Leaderboard

Having worked in various joint commands in plans (J5), exercise (J7), and operations shops (J3), I have to tell you these things are FAR from free. Military exercises, deployments, employments, redeployment, and reconstitution (after the fact) are quite expensive, in fact. Literally hundreds of millions of your tax dollars are spent on these each year to maintain unit readiness. Difficult to stage? yes... Scarcity of opportunity? no. Quite the opposite. Military commands at all levels routinely have to cut exercises and practices from their schedules to support various "hobby horses" or "pet projects" the military is tasked to support based on political pressure. The National Jamboree is a good example of such a "pet project." Do the units supporting these get good training? Absolutely. Could the resources spent on the Jamboree be better used supporting other valid military training objectives? Absolutely. Do I support the use of military resources to enable the Jamboree? Absolutely 😜 (Sometimes the troops would rather support something at home like this, rather than flying to a third world country to practice their "wartime" skills there.)

Why cant they do the SMC prior to the BOR? In many units I have been in, that has been the case.

IMHO, Scouting America should ask well-spoken Robert Gates, former president of the Boy Scouts of America and Secretary of Defense for Presidents Bush and Obama to respond.

Woke is not a real thing; just a hot button prod. Simple adherence to the Scout Law, Oath, and so on is not Woke, just civility and basic kindness for others, no matter their beliefs or how they may look, o what their name are. Ignorance held up by stupidity and sheeple.

In my opinion this is a sign of burnout in the leadership. In my opinion you want to meet every week unless a holiday falls exactly on the meeting day. What I have seen personally is that units who are looking for these excuses are suffering burnout in the leadership. The two week gap screams to me that the leadership is burned out and that their scouts are probably in a situation where they don't need the meetings to advance so it's just a burden meeting to those families.

If I can find it, I will post a pic of my Beavis and Butthead OA flap from 1994 NOAC.

Wish we would go back to these: Those would never change. (Well, almost never...)

I would rather a troop not have a "meeting" if they are doing a different activity that week. Meetings are there to support the program; most of the program exists (or should) outside of those meetings. IMO Scouting has dropped off b/c there is too much focus on the meetings, and classroom stuff and not enough in the out of outdoors. When scouting is too much like school with some weekend field-trips then it isn't scouting. Retention and engagement metrics in an adult-led, classroom style program is bad data.

I don't know. I told him to immediately hit up the SM for an SMC on Tuesday and then we'll try to knock out both BORs.

Well, I know this one won't drop - he's mine. I retired from the Army this month, so now dad has plenty of time to support him in Scouting. His best friend (who became his First Class requirement 10) also has a retired guardian, so they are hitting as many Scouting events, with or without the troop, as we can.

We got notification that there will be Boards of Review this Tuesday. It's starting to feel like there's an intent to hold him back. Normally the BOR night is the second Tuesday. The plan was for him to have his SM conference this Tues so he's ready to go next Tues. All of a sudden, the BOR gets moved up a week, so he can only do Second Class, even though all he needs for First Class is the SM conference.

Hard to say. If they have the fortitude to stand up to the ignorance that continues to grow out of this sorry administration, maybe. Not going to hold my breath though.

We are potentially making much ado about nothing here. As outlined in another post, this is a leaked draft memo that could amount to a whole lot of nothing. When SECWAR or POTUS comment on it, or you see a memo with a signature on it, then it will mean something.

So the support for JAMBO is not something the department of war can just withdraw; there is a process and it has to clear congress; the actual law is that the US military has to support JAMBO at least at the level of the previous JAMBOs support. As I understand it the only way out is if we are at war and well ... we just fought 2 wars while also supporting like 10 peacekeeping forces, while also fighting a good 2 dozen "low intensity" engagements; that whole time the military was able to support JAMBO. Not thinking JAMBO support goes away. Prohibiting scouts on military installations will go no-where. First of all just plain stupid and no way enforceable considering that the US military lets all kinds of youth groups onto installations. Secondly garrison commanders have an EXTREME amount of authority as to what they allow or do not allow to happen on their bases and there are just too many military facilities out there. Toss in any potential pivot of USO to support the scouts at the troops urging. Just not worried about this at all; it's like a made up micro managing issue. In my recruiting days Eagle Scouts came in as E4; it was only 1 extra piece of paperwork and no hair off our backs to get that done for the rare enlistee that was an Eagle Scout. If your Eagle Scout is being offered less than E4 you need to take them to a different recruiter that can be bothered to press print and then sign and date a piece of paper.

