Jameson76

Average of 6.55 Scouts per unit. Trust they get to critical mass quickly. A Scout troop with less than 10 Scouts is hard to keep the momentum going.

Reading the article, and some others, possibly the dad encouraged him to do the protest. Certainly the young man and his family have every right to protest in whatever way they care to and wherever they might feel the urge. They have that right as a US citizen. The First amendment is in fact the first for a reason. I many not agree with his protest, but he does have the right to protest. The problem is that the Cub is in fact representing not only his pack, but his Charted organization, his district, his council, and the BSA in general. If he wants to protest the pledge of allegiance, show up as a citizen at the city council meeting, and kneel away. He chose to come to the event and lead the pledge as a member of an organization that basically works to help youth learn about and develop their duty to God, duty to country, duty to self. When representing that organization it is no longer just his protest, he is taking advantage of a spotlight not for him, but for the organization he is supposed to represent.

From the CSE Letter - Note the term "collaborating". The BSA (i.e. National Office) will be very involved The BSA, the Institute for Research on Youth Thriving and Evaluation (RYTE) at Montclair State University, and the American Institutes for Research are collaborating to conduct the study.

Since it is a survey by BSA National Office, can they save time by going ahead and publishing the results now? Would save a lot of time and money to go ahead and tell the minions in the trenches what they want us to know. Your example of the First Class First Year is spot on. The real challenge is that it is NOT rocket science to keep Scouts active. But to justify the headquarters jobs and spend the money, they've got to do something that appears helpful. The secret?? Have a FUN program. Go camping, Go outside, Go do stuff. Now the problem is how to get that implemented at every troop, many troops take themselves waaay to seriously, 75 page troop manuals, and basically make Scouting just more school. Scouts show up looking for fun, fire, and knives. They get cyber chip, comparing the cost of items at three locations, and having to explain utilities to their house. Not bad stuff, but not exactly fun, fire, and knives.

To be clear, there is no Post Project / Pre-EBOR required of the District or Council There is Unit and District approval of the project proposal. There is no requirement that the district review be a board or that the approval be a meeting. Just that there is a review by the district advancement team or their designee. There is not a specific requirement for a Post Project / Pre-EBOR. Only that the Scout, Beneficiary, and Unit Leader sign that the work was completed. The Eagle application and project process is covered in detail in Section 9 in the Guide to Advancement. All the ins and outs are covered, runs about 11 pages.

Use of the word (or it's longer form) POLITICAL 4 times in one sentence is impressive. And I would agree. The setting, use of the BSA uniform with a rank patch she knows very well was not actually awarded, and wearing an ERA button is very much a political (see definition below) statement and not happenstance. She is putting as much pressure as possible to get what she wants, sort of scorched earth at this point. A definition of politics (and there are many) - Politics is the process of making decisions that apply to members of a group. It refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance—organized control over a human community, particularly a state

Careful...you could get labeled a conditional Scouter and un-Scoutlike for posing such questions......

Sort of like Auto Mechanics that is now Automotive Maintenance, it can be confusing They brought back Pathfinding and Stalking in 2010 as part of the historic merit badges. Pathfinding was interesting and achievable, had a good clinic for that one with the unit. We looked at having a clinic for Stalking but it was pretty in depth and took a hard pass.

That would be awesome.... Challenge is daddy would likely already have the lawsuits typed up and ready to file if things did not go 100% their way

Well. When you want what you want, just keep moving the goal posts until the organization accedes to your demands.

Wow...I guess it is all about her. Guess the whole all about the journey thing is not in her wheelhouse. She has a path to earn the Eagle Scout rank, but feels that is not the way she should earn (be awarded??) the rank. She want to be "recognized immediately, and not asked to re-do years of work as Scouts BSA has suggested" No. You will be asked to do the work as a registered Scout under the advancement guidelines as every registered Boy Scout (now Scouts BSA) participant has done and will do. Nothing more and (note this) nothing less.

Absolutely. Youth are free to learn all they would like in whatever forum they may want. For rank requirement from the time the youth is eligible to join, they need to follow all the requirements. Getting awarded ranks from the now Scouts BSA organization within the BSA will (should??) require them to follow all time and process needs.

