malraux

Yeah, I'll probably follow the same path. But it does channel into larger and larger units. i.e. the den leader has to watch ~8 kids, while the SM/asm is more working on monitoring 20ish kids.

I also think there's the weakness within the GSUSA of leaders kinda getting expected to handle 12 years of running a unit all the way from kindergarten through to high school. But the skills and needs of an elementary unit are very different from a high school one. With the BSA, there's a bit more specialization.

http://www.scoutinsignia.com/jacshirt.htm has a pretty lengthy history of the jacshirt. I cannot vouch for the accuracy.

I wonder if the local gsusa council will pull out of the scout night at the baseball stadium. It involves bsa and gsusa troops attending and camping together :shock and horror:

It's basically the same as what my local gsusa council has as well. I'm not familiar enough with their processes to say, but it certainly looks like the ban/strong discouragement from participating in events with other scouting organizations comes from the top.

My bad, I must have been looking at the wrong pdf. Its on page 38, but quotes the same language of no events with the BSA that other councils have also used. I just assumed that something hosted on the national page would be for all councils.

https://my.girlscouts.org/content/dam/wcf-images/pdf-forms/Volunteer-Essentials.pdf In there, page 26.

It would also seem to accelerate movement to girls joining the BSA instead of GSUSA. If the reason they can't go on the trip is because the GSUSA says no, then why not join the scouting group that says yes.

The only uniform guideline violated more often than the one patch per jacshirt is the term class A/B instead of uniform.

One other "slot" for creativity is the right pocket temporary patch area. But you can only wear one item at a time there.

Theres a general principle of once a uniform, always a uniform that covers this in that it once was correct so it should still be correct. I currently wear the den leader PoR patch from my mom even though its different from the current version.

I can't imagine it working any way but turning into being a den leader. If I want to tell a bunch of kids what to do, I'll stay with my pack.

Reading through the requirements, I could easily see that being about what it takes. There's just not a lot to learn or do by the requirements. To me, a lot of this depends on the specific MB. Many of the MB are the most cursory of introductions to the subject, whereas others are about getting one up to the level of proficiency. The MBU is a good event for the MBs that are about the basics, not so much for the ones about proficiency.

Do you have leadership plans for the scouts who will be in college during the later half of the process? I'm not sure how that will work during the extended time rule.

Both are good, but yeah, finding a way to stabilize membership is way more important than temporarily boosting numbers.

Not the person, but $40,000 to start up presumably includes a lot of costs that will be amortized over many years. Troop trailer, tents, cooking gear, etc are not cheap, but will last a long time.

Isn't the real mountain top leader training experience Philmont Leadership Challenge anyway? Wood Badge should try to be what it is, a decent enough leadership training for Scouting, and not a life changing event.

In this world of cyber hacking, I actually find the paper forms more secure.

I almost added something about EMTALA, but felt brevity was better.

Should they treat paying customers or someone else first?

Especially looking at the webelos requirements relative to the tenderfoot ones. Most webelos scouts should be ready to breeze through those requirements quickly enough having done earlier versions of them prior to crossing over.

Its an N of 1, but our district is seeing actual growth in membership year on year in the Scouts BSA program, according to our DE at the last roundtable. That's not the norm for our district.

I wouldn’t go that far… but yeah, worrying about who’s budget the wood badge goes toward seems to be missing the point.

On the flip side, if the girls were in a GSUSA troop, its hard to argue that they didn't understand the difference between the two programs.

From the Cub Scouting side, the issue is that Scouts BSA doesn't roll off the tongue the way Boy Scouts did, plus habits. It just takes a while to get it right. I try to just say scouts when referring to a group of scouts, there's no reason to worry about gender.