yknot

I wouldn't draw too tight a relationship between some of those trends because over the past 25 years there have been a lot of other things at play including a more universal disenchantment with scouting. A portion of my family is in Scouts Canada, in some cases in both Scouts Canada and BSA, and when talking to them, the view is more nuanced. Scouts Canada has been impacted by the Francophone and anti Commonwealth movement in some provinces that eschews all things British. There is an indigenous movement, much higher profile than here, that eschews all things Colonial. And Canadians in general have been distancing themselves in public life from anything connected to religious institutions. It's been kind of a triple whammy for scouting, which in Canada is seen to be connected to all three.

I think it's more about the age/timing of when people are looking to move their kids as well as the fact that scouting accomplishments apart from Eagle are almost meaningless to people outside scouting. If you write on your child's application to a private middle school that they just achieved Arrow of Light, the highest rank in cub scouts, it sounds good and shows completion. Six months later trying to explain where Tenderfoot or Second Class falls in scouting or what it means is not particularly as easy or clear cut. Of course there are plenty of people who push their kids to Eagle at 13 so they can put it on a competitive private high school application.

You are joking but in reality parents will list it as a credential on applications to private schools. There aren't a lot of comparable accomplishments in that age group for parents who are looking to get into competitive middle schools.

Like the weather, that varies according to where you live.

Where does end of school year have a set date? We used to get out as late as June 28. Some private schools got out later or earlier. Our Council used to have a Webelos Woods camp out for cross overs in July after everyone was out. For kids who are taking make up courses, the end of the school year is over the summer. Unless that's some rule I've missed, I think it's probably any date before Labor Day.

Exactly. There is controversy surrounding who is a federally recognized tribe vs. who is not; there are multiple advocacy or heritage associations for the same parent tribe; there are disagreements between tribal groups; there is disagreement over who is local vs. who is not, etc.

Every single state east of the Mississippi has either federally or state recognized tribes or unrecognized but active heritage tribal associations. They are pretty easy to find. That's one of the complaints of the indigenous community. People seem blind to the fact that they are all still right here, all over the place, just as other groups are. If you want to start learning about your local tribal groups, just google Indian Tribal groups in XXX state and you'll find them. Most states have tribal relations, affairs, or resource departments or agencies.

You are referring to the parents leaving the pack meeting? That's not rumor, that happened to me in my unit when I was the Committee Chair and one of my Webelos co-leaders was the one who arranged the visit. She had done the same thing a few years prior for her older son. She was shocked. We all were -- we'd seen it before, didn't really think much about it. Myself and the Cubmaster were the ones who had to smooth it over with the district. It's also not the only incident I'm aware of.

At the pack level some years ago, one of the leaders excitedly brought in some OA dancers, thinking it would thrill the youth and inspire word of mouth recruitment. Instead, at least half the parents dragged their cubs out the door within minutes and pack leadership had to subsequently field some rather outraged questions from the school district since it was held in a gym, and issue assurances it would never happen again. At the troop level, interest in OA has been zero to minimal for the better part of a decade. Parents and youth here are heavily focused on pursuing Eagle and any other accolade that will look good on a college resume. In this social media age, however, people have increasingly become sensitized about recognizing and not being associated with anything that could be construed as demeaning, questionable, or politically incorrect. Frankly, people outside of scouting and even many within it, don't know what OA is, which is maybe good. But once they understand what it is and read up a little about it, they generally don't seem to get much past a couple of the words or a stray post on Facebook before deciding it's not for them. This has come up in BORs with scouts and in conversations with parents. Personally, I think rebranding OA away from the AI imagery and language to become something more focused on the scouting trail could be a boost to membership. I think if there was a national youth survey on how they currently view OA and its associated imagery, ceremonies, and language, it might help give a better picture of how to shape a meaningful scout honor society.

It seemed most of the commenters were survivors. I'm glad most of them stopped commenting -- everything seemed to be very triggering to the point that I worried about state of mind for some of them. It's good if, with the sense that the bulk of this has been decided, good or bad, for them, they have moved on. It would be unhealthy to remain in that state of agitation throughout the appeal process. Although I imagine if anything significant crops up, they'll be back.

What connection does the Order of the Arrow have with North America indigenous cultures? As far as I know, it is a BSA honor and service society. Is service performed for local tribes or reservations as part of OA society membership? Do the local tribes and communities benefit from volunteer hours given by OA members or from any fundraising efforts or support, either from the local OA lodge, national group, or the BSA? Do OA members volunteer their time on reservations they way they do to council camps? Are there any kinds of standardized BSA scholarship programs offered to reservation youth? Do the lodges pay any licensing fees to their local tribes for the use of the regalia and images? Do the national groups? Just wondering what we give in return for having been able to use some of this iconography if anyone knows ...

There are plenty of Swiss in North America and they've brought that iconography with them.

Swiss culture. William Tell.

