CNYScouter

This thread was spun from another thread.

In the thread by BW he asks:

What I wanted to talk about is the willingness of Scout Leaders to pick-and-choose what rules they will follow based solely on their personal comfort or convenience

How about Troops that routinely bend or change rules.

What I mean by this that most adult leaders would never think of changing the number of MB's required for a rank but do not have a problem with changing POR requirements or uniform requirements. I have yet to meet a troop that has not Altered or Changed some BSA guideline in one way or another

Things like if the SPL is elected or appointed or changing the amount of time they serve. Currently the Troop I am in has changed the time a scout serves as a SPL/ASPL/PL from 6 months to a year. They have also added that to be considered active they must attend 80% of the Troops activities.

I see that this 80% rule has caused a problem as that on the last camping trip of the SPL, 2 ASPL's, 3 PL's and 3 ASPL's only one PL made the trip. However, because they had already met the 80% rule they didn't need to go to still be considered active. My feelings on this are that an SPL or ASPL should be on every trip and the PL or ASPL for each patrol should be there. The other leaders in the Troop see no problem with this set up.

How do you get the leaders to get out of this habit and follow the guidelines as outlined by the BSA?

Our Troop Committee meeting in this weekend and our yearly planning session is in a couple of weeks and I would like to bring this up.

CNYScouter

Hi SeattlePioneer

I try to do some type of training each year. It just happen that last year I could not attend Pow Wow and the WEBELOS training I wanted to take was canceled and the Commissioners College was being held less than 5 miles from my house so I decided to attend. I had been hearing that they were looking for ways to approve roundtable and I also was curious has what exactly a UC did with a unit as I had never meet ours.

My feeling about tracking down the DC and finding out about the presentation is that I I dont have the time to spent in trying to make this happen. I have made the offer to do it. As also being a ASM and the CC of a Cub Pack, if they are not interested I have plenty of scouting things to do to keep busy.

This is one of the issues I see with our district. At a previous roundtable it was announced that the RCs did not have to do the presentation themselves, all they had to do was arrange something. However, this has not happened and they are doing all topics by themselves. I get the feeling that most of these old timers have an elite club (which they do) to run things and do not want to let new people in.

I just left a Troop that the SM was one of these old-timers. He was the Troops acting UC (wasnt one, he told council that we didnt need one), COR (not in name, but he was the representative), and made all decisions for the Troop by himself. (Troop Committee was in name only) He was on the District Committee, the District Advancement Committee, the Membership Committee, a Roundtable Commissioner (and went to roundtable for the troop). The Troop never attended district or Council events. No other leaders had anything to do with anything at district or council level, even the 2 ASM's who had been there 30+ years.

In this Troop there hadnt been an adult leader that took any type of training in over 8 years. When I took it on myself to attend SM training I was actually openly discouraged from attending as I should have been spending the time taking the troop camping. I found that a lot of the troops that these old-timers were in were run in a similar manner.

Not all is lost though, I got a call to be a Regent for our councils Scouting University in the Fall. I have been working to select and develop courses for this. We have been doing a Pow Wow each year but it mostly for the Cub Scout level. The ScU will be for all levels of scouting, including Explorers and Learning for Life. I figured if they dont want to use me at the District Level, Ill do something at the council level.

I wanted to take the Trainers Development Course, but that was canceled this year also. I was told that I would have to go to another council for this as no one has signed up for this training in our council 3 years in a row.

I have signed up for Wood Badge training for Aug. and Sept. and I am really looking forward to this.

CNYScouter

Over the last few months I have become more active at the district and council levels and have discover a few things about my district that I would like to see changed.

Our council has five districts and the one I am in covers the only major city in the council and has the biggest population base but it is not the biggest in number of Scouts (2nd).

This district has the least number of Venturing Crews in the council (3 are listed but only one is active), has lost the greatest number of Cub Packs over the last few years and of the 30 or so traditional Troops about half have less than 12 scouts and are on the verge of folding.

Our roundtable is one of the worst attended with often less than 40 people in attendance while some of the smaller districts are routinely drawing 200+. I no longer attend roundtable because of this. I talked with one of the RCs and told him that the reason I stopped coming to roundtable is that I thought they were terrible. Every month they teach a MB. Any type of training has been eliminated as no one attended. The RC agreed with me but he was outvoted by the rest of the roundtable staff when he disagreed with the topics.