I am not advocating preventing anyone from learning anything. What a small group of the newly joined members (one in particular) want to do is get the recognition from their time as they were tagging along with relatives. They basically want to be awarded ranks from the time before they joined the now Scouts BSA program. While they no doubt benefited from their experience, they were not in fact members of the organization. If they do join, they will need to adhere to all advancement guidelines, including time between ranks, camping nights as a member, merit badges requirements as a member, and holding positions of responsibility as a member. No life experience cutting of the corners. Use the extension, if you want to be part of the program, you need to be a part of the whole program. All the rules and regulations, not just the ones you sort of feel like adhering to.

@qwazse Can you explain why you would want to let someone who was not a member of the Scout organization earn ranks within the Scout organization for their life experiences?

Best method is a white gas type stove and you can buy gas on the trail. Pound for pound best burn and temp ratio. We have had cash with us to buy gas. For the crews we send, our troop goes every two years (except when Philmont burns), past practice has been to take two identical stoves. Lately been using the MSR ones, though the Optimus ones have been successful. With identical ones you basically use one and the other is the backup. And you will probably need a backup. Worst case the crew can cannabalize and get a working stove. Not a bad idea to take a small amount of parts. We take 1 fuel canister for each and also 1 spare fuel tank. There have been occurrences where the canister got kicked over and fuel was lost. Good to the spare tank.

Thought with all the 911 systems everyone had hard addresses now An address tied to a specific geographic spot

At high level good. But may want to keep it simple

This will be an interesting test One would hope that with the extension the BSA has given the opportunity. If life (little L) experience becomes the standard, then it opens a tremendous can of worms. Why can't any camping nights count for advancement, not just those with a troop?? Why do you have to do your project when you are a Life Scout, why not now?? Prerequisites are for losers, I did something similar and mom signed off....

The emphasis on Family Scouting. Not that it is for Cubs, but the whole Family can take part in all aspects of the program. While at the front line that is not actually how it should work, not sure how those expectations may be managed. Families in Cubs is fine to a point. Families in the patrol method on outings is a disaster

I think you are correct for right now globally. Yet at the same time I think fundamentally the program has changed because Girls are joining and the program name has changed. Yes as we all have noted Youth are in charge, we teach leadership, they become self reliant. While that is the case the addition of the young ladies will change things, not sure if that will be positive, negative, or imperceivable, there will be changes. If you study organizational dynamics the addition of new elements into an organization will cause change. Actually I am more concerned with the "Family" emphasis being put in the forefront and what that expectation will lead to for the Boy Scout aged program.

We also do the recognition at the time of passing the BOR. Same for giving them a pin and card at the COH. Sidenote is we meet outside and make sure we pick up patches after the meeting. Someone may have to front the troop for some rank patches. You can probably do some quick math and figure out what is needed. Ex if you have 10 new Scouts, you will need 10 Scout / Tenderfoot / Second Class / First Class. Rank patches (from BSA supply site) seem to be about $2. This would be $80 as seed money. Maybe in the first year that can be recouped with dues etc.

Trying to ignore the whole "Scout Me In; Family Scouting is the BEST; the attitude that the last 109 years was subpar or somehow as the Boy Scouts did not allow girls; and the fact that as long as we're at it let's toss out the name Boy Scouts and become Scouts BSA. The name change of the program for the youth ages 11 -17; hey Girls let's join the Boy Scouts...BSA, wait we're gonna change the name now... I trust the Girl troops work out well. Just want to continue to run the troop, go camping, build self reliant Boy Scouts. While it's neat that Girls are joining, let's not forget the vast number of Boys that are already members.

Troop always brings a sturdy cornhole game, the boys organize tournaments. Decks of cards are good also. The one we bring is one a leader made, 2 x 4 frame and at least 1/2" plywood deck. It can in fact support a Boy Scout standing on it (though we do discourage that). Hard part was finding bags that would stand up. Found some on-line made of sail cloth that seem to stand up

Your post was that you must notify the District or Council of any disciplinary action That's where I got it. If you are now indicating there are qualifiers that make make more sense

That just seems to be an incredibly broad and overreaching statement If two Boy Scouts have a disagreement over some aspect of an outing and we counsel them, send them to their hammocks for 30 minutes to cool off, the unit has to notify District and Council? If you have a Boy Scout that will not cooperate with the youth leadership, after a conference with the SM, decision is made to call parents to come get him, the unit has to notify District and Council? If you have a Scout being careless with knife on an outing so an ASM takes the knife, the unit has to notify District and Council? The requirement (note this one is not in GTSS) that you must notify District and Council of any disciplinary actions taken by the troop to a scout in writing from the council and is somehow agreed to by the units and enforced by the council? Are there disciplinary action notification commissioners roving about everywhere?