Two Changes: How would you give input?

[John-in-KC 311]

The next Boy Scout program revision cycle is coming up, as Beavah mentioned in another thread.

 

Here's the deal...

You get a letter signed by the National President, the National Commissioner, the Chief Scout Executive, and the head of the Boy Scouting Program Division.

 

Your input is solicited: You may recommend no more than two specific changes to the program. They may cover the Boy Scouting program itself, or they may cover adult training for the Boy Scouting program.

 

To help interpret your recommendations, you're asked for a short "why is this important to you" paragraph for each.

 

From now until Sunday, let's make this is a "Blue-Sky" exercise, brainstorming only. We can evaluate later.

 

I'll start off with my two:

 

Youth Program change: Add a 22d Merit Badge to attain Eagle. It is an addition to the current Eagle Required Matrix. The Merit Badge is COOKING.

 

Why? Ingredient victuals are generally the least expensive way to create a meal. Freezer or canned portions are generally more expensive, and restaurant/take-out meals are generally the most expensive. The statistics show more American men than not will have a failed marriage during their lifetimes. Providing Scouts with fundamental cookery skills mastered in the outdoors assists them to be better functioning in a world where split families are not unusual.

 

Adult Training Change: Evaluate the need for and consider implementing a true "School of the Outdoors" for adults entering Scouting as adults.

 

WHY? Increasing numbers of American adults are no longer exposed to the outdoors as youth or young adults. Much of the "greatest generation" learned fieldcraft from being in the Army or Marines during World War II. Whilst the boomer generation was exposed to the outdoors, proportionately fewer members of the following generations received that training. America fundamentally converted from rural-based society to urban/suburban based society between 1930 and 1970. Adults who will lead Scouting need opportunity to learn and master skills before becoming training resources to youth.

 

Why am I starting this thread? It might be a rhetoric drill, but I think reading where each of us sees weakness and has a vision for change is useful. At the very least, we see what each other thinks is important enough to write about...

[local1400 10]

Great thread John! I second the Cooking MB. Your reasons are good enough for me. If National wanted to keep the Magic Number at 21, I'd drop Communications, or keep Communications, add Cooking, and combine the Citizenship Nation/World somehow. Every young man should be able to cook, and not just Hot Dogs, and not just on a fire or camp stove. Plus the sanitation aspect (I am a clean freak to some extent!). The next item on my agenda would be Scout History. Seems like kids and adults today don't know where we've been. Some of the past skills mentioned in other recent posts come to mind. Maybe a Scout History National Award could be instituted? I'll bet a CSP from your council against mine 50% or more of the kids in your unit don't know who Boyce was (unless maybe you are from the Boyce Council!)

[gwd-scouter 11]

I would agree with adding cooking merit badge. In addition to the reasons John-in-KC gives, I would add another. Learning to cook using fresh ingredients, or at the very least minimally prepackaged foods, is usually much healthier and less fattening than take out, fast food, or overly-processed microwave meals.

 

I would also like to see the camping merit badge changed so that backpacking is not optional. Many of the requirements are worded in a way that one would think it means backpacking, but it isn't explicit. For instance, one could argue that cooking a meal on a lightweight stove could be done in the middle of a district camporee. Same for showing how to pack a backpack for proper weight, balance, etc. Too many guys out there have no idea how to camp or to appreciate nature and their surroundings unless they pull a huge trailer loaded with all the conveniences of home.

[evmori 11]

For adults, I would make training mandatory. This would help eliminate those adults who don't want to commit the time to learn the program they have signed up to help lead. This should also help with the quality of training.

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[hops_scout 9]

Make Wilderness First Aid certification a requirement somewhere. I'd like to see it required for both adult leaders and for the Scouts above the rank of Star.

 

Well, that's the only thing that comes up right now. I'll post something else later.

[RememberSchiff 3671]

Good topic. I only get TWO wishes, I will consider my choices further.

 

But John's choices are certainly worthy and I offer this feedback.

 

Cooking Merit Badge - FIGHT OBESITY and consider special diets (something along these lines). Make it 22nd mb or drop Communications as previously mentioned.

Expand requirement 2 to cover OBESITY and the need for special diets. Plan a month's "special diet" for either of the following:

1. Weight management

a. Visit your doctor or a nutrition specialist. Determine what your ideal weight should be and design a diet to reach your ideal weight. Talk about effects of junk food and lack of exercise

b. Prepare a menu plan for a month (or longer?) to reach your weight goals.

c. Prepare an exercise plan.

d. Keep a weight and BMI chart for that month

OR

2. Special Diet - same idea as above but the focus is on special diet restrictions/needs

Also add info on using a meat thermometer.

