swilliams

I'm going to be a little argumentative here. While I agree with what you wrote, it has been my experience - through the scouts in our troop - that this is easier said than done. We have been having major issues with getting MB counselors hooked up with scouts. Far higher numbers of counselors than usual are completely unresponsive to scout inquiries. For example, a Gardening MB counselor said he was doing a call with a group of scouts this past weekend, yet never emailed our two scouts who were interested with information regarding time or manner of call. When the scouts were given the number of the second counselor in our district (we only have two), the scout reported that the phone rang continuously without ever going to voicemail. Anyway, that's slightly of off the main meat of the online course issue not being accepted. Our council (through the Scoutmaster, so not first-hand) has indicated that it won't accept partials from outside councils/online courses for completion at their summer camp. At the same time, they are planning on hosting their own online courses. Given this from Guide to Advancement, how does that square? As to the very last part, if that guideline is followed - and this is what it looks like you are saying above - it would negate summer camp sessions, merit badge fairs, jamborees, and any sessions our council is hosting. Definitely needs clarification and seems somewhat contradictory. "The unit leader and Scout should come to agreement as to who the counselor will be. Lacking agreement, the Scout must be allowed to work with the counselor of his or her choice, so long as the counselor is registered and has been approved by the council advancement committee." "It is acceptable for a counselor registered in one council to approve merit badges for Scouts in another. This is an important consideration, especially in areas where counselors are scarce, when Scouts are away from home and want to continue advancing, or when merit badge experiences include web-based components provided by someone in another council." "Large group and web-based instruction, while perhaps efficient, do not measure up in terms of the desired outcomes with regard to learning and positive adult association."

Scoutmaster suggested contacting our District MB Dean, which I did. Not only did he say “I can’t help you”, he said he doubts anything acceptable, as far as Sustainability goes, can be done in an online class. Great. More worrisome in terms of MBs in general, is that he said our council is “vigorously debating” whether to sign off on any requirements for their upcoming online MB offerings. What the heck? Call me crazy, but why would a teenager sit through an online class (debate whether that’s a correct term, or not, but to kids it is) if there’s nothing accomplished from it: if they still have to meet with someone else for the requirements to be signed? Feeling very fed up with this whole Covid situation. I wouldn't be surprised if we come out of this with half the number of scouts we had prior.

We are now two months since my son did an online merit badge class. He was never given credit for the last day of work, and other than a confirmation email (with the missing day four work) we still haven’t received any formal record showing his partials. The last email I got was over a week ago. Each week, the emails have been saying ‘we’ll get it taken care of next week’, but now we don’t even get that. Email requests/questions get an automated response, and the phones go to voicemail. We’ve been trying to be patient, but I’m frustrated beyond reason. He’s done the 30 day portion - that was done last month - but he hasn’t tried to contact a local counselor because we were waiting on the partials from Central Florida. What do we do? He doesn’t even have a record of his work, other than two drawings, because they asked the scouts to use a link to a form to submit their work.

We’re PPC as well. SO disappointed about Sabattis. We signed up for Winnebago instead, though we may change our minds, given the ‘no waterfront’ issue. If they can’t swim, I doubt they’ll be allowed to use the shooting range, zip lines, or other shared equipment. At least they can still camp with their friends. My husband and I have offered our place in PA for a troop camping trip, but there’s not anything more to do out here than at Winnebago with no activities. We have a Copperhead sailboat, but only two people at a time can use it, and we’re 20 minutes from the reservoir. Maybe take turns fishing, kayaking, and sailing? We haven’t herd yet whether the community pool out here will open. The season usually would have started today. Them there’s the issue of responsibility/liability. I don’t know.

Slightly off topic here. My son did a Sustainability workshop (mentioned in another thread), and another of our scouts did a Citizenship session, with Central Florida. Neither scout has received “paperwork” yet, and these classes were from end of March into first of April. Not only that, but my son wasn’t given credit for his submission on the last day. The link to report errors didn’t work, and we’ve been unable to reach anyone at the council. Because the MB counselor asked the scouts to use a web link and fill out a form, instead of filling in the worksheet, scanning, and submitting, he now has no physical records other than two drawings. Its been long enough that he has completed the 30 day requirements, but he can’t finish the badge because he has nothing formal from Central Florida that shows his (incorrect) partials. Any advice? Bite the bullet, learn a valuable lesson about record-keeping, and restart the badge?

