gblotter

Our current SPL is just 13 years old and he is on fire with Scouting. The younger Scouts are following his gung-ho example and some really good things are happening from that. I have given him the challenge to break this cycle of malaise as he ages up in the program. If anyone can do it, he can. But we'll see - peer pressure to fit in is so strong with these older teens. Same here. Even though they are too cool to admit it, I sense some envy among these older boys as they see what they are missing out on. One of our 16 year-old Scouts is in fear of his younger 13 year-old brother beating him to Eagle (a likelihood which makes me very happy). Yes - completely backwards , but I see no other way to approach this problem.

I still see the sense of adventure and challenge in our younger Scouts. That is why I enjoy working with them so much. For our older Scouts (age 15+), I frequently encounter a "too cool for school" attitude that I find super annoying. They hold back and stand on the sidelines, even when they see fantastic adventures passing them by. This attitude problem gets really maddening when it poisons younger Scouts as they age up in the program. I'm trying to remedy this problem and break the cycle.

This. If the tent is not their own, our Scouts take no particular care in how it is used, maintained and stored. It is too frustrating to see troop funds abused in this way, so we eliminated troop tents. Most of our Scouting families are well-equipped with their own camping gear, so it really has not been a problem.

We have an upcoming ECOH for two new Eagle Scouts. The boys have requested the format to include an Eagle's Nest. I have always *hated* being asked to sit separately from the rest of the audience like that. Isn't it enough to just acknowledge the other Eagle Scouts in the room by asking them to briefly stand?

The end of BSA within the current generation of Scouts due to falling membership? I would be interested to see data to defend such a calamitous prediction. From what I have read, BSA has recently experienced a 2-4 percent drop in membership annually.

Using me as an example, I have to believe the unpopularity of this latest bungle has decimated donations. I have given my last dollar to FOS and I cannot in good conscience encourage others to donate. They obviously don’t care what I think, so I’ll let my checkbook speak for me.

After so many hatchet jobs on Scouting, now we are to view the media as friendly? The contrast is abundantly clear when they want to promote a cause. The collapse of traditional values to political correctness is a gleeful victory for them, and they portray it as such. @RememberSchiff At least I trust Surbaugh more than liberal media.

This summarizes perfectly the trust problem with BSA National. Unfortunately, it extends far beyond trustworthiness. I believe their lack of transparency is rooted in basic ineptitude. Their actions are shielded to avoid visibility into their incompetency. How did this noble organization of the Boy Scouts of America end up with executives who are so divorced from the founding principles of Scouting? A Scout is trustworthy, yet they have repeatedly displayed examples of dishonest, deceitful, manipulative, and opportunistic leadership. The first qualification for the job should be that you actually believe in the movement. I am truly embarrassed to have this bungling group of mismanagers at our head, and I am immensely sad for all that has been lost under their misdirection. I am one of their casualties who will exit Scouting at the end of this year.

Three generations of Eagle Scouts happened tonight.

Under your system, are you requiring that the boy actively participate throughout the entire period between Life and Eagle, or just a 6-month interval sometime between Life and Eagle? Our troop uses the latter definition for Eagle requirement #1.

Yes - perhaps heavy-handed. In our troop, that would only alienate families and not fix anything in the end. A 14 year-old Life Scout easily finds the time for six-months of activity in the troop to satisfy Eagle requirement #1, and then slips into marginal participation until age 17-3/4. Sustained activity is the issue. To be honest, older boy participation is the single biggest problem facing our troop. Fixing it is like pushing on a string.

@Back Pack I think everyone joins in their admiration for a Scout such as you. Perhaps our troop is an exception in this regard, but once our boys hit high school their participation slows to a trickle. We never see them at meetings or outings. Then in a desperate last-minute scramble, they inevitably resurface shortly before their 18th birthday - sometimes expecting that everyone else will also scramble on their behalf to help carry them across the finish line. That's not a formula I can get excited about. I am the father of three teenagers, so I get it. I witness their busy lives firsthand, and I understand their competing priorities. That is why I advocate striking while the iron is hot and while plenty of time is still available. Then they can enjoy high-adventure trips and other incredible Scouting adventures during their high school years without all the last-minute scrambling and pressure to finish off Eagle while applying to colleges or taking final exams. I know others here disagree with that advice - so be it.

