Eagledad

This isn’t new, scouts have used family members since the program started. Where there is a way, there is a will. Discussing the relationship with the family requires a delicate approach. Barry

Hmmm. Of course cleanliness is a virtue and one of the a points of the Law, but ya'll sound as if you've never been on a Boy Scout camp out. Barry

That's an interesting idea. Success will depend on who manages the ad hoc organizing. I'm going to keep an open mind, but I tend to measure these things against the unit adult's ability to run a quality Boy Run Patrol Method program. So, we will see. Barry

I think the goals of increasing membership and funding get in the way of trusting volunteers. Our DE recruited a local successful business man for District Chairman specifically for fund raising, leaving the district committee to be directed by the District Commissioner. And the DE spent a great deal of his time time with our District Membership Team to insure we did everything possible to get the maximum membership. If their jobs weren't so reliant on numbers, they might indeed spend more time recruiting and training talented volunteers who they could trust. Barry

I think you are looking at it wrong. As you’ve said many times, if the volunteers did the tasks they are supposed to do, the units would be running quality programs. But that comes down to training and guidance from district volunteers. Districts aren’t doing their tasks correctly because Council (DE) aren’t recruiting the right talent and/or training the volunteers. DEs aren’t doing their tasks correctly because Council (DFE) isn’t training or directing them correctly. I don’t think the DEs job was designed to require more than 40 hours, but their bosses are doing it wrong. Find and Fix the problem, not the symptom. Barry

The more I volunteered at the district and council level, the more my tasks involved working a lot more with volunteers and a lot less with youth. I learned that the patience required for working with different (difficult) volunteer personalities was very strenuous. I have no ideal how pros worked with us all day long 7 days a week. Barry

Well done! We are almost like that. We do the unofficial races first (about 20 minutes max), then the official races. Reasoning is using two tracks for most of the official races keeps the event under 90 minutes. The scouts and their siblings get pretty restless after an hour, so the event looses it's fun if it goes too long. Our pack has about 130 scouts. The snack bar is always a great hit and a good fund raiser for the pack. Barry

So, you believe the conservative churches would be the ones leaving the United Methodist. That is interesting because, as you say, it's the international conservative churches that are preventing the the proposed changes. Seems like it would be the other way around. I have several friends in the conference, so I really should ask them. I just haven't wanted to bother them about it yet. Barry

Ah! the "boys and girls are equal" analogy. Looking at cause and effect is not a hang up, it's a consideration in developing a strategy. You approach it from your perspective, others will approach it from their perspective. Simplifying the situation by starting with girls and boys are equal is condescending. It's that adults respecting other adults modeling I was talking about. Ironically, I believe your perspective is more close minded than mine. I've grown old concluding that the secret of a good life is balance in everything. I this case, I agree with David Co. If we let the youth of this example crew choose, we would likely see them segregate. Or do nothing and wait for a higher authority (adults, not the other Guy) tell them what to do, which is what most crews end up doing. I believe that the free thinking behavior habits of humans are basically set by the Venturing age, so I personally think balance was lost several years before. There was a recent article about the American women's soccer team demanding equal compensation with the men's soccer team. In short, the dilemma is nobody goes to watch women's soccer, so their are very few sponsors. Now, I guess we could say the issue is sexist sponsors, or sexist sport fans or whatever trigger response throws guilt in the discussion, but the truth is probably more toward the difference between men and women. Is forcing sponsorship a balance? Of course sometimes balance requires compromise. I recently went to the action adventure movie Downton Abbey purely to make my wife happy. Men and women are different even with movies. My wife was truly thankful for giving my time to her, but I'm equally fine leaving her home so she wouldn't have to drudge through Ford versus Ferrari. Humility and love. Barry