Don't be afraid to reach out outside of scouting if your scouts are bored and you don't have a lot of scouting resources nearby. County parks department naturalists, state wildlife biologists, local universities, Audubon state or local chapters, watersheds, hiking clubs, outdoors groups like Trout Unlimited and Ducks Unlimited. They are great resources to help adult leaders become more educated and more interesting, and they also can come liven up a troop meeting by sharing some knowledge or meeting up with scouts to give a demo somewhere. Through Audubon, I got a national expert to meet up with us with us at a hawk watch. He exploded the Miss Drysdale stereotype with his cowboy boots and laconic raptor tales. My son and I just went on a hike through one of the last stands of primordial forest in our state. It was on a university ecological and research preserve, and it was led by a PhD student. He made leafless trees fascinating to everyone there, including my usually too cool for school teenager.

GSA numbers have dropped -- they are closer to 1 million than 1.7 million -- but not as precipitously as BSA. Interestingly 4-H increased dramatically from about 4 million kids pre pandemic to about 6 million now. Locally, I know a lot of kids who have discovered 4-H. It's mixed gender, family friendly, and very economical. Sports are also interesting. A lot of people are saying youth sports registrations are down, too, but that's primarily among the traditional types of sports that have been tracked. I can't seem to lay my hands on it, but about a year ago there were statistics about the effect of the pandemic on youth involvement in sports. While a lot of the traditional team sports lost players or reversed what had been an upward trend, a lot of youth apparently shifted to other more niche sports during the pandemic like mountain biking, horseback riding, and tennis, and haven't gone back to their old sports. Kid involvement in sports across the board -- when you add in the growth in new areas -- is actually up.

In an email I received today from the state Methodist conference it includes a notation that the UMC/BSA Affiliation and Facility Use agreements have been finalized as of December 15th. Final versions to be used going forward are on the methodistscouter.org website. I've read these several times and perhaps I missed it but I was struck by the high cap of $7.5 million per incident/$23 million total for general liability claims.

... for you. Experiences with Covid seem to be very individual. I think the key lesson with Covid is that what works for you, works for you, and not necessarily for someone else. I'm very glad you are doing well. For myself, I don't think I won that same genetic lottery and have been thankful that the vaccine and boosters have so far apparently done their job to keep me and the other high risk individuals in my sphere healthy.

Cambridgeskip is a good bet if he's stopping by. If not, have you been on reddit? There have been a few UK people on there in the past few months looking for the reverse. You could also always try Bear Grylls. He does answer some queries. We did Canada because I had nephews in Scouts Canada. My scouts were impressed with how much they camped in the winter, the fact that they don't have snow days, and that they, at that time, had to swear an oath to the queen.

I've had to get water to events that have needed a lot and have used portable plastic stock tanks. They are an investment but if you do this all the time it might be worth it. They fit in the back of a pickup. I have also used plastic 55 gal drums with lids that are not too bad $. You'd still want some personal drinking water but this is the way to get a lot of gallonage for washing, cooking, watering stock. People whose wells fail or need to truck in household water also use these. There were a lot of stories in the news this year of people doing this in the southwest. You might be able to get some used.

What a great year. You've been to some beautiful, interesting places, including Platform 9 3/4. We don't have one of those here in the US. That I know of.

I absolutely think some of these things should be looked at in the program. There are some things that have equivalency. I also think this kind of review needs to be done at the cub level. Swimming might not be the best area unless you can correlate it to a universally regarded lifeguarding test or standard. For personal fitness, though, 6-8 could definitely be accomplished outside scouting if a scout is involved in a youth sport or has a semester of PE targeted toward fitness or one of the relevant fitness awards. It could only be a positive for a scout to be able to create linkages between scouting and a merit badge counselor and his or her chosen sport and coaches. Our high school has an environmental sciences academy. Why shouldn't those students be able to apply their work towards a merit badge? Frankly, I think the merit badges do not give much of a jump on the adult world because the very tools used to execute them are so far behind the times. There is very little that is current about many of them. Finding ways to make them more relevant would be a positive step in my book.

I like "take part" vs. "explain".

It can vary across the country but in many states the badges are extremely redundant with a lot of the high school curriculum and are too homework like. The could easily be condensed into one. The core one is Nation. A couple things could be replaced with items from Community and World. Mapping out where a fire or police station for example seems silly for a troop age kid. It is more relevant for cubs and is already in that part of the program. At the very least, there ought to be some opt out options for information that is covered elsewhere.

I first reacted humorously to this but on a serious note, this is yet another of my many issues with how Scouting views leadership, what kind of leadership it values, and how it develops it. The program kind of assumes that extroversion is good and through things like songs it encourages even introverts to learn how to be extroverts, i.e., leaders. Some of the most effective leaders, though, aren't extroverts at all, they are introverts. While there are some great extrovert leaders, it's not the only leadership model out there. However, scouting places a very heavy emphasis on valuing kids who are extroverts. Kids who are clearly uncomfortable with approaching older scouts or adults with questions or for signoffs often drop out unless it's recognized and some mentoring is done. There's a great book on the topic: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. I think more extroverts, particularly in scouting, should read it.

I am a conscientious objector whenever people start murdering songs. I refuse to carry dead and mangled tunes for others.