Stosh

Really? I thought this was supposed to be something the individual decides is important to his scouting contribution, not someone else's.

How do you think they find those qualified for Irving employment?

It sounded like a patrol project, not a ticket item. I'm going to be really surprised to find out that the WB instructors are dictating ticket projects nowadays. I do know they have shortened up the ticket time period from 24 to 18 months. I would never have gotten my ticket done in that short of a time period. I worked on it every week for 2 years. I guess it was a pretty extensive project, but it did produce 6 Eagles in the long run. The more I find out about WB and NYLT, the more I'm glad I don't have to do it over again like they suggested.

It is pretty much irrelevant what is done with the SPL, but one could turn this into a learning experience for the PLC. Do the PL's really want this guy supporting their work? I have a different leadership philosophy than most on this forum, but if a PL isn't doing his job or is embarrassing his patrol, they can get someone in there that will do the job. Same for the SPL. Not setting a good example, put someone in there that will. If he gets ousted, he can redeem himself later when he takes on a more mature attitude. When will that happen? When the boy decides to grow up. This just might be his wake-up call.

propane refrigerators have a pilot light.... no flames in tent.

I have used a no-floor, open-ended pup tent for years. It has even replaced my backpack on overnight treks. But, alas, not many people really want that much roughing it in nature where everything is roughing it. A nylon poncho makes a great tent too. Sleeping under an overturned canoe makes for a nice camper, can't call it a tent unless one augments it with the no-floor, open-ended pup tent.

I don't have a problem with an organization doing all they can do to protect themselves, but there comes a point where one can "protect oneself" right out of the business. I'm not saying BSA is doing this, but it seems eerily like it to me. What are non-BSA programs doing to protect themselves? Are they cost effective or even feasible? I dunno, that's why I personally over-insure myself. And when one gets right down to the nitty-gritty of the situation, anyone can sue anybody for any reason. They may not win, but it's gonna cost ya a wad of cash to protect oneself. Like the Good Samaritan laws. You can be sued for doing something and you can be sued for not doing anything. That's why I have a $1M umbrella policy that says, I am insured $1M against stupid people. Although I have never been in a serious car accident, I still carry $1M personal injury on anyone riding with me so I'm protected from the other stupid people that find it necessary to be on the road at any given time. Driving is the riskiest thing I do because a lot depends on the "other person". Is it worth it financially to place all one's eggs in the BSA insurance basket? Not me.

Aaaah, I bet that brought a tear to your eye!

Everything is risky. The day is coming when BSA prohibits adults transporting other people's children to an event. Either it is commercial transportation or a vehicle driven by one's own parents. After all the most dangerous part of any activity is the travel to and from. Mark my words, it's only a matter of time. This is why I carry a $1M umbrella policy on my homeowners and $1M worth of coverage on passengers in my vehicles. I insist on Safety First, but life has a way of jumping up and biting one in the butt unannounced. Be Prepared. I can assure you that my church youth group kids are just as safe as any BSA troop on an outing even without the draconian BSA policies.

Sounds like more than just an SPL problem going on here. My suggestion would be to get the patrol method totally operational in the boys' hands. That, more than anything else would be a major step forward for your situation. If one has one or two patrols 12-18 boys, one doesn't need an SPL. Dump it until it become a necessity for the troop. Work with your PL's to get them functional, do they take care of their boys, are they trustworthy, are they functional in their positions? If there is a NO answer to these kinds of questions, put someone else in there. If no one is qualified, then start teaching real leadership. Management sklills are okay and necessary, but in your case you need scouts that have real leadership and actually CARE about those he's in charge of. I would put programming on hold for the summer. But in June have an outing that basically sits down after breakfast around the campfire and starts brainstorming what it's going to take to be a real scout troop. Break for lunch and start in again, break for dinner and start again. In July, more of the same. Work out the kinks until everyone has had a say and everyone is on the same page and everyone is excited about what comes next. August should be another outing celebrating the new troop as it starts into their new school year cycle of the activities THEY picked to do for the year during the summer camping/campfire sessions.

@@qwazse There is no such thing as a wall "A-frame" tent. It's one or the other. I do have a real A-frame tent that I use for summer camp long-term camping when the camp doesn't provide a wall tent. It's the only tent I own that I can stand up in. I have an old Kelty 3 man tent that I use most often, but for short term camping in cold weather the old 2 man army surplus pup tent gets dragged out. I have a very short cot that fits in there nicely and with double vestibules on each end, it has plenty of room for a single person. My Mrs. has a nice modern/nylon 4 man tent with double vestibules we use when she camps with the troop. For kayaking I have a one-man tent that isn't much bigger than my sleeping bag. You can stand up in it, but all the stakes come out of the ground when you do.

