Eagle1993

Building resilience in our scouts is key. If we step in too much or often we will rob that learning opportunity from our Scouts. My son and I recently went to a AOL/Troop activity (he is AOL) and one of the Boy Scouts asked for volunteers to help cook. My son volunteered and went to work. Another Boy Scout came to the kitchen later and yelled at my son to get out... he didn’t belong there. I didn’t know what happened until I saw my son kneeling and crying behind a tent. I told him to go talk with the SPL or go back to the kitchen to see if they could still use his help. It took s

We ended having to reject a girl from joining our Pack since we didn’t have a female AOL den leader. Well, actually we gave the girl’s parents two choices. Either join our 4th grade den or have her mom register as a leader and come to all the Den meetings. She is definitely not interested in the 4th grade den and her mom is too busy. This is a biased rule that will hamper the experience of female scouts. I typically can get moms to go on campouts... but at a much lower rate than dads. I think moms willing to go on HA will be even rarer.

I don’t see this as a long term need, but adding girls to Scouts is new for us. BSA will still have many units who desire to remain boy only. The vast majority of Scouts will be boys. If there are enough units that are Boy only and desire a bit only camp it should be offered. As long as girls are not regulated to the inferior camps or very limited weeks we should be able to accommodate these units. Boys and the parents who want them to have a boy only experience should still have that option in the BSA. Girls have that option in GSUSA and they have the coed option in BSA.

You don’t need leadership positions to get first class. So, 17 year and 11 month person would join work all the way up to First Class while primarily registered as an Adult in Scouts BSA. Then once they achieve First Class they would register in Venturing to start obtaining the leadership positions for Star, Life and Eagle. I may be wrong, I just don’t see them allowing anyone over 18 registering as a Youth in Scouts BSA and I believe you have to be under 18 for the approved leadership positions below. However, I could be wrong and they may just allow 18 YO take on one of these roles...

Report just came in that we are at 45,856 girls. A DE noted that the majority of them are in southern states as northern states generally start school later. I know several Join scout nights in my area are just starting. Who knows but thought I would pass it on.

Leadership positions in Venturing count towards Eagle. Don’t know if this is how extensions are handled but a National volunteer is indicating that is what would occur. Venturing crew/ship. President, vice president, secretary, treasurer, quartermaster, historian, den chief, guide, boatswain, boatswain’s mate, yeoman, purser, storekeeper, webmaster, or Leave No Trace trainer So, one would have to be over 16 but under 18 as of Feb 2019. They would then need to join and kick into high gear as they can only have 24 months. Then they need to file an extension by early Jan 2020. They

It may be less if what I see is true. Based on what I am seeing in FB discussions: the scout would either have to complete all the life to Eagle leadership requirements by 18 or transition to Venturing to finish out the leadership requirement. They would not be able to be a youth leader after 18 in Scouts BSA and ASM is not an approved leadership position for Eagle.

Why didn’t he join earlier? Was he excluded by BSA due to issues out of his control? If so, I would expect he could pursue an exemption under #3. Not sure if it would be granted. I would have been fine if BSA would have announced that no exemptions would be granted for girls joining in 2018, at the same time I understand why they decided to do this.

Lawsuits would have been filed regardless. Now they can point to a consistent policy for the 2019 new Scouts instead of what some Councils would have done by pushing exemptions under the following reasons. To be clear, I don’t know if Nationals would have granted any due to #1 below; however, there may have been groups pushing for exemptions under #3 below. Now it is clear how to handle the situation. 1. The member joined or rejoined—or became active again after a period of inactivity—in time to complete all requirements before turning 18. That is, the time remaining between joinin

It should be handled the same way current extensions are handled. It is rare, but there are extensions granted beyond 18. This just makes it clear how Nationals will handle these extension requests. I also expect this exception will be rare. First, you need a youth to join in 2019 that is 16 or older by Feb 1. Second they need to be motivated enough to file and extension by Jan 7, 2020. Third they need to be willing to stay in Scouts probably past High School. I think we are talking hundreds not thousands of extensions.

