HashTagScouts

I was thinking the same thing- why has the troop not asked any questions??? Technically, once those kids earned AOL, they were no longer Cub scouts, and if they haven't completed an app for a troop, then they are not even actually "in scouts" at the moment. Yikes! @Jburts911 "Crossover" or "bridging" is a celebration of recognition, it is not a formality of when a kid moves from one program to another. If the kids in your Den have met the age requirements to be Tigers, then they are Tigers and you should go ahead and administer the Tiger program as you are able.

GSUSA is a member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, they are not a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement.

What give our Eagle candidates envelopes that have the SM's address as the return and addressee for the Scout to give to the folks they are getting the recommendation from.

Just keep in mind there are more of us out here who did not earn Eagle than there are that did. Eagle is a great accomplishment, but it should not be used to define who is "a good Scout". Enjoy what time you do have for Scouting- make memories for a lifetime, participate when you can, and just focus on the next step. If you only have so much time to give to your Scouting per week/month/year, put a little planning- if the troop is camping in August, but you cannot make it, how about September? And if you can make that trip, grab a friend who is already 1st Class and ask them to work on compass orientation with you on that trip. Talk to your SM, find out who is the First Aid instructor, and make a plan to work with them to get First Aid MB and the 2nd class/1st class requirements done at the same time. As a MB counselor, I do make the effort to work with a Scout outside of normal troop meeting time when I can, but it is up to the Scout to ask me. A week of summer camp can be a huge time to get a lot done as well. While that wasn't part of your plan for this summer, what about next year? And, keep in mind, it may not be the best fit to attend the same week/camp as your troop, but you can go as provisional. That may give you some anxiety to not be there with your pals, but you'll be a year older next summer, and given time to plan for it, you might not find it a big deal. My son, who is an Eagle, forgets things all the time. I'd about fall over backwards if he took the 3,000 suggestions I have given him to keep a journal, so recognize you have made steps to keep yourself organized, and you should not at all be ashamed of how you are. You are you- this is your journey, not someone elses, so don't put a measuring stick on you and anyone else. Have fun most importantly- you are only going to be this age once.

We used to require the Scout to have a face-to-face meeting with the District Advancement Chair to discuss their project before he signed on it, but now it is handled by email. My son was under the previous requirement, and I liked it. It's a valuable life skill we should want youth to develop, how to present and I feel it is good prep for their EBOR. We do still require the letters be written by the references, and I would not want that to go away- both for the same reason as above about having to talk to others, but also because it gives the Board members an idea about the Scout and who they are, aside from just what is on their Eagle application.

Hang in there. My son is working in SE MA and dealing with. He's assigned to a cabin with no electricity, so he and most of his mates are sleeping in their hammocks under the stars.

If I were your son, I'd reply "Hopefully when you all send care packages for Johnny, there's enough for him to share with me, as I'll be there as well" .

A BoR is not a re-test. The committee's job is to evaluate and provide feedback to the SM if the youth are coming in prepared in a less than fully competent manner. The question mark is then really about who has signed off on the kid, and why. That is really the purpose of the BoR- to evaluate how the program is going, not the kid themself. Your issue with that particular youth seems more of a conversation for your next committee meeting and ask the SM why the kids don't know the Law. A BoR shouldn't be given until all the requirements are signed to begin with, so it should be ultra-rare that a BoR cannot be completed once it starts.

Correct, this is not a training that the district/council should be conducting. Years ago when I was a Scout, we had Junior Leader Training that the district did coordinate, but that was before the days of NYLT. Troops are supposed to provide the basic instruction, and then NYLT is supposed to be the "advanced training". I don't disagree with that, and think NYLT is an excellent idea for all to take.

If the youth had drugs at a Scout camp, the Camp Director wouldn't even give the unit the option of "a second chance", he would need to go immediately. I am a believer that behavior outside of scouting, when it involves acting directly against the values of the Oath and Law, are significant. Truly, the actions of this youth were/are being noticed by the other scouts, and that is directly affecting the unit morale and cannot be ignored. I'm a bit lost on why the option was for the parent to come in the morning- I would have had him sent home ASAP.