At council training sessions, even though most of the people in charge are from my district we have the least amount of people taking training. At the SM training I just completed our district, out of 40 participants and 20+ staffers, had only 2 people on staff and 2 people in the course. I was told this was typical representation of our district at most Training. Wood badge is the same way. We have many long-term Scouters on Staff, but very few new leaders are taking the course.

IMHO, This is the core of our districts problems. We have a group of old timers who sit on the District Committee, Advancement Committee, Camporee plannng and Roundtable staff. To become one of these you must have been in scouting 20 years.

They run the district. How do you get on one of these committees? Become an old timer. I found that the other districts have a good mix of old and new blood that keep things fresh.

On my own I took Roundtable Commissioner training and sat with our District Trainer, our new DC and the districts old DC (who know is our Council Commissioner). They all asked if I was interested in being a RC and said that I would be willing to help.

I put together a high adventure presentation for my Troop and was asked if I would give this at roundtable, in which I said I would be happy to just let me know when and I was never contacted again.

I think this old boy network needs to be infused with new blood to turn things around.

And they wonder why Scouting is struggling in this area.

I do not know if the advancement method that is most misunderstood (IMHO its the patrol method but thats another thread) but I think that its the one method that is given more emphasis than the other 7 methods.

I have found that MBs are given too much importance in the program. I just left a program where MBs were taught every week and not much else. Even our monthly roundtables are focused on MBs. For the next 1-1/2 years, our districts roundtable schedule has nothing but MBs for training.

I just completed SM training and dont think MBs were mentioned once the whole weekend and yet leaders come back from this and all they can think about is getting scouts MBs.

I talked with a different Troops SM about this and liked his attitude on this If a Scout, after spending 3 years at summer camp earning MBs, cant take it on himself to earn the 7 or 8 MBs that he is lacking for Eagle they dont deserve the rank.

One of the biggest things we do as a Troop for advancement is to get our scouts to summer camp the first year. Our council has a very good program for younger scouts that allows them to do most of the requirements through first class during the week at camp. They take this for the day and it gives them the other halve to work on MBs.

Currently the Troop I am in offers MBs once a month during a Troop meeting. I would like to stop this and only offer them starting 45 min. before the meeting. I have seen that most of the Scouts in the Troop are not taking a merit badge during this time and are often left just playing Frisbee or just hanging out the whole time.

CNYScouter

I have to add that the other leaders see nothing wrong with this situation. They just let things go chalking it up to "kids are just busy".

IMHO, I think one of the Troops problems is that a PLC is held every 2 months. I have yet to see the SM or another adult leader check follow up to see if the patrol has next weeks meeting ready. The farther from the last PLC the more disorganized it seems to be. I tried to talk with the SM about this and was told that because the scouts were so busy with outside things they didnt have tome to meet more frequently. He also said that the problem was not that the meetings were too far apart but the boys couldnt stay focused between meetings to get things done.

I also know that there are very few adults in this troop that were involved with Scouts as a youth. We are new to this troop and before I joined they had only 2 leader with any prior Boy Scout experience with one of these being a former member of this troop and just turned 21.

From what I have been told the previous SM didnt even require the scouts to wear a uniform and most Troop meeting were spent playing football or another game the entire time.

I want to try to institute some type of patrol competitions or an honor patrol for next year.

Eagledad do you have any more information about the Night Camp-o-ree. This sounds like a great idea. What type of things do you do and what are some of the events that are run?

I first have to say thats to all for you out there as this forum has been very useful and your responses have been extremely helpful.

So, I have another issue I would like your help with:

We have our yearly planning session coming up and I am looking for ways to counter the scouts are too busy with other activities attitude.

What I mean by this is it seems that this is the excuse I get every time I question why the troop is or is not doing something.

Examples:

The reason we are doing MBs at troop meetings is because the scouts are too busy with other activities to be doing them at another time.

The reason the adults plan all the meals for camping trips is because the scouts are too busy with other activities to do this.

The reason the Troop has a SPL and 2 ASPLs is because the scouts are too busy with other activities so we need 2 ASPLs

The reason none of these 3 have not gone on the last 3 camping trips is because they were too busy with other activities and they couldnt make it.

When I joined this new troop the meetings seemed to be pretty well planned but the last 4 meetings the boys have just played football or Frisbee the whole time.

The reason, because the scouts are too busy with other activities to have planned the meetings. The patrols that were scheduled to do the activities did not plan anything so the troop just played a game.

Last week the SPL was in charge of getting the Troops float ready for the Memorial Day parade but he didnt come to the meeting. Neither did either ASPL. The reason was they are too busy with other activities to come.

