve our units, but in the mean time, we have a handful of people who are trying to pick up the slack.

Ultimately, units are responsible for their own data.  Period. 

 

I agree. I was just thinking of ways the district could help. Thinking out loud, sort of. We have to do a lot of hand holding or we wouldn't have a lot of what we do have here. For example, ILS-T is supposed to be taught at the troop level. I'm helping teach it at as a council level event next weekend because very few of our troops are doing it. And it's a prerequisite for NYLT. I'm the Scoutmaster next year of the first NYLT this council has had in about 10 years.

 

 

It's almost a full time job making sure our data isn't somehow screwed up by BSA. . . . Change Bob Smith from SM to ASM, make John Johnson SM from ASM.

 

Somehow Sandy Sanders was made unit lead and everyone else changed to ASMs. Then the TC Chair gets a note that Sandy is not trained for her position. No kidding!!! 

 

Sounds depressingly familiar.

Old pictures showing their journey through Scouting are very cool.

This is from the same Eagle COH pictured above. These two young men started Scouting together and have remained friends. One has since moved away, but they each went to the other's Eagle ceremony.

Invite Eagle Scouts from your district and community. Whether they're involved in your troop or not, most are delighted to be able to attend an Eagle COH.

 

This is from a recent Eagle COH I was honored to attend. Everyone on this stage is an Eagle Scout with the exception of the pastor (light blue shirt).

I've struggled with advancement records since I was a Scout in the eighties trying to get my Eagle when National had no record of some of my merit badges.

I understand "out in the boonies." Most of my Scouting has been in rural districts.

 

The District Advancement Committee is often just one person who deals mostly with approving Eagle projects and organizing Eagle BORs, in addition to his other duties as Scoutmaster or whatever. I'd like to encourage one person from each unit, or at least one from each town, to be a member of an actual District Advancement Committee. It would probably be the unit advancement people. This group could stay in contact with council to make sure advancement reports are being entered. Possibly working through the Council Advancement Chairman, but more likely dealing directly with the professional responsible for entering the information at the council office. Unit Commissioners could help with communication here since all these people might not be inclined to hold regular meetings. One of a Commissioner's four Primary Focus Areas is "linking unit needs to district resources." Unfortunately in many rural districts, the Commissioners and District Committee are mostly just on paper and do very little. When someone is passionate about a problem, perhaps they can be recruited to actually help do something about it. Communication is the problem here with your advancement reports. Finding people willing to make sure all of the info is up to date and stay on the council about it would be a step in the right direction. An active district or council advancement person responsible for just that might be better able to get results.

I'm on WB staff for the first time as Troop Guide. We just had our first staff training day. The course will be April-May 2018. Good group of people. It's something I've wanted to do for quite a while.

 

 

That's too bad.  If your most rewarding experiences in Scouting don't involve working with Scouts, something went wrong.   

 

I don't work with Scouts much. As a District Commissioner, I work with adults, who work with other adults, who work with Scouts. Yeah, I get to have fun with the boys, like running an event at our camporee or something like that. Several troops invite me to all their campouts, and I try to go when I can. But most of my Scouting is at Commissioner meetings, District Committee meetings, adult training events, etc.

Got mine!

 

A follow up question might be: How many scouters under 55 wear the campaign hat.

 

 

I wear the campaign hat and I'm under 55 by 6 years -

 

The scouts in the troop love seeing it, I love wearing it. My old SM wore one, I'll never forget him, the guy was 101 ways of awesome. "The HAT" just kind of belongs. 

 

I'll be 49 in a couple of weeks and I recently ordered a BSA campaign hat.

I'm going to be on Wood Badge staff in the spring, so I sorta need one. Been considering it for a while anyway.

Out Philmont ranger would not let anyone camp outside the established Bearmuda Triangle.

When I was a Ranger, the "bearmuda triangle" was fromm the fire pit to the sump to the bear bags and back to the fire pit. Camping INSIDE that triangle was strongly discouraged.

I haven't even made it through the first page and I'm loving this discussion! Tonight at roundtable I'm talking about the Aims of Scouting, and lightly touching on the Methods. My audience will include a new Scoutmaster who focusses 80% of the time on merit badges (for a troop made up almost entirely of Scouts who just crossed over from Webelos about a year ago), and another new Scoutmaster who is experieced in Cubs but not in Boy Scouts. Some thoughts from the posts here will probably come up in discussion tonight.

 

Mike

Eagle Scout and former Philmont Ranger who has gotten caught up in the bureaucracy of Scouting as a District Commissioner.

WOW.

 

Yes, IH appoints COR.

 

Lots of professional scouters believe they're in charge. Sometimes they need to be shown otherwise. At every level, district, council, area, regional, and national, there is a Key 3 of one professional and two volunteers. The three are (at least theoretically) equal - at the same level on the organisational flowchart. You need your District Chairman in this, or you need a new one. You also need the District Commissioner. District Chair should have a working relationship with the Council President. Sama goes for the District Commissioner with the Council Commissioner. If you're uncomfortable going over the DE's head to the Scout Executive, you could go around him through the commissioners or chairman/president for help.

I'm with qwazse.

But I do think you should consider the concerns brought up by David CO.

 

I'll add that yes, you can have a den in one town that is part of a pack in another town. It's one of the things that was discussed in a class on rural Scouting at a recent Commissioners College.

 

Mike

District Commissioner in a fairly rural district.

If one were to follow the example of National, you'd think neckerchiefs were already long gone. Few (if any) folks from National are ever seen wearing one.

 

I've met National Commissioner Charles Dahlquist several times and he was wearing one each time. Once I saw him wearing two.