In my neck of the woods, we've been doing this since I was a youth. General rule is if school is closed, we do not meet (which includes days the schools close because of snow). Over the summer we meet once for summer camp prep, then summer camp, then the rest of the summer is PLC planning meeting, and a few day events (fishing derby, troop outing to an amusement park, swim night at one of our family's house or at the YMCA, movie night, a day hike, etc. - whatever the PLC agrees on, more social gathering/engagement than skill/advancement focused. Still had the PLC/Senior Scouts in charge of planning details and lead supervision at these events. While I could understand momentum loss could result, it has always been for us more of a short time of fun getting ready for the work to return for another year= understood that way by both youth and adults. Additionally, when your own kid(s) hit the age that they are working at camp all summer, and OA starts up before school does, there's enough Scouting to never really have so much of the break that others were having.

Some units just follow local school district calendars because it affects meeting locations or, for certain families, school holiday closures affect child care, transportation, etc. It's not new or linked to burnout. It's just local convention in some places.

So if current Advancement guidelines say the BOR "In most cases it should, instead, be a celebration of accomplishment. Remember, it is more about the journey." p55 GTA 8.0.1.1 Not a Retest or “Examination”, Then why have them? Apparently that is the opinion of one troop that is still around, and another troop that has folded. Found that out tonite when I was talking to my Scouts. One of them has never had a BOR, and he is Second Class. The other remembers a Tenderfoot BOR when he was in the troop originally, but did not have one for Second Class through Life. Which explains how the Life Scout skipped through the cracks. Very frustrated.

Encourage you to do this! Our Scouts chose to do a week long Troop camp in lieu of an "corporate" Summer Camp. Scouts planned menus and cooked all meals themselves, by patrol. We rotated those duties so each Scout could either finish the requirements for First Class, or complete Cooking Merit Badge, if First Class was already done. We rented a private island in a nearby river, Sunday afternoon to Saturday at noon. Included archery (IAW BSA rules 😛 ), canoes with all gear, and a 4 hour float trip on the river (with transportation). Adults taught Archery. Wilderness Survival, Cooking, Fishing, Motorboating, and we even offered Environmental Science, but had no takers... Scouts loved playing in the river every day (with life jackets on). We went off island daily for fresh water and to renew our reusable ice packs. Each patrol brought their food for the first few days, and went went off island for shopping trips on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Scouts had a great campfire on Friday night where each Patrol did a Song, a skit, and a cheer. It was one of the best campfire programs I have seen in all my years. And the average cost was $303.40 per head. (Some patrols cost more or less, depending on the food they shopped for.) That is less than half the cost of "corporate" Summer Camp fees in our area. If we could find a place to camp for free, then your number checks... it would have cost us about $75 per head. If you can do a week program for $71 per head, the go for it!!!

I am starting to think that Scouting has done this to itself. Scouting is without a doubt significantly cheaper than club sports (which some estimates state are growing at as high as 43% year-over-year for membership); however, summer camp is expensive, way more expensive than a troop setting up it's own 7 day long term camp. I can simply not blame a parent for wanting their scouts to come home from any resident camp scenario with maximum merit badges and awards. Over the last 3 years, summer camp has cost me $350-$500 a head depending on the year/specific resident camp. I know for a fact that I can feed the scouts like kings and set up a 7 day camping experience at a state park for $71 a head. At the same time the Camping MB and OA eligibility require long term camping, not resident camping. My kids and I might stop going to summer camp after 2026; they are getting tired of the experience, and I am getting tired of the price and lack of ROI. My youngest would rather go on a family based wilderness campout, my middle kid would prefer cooking higher quality meals for himself, my oldest is sick of all the younger scouts, and I can't believe how horrible the cost to return ratio is. Summer camp 2026 is going to cost my family $1600 and a week of missed work (if we even go in 2026, my oldest is currently pitching a competing national park trip to my other two 😛 ).

Trust me I know. I am lamenting the fact that units can care less about growing the Scout instead of growing the number of Eagles. Sadly the SM was part of the problem. When he took over the troop, many Scouts transferred out to ours. So it was known what was going on, but nothing to be done about it outside the COR. Both family and SM gamed the system. Family left our troop because we insured Scouts actually did what they were supposed to. They specifically went to that troop because they were "high speed low drag." SM picked summer and winter camps known for giving away MBs. When discussing summer camp last year, the family referred to to summer camp as a place to "purchase MBs." It is extremely sad for the Scout. He has not really grown much over the years. He acts like a Tenderfoot still. And family is not helping as they are pushing and pushing to get Eagle. But I am mad that there is nothing anyone can do about the situation, i.e. just signing stuff off, except the COR replacing Scouters. And trust me the SM knew better; I trained him. And it is frustrating because if anyone needed Scouting, the Life Scout did.

