Order of the Arrow

Friday evening... none of our members have been renewed through the Registrar.  Perhaps they'll update on the midnight data sync... a Scouter can dream, can't he?   

National announced a grace period; the problem is that it looks like people stop getting emails at renewal date + 7 days. That grace period is massive, 60 days.  I am just waiting for the new YPT and training requirements to drop if that gold leaf certification is for real; that's going to blow up 50% of the leaders in my opinion (because they are lazy and can't be bothered to do free training online in my experience). 

I am still re-reading front to back. National has removed some of the gray area that bad leaders have lingered in for years. I think we all need to make sure we understand the nuance difference. Statements on MBC and SM authority seem much clearer and designed to reign in ego-mad SM's. 

I have been a leader in troops that have traditional patrols, age based, and the age based also had a new scout patrol. My observation is that hands down age based is better. There is that 8th-9th grade teenage boy thing where the 5th-6th graders drive them insane because the 8th-9th are trying to be so much more mature. There is also the friendship and sibling thing; some scouts regardless of age are friends, some siblings want to be together, some siblings want to be as far away from their brothers as possible. I think the answer might be somewhere in between; something like the SM provides a framework, like "hey we have 36 scouts and I want to see 6 patrols of 6, keep tenting and buddy system age requirements in mind, figure it out scouts+, and then the scouts take it from there. A couple of oddities that I have seen is that I have seen older scouts ask to go back down to the NSP because of younger friends from clubs/sports/relatives; I have seen younger scouts that present much more mature than their age ask to get assigned to an older aged patrol because their personalities were more aligned with the older scouts. The biggest mistakes I have ever seen revolved around either the SM, the SPL, or both making decisions in absence of input from the scouts themselves; that patrol design always leads to some sort of s-show. I have seen parents who's kids get split between multiple patrols that do patrol level stuff lose their minds at having to figure out how to get their scouts to 2 different places at the same time for patrol functions (when a troop starts to function a higher level and the patrols start functioning at the highest level it adds complexity and independence that you should have the foresight to plan for).  I think the answer is a mix of how many scouts you have, aligning them to the best possible patrol size, aligning personalities, following the rules, and making sure that everyone's voice is heard. Start with the scouts, make as few adjustments as possible; justify those adjustments when the new troop structure is presented. 

I have recently noted a number of instances where pundits on line and in articles have began making "Boy Scout" comments in a sarcastic manner to indicate "goody goody", or being a good person.     Does that mean we are back?