Probably one of the oddest things a SM could say- frankly, a kid giving their time to spend time working with 1,000+ scouts, some who may be from their own troop, should be celebrated. The pay for any camp staff is not great, so it is really selfless for a kid to want to do it. Kudos to your son, and from one parent of a staff kid to another, give him kudos for spending a summer at camp versus plunked in front of a TV or computer!

I've seen some troops give their kids a printout of the MB schedule they had determined for themselves and a copy of the general summer camp rules (presumably given to them at the last troop meeting before the camp week). I'd be shocked if 75% of those kids actually remembered to bring it with them ( and I'd drop that percentage for the kids vs parents that packed it), and I'd bet by day 2 if 1/3 still had it or knew where it was. Having a general printout posted to a bulletin board is by the far the best option. One troop I saw brought an easel with a white board they kept under their rain fly. Allowed the SM to make changes for the kids when needed, and have the SPL put the duty roster of the day on it (and make changes as needed).

The CC cannot remove a CM, nor a SM. Only the COR/IH can remove someone.

Troop Advancement Coordinator should be able to run reports to show that. Scoutbook and Troopmaster I know have canned reports to show that well.

With only 3-4 youth, and if only 2-3 want to do camp this year, you are likely going to get the response of "send them as provisional" this far into the summer. Your best bet may be to get ahold of whomever in your council oversees program, and find out if they can connect you with another girls troop who is already booked, and see if they have capacity to host you at their site with their kids/adults.

Looks like you have the "required" patches. Many committee members don't uniform at all, so I say your uni is looking sharp

The fact that SBR, even on just a limited number of weekends a year, doesn't have a handful of campsites available for unit camping is just a poor use of resources. Such a small amount of the total area of land is "developed" , and it is an ideal location for some weekend backpacking trips, and there are numerous opportunities nearby, like you say, for rafting and there are several horse ranches that do day treks as well. Let the place get used for more than summer HA, and jambos.

I don't want to bog us down into a political haberdash here, but a logic question is what proof does her dad have that his daughter was actually the first??? Can we really say that no female, ever, did the same requirements as their male friends along the way? How can we confirm that there was never anyone else? And, I'm sorry, but what advocacy has Sydney or her father done to change the female-only admission policy of the school she attends in NYC? Why is that not discrimination, based on his own statements about equality?

Ad Altare Dei is a bit more involved than Parvuli Dei - it is a lot of work and a time commitment. Parvuli Dei would be a cub level emblem, worked on with parents/guardians, and is in no way a prerequisite for Ad Altare Dei which is a more structured program worked on with a counselor. While the NCCS gives the recommendation of 13-14 years old and completed sixth grade for AAD, each child is unique and that is not necessarily a hard and fast rule. If your son is very involved in his faith, such as participating in your parish youth group, active as an altar server, attending a Catholic school, etc. he may be a candidate now. Your diocese should have a coordinator, or your council/district may also have a religious emblem coordinator to talk to. However, there may not be any harm in waiting.

Generally elections would involve every Scout in the troop, so elections at the PLC doesn't seem right. Discussion of the Plc and SM to create the new patrol rosters would have seemed appropriate, so that elections could take place at the next troop meeting. The ASM spending all that time at the white board tells me all I need to know- this is an adult run troop. Adults, and I include the SM, should speak only when spoken to or are asked a question in a youth-led PLC. Ideally, all the youth should be at the table and adults sitting on the outside. Appropriate that the SPL would give the SM a moment or two to speak at the outset and give some general outline of what he/she was hoping for them to accomplish at this meeting, but the SPL needs to run the meeting. Just because it isn't going as productive as the adults would hope, or even if it is an absolute disaster, we have to let the youth figure it out. OK to give advice, but not OK to have the voice of adults all that anyone hears. Camping together, cooking together, and getting the work done together as a patrol, yes. Depending on how patrols are created, you can have a few youth of the same age within each patrol, and those are youth that hang together at school, play on the same sports team, etc. so they are going to socialize and gravitate together at times. Don't assume patrol members are going to be the best of friends and do everything 100% together. But, keep being vigilant is my advice- but also recognize you may been the lone voice in a crowd on this, and it can take quite a while to see change, or change may never come.

