Eagle92

If your scout's troop uses blue cards, then yes keep them. If not, then have your son make sure he get's the MBs recorded in his book, and he makes a copy or two of the pages, especially after a BOR, so that there is some record fohim earnign it. I had a very good friend who encountered some "challenges" with earning Eagle as his council records still had him listed as First Class and ineligible for Eagle. had to use his handbook to fix the records. As for needing them form an EBOR, don't know as different councils do the EBORs differently, so have you son talk to his SM.

If we use the Venturing model, if national does decide to include girls, then the COs will have the option of maintaining all male troops, create coed troops, or create all girl troops. Now how the indivual units handle things could be the key. As some know, my sea explorer ship back in the day was coed, and there were some challenges. However after seeing UK and other associations' coed units as well as a few crews in the US, i'ld give it a shot.

Use the patrol method fully, Instill in the new scouts, and I say even CS, that the patrol method is messy, chaotic, failure prone at times, BUT FUN, CHALLENGING, AND EXCITING! Constantly tell parents that BS is bout the scouts growing up, elarnign formtheir successes and failures, and constantly drillign it into them.

Forgot about the failure comment. BOYS NEED TO FAIL AS IT IS A LEARNING PROCESS (caps for emphasis not shouting). Sometimes some of life's best lessons come form a failure. The key is to turn those failures into teachable moments. Mentor and advise, i.e. ask them how they think thay can improve and ask questions thatmake them think about their ideas. while I'm typing I saw Brent's post EXCELLENT IDEA! The otehr thing is this, is your COR trained? If not I strrongly recommend that he gets some training as it will open his eyes.

However the scout wants to sew them on himself And correct sometimes it is hard deciding what end is up, that why I recommend the scout sewing them on himself as he should already have the resources showing how it is worn.

Sounds good to me, But may I suggest that you let the scouts decide the date of activities. This can be a challenge, especially when you are dealing with 8 or more different school calanders , but it gives them more ownership. As for doign the minimum, try inspiring the older ones and give them incentives to go beyond the minimum, i.e. HA activities. Get them motivated, and it will trickle down to the younger scouts.

Another thing, Webelos and their parents need to be informed CONSTANTLY that Boy Scouts is completely different than CS, and that the BS need to be BOY LED and that they WILL MAKE MISTAKES. I've already started the process by talkig a little about differences between CS and BS with the parent of the tigers I have.

You need balance. Yes adults need to mentor and advise, BUT the youth do need the freedom to plan and execute activities, AND FAIL. The patrol method is truly "Organized chaos" My advice would be to become an ASM NOW, get training NOW, and start workgin with the youth NOW. That way the older scouts are comfortable with you, as you need to work through them. Sit in on those SM conferences, do go camping. SIT IN on the PLC and observe the first go around. Once you do become the SM, USE THE PLC and work through them. make sure they are trained and have the KSAs to run the meetings and activities. Good luck

This is what my SE posted Returned from National Scout Executive's Mtg w/ almost too much info. I forsee all unit contact leaders being required to complete basic training within one year in very near future. Cub Scout specific will very soon go on-line.

Just got a FB post from my SE saying that it looks as if Mandatory training is on the way nationally. He just got back form the top hands conference. Also looks as if they will be putting the different DL specific training online. Wanted to give a heads up

neon, Welcome to the boards, and congrats on an Eagle on the way! Only problem I discovered with the Ring emblem, besides essentially sewing it twice (i.e. inside and outside loop), is that you are only suppose to wear it for one year. At least that is what the SCOUTSTUFF facebook page is sawing. What I find funny is that when you look up the emblem on scoutstuff.org, it gives you Badge Magic instructions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that leave a permanent stain on the uniform? Sorry after my one time use of Badge Bond in the 1990s, the stuff in a can ;( , I said I'll stick to sewing.

OGE, Good luck. I know I used my company's health incentive to lose 14 pounds in six months. It was a bear. unfortunately I've gained about 3 back. I cut back on food, switched to diet drinks, and walked my tail off. I do a minimum of 10000 steps at least 3x a week, sometimes more. that helps Again GOOD LUCK!

Prairie, I"M JEALOUS! Still waiting for my order to come in.

Hal, Thanks for the input. Yep we're homeschooling for the reason that the pub school system is not the greatest in my local (but it is 110% than the one in my hometown), and we can't afford the private schools. I want my sons to get interactions with kids his age, but I also want him to learn. Yep the dad seems to be a his way or highway type person. Seems as if he's not letting the young man grow. Hopefully the troop in question will slowly move towards being Boy-led,as they will be getting a new SM shortly.

