JosephMD

My son's first real interaction with a Muslim was through scouting, National Youth Leadership Training. Wouldn't you know it, the course was occurring during Ramadan, but just the tail end. Their blue patrol decided to fast on the last day and have a big party at sundown for Eid al-Fitr. I think it was a good experience for him, a learning experience in other cultures and religions. Although I know he went through a lesson on Islam in the home school, that was more history and less, today. He also learned that turkey bacon, while kind of tasty on its own merits, does not deserve the term

Of course. My younger son is probably the most proud of his medal and hopes to get it presented at the year's last pack meeting, hopefully his extra dangly bar will come. Older son thinks the medal is cool, but was more interested in the patches. It was an expensive day for sure. $10/person registration, included event patch and participation CSP. $10/medal plus $5/add on bar (they didn't have the one for cub scouts). $5/ for the "earned" CSP looking patch, which they didn't have for our hike. $15 parking, so, over $100 at this point. The good news is that most of the "profit

Today, my sons and I spent the day in Washington DC walking James E. West History of Scouting trail. One of four hikes put together by the National Captial Area Council History Committee. My older boy tried to get this going with his patrol but had no takers, so decided to take his little brother instead. It was't a long hike, at least not the planned route, but logistically challenging and took much of the day for various reasons. The idea is you walk to various locations via instructions given on a guide and answer challenge questions at various stops along the way. Some of them were

Somewhere in my 20's I picked up swearing as a pretty bad habit, it is finally wearing off over the last several years. When it comes to scouts, I really don't worry about their language very much, it has never gotten to the point where it would bother me. There are times when an expletive is just the right word. I suppose, if I were a scoutmaster and the swearing got excessive or inappropriate for the situation, there are several points of the scout law than can be discussed in a scoutmaster conference. It is funny though, when they do swear, and they think you, the adult, heard th

Our council's cub resident camp confuses me, it is hard to tell if it is considered family camp or resident camp, I mean, it is a resident camp, yes, but they don't go with den leaders, they go with parents, which is understandable for 1st-3rd graders I suppose. My older son went 3 times, after tiger, wolf, and bear (yes, after bear he did two camps). The year after the tiger, the program was great, but each year following, it wasn't quite as good as the previous year. My younger son isn't as into camping, he went to that camp the summer when he was a tiger after joining in spring but he wa

The program will depend on the camp. I take from the information you provided that this is for Webelos scouts. The real answer is, it really depends on the camp culture, camp director, etc. I will give you an example of how one of my council's Webelos camps ran their program. Sunday - camp tour, check in, swim test - evening campfire Monday - set time activity periods at stations like, archery, bb guns, waterfront swimming, nature, scout skills cooking, handicraft Tuesday - set time activity periods at stations like, archery, bb guns, waterfront boating, nature, scout skills knots,

This was similar to one of my ticket goals. As the troop committee advancement coordinator my goals were all related to advancement. One was to provide the scouts with material explaining the various awards and achievements outside of the trail to Eagle. Since it wasn't a project, only a ticket goal, it was focused only on boy scouts, and unit awards didn't occur to me. A couple of the scouts have shown interest in the Nova awards, and one is considering working on the Hornaday award because environmental causes are kind of his thing.

I can tell you exactly how it was handled in my middle school when I was a kid. Part of my wall of text that I backspaced out of last night was my own experience doing that as a middle school student, in school. A couple of us crushed up smarties, snorted them through a dollar bill. One of the assistant principals called us in, asked us a couple of questions, called us idiots, and told us it wasn't a good idea and that we probably shouldn't do it again. Like he had to tell us, I still remember the unpleasantness that was snorting crushed smarties into your nose. I'm happy to say I've neve

OK, what is up with my backspace key? Lost another wall of text. Well, it was great, wet, muddy, chilly, but still great. Seems that most scouts had a blast. Our chapter's contingent of 17, 12 youth & 5 adults was the largest conclave attendance from our chapter in recent memory. I can only imagine how much more fun would have been had with great weather!

That darn backspace button, I lost a wall of text. Anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about it beyond a short discussion about setting the example and how that wasn't the right example to be setting. If the scouts think he isn't living up to the respnosbilities they expect of their senior patrol leader, they should replace him.