We just had Conclave this weekend, so this policy change was a topic that everyone was aware of and talked about, but consensus is that changing from 10 months to 6 months does little of encouraging more involvement/participation. Most feel if we are losing the youth after they complete Ordeal today, this doesn't solve that problem. One observation that I took from the weekend, compiling various comments, was that we've had a much higher number of youth under the age of 14 going through Ordeal for the past decade+ than we did 20-30 years ago, and that may not have been a great thing in retrospect. Many just may not have been needing "something additional" or spent enough time in troops yet to appreciate that OA was something special. Also a lot of expressions that troops have fewer fully engaged older scouts than they would desire, and so they are concerned when they "lose" one of those scouts to the OA.

Valid points. Youth are not apt to read emails, let alone respond to them. Instagram and Snapchat are their frequent communication vehicle with "acquaintances", and text messaging with "friends". If we aren't making any of our messaging relevant they are going to tune out. as with anything, if it's rank advancement related, you may get them to pay attention to get the requirement signed-off. Sinking in though, that is a whole different story. A few years ago, I had a parent (this was outside of Scouting) tell another parent and I that they didn't need to worry, their son "isn't on social media or have their own email". 20 seconds later, I was able to show them on my phone their sons Snapchat profile, and explained they had to use an email address to setup the account, so they may want to have another conversation with their son.

Quite a few camps also have museums and/or memorabilia displays, often cared for by the alumni associations. We've done a weekend campout themed around the MB at a camp with a museum, and it makes it a pretty easy way to accomplish the activities during the weekend to have the kids check off most, if not all, of the requirements to earn the badge, without it feeling much like they were in a "class". Had the PLC plan some games during the day (orienteering games are really right in line with the activities from the original Brownsea), a visit to the museum after lunch with some very engaged "curators" who loved to talk about the early days of Scouting, invited a past SM of the troop come and give a talk at the evening campfire about the history of the troop some of us older adults shared a short riff on our time in Scouting for their "interviews". We were fortunate to have had another troop in camp that weekend with us with an ASM who grew up in the UK and had been to Brownsea and gave the kids a perspective on Scouting different than what we could. Kids brought some of their patch collections to the next troop meeting and they could walk around and see each others collection.

GTSS does have a restriction of 6 feet for pioneering projects. You have to search for that though, as it is under the "working at heights and elevations" detail. Some of the "rules" are just plain odd, really. Bouldering walls, for example, are not supposed to be higher than the shoulder-height of the scout. How many bouldering walls do you know are 4 feet tall to accommodate a scout that is only 5 feet tall?

I'm in agreement with the comments that labels can be problematic. If the program is strong, and truly youth-led, and it is the youth that are creating the means and opportunities for their fellow scouts to advance then there is no problem. If they choose to have MB nights, and select the MBs to be offered and recruit the counselors needed, great. If it is a situation like what @bsaggcmom suggests, where the adults are directing it, then it is not particularly a good thing. If the youth are planning and selecting service opportunities for their fellow scouts to have the selection to participate/not participate, kudos to them. At the moment it becomes a program where the adults force it on to the youth to participate, force them to get into merit badges, or even do the recruiting to get counselors and that becomes the collection of MBs scouts then chose from, it is now adult led and thus the rank advancement is being spurned on by the adults. My sons former troop was very much like that. I saw scouts achieving Eagle that did not complete MB requirements, and were given sign-off "because the scout told us he did them"- I was the counselor for several of those badges, seemed pretty simple to me that the scout should have been directed to come see me to discuss sign-off. The responses from other adults were generally "he's 17 1/2, it's no big deal"- as though age and that the kid "hung in there" was all that mattered. I did see scouts that busted their a$$ and got to Eagle at 14-16 too, but a lot of time there would be comments behind the scenes of "do you think he's really ready?", which only exasperates the notion outsiders have that they are focused too much on Eagle (and their version of what that is). There is often a fine line between being helpful to the scouts and doing too much for them that takes the work amount required from them from 100% to 25% in a only a few seconds. At times, it can happen without realizing it. We also have to be mindful to let failure become a reality- the suggestion can go to the PLC about it might be a nice idea to have Mb nights for badges X, Y and Z so that scouts can have a chance at getting some Eagle required ones knocked out- but, if the PLC drops the ball and doesn't recruit the counselors, stepping in and doing it for them isn't the right answer.