EagleInKY

My Eagle COH was combined. The other guy was a pretty good friend and our dads were close. So it was fine with us. There was another guy who earned his Eagle a few months before me that I would not have wanted to share the stage with. So I think a lot of that decision is up to the scouts and their families. The Eagle COH planning book by Mark Ray is a good asset. Also, check with other troops in the area to find out who has put on a nice ceremony comparable to what you want. Meet with them to get suggestions. Look at their photos, etc. Good luck!

Welcome to the forum. I like your Tiger Woods line.

Congrats on his achievement. I'm glad it worked out for the best.

Good luck Ron. I'm sorry this worked out this way and you'll be missed by us and your troop.

See if another adult in the den will step up. Then work on a co-leader scenario. Talk to the leader about how he appears to be stressed and you want to help him out, and that there's someone willing to share the load. If he responds negatively, you may have to take stronger methods. If he acts positive about it, you may be able to slide him out of the den role without causing a fuss. Unfortunately, it hardly ever happens that easily. But it's what you can hope for. Good luck.

This isn't the tenderfoot patch, but it's the familiar red, white and blue logo, in vector format. http://clipart.usscouts.org/library/VectorArt/bsa-logo.wmf

This has been discussed before if you do a search. I agree with John-in-KC. There is no prohibition against helping the BSA for service hours for ranks. We've had scouts earn service hours by helping with district Cub Scout events. The only real requirement is that it is approved by the SM. I always warn scouts to ask first, rather than be disappointed later. I do not approve hours that are done (1) to meet requirements for other organizations, i.e. "no double-dipping", (2) are required to be a member of their church or other organization, or (3) they are receiving any form of benefit (donation to troop, etc.). Here are some examples: - Worked at church in children's program, got Beta Club hours. - No - Went on a church mission trip. - Yes - Worked in a concession stand to raise money for the soccer club (where he is a member) - No - Worked in a concession stand to raise money for the soccer club (not a member) - Yes - Worked at community festival to help community organization raise money, the organization gave a small donation of equipment to the troop. - No

Once we sacrified our Klondike sled. We were trying to rid ourselves of the evil spirits which brought the freezing rain and snow.

We once had a tie in a patrol (4-4). The candidates each restated their desire and why they should be elected... it went on and on. Finally, one of our ASMs, who has a fair amount of HR type arbitration experience, sat in with the six boys (the two candidates stayed out of the room). They talked through the pros and cons of each scout. Eventually one group convinced the other that "their candidate" was better. The adults didn't intervene until the boys were stuck. That's the key. Let the boys try to run it. At the point where they can't, have an adult counsel them through it. Don't take over, but help them come up with a solution. Once we had a 3 way tie. The boys decided to write 2 names down instead of one. That cleared the tie. There was one scout that was on nearly everyone's ballot, when looking for their top two choices. The point is, there are lots of ways to resolve these.

No, but your council has rules. Ours will hold a number for a period of time after a unit folds, in case they are able to get it restarted. Generally, if the number is available in your council, you can have it. If someone else has it, your out of luck.

Kind of a touchy situation. He doesn't need parents to attend (that I'm aware of). But, it puts him in an awkward position, if he's there kind of by himself and all Cubs are there with their families. There are a couple of suggestions - (1) Tell him that he's welcome to invite his parents. (2) Invite another scout to come with him; either the SPL, Troop Guide or maybe another Boy Scout who has a younger brother in Cubs. If he has someone to hang with, it will help him feel more comfortable and eliminate any potential YP concerns.

The troop does have the right to bar the boy from joining the troop. There are not any true formal procedures you have to go through. You do run the risk that the boy's parents may run to council and could even hire a lawyer. With that said, I would do some soul-searching to determine if this kid has maybe turned things around and wants to go at it right. If he's had a change of heart, why not give him a second chance? (With limits). If I let him back in, he'd be on a very short leash. No three strikes opportunity here.