Mike, No cub scout experience with this scout or his parents. I tried to explain how the patrol method should work,and how it did work for me in my old troop. But he wanted "structure" and his son to get Eagle, and this troop is a very active, very structured troop that does produce Eagles. the first troop probably won't get an eagle for a year or two at the earliest. Again the oldest scout is 15 now. The second troop is established so they produce a few eagles. But they use the patrol method and so advancement goes at the scout's pace.

Ok came home from a homeschooling meeting where I was talking to a parent that just had their son join a troop. they visited several ones, one that is a relatively new troop but on the right path (just need a little experience in their youth leaders IMO), another that is well established and is "organized chaos' that is the patrol method, and the third that is a "supertroop" with 62 members and averages 8+ Eagles a year, but have the adults doing more than they should. The parent picked the adult led one stating that he didn't like the adults sitting in the rear doing nothing, and that the scouts do need more guidance than the first two troops adults provided. So how would you guys handle a "walk in" i.e. a youth with no prior scouting experience, and their parent. how would you guys go about explaining to the parent the patrol method.

deacon, Aren't the CS leader medals suspended on a ribbon, and therfore don't count towards the five rule as they are worn around the neck? Or have they come out with new CS training medals that are worn over the pocket now?

Welcome to the Forums! You'll hear a variety of opinions, but you must work with both the PLC and the committee to come up with a solution. Yep I'd include the youth on this as it is their troop and they are doing the fundraisers. Now I have a different opinion abut scout account b/c I love them. Growing up I busted butt at every fundraiser b/c that is how I paid my monthly dues to the troop as well as all the trips I went on. Now this is how my troop did things. We had monthly dues, at the time started at $2/month and by the time I became an adult it was $3/month. That covered advancement, recharter, Boy's Life, and whatever else the troop needed. It basically went into the Troop expenses, and was the responsibility of each scout to pay. Now when we did our annual fundraiser, it was divided into two functions. The youth did the cleanup of the fair grounds. The money that the fair paid us for the cleaning was divided by the total manhours. So if you had $1000 and 100 total manhours for 7 youth, then the youth would be paid $10/hour. So if Tommy Tenderfoot worked 16 hours, he got $160 in his account, and if Sammy Secondclass worked 4 hours he only got $40 dollars in the account. And the money in the account could be used to pay for dues, trips, or uniform items in the troop stock. Now the second function was selling lemonade and hot dogs in the booth at the fair. Every parent needed to do at least 2 hours, with most staying longer, and that money went to the troop fund with the dues. And again that paid for registration, BL, etc. So I guess I'm saying that yes the boys do need to pay for part of the troop expenses as it is their troop. Just make sure the committee and parents knwo what is goign on up front.

Actually it goes by school year, so the new program goes into effect Sept 2010, so we got a little time. Now why do I feel there will be bidding wars on Ebay now?

One big difference between 1972 and today, EBAY. You can find old copies of the Program Helps and use them.

Ok did quick review of the Wolf meeting plans. They look as interesting as paint drying. I think some of the "After the Meeting" activities should be incorporated in the meeting.

Thanks for the update. I cannot really comment as I have not used the FAST TRAX stuff, cannot seem to access it. However we did have a few leaders in my pack use it last year and the cubs didn't like it. I was advised to get older copies of PROGRAM HELPS and use them.

Ok this may be a hijack of my thread, but it's part of the training ideas that someone mentioned. Someone stated that NOLS does indiviudal skills assessments. What if BSA came up with a program that would assess leaders skills and make recommendations on training based on it? That way those leaders who have the KSAs, but not the formal BSA training could get recognized, and those leaders who could use some additional training could be recognized and encouraged to attend. Someone else stated that if we start requiring a bunch of training to do activities, we may lose a bunch of leaders. I'll take it a step further, it will prevent us from starting new units.

Understood. I do keep up with the current info, heck I break out the info sometimes before other know about new stuff I also believe in refreshers, but at this time there will be no course locally as we have no venturing trainers, and only 1 active crew, with 2 trained folks. First there was talk about me being a venturing RT commissioner, or whaterver they call it now, now there is talk about getting me on the crew committee.

Growing up it was Mr. Joe Mr. Tom Mr. Mike Doc Jennings (yep a MD) etc. EXCEPTION would be to the 18-21 YO crowd. Either it was first name, if you were in the troop with them as a youth, or last name if you came into the troop after they turned 18. Don't ask where that came from.