Monkeytamer

I've been impressed with how much thought you put into this move.  Thank you for sharing the anguish of weighing pros and cons with the rest of us.  I know it wasn't easy on either part and hope that the weeks of soul searching are going to pay off for you and your boys.   

On ‎10‎/‎14‎/‎2013 at 10:47 AM, skeptic said:

Ultimately, you always know if you actually did the real thing; and you live with your self judgments.

This is an old thread, but I found this sentence to be the crux of the matter.  I did the mile swim last summer in the ocean at Emerald Bay Scout Camp.  It wasn't for any patch, or for accolades or to prove anything to anybody but me.  I did it because I wanted to see if I could do it and I had the chance to do it in the ocean.  I'm 51 and out of shape, so it took a long time (1:15 to be exact), but I made it and that's all that matters.  You can't keep from aging, but you can keep from getting old.  If you do that, living with your self judgements isn't so bad.  

My son passed his BOR with flying colors last night!  He is now an Eagle Scout.

RookieMom, you are getting opinions with a lot of years experience behind them shared with you here. 

I was a Cubmaster for 10 years.  We operated out of a parochial school, so most of the scouts were from the school, but at least a couple times a year we had families visit our Pack with a boy who was "done".  For whatever reason, their old Pack wasn't a good fit for their son and he now hated being a Cub Scout.  I really felt for those families and tried to go all out making them feel at home.  A lot of those boys ended up joining us and having a blast the rest of their Cub Scout careers.  At least four of them stayed with their new friends and entered our troop.  Three of hose boys are now Eagle Scouts and the fourth is still enjoying his career as a Boy Scout.  I'm not telling you this to toot my horn, but rather to point out that those young men would never have gotten the experiences and benefits of Boy Scouting if their parents hadn't been proactive and found a way to expose their boys to a different experience with Cub Scouting.  Do not pass GO, do not collect $200.  Go find a good pack before your old one ruins all the fun of Cub Scouting for your boys.       

8 minutes ago, John-in-KC said:

There is ONE board of review for Eagle. It comes after the requirements are complete, after the project is done, and after the local council had administratively verified the applicant as eligible. 

So, what is this about an initial BOR?

As mentioned earlier in the thread, It is semantics on my part.  Others have set me straight that different districts and councils run things differently.  In ours, the administrative part of verifying the boy is eligible and approving his project proposal takes place in person before the board.  So locally, we've taken to calling that the "initial" board and the next time before the board the "final" BOR.  I have spent all my time as a scout and now a leader in the same council, so I was ignorant of other council's practices.

22 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

The result is adults will make sure scouts are put in leadership designated positions. They won't earn the honor, they will be assigned a stature for record.

This!  Barry, I couldn't agree more.  I think it is important to shop for a Troop that does things the correct way.  Which is sad.  I'm sure it's romanticism to believe that there was a time when all troops ran the patrol method right down the line and had leaders (and frankly, a top-down leadership culture, from National all the way to the troop) who were versed and focused on the aims and methods, but as an Ideal, it's nice to think of a time when a parent didn't need to worry about these things.

1 hour ago, Jameson76 said:

One cautionary note.  In the 1970's the decision was to reinvent the Boy Scouts program and roll out the Improved Scouting Program (ISP).  At the end of 1970 BSA membership was 6,287,284.  At the end of 1980 BSA membership was  4,326,082.  That is a reduction of over 30%.  Whatever may happen, BSA will not be able to weather another improvement to the program along those lines.

At least those berets will look darling on our new scouts!  -Whatever we end up calling them.  Too bad we don't have a Green Bar Bill to pull our fat out of the fire this time.

Good on her!  We need more people like her.

5 minutes ago, shortridge said:

You wrote back upstream: “We helped them navigate the Eagle process and they all sat for their initial BORs in November or December.  They spent Christmas break helping each other with their Eagle projects, which are all solid projects mind you.  No weak sister projects in the bunch.  five of them, including my son, will sit for their final Eagle Scout BOR next Tuesday night.”

I believe John’s comment was referring to the “initial BOR” and “final Eagle Scout BOR.” There is no such thing. There is one BOR for each rank.

Oh.  Well, it might be semantics on my part.  I know that there is only one Board of Review meaning the body that judges the Eagle candidates, but doesn't every scout have to appear before that body at least twice to earn Eagle?  In our council and district, the boy will sit before the board for the initial approval of his proposed project and then again after he completes the project and the Scoutmaster Conference.  If that's not how it's done everywhere else, I claim ignorance.  As for the process as practiced here, there is a great deal of administrative tasks that the boys have to accomplish in a prescribed order and timely manner just to get to the final time before the BOR.

22 hours ago, MattR said:

I don't see the benefit of engaging Monkeytamer. It was his first post and he implied he wants to get out of scouts before girls are allowed to join. Which is less than 3 weeks from now so I doubt he'll be around much longer.

The issues being brought up on this forum do not match my experience locally. Everything I've heard from local troops are that whether they do or don't want girls they either will or will not create a girls troop. That's the end of the discussion. So I think these people that say they have to leave before girls join are not that common. What's probably more common is a mix of opinions in each troop. And those that are upset will leave. Those that stick around are going to make themselves miserable.