In our patrol cooking model, we use a "head cook" and "cook(s)". The number of cooks is usually 1 or 2, depending upon how big the meal is. The head cook is responsible for making sure he knows the menu, the recipe, getting the cooks organized, cooking the meal, telling the members of his patrol what they're having and leading grace. (They sometimes get a little help from an older scout or an adult.) But we require them to fulfill this role in order to complete the First Class requirement.

The big question is whether the lad was trying to beat the system or not. I have an Eagle Candidate that tried some trickery like this. He told the DAC that I had approved his project, but was out of town and unable to sign it. The DAC went ahead and approved it. The truth was, I had not approved it, but had asked for some additional details. When I told the DAC this fact, he offered to revoke his approval and make the boy start back at square one. Since I had a pretty rocky history with the family, I chose not to do that.

I know our district/council asks for a letter along these lines. But they don't have to come from a church leader. I've heard of them coming from others in the community that can speak to the lad's commitment to charity, love of his fellow man, dedication to nature, etc. "Duty to God", in the scouting sense, does not require specific church membership.

I've had this issue in our district. Our district activities seem to discourage patrol method. For example, the Klondike teams are supposed to be 7 (and only 7) members. If you have more than that, they want the extra members to just run along and not participate. If you have more than 7 they ask you to loan members to other sleds that are under-manned. At our upcoming camporee they have only one real competition. It's similar to a soapbox derby. But they are in teams of two. Troops can enter as many teams as possible. There is no patrol competition. We chose not to participate.

You know Callico, right after I wrote that, I thought of the same thing. I started to post again to disagree with myself, but figured I would look pretty dysfunctional, or maybe even bi-polar. Anyway, I agree that there's a chance that it could count as a patrol activity.

Sounds like they should be counted. Anything formally organized by the troop or patrol should count. We count Service projects, Courts of Honor, day hikes, field trips, campouts, etc. What we wouldn't count would be if a group of boys got together to work on a MB with a MB Counselor. That would be an individual (even if it's the whole patrol) effort.

Probably should have spun off a new thread... but anyway. It would fall on the Charter Organization to replace the Committee Chair. I would first try to handle it as a committee. First, have one person talk individually with them. If that doesn't fix it, bring it up in a committee meeting to discuss. If that still doesn't work, I'd go to the COR to discuss options.

Interesting, I just kicked off a big IT project at work. I told the team "We have time to do this right, but we don't have time to do it twice".

Just echoing what others have said. There's a lot of options in the Kentucky-Indiana area. Mammoth Cave has an "Intro to Caving" program that is supposed to be pretty good for Scouts. We're doing it later this month and I'll be happy to give you feedback. There are a number of private caves in the region where you can do your own spelunking as well. I find this personally a lot more fun, but a challenge with scouts.

I agree completely with Beavah. We use all three approaches. One year at camp they totally reorganized Indian Lore after the first two days. One year a bunch of guys got signed off on Mammal Study, when they didn't do several requirements. We try to catch these and turn them into partials. But I make the boys make the decision. This reinforces the principles we are trying to teach them. One approach that I use is, on Friday at camp I ask each boy which Merit Badges he thinks he completed. On Saturday morning we get the blue cards. We go through and check each of these for discrepencies. This has helped bring gaps to the surface.

Some of our cub scout leaders showed up with these at roundup this week. They looked real nice. I think the boys will like them much better than the traditional uniform. As for the fire concern, they will melt. That's a reality with nylon. I bought an olive pair of nylon zip-offs last year ($50) and melted a little bit around the cuff during a winter campout (Trying to stand too close to the fire). It is a risk, but one I'll take. I don't think the concern of an actual fire is valid, but melting could happen. Probably a good thing to remind boys about.

There have been several scouts who earned every MB offered at the time. I remember a couple of years ago a very inspiring story about a russion immigrant who earned every MB. I think he's at Princeton or Harvard now. I told my guys that if a guy could come over here (I think he was 12), without being able to speak a word of English, and do that.... there's no excuse to not get the 21 needed for Eagle.

I took it because I wanted to help make our troop the best it could be. I felt that Woodbadge would not only help me with the tools, but give me the encouragement (by working the ticket) to do some good things in my unit.