The BOR is NOT the place to correct for years of advancement failures. ... If a lower advancement standard has been used for years, then it's too generally too late. The BOR checks if the requirements were signed off ... and to encourage the scout ... and to collect feedback on how the troop advancement program is doing. My apologies if I sound harsh, but if we criticize the scout's advancement at the BOR, then we are really criticizing the troop advancement program for the last few years. Each rank had many requirements to be met and that the troop designated approver signed off on. The SM (and his team) should have been watching. Merit Badges are only one part of a larger more complex set of requirements. ... AND, sometimes a scout (and his parents) game the system beyond the controls of the troop leadership. It's ok to be sad for the scout, but not necessarily mad about.

100% agree. ... Could have some adjustments such as Dakotas could be one council to save cost. Or Dakotas + Nebraska. ... Or one per state to keep it simple.

Is it wrong that I am now picturing Beavis in a scout uniform after reading this?

The reality is that BOR really are a feedback session. The board should ask questions to the scout to gauge their experience; so instead of "Here's a rope, how do you tie a bowline?" the question should be "Tell us about the last time you tied a bowline and why you did it?"

Still show 234 councils, which means about 4,200 youth participants per council. The excessive overhead costs continue. Assuming a SE costs $200K (all in salary and benefits) that means each youth registered pays +/- $48 just for the SE overhead.

District camporee. We have a fair sized, suburban District. Maybe 20 Troops in attendance. OA is in charge of arrangements, In my walking around, I come to the "CAMPFIRE ARENA", a nice natural hillside, flat area at the bottom, and... two (2!) 9 or 10 feet tall piles of cargo pallets! Ummm,,, what is that familiar smell.... kerosene ! I go and get the Camporee Scoutmaster and bring him over to the Campfire area. AND... Where are the water buckets? The shovels ? He nods.... The OA has given in to their teen ager pyromaniacal tendency. He brings over the OA Chief, and they agree, the arrangements are a bit much. We do not want the front row to suffer second degree burns. It is not necessary for the ISS to see our campfire. They take down and haul away all of one of the two piles . The remaining pile is taken down to about four feet tall. AND.... They arrange for EACH participating Troop to bring one of their five gallon water coolers, which are lined up behind the fire pile.... After, everyone agreed , the skits were corny and fun, the serious stuff was thought provoking.... The fire was worthy. .

Council Service Territory maps were updated last night. It's not clear which councils merged but it looks like at least 1 council in California is merged out and 1 council in Pennsylvania or New Jersey is merged out as well.

My troop folds at the end of the month. But we survived over 15 years without a Cub Scout pack because we focused on fun and adventure. Almost all of out scouts since the pack folded were either already members, or transferred from other troops. Those troops are now dead. The remaining ones got smart and started being more youth led and adventure driven, while focusing less on advancement. Basically they became more like us. Fun and adventure retains Scouts. And prior to national denigrating 18-20 yos, we retained young ASMs. This is coming from folks with education backgrounds without any experience in Scouting. This is folks focusing on one thing that is easily trackable, advancement. Instead of asking Scouts what they want, they use their theories to create program. The entire reason why Scouting took off was because BP created a program on the desires of the youth.

Section 6: Rules around the number of local council members, the composition of members, the size of the local council board, and the composition of the board were eliminated. The new proposed Local Council Bylaws Template gives local councils flexibility to structure their own governance according to their needs. Of note, in order to allow local councils more flexibility in determining the appropriate number of members and in selecting their members, chartered organizations will no longer be automatic voting members of the local councils. Local councils can continue to elect chartered organization representatives as voting members if desired. Source: Facebook post by J. D. Urbach in "Talk About Scouting!"

I'd encourage your son to send an email tonight to the SM asking if he could take a few minutes of the his time to have the SMC tonight, and even an offer to meet prior to the meeting if the SM is available. Might get him farther with the SM, and removes the opportunity for the SM to use an excuse of he is feeling cornered that it is "last minute" (in his mind).

The insurance company filing says: the Bates calculation accepted by the Court reduced all claims with only one abuser by 90%… and the Trust is not doing that. I’m not at a computer so don’t have the link handy.

This is the sort of stuff that causes scouts to quit as soon as they find something more satisfying and less stressful to spend their time on. With leadership maneuvering to set this scout up for failure this hard it is without a doubt a guarantee that this scout drops before this time next year.