I would suggest one would use the color for the position one holds.  I am a SM so I wear the red when I wear the shirt with the SM patch on it and when I function as a UC, I wear silver on the shirt with the UC patch. It has no bearing on what I do in real life, when I volunteer, I wear the appropriate uniform for the role I am presently assuming.  To wear a BSA uniform as an ASM with silver would be inappropriate as far as my opinion runs.  Your mileage may vary.

 

I agree.

 

My opinion (influenced by Philmont policy when I worked there in 1988 & 90) is that shoulder loops should match badge of office.

I'm a District Commissioner and wear silver loops.

But in addition to that, I've recently become a Crew Committee Chairman and an Assistant Cubmaster.

I have purchased a set of the lighter green loops for a Venturing uniform and a set of blue loops for a shirt I'm going to put the Asst. Cubmaster badge on. I'll still wear my Commissioner insignia and silver loops most of the time. But when functioning specifically as a member of a unit, I'll wear the appropriate badge of office and shoulder loops for the position. I don't NEED all that. I could just wear the one Commissioner uniform all the time. But I've gone to events where I'm wearing the uniform every day for a week or more, so having extras is nice. Might as well have one for each position.

I have not read this whole thread. Been meaning to get around to it. Just commenting on a thing or two I have seen.

 

Age ranges - I was in Scouts before the New Scout Patrol was a thing. Or at least it wasn't common in troops in my area and we never had one in my troop. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the concept of sticking all the youngest guys in one patrol. I see pros and cons. Not sure where I stand on the idea. Younger Scouts learned from older Scouts in their patrol how to set up tents, how to build a fire, how to cook, and so on.

 

When I started out, we had 40+ Scouts at typical meetings. I saw that number go down to maybe 6 and back up to 20-30. During all that time, high-school-age Scouts were few and far between. They tended to be SPL, ASPL, JASM, etc. (And Leadership Corps, back when that was a thing - a way to push senior Scouts aside to make room in PORs for younger Scouts to advance, turning your senior Scouts from valuable resources into a group of useless troublemakers.) Patrol leaders were usually 7th-8th graders with maybe an occasional high school freshman-sophomore. My best friend was a PL until he was almost 17 because I was the SPL until I turned 18. I didn't officially have an ASPL, but he did that duty when I needed an ASPL. He became the SPL when I aged out.

I'll take the counterpoint--"you" are not the district in many places in the BSA.   When "you" show up, either new to scouting or experienced but new to the area, "THEY" will let you know in a very clear manner that THEY are the district...and you are not.  

 

I'm thankful I have not encountered this. I started in a rural district where there were not near enough volunteers to fill all the positions. When I started volunteering at the district level, they were happy to have me. When I moved to Circle Ten Council, I wanted to get involved and was immediately put to work. Within a week of moving there I was an ASM and a UC. I showed up at a district committee meeting just to see how things work here where there are lots of people and was immediately assigned to one of the operating committees. (WOW, they actually had a training committee, a camping committee, an advancement committee, etc. and not just a chairman of each.)

Now I'm in another rural district. Recently joined, didn't know anyone here. And again, they seem very happy to have the help. I'm a UC and am helping to plan and staff an upcoming CSDC.

How can such a great thread give me such a headache?

 

The district is an extension of the council, as someone posted above. I live in a geographically large council. I drove 4 hours one-way to our council camp last weekend. It's hard for council people to be everywhere, so they have District Executives and district volunteers to help them cover the ground.

 

Roundtables and training courses are a great place to exchange ideas with other scouters. I can read the material for myself without having to go somewhere to have someone tell me about it. But talking to others, asking and answering questions, finding out how these ideas are applied in different units, that's the real educational value of these events, IMO. (Much as we exchange ideas here and discuss interpretations of rules here. Most of my Scouting experience was pre-internet, so we had to do it face-to-face. I'm kicking around the idea of setting up some sort of internet roundtable, maybe in the form of a discussion board such as this, for my district and/or council.)

 

 

For a well-run troop of 30 boys, or a well-run pack of 50, the district is of no value.  However, to those smaller units, struggling to get started or to stem decline, districts are invaluable.  They (provided the district is run sustainably) provide activities/camporees, veteran leadership, "been there" contacts, recruiting resources/access, etc.  None of this is needed if you can get everything you need from within your own unit.  But not everyone has that luxury.

 

Excellent point, and well said.

The troop in which I grew up saw both ends of that in just the 6.5 years or so I was a Boy Scout. We had a large troop and a very experienced Scoutmaster and had very little need of district support. Then we changed Scoutmasters several times in as many years, actually lost the charter for lack of adult leadership briefly. (as a 16-year-old SPL, I was the closest thing we had to an adult for a few months, but we continued to have meetings   ) A 40-year-old troop almost died. There was not much structure at the district level because most units in our district were strong and had experienced leaders who didn't need the district and so no one volunteered much at the district level other than a temporary committee spot to help plan a camporee here and there.

 

When I was a young adult, it was something to do. I had been very active in running the troop as an SPL. When I turned 18, I couldn't do that any more. By that time we had several ASMs standing around with their hands in their pockets. I was one more, very junior, ASM with no responsibilities. At 19, the DE asked me to be the District Advancement Chairman. I was the guy who approved Eagle projects and was the district rep on Eagle BORs. I was in college, so didn't have a lot of time to dedicate to running a troop at that point, but I could free up an evening here and there to go to a district meeting or sit on a BOR and it kept me involved and contributing.

 

 

We have yet to have a third party UC assigned to us.  I am a UC and my ASM is the DC, so we have it covered, but had we not been commissioner overloaded by chance, I don't know what the district would have done. 

 

Your DC is the person who would assign a UC to your unit. He probably feels that between you and him, you have it covered. He may be showing himself or you as the UC to your troop, on paper, and just never mentioned it.