InquisitiveScouter

So, the BSA has two or three different threads for STEM, all undergirded by the highlighting of STEM related topics throughout the Handbooks, Awards, and Advancements... https://bsastemnova.org/#:~:text=Officially the NOVA program was,of BSA from its creation. 1. Cub Scouts, Scouts, Venturers, Sea Scouts: a series of STEM based awards called the NOVA and Supernova Awards https://www.scouting.org/stem-nova-awards/awards/about-nova/ 2. A program with separate units called STEM Scouts https://stemscouts.scouting.org/ https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/05/11/understanding-the-difference-between-stem-in-scouting-and-stem-scouts/ 3. And the not-so-strong push for Explorer Units to be STEM career-based https://www.exploring.org/activity-library-category/us-department-of-education-career-clusters/stem/ I am a NOVA and Supernova counselor...have been since inception (10 years ago??) I have had one Cub Scout come to me to earn the award. I did push it on our Webelos AOL den when my son was there... after the den had finished AOL program in late Nov, they had "nothing to do" (LOL) so I went through the program with the den. Scouts are interested, but have little to no bandwidth for ANOTHER PROGRAM 😜 P.S. Supercool bling!!! https://www.scoutshop.org/nsearch/?q=Nova

But his feet surely show it! They are Longfellows!

A fed animal is a dead animal.

Yes, the Committee may be looking into this because the Scoutmaster (who works for the Committee!) brought the incident to their attention and asked for intervention. That may be the entire reason the Committee asked to meet with parents and Scouts who were involved... as opposed to anyone "leaking" a report of a YP violation from the council. The Committee may be approaching this as a Troop disciplinary issue, or even some sort of health and safety concern, versus viewing it through a YP lens. Unless the OP informed the Committee (or others in the Troop) of the YP Report, the Committee may be completely in the dark about what has been filed at the council or national.

There are many who still carry the flame... But, yes, when all the hearts die, the tradition dies, too...unless it is written and recorded. It can be then resurrected.

I have already attended that funeral twice... Camp Linwood Hayne, Georgia-Carolina Council, and Treasure Island, Cradle of Liberty.

What camp and council?

"Don't let it become a salaried organization: keep it a voluntary movement of patriotic service." BP

It is important to say that maybe, just maybe, we don't have the complete story here. If I were the COR or SE, I'd like to hear from about three or four more people to hone in on "the facts of the case" before forming any judgements about the situation.

Estimates as to how long BSA can last on life support waiting for a Chapter 11 confirmation? What do the tea leaves say about the imminence of Chapter 7?

Loved these best parts of your post!!!

@yknot, in the upper right corner of any post you do not like, you can select the three dots and hit "Report"

@yknot, you really are too much... 1. "However, healthcare is somehow viewed as a low risk, nurturing profession mainly because many women pursue it." No one ever said it was "low risk" I even said, 2. I never made any such claim, that women are incapable of holding leadership positions... Please search my posts, and show me wrong. 3. No one ever said women prefer menu planning. What @Eagledad said was "Boys by nature want action and adventure. That other stuff like meeting, planning, and planning menus is not in their wheelhouse. " Again, search his posts and prove me wrong, please. 4. And Neuroticism is a trait described in the well-accepted Big Five Personality Trait model. https://www.verywellmind.com/the-big-five-personality-dimensions-2795422 And, IT IS A FACT that women exhibit the characteristics of Agreeableness and Neuroticism MORE THAN MEN! https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00178/full "Neuroticism Neuroticism describes the tendency to experience negative emotion and related processes in response to perceived threat and punishment; these include anxiety, depression, anger, self-consciousness, and emotional lability. Women have been found to score higher than men on Neuroticism as measured at the Big Five trait level, as well as on most facets of Neuroticism included in a common measure of the Big Five,..." "Agreeableness Agreeableness comprises traits relating to altruism, such as empathy and kindness. Agreeableness involves the tendency toward cooperation, maintenance of social harmony, and consideration of the concerns of others (as opposed to exploitation or victimization of others). Women consistently score higher than men on Agreeableness and related measures, such as tender-mindedness" And these two traits are consistently NOT demonstrated by people in positions of high stress leadership. Which is but one explanation as to why women do not lead more corporations than men https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijtd.12113 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8733164/ I cast four more pearls before you...let's see how you receive them...