That might be your area, or you're defensive. I am telling you hard fact from my district. Units that don't meet year round, that don't meet as many weeks as possible, they are failing. I can also tell you that national believes the same thing because all of the leader guides and training tell us to meet year round and meet as many weeks in a month as possible to have a healthy unit. Everyone on this site likes to complain about meeting, everyone on this site likes to complain about Scouting America being at less than 25% of it's peak size in 1970. Leadership 101: You can't maintain engagement without meeting regularly and on a schedule.

The text book answer is: CORs, the District Key 3, Members-at-Large, People registered in function roles (advancement committee members, training committee members, etc ... ). I've never seen it done by-the-text-book though. My personal opinion is evolving into the opinion that DE's never even try to run it by the text book because they don't want a committee complicating their unilateral approaches to everything.

Yes. Based on what BoR are supposed to be, I hate hate hate retests. It is solidly against the G2A. If you really really wanted to put the scout on the spot, and split hairs, have him tie a bowline. Pass him when he isn't able to but talk to the SM about the issue. That is close to the intent of the BOR. How did the scout do, how close is the unit to true north. A review.

I did not get any esponse, but I have challenged them to actually stand up for the basic tenets of Scouting and to not just use their "support" or being an Eagle as some kind of additional reason to tempt people to vote for them. I do not see many of them living the tenets in their so called leadership positions. If they did, perhaps we might actually see something positive develop in Congress. I get the impression many of them do not understand how poorly they are living those tenets, if at all. Certainly few are serving with Honor, or "doing their best", if the results we have are any measure .

Happy thanksgiving everyone. Generally, a scout who is belligerent to other scouts or not willing to talk to the committee would require the board to be suspended, written instructions given about what needs to change in some reasonable time frame (e.g., within a month, during the next campout). The board could then reconvene and determine if the youth's behavior was scout-like or if the youth was more willing to discuss troop life with these adults. I dealt with a "failure to bowline" once when I was a crew advisor when a scout failed to complete a Life BoR in his troop. The committee had not given him in writing how to remedy the situation. But, they did say that he could come back next week and demonstrate this skill. This was distressing to the scout who felt blind-sided by the challenge. Because he was in my crew, I laid out three options. He could comply and demonstrate the skill. I could discuss with the committee about how they might have been out of bounds. He could continue the rest of his advancement with me and the crew committee. He chose the first option. It turned out that the chairman of that board approached me about the situation. He was an Eagle Scout and knew very well that he didn't go by the book. But, he was frustrated that a number of scouts weren't keeping their skills up. He was just trying to turn it around. It didn't sound like he wanted every BoR to be a test. I opted to just listen (for once) and not play G2A wonk on the guy. It seemed like his heart was in the right place, and I'd rather have an adult like that than someone who quotes chapter and verse inflexibly.

We sent out an invite to all 60. The 3 showed up because they were interested. It really was as simple as that.

How so? What actual Scouting value violates DoD values?

Since that is a primary responsibility of the job, perhaps they are not the right person.

I have to believe the vast majority of units probably follow school schedules to a greater or lesser degree for simply pragmatic reasons. And most units can still manage to keep scouts engaged and active without a formal meeting every single week. People have posted examples here. There is generally plenty to engage scouts over a summer break, from camp to high adventure or volunteering. When units are failing, it's because of a hundred other problems that currently exist in scouting.

I doubt this is going to affect any council. The reality of the situation is that absolutely no CORs are showing up to council meetings or even district meetings. I know this to be fact for my council and the councils surrounding my council. I have nagged the living ^&*( out of my CORs to go to district and council meetings and they all say the exact same thing "I don't have time for that.". My #1 go to line for unit leaders being pissy about our latest property liquidation has been "Did your COR bother to show up to the council meeting about that to vote on the matter?"; I have yet to meet a COR that was at that vote, or any of the previous votes, or a single district or council meeting period. It might affect some councils chartering for 2026; however, my understanding is that most if not all councils left the national meeting with a 2 year charter going forward. Maybe that kicks in with next years charter, but I was told that this years charter extends into 2026 now (so supposedly all if not most councils have a charter that covers 2025 & 2026 and recharters will be 2 year charters now).

This, yes... prevent the COR uprising to vote against a merger... gotta remove the potential power struggle with those pesky volunteers, you know.

Stupid question, wouldn't the current CORs have to vote to allow this? And if they vote to not allow this, will they be forced to by National with the threat of withholding the charter? And is this in preparation of all the forced mergers headed our way as some council have contested the mergers already?