Just had an out-of-box experience.... Why are WB instructors telling WB participants what their projects are to be? Have patrol projects been dictated by the instructors? Is this something new or just something I missed? I also noticed the "we" in the conversation, I don't remember the "we" part of training. When the course was over, we as a patrol did not receive the beads, individually we all needed to finish the ticket. WB is a learning process, it might be good to learn the correct processes for awards and ranks in Scouting rather than creating any confusing re-definitions, and use WB as an opportunity to teach it correctly. Just my bias, I guess. And there are different sign languages for the different languages, too. The strip says Signing, not American Sign Language. Learning the sign alphabet will get you into French, German, Italian, Spanish, but is going to be a problem with Greek and Russian and it all goes out the window with Chinese and Japanese. Scouting is a world-wide movement. A scout is going to look pretty foolish at a World Jamboree with "Signing" on his shirt. That's an area of the uniform that everyone is going to look first.

First of all, all Cub Scout, what people often call "rank" is really an award. Lion, Tiger, Wolf, Bear, Webelos, and AOL. I thought it rather strange that AOL was under Boy Scouts and not Cub Scouts. Keep it in mind, the site is non-advancement awards, Lion, Tiger, etc. are indicators of age only, not any effort on the part of the individual scout. During 2nd grade one is a Wolf Scout regardless of whether he has earned the award or not. It could be a great opportunity to educate people with the site as well. ALL bling in Cub Scouts is non-advancement awards because they advance by age only. After a cursory glance through the awards without really thinking about them, it is also interesting to note that there is listed interpreter strip and Morse Code interpreter strip. If it is because Morse Code is a code and reads in any language, maybe signing should be added as well. There is also a glaring omission of Sea Scouts on the website. They have both rank and awards as well. Hope this helps.

There is nothing wrong with a Cub Scout not receiving awards, those things that everyone calls ranks but aren't. If the boys is having fun, not disrupting the others, if he doesn't care, why should anyone else? Most boys are awarded the Bobcat when they join. It's pretty easy and is a nice bling thing to start with. After that they don't rank anything, they simply move on by age to the next year of scouting. If they didn't get awarded the patch for doing the work, then they move on anyway. I have a few boys in my Webelos den that have had this type of experience. They had a non-functioning pack, or had DL's that didn't make a full commitment to the boys. I have a few that have earned NO awards, but are working on their Arrow of Light and will cross over into Boy Scouts with the only award earned would be that Arrow of Light. How is this possible? A boy joins Boy Scouts and the only "rank" they earn is Eagle? There are two different systems here at work. The two are completely different. In Cubs, work on the awards if one wishes and if the boy doesn't complete the work, no big deal they just move on to more fun next year based on age. Even when one joins, they join their age level of Cub Scouts. Boy Scouts, regardless of age all start at the beginning and build rank by rank to the rank of Eagle. District Award of Merit is not based on the number of years a person puts into Scouting, neither is the Silver Beaver Award, but there is no general that has ever served in the army or admiral that has ever served in the navy that didn't work their way up the "ladder" to their respective rank. I think more adults are upset that Cub Scouts don't get awards than the boys do. Even though they might have had a blast in Cub Scouting, adults make them feel like failures if they don't get their bling, so they bend over backwards doing everything possible, including cheating, to get the boy his bling patch. That's rather unfortunate.

With dad jumping in, sounds like there are more problems here than just two boys. Obviously if the boys would only listen to adults, why didn't the adults tell these boys to straighten up and fly right? It sounds like the boys causing the problems know how to work the system quite well to their advantage. By the way, your son has the correct course of action. These two boys need to be held accountable for their actions and until they are, they will keep doing what they are doing.

Welcome to the forum. I'd be inclined to do a visit with the boy about leadership, taking care of his boys, setting an example for the younger boys and then have the PLC deal with the issue of retaining or removing him from the position of SPL. There are plenty on the forum here that will, of course, be of a different opinion.

We lost at least half of the available boys to the husband/wife eagle mill troop in the area. Oh, by the way, I used the term "lost" not in any negative way.....