I am very excited by the formation of this group. There’s a big ‘however’ in there, though. As of right now - more than three months after the February 8th announcement - the ‘Leader Resources’ portion of the website still has “lorem ipsum dolor” text. (For anyone unfamiliar with graphics, this is a block of Latin text you get when you add a box for text to a page. This means that there has been no development to the page since it was created.) I'm hopeful that they will be able to gather steam, but if you’re waiting on religious emblems, it looks like it could be a while. I’m curious as to whether the booklets and medals already developed could continue to be used? The medals themselves shouldn’t need to be changed, and only a small portion of text in the reference material would need to be altered.

If our summer camp closes, we won't be doing anything as a troop. 🙁 Most of our families feel that if it's not safe enough for traditional summer camp, then it's not safe for our scouts to get together in any capacity.

When I worked at Scout Shop and commented on the higher expense for the Cyber Chip patch, I was told it's because BSA contracted with an outside company for the entire Cyber Chip program. So I'm sure you're right about them having zero insight into scouting.

And... the teaching of the sheet bend knot didn't happen tonight. I'll admit defeat. I'll still be here when any of these boys decide it's time to move forward.

Along the lines of what everyone has posted, I generally don't do anything for the troop other than keep our electronic records and arrange BORs. Our Venture crew doesn't do advancement at all, though there are two girls who are working on it themselves. I'd say Venturing is a happy place for me, too. (I'm not sure our Crew Advisor feels the same way at all times. 😁) Is anyone else finding that with the shutdown your scouts aren't leading the troop the way they used to? Maybe that's why I keep feeling the need to throw ideas out there. On the topic of the orienteering course, I've finally heard back from two scouts/parents. Both are Tenderfoot scouts, who don't need to do this as a requirement for their next rank. They want to do it as a way to get outside and do something 'in real life', which is awesome and why I put this forward as something to do during the shutdown in the first place. Interestingly, one of my friends wants to learn how to do it - she's about my age, so somewhere around 50 - and she wants to bring her 15 year-old daughter to learn as well.

Thank you. I agree. We’re nowhere near FIrst Class, First Year. I was just thinking maybe Second Class in a year and a half would be nice. 😁

Funny how sometimes vital stuff gets left out of my posts!! I'm not so good at communicating myself much of the time. I'm committee, and advancement chair (for the troop, anyway). Our Scoutmaster was appointed to head the Covid-19 testing site at Kean University, so he's working six days a week, 12-14 hour days, and has turned things over to everyone else right now. Only one or two of our experienced ASM's is still active - the others have scouts who have either made Eagle and/or are finalizing their projects - and of those two, one is in pharmaceutical research. So, yeah. The "main" ASM asked everyone for ideas, which is how/why my original ideas were given the go-ahead. The ASPL of Advancement is... the son of the Scoutmaster, who isn't available. This scout has done a good job of managing the weekly meetings. He and I did have a conversation where he said it was tough for him to go over reports. (The way we had being doing things, I would run reports from Troopmaster that showed which scouts needed which requirements, then left it up to the SPL and ASPL of Advancement to determine what, if anything, they wanted to work on.) Because of that, rather than giving him reports to look at, I'm highlighting things that are needed for those scouts who are close to ranking up, and he's taking care of what he can. For example, he has a Troop guide who is going to work on sheet-bend knot via Zoom with the aforementioned Tenderfoot scouts tomorrow night. I do feel for these kids; it's been really rough for some of them, and as much as we're trying to continue with boy-led, it seems they need some help right now. We have one scout who has been coming up with some great ideas, and the SPL is going to implement a couple of them in upcoming Zoom meetings. A couple of the leaders who are merit badge counselors are doing two meetings. Advancement has taken a bit of a backseat, which is fine, but we're a troop that doesn't push the scouts to rank up. The scouts who are Tenderfoot right now are (mostly) kids who just finished up their first year. Some troops might see that as being 'behind', but it's that way because we DON'T do the program as adults. If the scouts want to race RC cars and play 2X4 for a meeting, that's cool. The main thing I was hoping to get a response from, which I didn't mention in my first post, was the orienteering course. Because of this stupid virus, we have to do it one scout at a time, which means letting a parent know about it because they have to bring their scout to the location (these are scouts who can't drive yet). I'm running it - with another parent - because of the two YPT adults needed. Sorry for the long-winded reply. We really DO let the scouts lead. We also don't want to let scouts interest drop off if we can help it. I dunno. Maybe we really should just shrug off advancement for the most part for now. The other fear is no summer camp, but that's something to be tackled if and when it comes to that. An edit: the entire committee had a meeting when we found out we couldn't have regular troop meetings anymore, and ideas were asked for. So that's how this all started. The ideas were supposed to be passed along, but we never got that far because there was no agreement on what future meetings would even look like, let alone ideas for those meetings.