This will not be brought up at the PLC meeting as they are finished having them for the year. PLC meetings are only help every other month because the scouts are too busy with other activities to have them more often

This didnt just happen with our new troop. The troop we just left also used this as why we did MBs in Troop meetings and even why we only did popcorn as a fundraiser - scouts are too busy with other activities to spend more time fundraising instead for doing scouting things. The Troop we just left didnt even do a troop service project because scouts are too busy with other activities to attend.

I could go on and on with examples.

I do understand that kids today are often involved with many other activities but it seems adults are using this as an excuse not to have things well planned out or reasons to let the program slide in teaching the Aims of scouting.

One thing that I have to say is that I have talked with the leaders of the more successful programs

Any suggestions on changing other leaders attitude about this?

CNYScouter

I have just purchased The Scoutmaster's Other Handbook" by Mark Ray and his other book on Eagle COHs. I have not gotten to the chapter on patrols yet.

I am not sure about his idea on patrol sizes. I have had many Troops tell me that they have a problem with low turnout on outings, but none of them were doing anything to solve this. The thing that I noticed was the Troops that had this problem were more adult run than the ones that were boy run.

I do like the idea of patrol competitions based on participation to boost attendance. Offering some type of competition on camping trips, being cooking, lashing or whatever, seems to be the answer. The few outings that we do that offer some type of competition on are the best attended. My problem is that I see this but other leaders dont.

We are going to try to use a new scout patrol in the spring. In the past, we did not use them as we only had 2 to 4 new WEBELOS each year. The next 2 years we will have 7 to 8 WEBELOS crossing over each year. One thing that we were told was that we did not do a good job in welcoming new families into the Troop and I have volunteered to head up the new scout and new family program next year.

We are still deciding whether to use a Venture Patrol. We currently have some scouts, who are ready to Eagle out and will be discussing this at our yearly planning session.

Going back to Mark Rays book The Scoutmaster's Other Handbook" I found that this had some good alternate ideas for outings and Troop meetings. I like his ideas about the lock-out and a road trip where instead of camping you stay at a VFW or church basement. I like his video scavenger hunt for a troop meeting. I also like that he has a very good list for different troop meeting ideas

I would suggest adding this book to your Troops library.

CNYScouter

Actually, I was also contacted by the Councils membership person about this. I have to just shake my head because this is the SM from the Troop I just left. 2 years ago when my son crossed over, I talked with the troop leaders about problems we were facing with this pack and they just blew it off. I think he just realized that this was the last pack left that he was getting scouts from as the rest of the packs he recruited with have also folded. In fact, the only tie they had between the troop and any packs was me.

During this time the other 2 Packs in my school district has the same problem and almost folded. The difference between us and them when the DE went to the parents and asked for help to run the Pack they had people step up, while we had people leave.

Over these last 3 years, we have encountered a boom not only in sports in our area, but in the extra-curricular activities offered at the schools. In the last few years, soccer and baseball have been added in both spring and fall. These are run not only in "Little League" but our town runs a separate program for these. Add in lacrosse, football, swimming, hockey, basketball and the childrens choir and music programs (all started in Kindergarten) it no wonder we are having problems. This doesn't even cover the "private" places that operate programs also.

2 years ago, our pack had cubs from eight different schools in it because most of these schools did not have a pack. Even last year we started with 13 cubs in five different schools.

I didn't think about going to the PTG, but they are the cause for some of the problems we are having. They heavily recruit the parents in kindergarten and by the time the boys have come of Cub age all the "volunteer types" are busy with either the PTG or sports. In addition, The PTG is offering so many after school activities most parents cannot find the time for Cub Scouts.

The funny thing is that because there are so many things going on all of these other "volunteer" programs are struggling trying to find people to help.

I agree that we will need to find parents willing to help pull this pack together or it will fail. My daughter is in the Girl Scout's at this school and they are doing well. I think this is because it is run right after school. I think this would help the Pack, but due to work the CM and I can't run this right after school.

I don't know if I have the time to devote into this or even if my heart is into doing this. It would be different if I had a son ready to join Cubs, but my youngest is still 3 years away and I have many other choices for Packs in the area. Hooking up with another Pack may be the answer.