 

Adult School of Outdoors? That's a broad topic area. Do you want adults to hunt and skin rabbits as my uncles did? Catch, clean, and fry fish (watch the mercury)? Paddle a canoe , row a boat? Know wilderness first aid? Basic hiking? Outdoor Leadership school? Campfire grill? Or just SC and FC skills (OLS?) Anyway, I think you need further specification.

 

[Eamonn 61]

For our youth members?

Maybe some sort of a log which they have kept out lining what they did when they held a POR. This could be required to be signed by the SM and taken with the Scout to his Eagle Scout BOR.

For adults we could come up with some sort of Mentor Plan, where a new leader is paired up with a experienced and trusted leader.

Ea.

[FireKat 10]

I very much agree on the cooking merit badge for all the same reasons. Add to the fact that most households today are two family income, men need to step up with household chores (more than just standing over the BBQ   ).

The second thing I would like to see changed (ducking as saying this); I would like to see girls allow in. Reasons before the arrows fly-

I was a GS and was board out of my mind. I am an outdoors person (just a tomboy). I had more fun and learned more hovering at my bothers' meetings. I could not see why girls could not be a part of that fun. I later joined an Explorer Post that spent most of their time outside. More fun. I see girls like me hanging out at their brothers' meetings wishing to be a part of it too. Why not let them?

Side note:  our brain injured scout had a sister who hovered until her brother was injured, then she stepped in to help him out and became more active so she could watch over him. In many ways she was one of the best scouts in the troop. I know some  will say Venture Scouts. She tried to get a crew going but by 14 most girls have found other things and other ways to do the outdoors.  The girls need to be more involved earlier to get them in VS.

And, PLEASE do not push the GS on me, if anything they have gotten worse around here. Girls get more outdoors in cheerleading and that may not be as hard to get into.

I'm of the soapbox now,( next?) Kat

[hotdesk 10]

1) I would require that all scouts serve as a Patrol Leader or Senior Patrol Leader. Scouting is to teach scouts about leadership and adult interaction. A Scout can currently earn the rank of Eagle by only holding the position of Historian. What does Historian teach us about leadership?

 

Serving as PL or SPL would allow a scout to have more adult interaction then he gets with any other aspect.

 

Also I understand that not all scouts are going to be good leaders. However, being a leader would help a scout become a better team player and follower by showing him what's involved with leading a group.

 

2) I would also change the ranks of Scoutmaster and Assistant Scoutmasters. I would suggest that a. no mothers serve in either rank and b. that they be adults whose sons have aged out or don't have sons in the program.

 

I have been on many trips where parents want to serve as parents for their sons regardless of their troop position. I have seen mothers want to be mothers for all the scouts during the campout. This teaches the scouts nothing during the campout other than "mom" or mom and dad will be there to bail us out regardless.

[CNYScouter 46]

IMHO one of the biggest problems the Scouting program is facing and one of the biggest reasons for loss of youth membership is the Adult-run Eagle Mill.

 

Maybe its just around here but it seems that the majority of Scout Troops are the classic Adult-run Eagle Mills.

When I think about how many of the youth today are in this type of program that the future of Scouting is not looking all that good.

 

The first change I would like to see to help eliminate the Eagle Mills is a requirement be added to earn the AOL for the WEBELOS and his parent/guardian attend a WEBELOS to Scout Transition program.

 

The WEBELOS to Scout Transition program would have a syllabus prepared by National that outlines the Boy Scout Program.

This would cover the basics of the troop program such as the Aims and Goals of the BSA Troop structure, what boy-led is, how the advancement program works and how it differs from Cub Scout advancement, how the Merit Badge Program works and other general. I think a big part of this program would include how each Troop is different and that everyone should look at multiple Troops to find a troop with a good fit for them.

 

I just seems to me that most Cub Scout parents have no idea of what the Boy Scout program is or what it should be and this would be a way to get this information.

I think if more parents understood the basics of the Scout program it would help to eliminate the Eagle Mill.

 

The 2nd change I would like to see that if a MBC is also registered as a Troop leader they are not able to sign off a MB for Scout in their unit

One thing I see with most Eagle or Merit Badge Mills is that outside of summer camp all MBs are done with MB Councilors that are only MBCs for their own Troop.

 

[Hiromi 9]

Did some one say brainstorm?

My favorite kind of weather.

 

1. Hire a marketing firm to think of ways to sell scouting to Youth and Adults and America.

2. Develop a scout Boy Scout Academy and form an elite Scouting Force, not unlike the Navy Seals, but there mission would be to be a crack scouting outfit- fully uniformed, visually impressive, affable, communicative, and then start filming them in action doing high adventure- troop meeting- conducting patrol meeting. Show us out here how it should be done.