I'm fighting the dreaded 'scouting burnout' right now. From the very beginning of our shutdown, I've been trying to find ways to keep scouts engaged in an actual way, not a virtual way. Never before have things felt so difficult. It's like talking to the wind. Initial ideas were shot down. My husband (who is now an ASM!) thinks it's because I was too far ahead of the curve: that no one quite realized just how long we were going to be without regular meetings. Ok, perhaps. Other ideas were either ignored, or in the case of one committee member, given a thousand reasons why we couldn't do them until everyone got so tired of it that they said no just to end the discussion. Here we are weeks later, and those same ideas have been given the go-ahead. Now the problem I'm having now is that I can't get any of the parents to respond. Not one. Not even a reply email saying they have no interest. One of the two remaining requirements our Tenderfoot scouts need is the four weeks of physical fitness. Twice, I've emailed a chart for the scouts to keep their log, I've sent out two reminders (trying not to email more than once every couple weeks), and recently I've issued "challenges" with unique activities that scouts can try. Maybe parents are just too overwhelmed/sick of working with their kids/ready to be committed to the insane asylum? Just venting, mostly, but if anyone else has been having difficulty and has found any solutions, I'd love to hear them. I'm so concerned we're going to lose half our scouts during this time.

I say let it go. It's frustrating, and I feel like it 'cheapens' the badge in a small way for those who do it correctly . My own sons have seen similar, but I've told them (and have to continually tell myself), that it's part of what we run into all throughout life. How many of us have had coworkers who cut corners and don't pull their own weight? And sometimes they get away with it forever - other times they get caught. Still, that's on them. Your son will be learning, and the other boys won't. The older he gets, the better he'll appreciate the skills he will have gained.

While I share your sentiment to some degree (it would be nice to know if we're going, or not), if they had to decide right now, they would decide 'no'. The longer they're able to postpone the decision, the greater the chances of summer camp being a 'go'. Those increased chance might be very, very slight, but I don't think any group would be comfortable saying yes to group gatherings right now. Heck, I can't even get my first-year scouts and their parent to come to the local middle school and do the orienteering course I set up. I posted a YouTube video of my own kids showing them how to orient the map and take a bearing, so the other scouts could do it on their own. I offered the option of having myself, another YPT leader, and a Troop Guide be there off to the side in case they had questions, so we could shout directions to them, haha. No takers, even though for one of the scouts it's one of only three requirements he has left for First Class.

We did an online MB course through Central Florida Council. They ended up with around 900 scouts doing the Sustainability badge. My son wasn't given credit for the last day's work (some of requirement 3, and 4, 5, and 6). There was a link to report errors, but when you click on it, it says "This survey is closed". It's been a mess, and he hated doing it. Boring, boring. I won't ever encourage him to do another online badge again. He would have been better off doing this on his own with Zoom meetings and a local counselor. Hopefully your council will have better results.

Thanks. That's what I figured.