Here are a couple of links that list things to look for in selecting a troop:

From the U.S. Scouting Service Project -

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A GOOD TROOP

http://usscouts.org/cubscouts/goodtroop.html

Also in this forum there was a thread started by Bob White

Some Common Traits of Successful Troops

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=14781#id_14781

I wish I had seen these when selecting a Troop. I would have never selected the troop we originally joined. If I had these to compare programs I would have seen how poorly run the Troop we joined really was.

I have been asked to help and try to bring a pack back to life in the fall. I have been working with this Pack as the CC for the last 2 1/2 years without a son in the Pack.

The CM from last year asked me to help him to restart things. Over the last year the Pack dwindled to 8 cubs, with 5 crossing over to scouts in March.

The 3 that are left are WEBELOS. 2 of these will be 10 1/2 in July and have asked to get there AOL over the summer so they can start with a Troop in the fall. The last one has already drooped and is not interested in getting his AOL.

With help from our DE, last year we did a massive recruitment effort at the 2 schools we normally cover and we added another school near us that did not have a cub pack. We ended up with new 1 Tiger and new 1 Wolf. Neither of these re-registered in Feb. as did none of the other wolfs.

We later found out that even though we had almost 100% attendence at Pack meeting most dens were not meeting or doing anything outside of this.

So, this leaves the CM and myself left as the Pack.

Any suggestions to start things up again?

Is it even worth trying as we seem to have no interest in our area to even have a cub pack.

Up until 2 years ago the old CM would just show up in uniform at the schools open house with some application and not much else and the pack would sign up 25 cubs. Last year we had posters up before hand, sent 2 flyers home and did a raingutter regatta and had very little response.

mn_scout - Thanks this is just what I was looking for.

Now to get the other Troop leaders organized enough to do these types of things at Troop meetings

Is having patrol competitions a key to reinforce patrol identity?

In all of the troops I visited, none used any type of inter-patrol competitions.

Is patrol competitions the best/fastest/easiest way to encourge patrol identification and increase patrol spirit?

Outside of the standard knots, first aid, lashing and fire building themes what are other ideas for Patrol Competitions?

Is there a good source for Patrol Competitions ideas?

I guess my next question is how to convince the other adult leaders to make a move in this direction.

The boys are split into patrols but I have yet to see any patrol competitions or real patrol spirit and due to low turnout on outings patrols are often rearraged to have enough scouts to function in a patrol setting.

I think one of the problems is most of the adult leaders, including SM, were not scouts and don't understand the concept and from talking with them the ones that were scouts the patrol method wasn't used effectivly in their troop as a youth.

I can't understand the "Scouts are so busy with other things, we'll let it slide" attitude and yet a great deal of last nights troop meeting was spent playing football and not working on scouting concepts. I know that one of the problems was that the patrol that was going to do a presentation wasn't ready and there was not a backup plan in place.

I am not sure how to change this attitude about letting things slide.

The most discouranging thing is that of all the troops I visited this Troop was the closest I saw in using the patrol method.

I guess my next question is how to convince the other adult leaders to make a move in this direction.

The boys are split into patrols but I have yet to see any patrol competitions or real patrol spirit and due to low turnout on outings patrols are often rearraged to have enough scouts to function in a patrol setting.

I think one of the problems is most of the adult leaders, including SM, were not scouts and don't understand the concept and from talking with them the ones that were scouts the patrol method wasn't used effectivly in their troop as a youth.

I can't understand the "Scouts are so busy with other things, we'll let it slide" attitude and yet a great deal of last nights troop meeting was spent playing football and not working on scouting concepts. I know that one of the problems was that the patrol that was going to do a presentation wasn't ready and there was not a backup plan in place.

I am not sure how to change this attitude about letting things slide.

The most discouranging thing is that of all the troops I visited this Troop was the closest I saw in using the patrol method.

Hi All,

Now that I have transferred my son and I to a new Troop, I would like some suggestions to increase Patrol Identification and Patrol Spirit in our new Troop.

In selecting a new troop, I visited 6 troops in my area. I did not see a patrol flag in use at any meeting. All of these troops routinely rearranged patrols when attending camping trips. This happened in troops with untrained leaders, basic trained leaders and troops with multiple Wood Badge trained leaders.

When I questioned this, every Troop responded, including the troop we joined,that the kids were so busy they never had full patrols attending outings and they rearranged scouts to get full patrols. However, I observed that none were doing much in the way of trying to encourage Patrol Identity.

The Troop we joined does admit they have things to work on and I would like to find ways to introduce and encourage greater Patrol Identification and Patrol Spirit.

I am hoping that Wood Badge training will help me with some of this but, this will not come until after the Troops yearly planning session.