I actually found this solution to be much better than what was being asked. There was pressure to shorten the time period between ranks or even give credit for work done before joining Scouts. They are offering to this to boys as well and are not changing requirements (other than max age)... plus you have to earn this within 24 months so it is not for those who want to abuse this exception. I would have been completely happy with no modifications and I’m surprised they are allowing the exception, but at least they didn’t follow some of the suggestions that would have weakened the rank.

https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/Implementation-Details-for-Scouts-BSA-FINAL.pdf It is in the interests of the entire BSA, and in fact our nation, that all girls who join the BSA in 2019 should have an opportunity to earn their Eagle badge should they diligently and promptly complete all requirements. Accordingly, after carefully considering recommendations from stakeholders, including feedback from volunteers and professionals at the 2018 Top Hands Meeting, the National Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts of America has approved the following temporary transition rules rega

Getting far off topic but We use real pocketknives but make every scout have their parent come to that meeting. That way we can have our 13-15 Bears work in parallel with proper supervision. Otherwise there would be a lot of waiting while the den leaders work with individual scouts. We have the scouts bring their own knives. The leaders can then point out differences, especially the impact of using a dull blade (some of these knives couldn’t cut warm butter).

In 10-15 years the scouts won’t necessarily remember what place they took but they will remember the memories of working on the PWD car with their parent(s). If some dad takes that away from their son it is a loss for them. I remember working with my father on my PWD over 30 years ago and am building memories with my son these last few years. I feel bad for the adults (and youth) where the parent takes over 100%.... I’m not jealous of them at all.

This is the first year I was asked multiple times about my pipeline. I don’t know what the DE reported by I reported my numbers to the DE (pipeline and actual applications).

Agreed... I had a few leaders take this months ago and a few others last week when I sounded the alarm. Our council had also been emailing and begging people to take the training earlier. Only about half of my 14 leaders completed the training going into this weekend. I talked with a few other units and they told me they haven’t even started driving this with their packs. They explained that summers they disconnect and September is for recruiting. Talking with my DE there is no real impact until recharter. However at recharter the local teams can not override this time which is

Three of my leaders have contacted me today and they’ve spent hours trying to complete it. They keep seeing “Sorry, there was an error performing your action. Please try again, or contact your administrator”

That is crazy DEs would do that to a unit... unbelievable. If a DE wants a girls Pack in the area and existing Packs are boy only then: - Find a willing CO - Find if any Pack would be interested in mentoring their leaders or identify key council volunteers who will help. - Recruit girls and parents making it clear they would help found a new Pack. Sending then your way is garbage and lazy. In my area 60-70% of the Packs have decided to go coed, but not sure of the results yet. We have at least one girl from another Pack who decided to remain Boy only.

Updates are sent to councils weekly. DEs would have access to this. I’ve also seen it published on th Family Scouting FB group.

Will the Church Troop committee be willing to have a linked Troop if the girls Troop can find their leadership? That could help. If you have girls join I would explain the situation and encourage their parents to help be founders of a girls Troop. Perhaps you and the SM could give some guidance. If there are <5 AOL girls then they would need to recruit more (AOL or older) to form the Troop. You may have a parent or two really energetic about this. Regardless, I would definitely let them know about the Troop situation before registering as Cub Scouts.

Good idea. We have started to accept PayPal and other means of payment but those charges are significant.

I believe this started to change in the!late 1980s. My father taught voc ed from early 1970s through 2000s. In the 1970s and early 1980s kids that went into voc we were interested in the trades as a career. The were good kids that worked hard. Then many schools decided that voc ed was a great location to put kids that misbehave. My father who became a director of a voc ed school was already having trouble hiring good teachers as most could make more doing their profession. Then the classes started filling up with BD kids. My dad complained and the response from the school was that they

We have no council fees or insurance (per scout) so only the $33 BSA fee. We make BL optional and charge a $55 Pack fee. We will probably raise our pack fee to $65 to build up some cash reserves as the leaders typically have to loan the Pack money in August for all of our annual reservations prior to popcorn or fee payments are made. I had one parent object and I simply showed them our finances... they understood after that. Given that many of the parents are paying $1-2k per year per sports league scouts are considered relatively cheap.

The defunding and loss of vocational education in high school and trade schools is a shame. If there is one area I think Boys have been short changed it is in the loss of voc ed. Yes, college is great for some but not all. If your talent and interest is in the trades you can live a great and successful life. Unfortunately too many schools have dropped this and seem to think any college is better than other path. I’m not a huge fan of online schools for most students. Most of the people I hire or work with use very little specific knowledge they acquired in college. What they have to

Scout leaders (Troop and Pack) are paid professionals. I was shocked by that one and heard it more than once.