We have property in a very rural, relatively poor area of PA. Even they are doing online learning, for the most part. They have paper packets that are handed out at the beginning of the week for the kids who don't have internet, but I have no clue how they're handling the instruction part. I'll have to ask my friends out there. We didn't go out there when this all started because only internet available to us is through satellite dish, or phone lines. DSL wasn't going to be able to handle three kids using Zoom and a mother-in-law who can't seem to understand the directions to NOT use the wifi when we're trying to stream something!

I did a search, but didn't see any info on this. Our District Advancement Chair told us that BSA is mandating the move to Scoutbook, and suggests that we continue to use Troopmaster (our current platform) until we're certain all the Scoutbook files are correct. In looking for information on how to transfer files in the easiest manner, I haven't found anything from National saying we have to use Scoutbook, other than to record advancement. Right now, after each COH, I upload a file from Troopmaster to Scoutbook via Internet Advancement 2.0, so that shows the advancement for our scouts. Has anyone else heard about this mandate? I think maybe the District Advancement person is mistaken, but am looking for more info before questioning her about it.

Wow, I thought all schools were doing online learning. My kids would stage a revolt if we had to do summer school.

My boys can't wait, and will be devastated if there's no camp this summer. With Gov. Wolf (PA) being part of the northeast group talking about re-openings, if NJ summer camps are closed, you can bet PA scout camps will be closed, too. I'm not concerned about sending my boys, should camp still be an option.

Our council, Patriots' Path, is planning on moving forward as of now. The early bird deadline is April 24th. For the first time ever, the camps will be offering 100% refunds, right up until the day camp starts. I believe the first week of camp is July 5th.

I was thinking about having a letter at each checkpoint that spells out a word when finished. My youngest (12) doesn't have a cell phone yet, along with one other scout. I suppose he could borrow one. It would be a lot more fun (I would think), for them to share their selfies. Again, on a secure site. It might also give us some photos to share in an iMovie - or something - if we can't have a regular COH with slideshow.

I'm looking for similar suggestions!! I've done a few Zoom meetings, and son is currently doing an online merit badge session. Here's what I've found so far: Zoom (and Skype, etc.) have a small lag time, and it's harder to read body language, so there's a lot of talking over each other, then stops and starts. It's hard to accomplish anything in a decent amount of time. I don't see this ever working well for den or patrol meetings, but not sure there's any other option. The merit badge session is a webinar. The counselor is live on the top of the screen, and he has a PowerPoint going on below him. There's a moderator off screen, but whom you can hear. She is watching the chat/question box. With 800 scouts participating, she is only relaying questions that are arising frequently, and that's the only interaction the scout has with the counselor. They provide links for reference - to the worksheet, webinar content to review, and the merit badge pamphlet, but there's no way they can answer 800 questions, whether it's through the chat or email. I have a couple ideas for getting scouts outside and doing something fun. Will let you know if I'm able to get them approved and we can start doing them. One is an orienteering treasure hunt. One is a fire-starting contest where the scouts would take video and post to a secure site, like our troop's Shutterfly. Couple more ideas not really fleshed out yet, but I'm trying!

I'm working on the hiking merit badge with one son. It was started with a group of scouts from the troop, but can't be finished together at this point. That's going okay, and we (I was in as a second adult and advancement chair, much to my son's dismay, lol) just finished up a Zoom meeting with the counselor for all the boys that began the badge. That was okay, with only six scouts and the counselor. But the same son also started an online merit badge class with Central Florida Council... My impressions of that are varied. This particular one is Sustainability, and son needs a couple Eagle-required badges. I wanted to watch along with him to see what kind of content they offered and whether this would be an effective way to host 'meetings'. So, on the one hand, it's great they're stepping up and offering something for scouts. On the other, sitting through almost two hours, as well-prepped as it was, with a PowerPoint presentation and videos, wasn't fun or exciting or even very engaging. I started getting the 'do I have to watch this' after only fifteen minutes, and he still has three two-hour sessions to go, plus the 30 day family portion of the merit badge. I don't see this being any kind of long-term solution. Or even more than a one week novelty. Online classes and meetings, imho, are not going to be enough to keep scouts scouting. I'm just hoping most families don't drop by the wayside before this is all behind us.