Please do not suggest that I get other leaders trained. I have been trying to get some of the other leaders to attend training with me and I get either Im too busy or the I dont need no stinkin training attitude.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

OldGrey Eagle and Eamonn -

You guys hit the nail right on the head with my experiance with Scouting.

I would like to add that I see many adults involved with Scouting as a reason to do the camping and outdoor activities and nothing else.

I recently switched troops and visited a few before making a decision on where to go. The more "by the book" the troop was the more sucessful they were. The ones that used the aims and methods, as taught in training, the larger the troop, the retention of older Scouts was greater, and the more active the Troop was.

I do not know if this is any correlation but one thing that I have noticed is that the more highly educated the "Free Thinkers" are the more likely they want to do things thier own way. I live in a more effluent part of town and most of the parents and adults had 4 year degrees or higher and the higher the formal education they had the less likely they were to want to get training or follow the program.

This weekend I completed the Scoutmaster training. I was very lucky to have a Patrol Guide who has one of the most sucessful troops in our council. The SM is a DPW worker, no college and works with hos hands. He was a great guy. He was interrupted many times over the weekend with Scouts in his Troop needing to talk with him about something.

He would like to have more kids in his Troop but with 77 Scouts and 26 ASM's (all trained) he can't find a meeting place in his community big enought to hold more. At this point he has not turned anyone away but he is not sure what he is going to do in the future. The secret to his success is that the boys always have fun and does his best to follow the program as set up by the BSA.

He made a great impression with me and I feel I can learn a great deal more from him in the future. I am even going up with my son this weekend to participate in his Troops "Mud Run". This is a mountain bike & orienteering event through a very wet area. Prizes are given not only for the fastest but the muddest.

Indoor games that were popular in the 1930's were:

Chinese checkers

Tiddley-Winks

Thanks for all the responses.

Things were brought up here that I hadnt thought of.

To let you know some of the details of this trip are the place we are going is 5500+ acres state owned land. No permits required to use and is open for anyone to hike, camp, mountain bike and hunt.

There are general state rules and regulations for usage and ground fires are allowed unless its a dry season(usually late summer) and a warning will be posted. This land is used in the spring and summer for hiking, camping, and mountain biking and for hunting in the fall and winter. There are no facilities or services , with only a couple of lean-tos with fire pits. This land is minimally maintained by hiking, hunting and mountain bike clubs.

We are having trouble getting leaders to go because this is the Troops second trip for the month and it is a strenuous outing. The other trip is a mountain biking trip this weekend and the other half of the leaders are going to this. This trip involves driving up on a Friday night (only about hour), hiking 3 or 4 miles into the woods and making camp. The next day will be playing the game and then hiking out before dark on Saturday.

You have given some great ideas how to do this with the leadership we have going. I hope that we will find someone to go and not have to alter our plans. But, I have gotten some good options to make this happen if not.

Thanks for the answers.

This was our first meeting with this new troop and I was very impressed that the PLC came up with this on their own and have been putting this together. What also impressed me is that just about the whole troop is going. The last troop we were with would never have been able to do something like this. This is one of the reasons we switched to this troop.

This trip is done at a public state forest. The terrain is hills.

Most of the older scouts and adults have been there multiple times.

They are limiting this to scouts that have done a some camping.

Since this trip was added to the schedule only last week the rules and particpants are still being worked on.

I do like the idea of the HQ in case of emergency.

I was trying to find a way to do this as a patrol competition. I am not sure how to pull this off with 3 patrols and 4 adults, but it looks like we will have to come up with more adults to do this trip.

I have switched my son to a new troop and this situation has come up. The scouts in the troop want to add a 2nd outing this month. They would like to do what they call a stealth weekend. This is where the troop splits in two on Friday night, hikes and makes camp. Then on Saturday they play a version of Capture the flag with each campsite being the home base. These campsites may be 2 to 3 miles apart depending how far they want to hike.

The problem is that the other adult leaders are saying that we will need four adults to go to cover the two deep leadership. Currently we only have three adults that can go so they are telling the boys unless one more adult can go we do not have two deep leadership and cannot do the trip. My take on this that we do have two deep leadership because the leaders will all be in touch by cell phones and walkie-talkies and we are going to be in close vicinity of each other.

I like to find others opinions on this.

Actually, I would like to take this one step farther and do this trip by patrol. The troop currently has three patrols and would like to see one adult go with each patrol and do a three way Capture the Flag.