3. This Boy Scout Academy can be virtual- online , or real, either summer or year around.

4. Just think, a 6-12 academy boys can go to to learn to be scouts!

5. SCOUT TV- both satellite- cable, and online broadcast 24-7 Boy Scout television network. Boys all over the country have the opportunity to make contributions to this network and see their unit and accomplishments on TV. It could serve as a clearing house, not unlike this web site for all things scouter and scout. The old coots like us would get the early morning and super late night shows- the boys get all day and prime time! SCOUT TV could feature debate- news, high adventure documentaries, scout history, and information.

6. We should reinstitute the official scout hatchet worn on the belt. We should rethink the belt harness ad a tool and not a green accessory to the scout ensemble. We should get rid of the current buckle- it is not well made. Go with a more functional weave with grommets and a good bronze buckle.

7. We need to MAN up the uniform and bring in hats that boys will wear that dont look like sports hats. A inexpensive campaign cover -$25 max- a official BSA Booney cap- A specialized BSA baseball cap that has a molded from similar to the Marine Corps- but not imitating the Marine Corps. And of course, we should think about the beret again but look at the berets of our military- they are smaller and they are pretty cool.

8. Council summer camps need to be re-examined. My boys get near 10 months of school a year. They dont want to go to a scout camp if they are going to be sitting in a hot shelter earning merit badges and working on rank advancement. My boys want the adventure.

9. Adventure is getting easier and easier to get to without scouting. We need to make our outdoor adventure uniquely positioned in the marketplace. What can we offer that no one can touch, if anything? Can we promise strong training in such things as climbing, kayaking, caving, rescue, etc. that would make people say- if you want to do it right- those Boy Scouts are the way to go.

10. Esprit de Corps need to be brought back. We need to strongly look at the numbers game and how it erodes our confidence in our product when selling scouting to the most boys we can. Every great institution from the military to colleges and universities, businesses, you name it, has a natural selecting process. I think all boys should be eligible for scouting. It should be an open and welcome door. But I know that young men want excellence. They want the best games. They want their team to be the best. They want to join a force that their peers will say-Man- thats hard, I dont know if I could do it.

 

Why cant we make scouts- or a branch of scouting more elite and more rigorous in both its training, and its expectations? Like a Scouting Academy- or Scouting Corps- or Pappys Raiders or whatever?

 

We pretend to be living in the egalitarian dream but we know that scouting is a very different and unequal experience for all. Instead of it being the luck of lifes lottery that might determine what kind of scout troop you end up in, why cant we also create on place where every0one or most everyone- can agree that THAT place is Hard Corps Scouting. The kids who leave this scout camp will be prepared to be the next generation of Scoutmasters- District Execs, on up.

 

What perks can we offer schools to bring scouting back into the school-yard culture. I wore my Cub Scout uniform to school on Den meeting day, like all the scouts. It was real a point of pride. Why have we lost this? How do we make it plane that the scouting mission is co-commensurate and complimentary to the schools mission?

 

For all the harping about the LDS Church- their idea of making scouting their Churchs official youth program makes one stop and ponder. How can we look to parents and church fathers and leaders and clergy, and sell scouting as a program that compliments their mission? Wouldnt it be nice if we could brand scouting- so we got it into the public imagination that a boy without the scouting experience is some how lacking something important in their formation, in their Socialization in their childhood?

 

And finally- look to those old posters from the 20s through the fifties where scouts are portrayed as classically chiseled heroic figures carrying the torch of lady liberty. Rockwells vision of scouting is the visual image of my vision of scouting. How can we capture that Norman Rockwell vision and create a romantic and nationalistic dynamism and imperative that Boy Scouting is American?

 

Thats my two cents.

 

Pappy

 

[Gold Winger 9]

" Rockwells vision of scouting is the visual image of my vision of scouting."

 

Rockwell captured the reality of his time. Alas, that time is long gone.

 

Hatchet? Why? Following LNT you don't chop trees or saplings down. In any case, a hatchet is like the poo shovel, you only need one.

 

 

 

 

[Hiromi 9]

Gold Winger,

 

My campouts look like Norman Rockwell paintings. So I have seen evidence to the contrary.

 

We chop trees and Saplings down with axes. It is great fun.

 

 

But did John in K.C. want his thread to contain tit for tats and debates about the veracity of each of our comments he asked for. John- is this what you want?

 

Pappy

[Venividi 35]

Reminder: John in KC asked at the beginning of this post: "From now until Sunday, let's make this is a "Blue-Sky" exercise, brainstorming only. We can evaluate later."

 

 

 

 

[scoutingagain 20]

My two program changes;

 

1. Second Hopps Wilderness 1st Aid requirement or at least add elements of it to the 1st Aid MB requirements.

 

2. Remove the either/or statements for the Eagle required MBs emergency preparedness/life saving.

 

SA