Yes, I'd like to see the average age of the youth abuser, and the average age of the youth abused. Those ages would give us a clearer picture of the problem.

elitts, thanks...I had exhausted my supply of pearls

+1 I believe the "regimental system" would be ideal. That is, a patrol exists in perpetuity. A Scout grows up in one patrol, and is always a member of that patrol. As new Scouts join the Troop, they are assigned to patrols as manning needs, based on those who have left or "graduated" It would be awesome if you had a "Sorting Hat" https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Sorting_Hat to determine which patrol a Scout should go into. Alas, we mere mortals must do what we can. I think random selection is probably best. The ideal patrol is 5 to 8 Scouts. Above six, and they naturally break into two sub-units anyway. Extensive research on optimal group size for task effectiveness has shown the number to be around 5 or 6 (but it does depend on the task.) Eight allows sufficient team members present when the inevitable absences occur for camping trips and events. Here are a few short reads... https://www.totalteambuilding.com.au/ideal-team-size/ https://conversational-leadership.net/optimal-group-size/#:~:text=Far too often in small,is the optimal group size. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaimepotter/2020/04/27/the-ideal-team-size-at-work-may-be-smaller-than-you-think/?sh=704263b7630a https://www.thebalancecareers.com/u-s-army-military-organization-from-squad-to-corps-4053660 https://hbr.org/2015/08/what-companies-can-learn-from-military-teams https://tcscouts.org/UoS/000-NationalTrainingCourses/BSBLT/BP quotes.pdf BP opined the best Troop size was 16 Scouts (that is, two patrols), but, allowing that others might be twice the man he was, he said it could go to 32. But that was based on personally knowing and developing each Scout. "The number in a Troop should preferably not exceed thirty-two. I suggest this number because in training boys myself I have found that sixteen was about as many as I could deal with-in getting at and bringing out the individual character in each. I allow for other people being twice as capable as myself and hence the total of thirty-two." BP "Men talk of having fine Troops of 60 or even 100-and their leaders tell me that their boys are equally well trained as in smaller Troops. I express admiration, and I don't believe them." BP We have 54 Scouts currently... when I go down the roster and count the Scouts who I know, and who do a good job in the woods, or what I would deem "well-trained"... 29 (but that does not include some of the new crossovers who I have not observed yet) If they were all dedicated, I think 32 is a great number... Four patrols of eight.

I would push it further and say it is mostly mental/psychological (rather than "as much") We have some 12 year olds that do just fine. We have some 14 year olds that still have significant challenges with anxiety and homesickness. I have already excluded two 14 year olds from our upcoming trek that have not demonstrated the level of maturity I want. (Yes, I said "I want", because I will be responsible for them in the wilderness. )

On the trips I lead, I put in the remarks, "Must be 14 by the start date, or with adult leader approval." I have made a few errors in judgment over the years in opening trips to all ages, only to wind up dealing with problems caused by immaturity or lack of physical ability to do the trip. (not my own immaturity or inability...for those of you who want to swing at that softball... 😜 )

Even with an aggressive and skill intensive program, in which we provide huge amounts of opportunity, it takes new Scouts on average about two years to get to First Class. That is, actually doing the requirements as written, without them being spoon-fed by adults. (Fitness requirements, for example.) If a Scout focuses and learns by her own ambition and initiative, First Class can be done in about 90 days, which is the minimum time. (This is for the ones who join later, like the 15/16 year olds.)

Great question! In reality, they weren't. That is, you can organize your Troop any way you wish, and if you want to have an older group called the Venture Patrol, then go for it. Here's a website with some more details... http://www.seniorscoutinghistory.org/seniorscoutsite/venture.html Programmatically, who knows why the BSA moved away from this? The old heads here (like me) remember the Leadership Corps, which was essentially the same thing. http://www.seniorscoutinghistory.org/seniorscoutsite/leadershipcorps.html The REALLY old heads will remember Rovers, Emergency Service, Senior Scouts, etc... http://www.seniorscoutinghistory.org/ Enjoy the reads...

We 'make it work' by using Troop Guides during the first six months and a lot of adult skill instruction during the first year. I wish we didn't have to 'make it work.' Our reality is that, around 16, our Scouts move on to other things. Venturing, OA, jobs, girls, cars, hanging with friends, school clubs, music, sports, martial arts, etc, etc. Loyalty to an institution is not part of our wider cultural mindset any more. In general, there is more of a narcissistic "What's in it for me?" attitude, and the belief that you must be involved in all those other activities in order to compete for college (which I do not believe is reality) They just do not have the bandwidth to do all the things they want to do (neither do I, for that matter), and after 5 years of Scouting and Eagle, most move on. I have learned to be OK with that. For the ones that do stay, we offer more adventures further afield, but the expectation is that, during 'regular' troop programming, they serve and help the SPL with leadership tasks. After 16, we hang on to about one third of them.

Our fire position is responsible for stove set up and getting an adult to check, charcoal prep if we are Dutch oven cooking, and firewood gathering/prep/lighting. There must always be enough tinder/kindling/fuel on hand for the next fire. At the end of the trip, we leave it for the next group.

J'ai mon voyage

You are mixing apples and oranges... The article is referencing physical assaults, not fatalities. Would you agree one is worse than the other? (Just to be clear, a fatality is worse than an assault, in my book.) And DWB is 45K people from around the planet. Can we limit our discussions to folks in the US as our target population? If so, there are 22.3M healthcare workers in the US. Even if I allow you the courtesy of saying all 45K were from the US, they are still only 0.2% of the entire healthcare workforce. Obviously, far less than that fits the bill... https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/who-are-our-health-care-workers.html My cousin's uncle's brother's sister's dog once barked at the moon. Doesn't make the dog an astronaut.