The Latin Scot

Well, regardless of all those details, we're celebrating our 100th anniversary next year. https://www.ocbsa.org/celebrate100/

I can see how that might be an issue if I had never met the family before, and I appreciate the point you make. Admittedly, my pack operates out of our local church congregation (which I grew up in), and most of the families have been in our pack since Wolves at least. So there haven't been many brand-new families whom I haven't met already at some point before, although those that have been new have been very grateful for the time we took to get to know them. Nonetheless I am grateful for your comments and will certainly take that potential perspective into account in the future.

I don't know about my pack, but in my Webelos Den, I would always make personal visits with my assistant and Den Chief to new Scouts' homes when possible to welcome new boys into our Webelos group. I'd bring a Family Talent Survey for the parents to complete during our visit along with the standard official BSA Webelos welcome materials, and for the boy I would bring our den patch (as chosen during the Scouting Adventure adventure), Webelos neckerchief, and whatever other uniform items I had on hand from my uniform closet to help him transition as much as possible to the tan & olive unifor

Here's one more picture, the only other one I've been able to find from an ebay listing that sadly included no details about the item itself. Hopefully somebody here will be able to give me some more history about this. Thanks!

At our Camporall this past weekend, I found this delightful little neckerchief slide for $2 in a bin of predominantly commonplace or uninteresting slides. I fell in love with it at once, but it's history has eluded all my research and scouring of the internet. Can anybody offer any information about this little treasure? I would like to tell Scouts something about this whenever I wear it (which I am sure will be often), but at the moment I have absolutely nothing to go on. Any comments or help would be greatly appreciated; thank you!

I've noticed that earning the rank of Eagle doesn't have the same prestige it once did. Nowadays there are so many leaders who didn't earn Eagle that there's almost a greater effort to downplay the achievement in an effort to ameliorate the feelings of all the boys who fail to accomplish it. Which is a travesty in my eyes; when you lessen the value of something good in a vain effort to protect the feelings of those who won't work hard enough to obtain it, you only create a standard of mediocrity that does harm to ALL the youth by taking away the higher goals they could be striving towards. But

Well, at least $36 is still something I can afford. Glad I don't have kids at the moment though.

As an LDS commissioner, I think 1/4 is being optimistic. Honestly, I'll be floored if as many as one in ten LDS Scouts throughout the country stay in Scouting. Details about the church's new program are finally rolling in and it seems most boys won't look back as they develop and begin the new activities. Here in Southern Orange County, CA, there is only one LDS-focused unit being formed that will likely cover every town from San Clemente to Newport Beach and all the way north throughout Irvine - it's a huge area with LOTS of LDS youth, yet only about 30 families are showing any real interest

The concept only dies if you let it! We have amazing flags from Wolves all the way up to the older boys' patrol. I'll try to take some good pics to share tomorrow during their meetings!

If the boy is religious, the Religious Emblems program offers a number of awards that could be very meaningful depending on his faith tradition. Most have lovely medals and ceremonies as well.

I LOVE these types of posts and articles. Thank you for sharing!

I'm actually trying to keep two steps ahead of that by starting to address this NOW. I'm letting families and leaders know that I will be collecting any and all uniform items after December, and I'll collect and catalogue all of it for other units in the area to use as a resource until it's all be donated. I know it's only a small gesture, but I hope it will help alleviate some of the loss for our district going forward since we represented a significant portion of our area's population and funding. I estimate I'll be able to get enough uniforms to fully supply at least 40 - 50 Scouts.