You are a moderator and you don't see the value of engaging members on this forum should they not have a lot of posts or voice an opinion contrary to what you see as the right way of thinking?  Interesting.  For all the rest of you that engaged me anyway, a tip of the cap to you.  Just for the record, I have spent about half my life involved with scouting (I'm 51 btw).  I never said I was leaving scouting (or this forum), but even if I did, wouldn't it be a good idea to engage such a person and find out why?   

On ‎1‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 5:04 PM, qwazse said:

@Monkeytamer, all the best to your clutch of Eagles!

I would be remiss if I didn't encourage you to tell them that theirs still work to be done. There a Palms -- not just insta-palms -- to be earned, Hornaday Awards, Patrol leaders to train, camps to staff, adventures to be had, etc ... There's nothing greater than a bunch of fellas modelling scouting to the rest of the troop without fretting over advancement. The rest of their terms should be awesome.

Thank you Sir!  Regardless of all the current controversy, eight boys from the same class making Eagle together is an enormously joyful thing.  When they joined, there were 22 Tiger Cubs in their group.  Thirteen made it to Boy Scouts and these eight persevered. I'd be proud as punch as their scout leader, but that my son is in this group makes it even more special.  Our troop runs old school, i.e. patrol method, all-weather, camping year round.  We haven't had an Eagle younger than 16 in the entire time I've been an ASM (10 years) and then only one or two. In short, these guys are rugged, capable outdoorsmen.  They are experienced leaders and I couldn't be prouder to have been associated with them throughout their youth.

I will of course encourage them to keep coming out and camping.  Their example is something all the younger scouts can still benefit from.    

On ‎1‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 6:29 PM, shortridge said:

If you feel you can speak for them - why did they feel this way? Why do they see a girls’ troop as an issue to overcome? What impact did they see a girls’ troop having on their Scouting experience?

I tried to reply once, but it disappeared.  If I end up with two replies, I apologize for the redundancy. 

I have been with them for most of their lives.  I was their CM for their entire cub career and have been an ASM for their entire Boy Scout career.  So although they never asked me to, I can probably speak for them as well as anyone.  They will never be impacted directly by the appearance of girls in the troop.  Our troop is an established troop and will never willingly be "linked".  Our CO has no interest in the mammoth undertaking of standing up a girls troop.  Plus they support a vibrant GSUSA program.  So these boys will probably never see a girl Scout in the field.  What they have a beef with is not finishing as what they started as, i.e. Boy Scouts.  They feel that some adults who don't know them or speak for them in a far away place have pulled the rug out from under them and that the National organization does not value their time, commitment and hard work all these years.  They feel like they should have earned the right, through many years of hard work and endurance to go out as Boy Scouts, not as some name that doesn't even make sense to them.  One of them asked me: "what even is a Scout BSA?  Tat's not even a noun!"  They feel like they earned the right to earn their Eagle Scout and take the mantle as a Boy Scout, just like their brothers and fathers and every other man who ever reached that pinnacle of Boy Scouting.  So they looked at the timelines and realized that by getting their butts in gear, they could make the deadline and stand among the last remaining Boy Scout Eagles instead of as one of the new "Scout BSA" Eagles.  I think they took proactive steps to make something they wanted happen instead of howling at the sky.  I think it was a pretty mature reaction.

On ‎1‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 5:50 PM, John-in-KC said:

What the devil is this addition to the requirements of “an initial board of review”?  You do have a copy of the Guide to Advancement, yes?

I'm sorry John. I don't understand your question.  I'm not being snarky either.  I just don't get what you are asking me.

On ‎1‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 10:22 AM, skeptic said:

We can choose to make it difficult, or we can choose to call them generally Scouts and make secondary references as we feel fit, trying to not somehow get thrown into the PC and litigation conflagrations. They are our temporary wards under the auspices of the BSA, which is now SCOUTS BSA....

Not to quibble, but it is still "Boy Scouts" until the end of the month.  I know that seems like semantics, but it is an important distinction to a small number of highly interested Boy Scouts, one of whom is my youngest son.  See, last year when all of this began, it lit a fire under him and his classmates.  All of them decided that they wanted no part in any of it.  They came to me and asked if we would help them get out under the wire.  Now, my son is the second oldest in the group and turns 18 in April anyway.  So he was already going to need to get in gear during this time, but the rest of his class of juniors (there are eight of them in his group still in scouts) all became highly motivated, even though some of them still have a year.

They all worked hard and wrapped up their merit badges.  We helped them navigate the Eagle process and they all sat for their initial BORs in November or December.  They spent Christmas break helping each other with their Eagle projects, which are all solid projects mind you.  No weak sister projects in the bunch.  five of them, including my son, will sit for their final Eagle Scout BOR next Tuesday night.

These boys are the core leadership of our Troop.  they are all good scouts , excuse me, Boy Scouts.  They grumble sometimes, like most boys, but they all like being scouts and camping together.  They would have stayed in longer, but they all decided that they came into this and have worked all these years as Boy Scouts and that they deserved the right to go out as Boy Scouts.  I don't blame them one iota.  I could not be prouder of my son for earning Eagle, but I am also proud of the way he and his buddies decided to overcome this issue.