Whew, had all my transportation and carpooling worked out, and poof, one of my drivers got into an accident last night, they are OK, but we are now short a vehicle. Fortunately, I had already decided to take my wife's minivan to transport the two youth members who I had already planned to drive. Looks like I'll have three more. The lodge will give me transportation funds now in the form of a gas card because I'll be transporting at least 4 youth. I think I'll spend that buying the youth lunch on the way home on Sunday. I knew it was a good idea not to go down early. My son caught a ri

I will let myself be taken advantage of at the patch auction, but that's because I know the funds benefit good stuff. That can always be a problem with adults and youth trading patches though. When I was a youth, our chapter adviser was asked to step down and the word was that unfair patch trading was at least part of the reason. These days, we have the Internet and its trading groups, my son does it a lot, I really have no idea what he is trading, but he avoids trading anything he doesn't have more than one of unless it gets him something he really wants. I know our lodge shows team ha

As the member of committee who focuses on advancement, the Court of Honor is the night where I get to see my efforts publicly recognized. Of course, I'm still in the background, just watching as the SPL and the MC for the night do the announcing and awarding of merit badges, rank advancement cards, etc. It is like getting a pat on the back that nobody else knows about. The scouts are still using the same old tired script they've been using since my son first joined. I suppose at some point they will figure out that there are seven ranks and more than 121 merit badges. Maybe I'll ask t

This weekend I will be attending the Section NE6A Conclave at Goshen Scout Reservation Hosted by my lodge, Amangamek-Wipit 470. I'm looking forward to spending time with over 400 arrowmen, 17 of which are from my chapter. It is our chapter's largest contingent in a while (since I rejoined at least). 5 adults and 12 youth is not a bad ratio and at least two of our guys have staffing jobs, one on the cook crew and the other plans to put his BSA lifeguard to use staffing the waterfront. Our lodge is large and it dominated registrations by two to one over the other two lodges combined. Att

Just when I thought my son had taken on as many roles and responsibilities in scouting as he could handle, he goes and accepts the nomination for Venturing Officers Association President. Son, listen to me, if nobody else is taking the job, maybe there is a reason! Anyway, that's what I was thinking when he told me how it went down. Our VOA is weird, our county is split into two districts, neither of which had enough venture scouts to make a VOA viable (it is weak even combined), so they created the County VOA. I really don't know much about it really, I'm going to leave him to his vent

I have noticed that progress has slowed since the BSA acquisition. It could also be that it corresponded with major program changes that would have required a lot of software work.

Yes, you award the Webelos badge when the scout has completed the requirements. Depending on your den and your scouts, it may take them to the end of the school year, or they may finish up early. I generally subscribe to awarding the badge as soon as possible after the scout has completed the requirements, the first pack meeting after is ideal.

For a unit that has been doing advancement by hand, there are many options out there all with various pros and cons. ​I have been using ScoutBook.com to track troop advancement, and my younger son's webelos advancement. The big disadvantage to ScoutBook.com, it is online, the big advantage to ScoutBook.com, it is online! I find that it generally works and is kept up to date with the latest advancment changes. Parents can be involved in the process, which is important for cub scouts, but of course, they have to be online. It can do calendar too, e-mails, some simple financial track

My thought on first class in the first year is that if you have a good program, an active scout who really wants to do it will have enough opprotunities to earn first class in his first year, or at least close. I just sat on a second and first class board of review for a scout in my son's troop who earned it in about 14 months. He had finished up everything but a couple of the swimming requirements and became the squeaky wheel with the SPL about getting in some pool time and the SPL announced that he'd be at the YMCA pool on Saturday at 5 and any scout that wanted swimming requirements shoul

It was a nice course, 5 of us were taking it, I was the only one that wasn't already an ASM There were three Eagle Scouts in the course, myself, and one new leader who had just recently come from cub scouts. We skipped some of the games and stuff and replaced it with additional discussion. A lot of the time I was thinking to myself, I could totally be teaching this course. Every scouter has an idea of what a scoutmaster should and shouldn't be doing. Some good ideas come out and some bad ones. There was discussion of new scout patrol, standard patrol, and older boy patrol th

My wife is the pack committee chair. If you ask her, the committee's job is whatever she says the committee's job is, and the same goes for the other roles as well, but she is reasonable. Basically, the committee sets the direction and plans the program at a high level, and the den leaders / cub master delivers the program and plans the finer details. The cub master, for example, his role is to plan and run the pack meeting, it is completely under his authority, whatever he wants to do, which is the expectation that has been set. The committee has set the time and date for the pack mee

Eventually, I'll read this whole thread too. But for now, I'll give my thoughts on the OPs initial questions. I'll start with, that is a really strange tradition, the father son thing. Every lodge is different, but what we look for in adults is adults that can help us deliver the OA program. Can you act as an adviser in some capacity or fill some other adult rule like, health and safety? Can you spare those extra camping weekends and drive scouts from your chapter / area to and from camp? I suppose it is our lodge's way of limiting the sash and dash on the adult side of things. Yes,

For many, especially scouters, it is hard to string together several free weekends in a row, because, well, we already do a lot of scouting on the weekends, so I'm not sure it would help much when it comes to volunteers. I have never known anything different than a 5 day week of day camp, from all the way back when I was in a Wolf den in 1987. Later, staffing day camp when I was a boy scout was a pretty big deal for me. I've had a son go to cub scout day camp continuously for the last 7 years, always been during the week, some times both sons, and a son attending and a son staff