I'll confess that the closer they get to 18, the less motivated I am to offer my encouragement and assistance. I am really not a fan of these deathbed Eagles (for reasons I've stated in other threads).

Fires are allowed in about half the campsites we visit. Generally, they are allowed when we go car camping and disallowed when we go backpacking. Same. We always bring our own supply of firewood. Gathering firewood from the surrounding forest is never allowed it seems. The only exception is at our BSA summer camp. At that location, there is an incredible amount of dead wood on the forest floor and it is a terrifying fire hazard. They encourage the Scouts to gather and burn the excess dead wood for small campfires to reduce the hazard. @Back Pack I agree with almost everything you say on this forum, but not on this point.

We have tried camping with another nearby troop on a couple of occasions. I know the other Scoutmaster well, and the boys generally know each other through school, sports, and church associations. Never again. The other troop has greater numbers than ours, and "Lord of the Flies" is an apt description of how their campouts operate. After observing what was happening with them, I attempted to segregate our activities in a separate area of the very large group campsite. Unfortunately, things devolved into us versus them scenario between the boys - even including some trash talking and mean-spirited pranks. The other Scoutmaster eventually came over to apologize (but I wish it was his Scouts who were doing the apologizing).

Do you conduct a BOR on the fly during a campout? Our advancement chair is bit more structured than that.

I love this idea and will suggest it to our troop committee. I guess it necessitates having a surplus of rank patches that can be drawn upon before advancement paperwork is actually submitted to the council, but that should be doable. How do you manage the quick award of merit badges? Having a surplus of merit badges is not so easy.

Funny - we had a Scout in our troop do this exact same project just last year. He also raised money to buy cat food for the feral cats.

I suggested a few projects to my son, but he settled on an idea of his own. He has a lot of school pride and wanted to do something for his school that would have visibility to his peers on campus. The school headmaster suggested they could use a new Lost and Found shed. The project was completed just last month. My son was excited that it was recognized during morning announcements and also featured in the school newspaper. A personal thank you letter also came from the school principal. A weakness of this project is that it required the use of many power tools to construct the shed. The BSA Tool Usage Guidelines necessitated more adult hours than was ideal. Take note of that when considering construction based Eagle projects.

It sounds like that troop is running a great program. We once had seven Eagle Scouts in one year, but that was an unusual group of boys who had a tight bond and were motivated by each other to be in the same ECOH.

I know you are quoting a Den Leader Guide for Cub Scouting, but I am becoming a fan of quick recognition for Boy Scout Awards and merit badges as well. You are correct in stating that it keeps the motivation going. It is good to give the boy his badges ASAP in front of his peers and then make a second recognition in front of his parents during the next Court of Honor. Nothing wrong with being recognized twice. This strategy requires an advancement chair who is willing to continually process a fairly constant stream of awards rather than just batch things up a few times a year before a COH. Without parents in the loop, extra care must be taken to ensure the badges get safely home (not lost) when they are given directly to the boy. On more than one occasion, newly awarded badges have been misplaced during the first 30 minutes. *sigh*

I don’t trust Buzzfeed - period. Even if this article is fabricated, Surbaugh is still “deceptive and sleazy” (their words) for the manipulative survey deployed last summer to create a pretext of support for their predetermined outcome. Whether or not the article is factual, it is obvious that BSA execs are scrambling. I find it appalling for them to announce an older girl program when they have no idea what it will actually look like. Why the rush to ram through something that hasn’t even been defined yet? It all smacks of (financial) desperation.

Being realistic - not pessimistic ... I don't think Mr. Surbaugh shares your dream.

In so many ways, don’t we wish “modern” Scouting still resembled 1938.

Our boys would never willingly abandon our camping program (no matter the parent pressure). Heck - we have dads routinely asking to come along.