I certainly can't disagree, but we also have to be mindful of an over reaction in the other direction because that is just as harmful. In scouting, balance isn't that boys and girls are equal in their abilities, balance is that living the Oath and Law encourages scouts to live to the best of their abilities. If scouts observe adults living the actions of oath and law toward each other, then everything else will balance out because respecting the best abilities of each other is living the oath and law. My main objection to bringing troop age girls into the troops is that mix genders will take away from what boys are supposed gain from the program. Girls by their nature are more organized and better with follow through. In the patrol method environment, the nature of girls is unbalanced and will take away the opportunities to force the boys to practice those unnatural skills. I've heard a few voices of skepticism of that reasoning, but the number one complaint from Venturing adult leaders is that the boys don't engage very well on the planning and management of the crew. Girls naturally take up the slack. Strangely, many adults use that observation to brag about girls. While I believe that money drove the BSA to bring girls into the program, I believe illusion of social justice is more on the minds of many volunteers. OK, fine. But, the unnatural process of social justice doesn't encourage balance growth. It forces growth against nature. And that comes from the will of adults. Barry

I have worked with many wonderful female leaders. The two best bosses I've worked under in my lifetime are females. One of them gay. But, I still believe the best leader for scouts before puberty are adult leaders of the same gender. I was guided by child psychologist that youth learn at least 90% of their behavior by simply observing influencing role models. A high degree of that Influence is the role models are of the same gender. I feel many young adults struggling today with their identity didn't have the opportunity to grow with influencing same gender role models. As for the influence from role models of the opposite gender, love and humility are the two greatest character traits a person can learn and the balance of influence from role models of the opposite gender teaches us those traits. I agree with qwazse about the oil change, but my 29 year old daughter called me the other night and told me (ordered me) to go change the tire on her husbands car that is sitting at the corner 7-11. When I drove up to my son in law's car, he already had the flat tire half way off. As I walked up, he said, "I have orders to sit in the car while you change the tire so I don't get crushed". Then he said, "I'm not sure how to feel about that". I didn't know how to take it either, I just learned that I was expendable in the family hierarchy, and that I now have two bosses in the family. It was a bummer night all together. Barry

It will be interesting. If I understand the situation right, it's the American sector that is splitting away, not the world Methodist. In the past, the American sector is much more liberal and less friendly toward the BSA. Around here, the moderate churches supporting the schism don't want to rock the boat anymore than they have to, so they aren't planning to change their support. However, they may loose a large part of their membership that supports scouting. I think the BSA can count on less support from National part of the Methodist. I wouldn't say the break has been in a process because it's been voted down at the Methodist Conference for over 20 years, including 2019. Since the Liberals couldn't get the unified vote they have been seeking, they just finally decided to push for a break away. I read an article about how the schisms have been effected other churches and basically once the membership stabilizes from the break, membership doesn't grow. So, it's a slow suicide. The satire news letter Babylon Bee Headlines express many of the feelings around here, "The United Methodist church to Split Over Whether or not to be Christians". Barry

I think you said it all. I'm not going to speak for others, but I have a good understanding of the roles of volunteers and professionals. I believe we have a mess because the professionals are not doing their roles correctly. I'm not saying this from "Us vs Them" reasoning, I just believe professionals are responsible for expectations of the program. And I believe councils have more control for the quality of their employees than volunteers (district) have control for the quality their volunteers. Barry

I agree in the idealistic since, but who sets the vision and who is quality control in the real world? We say everything is local, but on the other hand, a unit can only be as good as the program given to them. In most cases, the best and the worst of unit programs come from the District. I don't know the answer, but I know a unit leader just can't be given the handbook and be expected to provide fun a quality program, especially a cub program. Barry Whoops, desertrat77 made my point before I hit return.