First, a leaked draft memo does not equal policy. This memo could have been generated by some mid-level staffer with an axe to grind against Scouting America, and may never see the light of day as an official communique. The real ignorance lies in all of the articles already attributing this as coming from the Secretary. I promise you, no Secretary of any department drafts their own memos like this, and these draft memoranda go through numerous revisions and legal review before being issued. Having worked at these levels with the Department of Defense (or so it was called when I was on active duty), I can easily posit this memo was the result of some staff task issued at the request of the National Guard Bureau to 'justify withdrawing support to Joint Task Force - National Scout Jamboree as a drain on resources.' But that is an educated guess on my part. https://www.wv.ng.mil/News/Article/3463243/a-decade-of-diligence-joint-task-force-national-scout-jamboree-kicks-off-10-yea/ In other posts, I have commented that Scouting America, over the past years, has, indeed, lost some credibility as a "meritocracy", (while maintaining the guise of one) as the quality of instruction and program at summer camps has declined, and Scouts are being given badges rather than earning them. Let's have some tactical patience and see what develops with this story. Hopefully, the press will show due diligence and ask the right questions to flesh out what is really going on here. It would not surprise me at all if the burden of logistical support is withdrawn, considering the dwindling attendance at jamboree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Scout_jamboree_(Scouting_America) Nor would it surprise me if the initial enlistment rank advancement given to Eagle Scouts is withdrawn, given the observed lower quality potential recruits we (collectively) are producing. Giving a rank advancement upon enlistment to Eagle Scout and Gold Award recipients is an endorsement of those programs...

Removing the possibility of the grass roots uprising as a "threat" to power over the organization.

Two weeks? I'm really struggling to see that, especially over holiday weeks when there is so much else going on.

I saw the original email, I read the original NPR story (not helping with their DEI knot and rainbow slide photo btw), and I've now seen nothing much come out throughout the day except the leak/rumor; I mean, we got nothing? Rex Tillerson just did a video for Scouting America on Veterans Day; dudes got the connections at all levels in the Republican Party. None of these muldunes (https://www.scouting.org/about/governance/national-executive-board/) have anything for Scouting America? My council has 3 flag officers on the BOD and no one knows the whole story or has seen the full policy? This all smells like some sort of manipulation scheme; at this point all of the rage baiting is going to backfire. Everyone fired up about anti-DEI Hegseth and what happens if national decides to kill the Citizenship in Society MB over this?

I think you are correct, the patrol is the fundamental, or I would say foundational group in a unit. I've seen that literature, and I've seen a lot about what was really going on with the LDS (such as the inflated membership numbers due to the LDS just cutting a bulk check to BSA). I would agree that you need the activities to keep the scouts coming. I would state that advancement is much more important than just project first class. I would make the argument of why do people hate scope creep and why do people hate jobs/careers where they just "run the business" and every day bleeds into the next? The answer is no feeling of accomplishment. There's no way to unwind the changes to the program. First the mixed age patrol method is basically dead in my opinion, my personal experience is that it can't work because it becomes a pseudo gerontocracy, especially if the troop institutes by-laws that restrict who can be elected based on rank, NYLT, etc ... so what ends up happening is that older scouts regardless of ability or charisma, or disposition end up the patrol leaders and assistant senior patrol leader, and patrol leader while everyone else is forced to wait their turn. Secondly the legal system forces us to create tenting buddy plans and buddy/truddy teams based on age. It is such a pain in the butt if the oldest and the youngest of a patrol show up for something and no one in between. So many bad troops without any connection somehow independently have created the same bad troop systems that have made national want to move to age based patrols. The path forward is unfortunately going to be age based patrols. The question becomes how do we make them work? That might be going back to DuctTape's patrol based operations. I also see some of the forced to attend scouts. In my primary unit I see them and they fall into two groups. Group 1 is the group that is a big distraction, they don't want to be in scouts at all but their parents are forcing them. They don't do outings, service never hits their radar, etc ... parents don't care just as long as they are attending meetings for some reason. The other group 2 is the group that parents tell us that they have to force their kids to show up, but once they are there they are happy, and we mostly see that in their behavior. We see these scouts A LOT on outings, these are the "camping club" scouts that hate meetings but will show up to basically anything outdoors. This is the group that I think would benefit the most from patrol based scouting; 8 scouts that want to camp 4 times a month year round with 2 or adults that can't say no would be ideal. You might lose a lot of scouts on this. The better answer might be "Hey parents talk with your scout, we need feedback, what do they say would make them want to come to more meetings?"

The values of the DoD and woke Scouting no longer align. Predictable.