BAJ

Our contingent heads out Wednesday AM at the crack of dawn — I’m the ASM1 of the girl troop from our council. I do not believe there will be patrol competitions in scoutcraft. From reading on various scout boards, the amount of freedom scouts will have to operate “independent” of their unit may differ from contingent to contingent. Our unit basically said the scouts can do their own thing (with a buddy at all times, of course), so I expect our unit will be spread over Summit. In other posts, I’ve seen Scouts say that their unit was picking activities to do as an entire unit.

It really is a lot. My daughter is going and I am an adult leader from our council so between the two of us it was a large total cost. It will be a different experience for her (and likely her “last big thing” in Scouting since she’s getting into other things as a high schooler now) but it did make me sad that cost was obviously going to be something that kept a lot of people from going. I did decide that this year my donation to scouting was to the fund to help defray the cost of folks going (though the amount I could donate wasn’t going to even make a huge difference for one person, which

Working together.

I just got the news I will serve as one of the ASMs from a troop from our council — its exciting since I never had the chance to do a Jamboree when I was a scout. Any advice from the group for a newbie? Personal equipment to take (or not bother taking) that I might not think of? After action insights on what the adult leader experience is like?

I hope that BSA is at least making some substantial money from the gaming companies for promoting their products. If this event came with a substantial “contribution” that can help address some of the post-bankruptcy financial concerns…. Then….. well….. maybe.

My council (NCAC) did welding and composite materials in partnership with a local Makerspace. That meant the scouts had access to great equipment and instructors. There was a council person who was the MBC and a bunch of us helped supervise for multi-deep leader coverage. It was a good program.

As someone with a STEM degree, I considered getting involved with the program when I returned to Scouting — at least in theory, I am the sort that “should” be a NOVA/Supernova Counselor… but I had a hard time getting excited about doing it, and so never got around to it. I wonder if that same sort of issue affects scouts. That said, I think an approach — if the program itself is going to change, shrink, etc. — is to fold more into some of the existing merit badges. I actually really like the point made in this thread that the distinction between some of the “trades” merit badges and STE

The unit I am associated with now actually does NSPs in an interesting way. There is one, but its existence is time limited. The new scouts come into that patrol, and the troop guide works directly with the NSP PL, so if there is “whispering in the ear” it is coming from a senior scout, not an adult. The NSP gets to pick a patrol name and come up with a cheer/etc. so they get that first exercise in group decision making and consensus (that is lost if they just go directly into a permanent ‘legacy patrol.’). But their membership in the NSP is both time and rank — once they make Tenderfoot,

I think this is a really important observation, and I would take it one step further — scouts who are eligible don’t want to stand for election. Both represent part of OA’s “membership market” that are opting out. As someone who came back to Scouting after a long absence, I think the main issue is OA actually articulating what it is and why Scouts would want to join. I was elected very late in my youth Scouting career, so I didn’t actually have much calendar time to do much more than go through the Ordeal. So when I came back to Scouting, I didn’t think of OA as much more than “Scouting

While it looks like this is intended to be humor, it’s actually a practical strategy. When my Scout lost her well populate sash, we did find an EBay seller that had a sash with a significant percentage of the badges she needed replacements for. Took them off and resewed to a new sash in the order she’d earned them. It was a more cost effective approach than re-buying them all new. She found the original sash about a week after we’d finally replaced it (so even better that we hadn’t paid full price for the replacement). 😐

The troops I have been associated with have all had traditional chartering organization structures, but in the course of a Wood Badge project I did some interviews with other troops focusing on how they were managing COVID risk early in the pandemic. One was a troop that was a “self chartered” troop with a “Parents of Troop X” organization (had been for many years and indicated it wasn’t an option in their council currently). They were very concerned about insurance coverage, and coverage that included provisions to defend against suits against both the organization and the adult volunteers,

I too have struggled with this issue — and didn’t think that there is an “answer” … i.e., some Scouts will become engaged and committed to the point where Scouts became top of the list but many just won’t. But, the seriousness of the problems for the troop of participation being a low priority is related to the size of the troop. In a troop made up of single digit numbers of Scouts, having a handful that “only Scout when it is convenient” mean outings (or even meetings) could suddenly become 2 Scouts at the last minute, which is extremely frustrating for an SPL that worked hard to plan

Interestingly, my WB scoutmaster actually discouraged doing beadings at a Scout COH just because it added time to the program and his view was that Scout attention spans were such that it would be a net negative to do it there. He and my troop guide really left it up to me how to do it — I (and actually quite a few others in my class) went out to the camp where WB was held for our beading. But as other posters have suggested too, I’ve seen headings at Roundtable as well.