Our ACM and I did a skit of Pinewood Derby Building Techniques Scouts Shouldn't Use. It was all in fun. I can't remember most of the techniques, but one was using a chainsaw. I revved the chainsaw behind a curtain while the ACM throw sawdust up in the air. Cub Mastering was a great outlet of my inner child. I missed those days. As for January, we typically did a fun AOL ceremony. Which saved us from having to do it at the Blue and Gold. Barry

Are you asking scouter.com to change? National earned our collective view. Still, I find most of scouter.com very friendly and inviting to everyone when the contributors show respect and a willingness to lesson while participating in the discussions. We don’t have to agree to be warm and inviting, just honest and noncondescending. The discussions tend to become less friendly when respect fades from the tone. Barry

When I was a SM, my goal for all the scouts was to develop moral and ethical decision makers. The more a often a scout makes a decision, the more likely they will grow into an ethical moral decision maker. Done properly, the MB process is almost entirely the practice of making decisions. The MB process only looses integrity when the adults make some of the decisions for the scouts. Barry

Is that like asking if more than 1 camp outs a month are a waste of time and money?

I understand what your saying, but it's different strokes for different folks really. Most scouts I've met who earned more than 35 badges were more along the lines of self motivated. The best way to describe these scouts is something along the lines of nerdy, lacking for better words. Like some students that don't have to study to make "A"s in school, some scouts find earning MB badges easy and fulfilling. Not saying that some scouts don't fit in your description, but I don't want a discussion of ideas based on a small select group. Barry

This discussion went the direction that MB Colleges are a bad thing, and I know I was in front of that band wagon. But, truth is, I don't care how a MB is presented so long as the counselor follows the BSA guiidelines that Tahawk posted. " It all begins with a Scout’s initial interest and effort in a merit badge subject", "Earning merit badges should be Scout initiated, Scout researched, and Scout learned." I'm not so rigid in my opinion of the scouting program that I believe Barry's way is the only way. I just believe there should be some caveats to keep the creativity within BSA reason. There are as many creative approaches for making Merit Badges interesting and educational as there creative minds that want scouts to grow from the experience. Where I struggle is the selfishness of skipping the "effort" and the "Scout initiated" part of program. While on the district committee, I found that most unit leaders in our district skipped those many of those guidelines in their MB program. Not by choice, but by ignorance of how the unit was supposed to present the MB part of the program. How does that Happen? How does a unit get so far off track of the BSA guidelines in their program that the award turns into the goal instead of growth from the experience? The answer is simple, the units don't get proper training and support of the BSA advancement part of the program from the models of District and council. When units only observe the presentation of advancement as a ladder toward recognition without "effort" and "scout initiated", they model that same motivation. Why not, if that is how District or council view advancement, it must be correct. Right! How often have you heard or read from District and Council that the reason for their provided program or activity is " youth accepting responsibility, demonstrating self-reliance, and caring for themselves and others; when they learn to weave Scouting ideals into their lives; and when we can see they will be positive contributors to our American society."? I can't recall ever hearing that in courses and activities. Well, except in courses I led. As I said, I don't care how Merit badges are presented so long as the counselors and providers are using the BSA advancement and MB counseling guidelines. Adults may struggle to understand how the advancement guidelines work toward a scout developing the habits of self-reliance, caring for others, and using Scouting ideals in their lives, but they only need to follow the simple guidelines to be a BSA model to let the program work its magic. Then the adults (units) are not led astray by the short-cutted and misdirected programs and instead model their own program with the same guidelines. Barry

Ive noticed it’s the same crowd who use name calling as their argument in some of the discussions on the forum. I hope they are young because they are certainly immature. Next thing we’ll be hearing “familyphob” being thrown around. Barry

More money in family camping.

I'm not sure what means; nobody from other units came asked us our JTE score, nor did I ever ask theirs. I'm not taking sides here, just posting my observations. But, are proposing a JTE Camporee? Nobody cheats at camporees. OK, there was those new girls troops. Barry

What does the director of field service do with the calls, and what does PA call abuse? Barry

43 points to help little ol ladies doesn't seem like enough. The rest is ok I guess. Will consider each item as the discussion continues. Barry