On a similar note, it says that patrols can do outings by themselves with no adults present as long as the SM approves. Doesnt this violate the two deep rule?

I have taken part of the Scoutmaster training and will be finishing it along with the Outdoor Skills training this weekend. After taking just the Fast Start Training and a part of the Scoutmaster training, I realized how weak the program is at the current Troop my son is in.

I have visited some other Troops (5 or 6) and talked with other Leaders to see what they were doing and to look for a Troop to move him into.

One thing I noticed with all the troops I visited was that patrols did not have a strong identity. None encouraged separate patrol outings and I saw very few patrol flags being used. All said that the kids were so busy that the Troop would suffer. If the scouts were busy doing patrol outings they would not have time to do Troop stuff.

From the training and reading I have done, it seems that a patrol should be pushed as the stronger unit. It seems that a troop should be encouraging more patrol outings to make the patrol stronger in which will make the troop stronger even if troop outing suffer. (less attended or not as many)

Am I wrong in my thinking?

I have to note that with the Troops I have visited and with other Scoutmasters I have talked with at training and other events, the more by the book (100% boy run, strong use of the patrol method, etc.) the troop is, the larger, more active and the greater the amount of participation there is and the ones that were struggling were the least "by the book".

Lynda J - Sorry I guess I didn't do my math.

I am still concerned when he goes to a new MB councilor that they will require him to do the new ones instead of the old ones.

The old requiremnt numbers do not match with the new ones.

How is the new MB councilor going to know which requirements he has completed and which ones he needs to finish

If you look up some of my other posts this is just another in a long list of issues I have with my sons Troop. I have been trying to decide if I should switch to another troop and was waiting until after the next COH, which by the way has now been postponed for the forth or fifth time.

Luckily, I live near a mid-sized city and have over a dozen troops to pick from within a 15 min. radius. I feel guilty about switching as I have recruited the last 15 out of 20 kids into the troop and feel that I will abandoned them to a poor program.

As far as this person coming off the units MB councilors list is that every one of our units MB councilors would have to be removed as none are trained and none are using up to date requirements..

In fact, the only Adult leader that I have found that has taken any training is an ASM who said that he took some type of training in 1978.

I am starting SM/ASM training along with the Outdoor Skills training tonight. Current Troop leadership does not encourage Training and I was openly discouraged by CC in taking the training that he felt I since I had time to take a weekend training course I should be heading up a camping trip for the boys in the troop instead.

What I cant understand is that SM is head of our District Advancement Committee, on the District membership committee, and is a roundtable commissioner and we have no trained leaders. We do no district or council activities. I attend roundtables for the Pack I am associated with and have never seen another leader, outside of our SM, from the troop attend.

My son is not working on Commutations MB. He finished it last fall and did not have to do a resume for one of the requirements. As far as the requirements for PM, he is OK for what he has done and only has 3 or 4 more requirements to finish. I'll have to check with my son but I think the current MB counclor has kept everything he has done. One of thee requirements he needs to finish is to visit a bank, but I see that this is no longer required. One of the biggest things I see is the requirement for preparing a budget and tracking spending money. Old requirements this was done for 90 gays, new requirements is for 13 weeks.

I can get a copy of the requirements he is working with and have him cross reference to new requirements.

As far as the Blue card because this is being taught internal to the troop blue cards are never used. I know of scouts in the troop who outside of summer camp, have never taken a MB outside this troop.

At this time I think is time to switch troops ASAP.

My son has been working on Personal Management MB. He came home, said that he needed to create a resume, and asked if I could help him with this.

The MB councilor has copies of the book to use during the meeting and would not allow my son to bring a copy home.

I went to www.meritbadge.com and downloaded the requirements and did not see any requirement that has a resume.

I found that the MB councilor was using MB books that were 5 years old. He bought these when he started doing this merit badge and has used them ever since then and has never bothered to see if there was an update. I have found out that every MB that is being taught in my sons troop is using old requirements and none of thr MB councilors have been updating the requirements.

Now the old MB councilor can not finish with him, due to a work related issue, and he will need to finish with a new councilor. The old requirements do not match the new ones and the number of requirements have been increased from 9 to 10.

I do not want to see my son have to redo this merit badge and was wondering what, if anything, can be done?

We are putting together a Scouting University for the fall and are looking for ideas for recognition for Scouters who obtain Master degrees, PHD degrees and Fellowship degrees.

We would like to do something besides a patch.

What have you seen given as recogintion for these higher level degrees?