Partially — if the activity was rock climbing and the scout didn’t want to wear the safety harness, I am right there with you. No problem — and I agree that hopefully group identification and the support of a healthy and functioning patrol might give a kid whose discomfort with the safety equipment was really because they were scared of rock climbing the impetus to try something they might not otherwise. But… if the situation is a partially clothed initiation to an honor society (i.e, the part it looks like we agree on), that’s different since that’s a case where the scout’s discomfort

It actually sounds like we agree more than disagree: The key issue is what is what is required. I agree that “shirtlessness as a state of being” shouldn’t be prohibited because not all scouts are always comfortable shirtless… only that there shouldn’t be power dynamics that push them to be shirtless when they aren’t comfortable with it (@PeterHopkin’s “Adults must refrain from requesting or demanding that youth remove any articles of clothing”). So I do disagree with your first sentence that this is seeking to set a bar at a point where no one is ever uncomfortable eve

From my perspective @PeterHopkins proposed language addresses the key concern (though I would add “and other Scouts” after “respected by adults.”) It isn’t that scouts are sometimes shirtless while cutting trail on a hot day or sometimes wear swim shorts or a swimsuit when they aren’t swimming, it is a situation where the removal of clothing or some state of semi-undress is a requirement for participation in an “honor society” or access to privileges that they couldn’t get otherwise. Doing that models sets an example that such a requirement or transaction is acceptable, and that it is ok

That is a really cool idea — I had the opportunity through work to go to one of the standards certification/testing laboratories for emergency responder safety equipment and it was a really interesting. I think as a Scout trip it would have a great mix of wow factor (e.g., tests where things might get set on fire, see if safety features work when the device is shorted out, etc.) but would convey a lot of good knowledge through the wow elements.

Since Mic-o-say isn’t a thing in my council, all I have learned about it is from posts like this one (and there was a substantial post on the BSA subreddit board recently) — From the perspective of a more recent returnee to Scouting than many on this board, I would add that I honestly find some of the elements of what I have read worrisome, and - as described - counter to YPT training. Specifically, the requirements for new initiates to be partially clothed as part of joining (while others are not) and the in group/out group dynamics that have been described by some.

While this is true, and is something that is indeed related to leadership, you don’t teach someone to laugh at themself by putting them in a situation where everyone else is laughing at them and they are pressed to laugh too to save face. You teach them to laugh at themselves by creating a situation where everyone is laughing at themselves, and so joining in is a positive thing. The best of Scout campfire skits are great ways to teach that lesson, since often everyone in the patrol looks ridiculous in the process and that is truly part of the fun. Sending scouts on hunts for nonexiste

A new product idea for your local Scout Store. At the reasonable price of $6.50. <Uniform and insignia are not discounted under this week’s sale price reductions..>

One caution to add to this discussion — at this point, we don’t know how many total cases there were at either of the camps where COVID was reported (this and the other thread), nor do we know all the BSA affiliated camps where COVID cases have been detected. Our troop was at a camp last week and we received notification that there were scouts who tested positive immediately after they returned home and so had been potential sources of spread while they were at camp. I don’t have a link or citation to give you since it looks like there hasn’t been any public report of the events. Beyo

We just got back from camp and there were some scouts with phones, some in our troop. Mostly used them for taking snapshots the way one might have used a camera in my youth to take photo memories of camp (and the quality of cameras on phones is killing the point and shoot camera market, so your troop historian might not have many other choices about recording camp if they are doing their duties) and some for contact with family back home (mixed blessing in some cases). When we had buddy groups of scouts spread about camp when severe weather rolled through, their ability to check in with lead

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I have a scout-daughter who has earned a lot of merit badges in a short time — nowhere close to all of them at this point, but more than 50. She (and by saying she I am revealing the timeframe over which it occurred) has done them in all of the available ways: one on one with a counselor, a virtual one on one with a counselor during COVID, in person MBUs, camporees that had merit badge programs, summer camps, virtual summer camps with small class sizes (similar to in person camps), and virtual merit badge classes with large numbers of participants in the class (the 100+ example mentioned.) I

I successfully printed a bunch on the Scout Shop preprinted/preperforated forms this afternoon out of Scoutbook. (I bought out their entire remaining stock from our local Scout Shop today… who would have guessed lots of people would have been printing lots of blue cards right before summer camp season. I should have been more prepared and bought them a month ago). I had to print my last couple out of Troopmaster — I didn’t have their special stock so printed them on blue card stock and cut them out the old fashioned way.