As a Scout I LOVED every single issue of Boy's Life I received. A caveat, I was even then a voracious reader - I practically inhaled anything with words on it that entered our home (and still do) - but Boy's Life was something special. During the late 80's and all through the 90's I read articles that I still remember vividly, covering everything from Legos to African wildlife to popular film effects to cave exploring in South America. It was, I daresay, a deep drink of fascinating information for a kid whose curiosity was insatiable. Now I read through the magazine and wonder if I've ju

A lady I know has a daughter who teaches at a small, indigent elementary school outside one the Navajo reservations in New Mexico. When I heard about the difficulties they have gathering resources and helping the children who attend that small facility, my heart went out to them. So when I heard they had almost no books in their school library, I put on a combined book drive with five other packs to collect gently used books they could enjoy and use for their education. I set a date for the book drive to coincide with our monthly pack meeting, and then sent information to everybody on every ro

Check out Boys' Life and Scouting Magazine. Sometimes I feel like those publications are nothing but ads.

WHOO mercy! $100 per person?! I can't afford that ... if this really does take effect next year, I'm in hot water. I can't take a bite like this out of my budget. I hope this is only hearsay.

Putting words into somebody's mouth is rarely a good idea, and rest assured, I always read my own messages. I never once said "I disapprove." You might infer it, but you can't claim I said it, and just to reinforce my point - I express no disapproval of anybody's uniform, despite the fact that I do openly state my disagreement with the position of some regarding parent pins upon them. But they are two different things, and I'd appreciate if you wouldn't try to divine what I do or do not approve of when I am perfectly capable of doing so myself. I will define my own opinions - not you. Thank yo

This is simply not true, regardless of the fact that it may violate BSA policy. I would never be so callous as to voice 'disapproval' of somebody's uniform, however egregious its errors may or may not be. I don't know whence this suggestion comes. But this discussion is about the parent pins, not the knots; consequently, I think it's important to use better terms for this conversation. Approval has nothing to do with this. It's not my place to approve or disapprove of these things, nor anybody else's. Approval is not the point of this discussion. However, there are very clear, and I dare

Actually, parent pins shouldn't be worn on the uniform, and there's really nothing to be gained by doing so. Let your child represent him- or herself in the youth uniform. You best represent the Scouts by being properly uniformed yourself, and part of that means remembering that parents' pins are meant for non-uniform wear. Nowadays, there are nice parent ribbons available at the Scout Store on the which you may place your pins, but again, those are not to wear on the uniform. In our troop, when we present our parent pins we remind them that while they are lovely reminders of their child's acc

Goodness but don't I feel like a wee bairn all of a sudden!

@my_three_sons Might I ask what your position is? Are you by chance the Scoutmaster or an ASM? The reason I ask is that I don't really know if it's the job of a Scout's leaders to test a Scout and "prove" whether or not he has completed the requirements for a badge after he comes to you with a signed card. Of course he's going to forget parts of what he did when you start asking a bunch of questions. Kids have a natural aversion to being tested. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I have spent an hour working with Scouts on a few simple activities, and then when I ask them

I ... I just don't believe this. I feel, very strongly, that ALL the methods are equally important, and I can't accept the idea that somehow a leader has to sacrifice one to focus on the other. I really don't think any leader's circumstances require them to walk into a room of Scouts and pick one method to teach at the cost of the others. The whole idea is that these concepts strengthen and support each other - if you find the methods are competing with each other, you're not using them correctly. For example (to the point of this topic), our troop had an outdoor Court of Honor

Oh, on the contrary @Mrjeff, this is a mighty relevant topic, and clearly one that still needs to be addressed. Thank you for bringing it up. But I suggest that it's really not your place to request that people not attempt to teach, educate, and counsel others to do better. I know that I will continue to do so - I think it would be unkind and unfair for me NOT to try and help the Scouts and Scouters I love to try and do better. Isn't that why we're here? To try and improve ourselves and encourage the best in others? I think you've added a lot of important information for us to consider, a

I'm just going to note one thing here. Part of the reason the uniform so often looks poorly is that, frankly, most boys and men don't understand how to dress themselves to their actual size, and so they'll just throw on whatever kind of fits them. If we wouldn't always reach for the most relaxed-fit pants and shirts a size too large with collars all askew, we'd look far better. Most men think "I'm a size large so I'll just buy any shirt sized 'large' and there we go." And most tend to go a size too large at that. They don't even try it on! Heaven forbid we should actually wash and iron our uni