@@Ankylus, sorry to confuse you. One has to take into consideration a number of factors here. This is the Issues and Politics subforum, aka, the garbage dump. Here it's a bit of a "whatever goes" kind of area that is not as moderated to the degree the other forums are. People are warned to enter at their own risk. So with that in mind, I opened a topic known as Interesting Topic Came Up... which was intended to be a topic that can never be off topic, It can mean anything one wants it to be and it has taken some very interesting turns along the way. What I brought up was the fact that I took a church youth group on a scout-like outing and merely pointed out that they all came back alive even though the activity broke just about as many policy rules as BSA has to offer. While not everyone is in the same situation as I am, there are a number of things which common sense can still come into play and not harm children. For example, I fully know why BSA has a policy on 15 passenger vans. I am very aware of their shortcomings, but not everyone is, so they have a policy. I had a number of very experienced rock climber people and myself once certified as an ERT, but none of that counts in BSA, but the church youth don't need to adhere to BSA policies. I have 15 years experience in emergency trauma medicine, but because I haven't taken Wilderness First Aid, I can't take my boys out in the woods. I was merely pointing out that I believe the pendulum has swung so far to the safety side of things, trying to avoid law suits, that the activities left for the boys are pretty much Webelos oriented at best. And when all is said and done, if a youth has a choice between a scout rock climbing/swimming/hiking activity and a church youth group rock climbing/swimming/hiking activity, knowing what they can and can't do, would it make a difference which they picked? This is the reality that units are facing when it comes to competition with other organizations out there. My church can put together a really great event for their youth that in a similar situation, I would not be able to do with my Scouts.

This is one of the problems with mixing up the boys. If one has 5 boys that are causing problems, what's the sense of having one in each patrol? They were probably feeding off of each other and now they are split up to feed off the different patrols. I'm sure they wouldn't be too impressed with being split up either. After all, I see this as a common sense issue. Why take a bad situation and spread it throughout the troop. Why not just focus it into the new patrol and work with the problem at a single source. So, one has 2 boys, very immature and need a bit more attention than the rest. One either has a choice of making two patrols deal with the problem or leave them together and work the problem from there. NSP? only with a seasoned TG. TG would need to be someone the two troublemakers view as a DC. As a matter of fact because the situation is rather unique, the NSP might need to be a bit of a Web II for a couple of months. (with the TG as DL) Maybe two TG's, one for the NSP and an "assistant" TG that works with the two immature boys directly. I'm just thinking that if one were to just toss them into an older patrol, they wouldn't get the attention needed to break away from mom and dad and connect up with the other scouts. Every situation is unique and sometimes it takes a bit of out-of-the-box thinking to make it work for the various boys. I see my role as SM to figure these things out and support the PL's, TG's, etc. with getting these boys up and running in Boy Scouts. These boys need to grow up just like any other boy and it appears mom and dad aren't ready for that process yet.

I try and have a little for everyone.

It's always interesting with the mixed den/pack situations. I have 3 packs we can pull from but there are three troops vying for their attention. The really interesting thing about this whole thing is with the packs being weak and the boys coming in haven't formed many bonds with each other on the den level. My boys do surprising well with getting along even before they have joined up with the troop. Although they are technically Webelos boys, they did a service project, worked well together at camp doing a project for the camp. Last Saturday they took on a service project getting a cemetery ready for Memorial Day, this Tuesday we will be placing flags on veterans' graves. Memorial Day they will march in the parade and the following day they will cross over into Scouts. All this with just 2 older boys in the troop drawing from 2-3 different packs.......It can't be done? Yeah, right, tell my boys that.

Well, Beav, again, one as to know the full story to make a sound judgment. Winter crabbing is a very dangerous endeavor. However, the greenhorns you're referring to are usually seasoned summer salmon fishermen with plenty of experience. Like a boat load of high school/college aged kids with a parent "captain". The only reason they don't do crabbing is because they are in school. Duh! My bonus son worked his way through a prestigious eastern school and came out debt free with the last summer after college of salmon fishing. It's good money and fairly dangerous, but two of my bonus daughters worked the same boat. Keep it in mind, that what you're watching on TV "reality" shows is no where near reality. One show I think it was Alaska, the Final Frontier? Yeah, well when they weren't out hunting to keep from starving over the winter, they were in town teaching high school. Those shows are a joke. Please don't use them for any meaningful analogies. Tiger cubs survive very well without the help of the Webelos Wolves survive very well without the help of the Webelos Bears survive very well without the help of the Webelos New cross overs survive very well without the help of the older boys hovering over them in a patrol. A functional TG is all that is needed to get them up and running. If they don't want to be a patrol of the friends they have had since Tigers, they can choose to find a different patrol. Maybe it has an older brother in it and the younger brother wants in. Maybe the older brother doesn't want hm in. I don't care. I don't get involved, I just change the records to show who's in what patrol. End of discussion. Most of the patrols I have dealt with have pretty much established themselves and their membership. They don't necessarily want some new boys coming in that they have to train. It also messes things up with the older boys wanting to do more challenging things and they have to leave a part of their patrol behind. Not what they want. I'm thinking that a lot of the reason why some troops have gone to "mixed aged" situations is because they don't have functional TG's, Instructors, etc. that will work with the new boys without disrupting every patrol in the troop with having to take on some new boys. With functional POR's one can have the layered system of patrols suggested by the BSA.

I have no problem with a scout recruiting a friend at 14 into scouts. He goes into the patrol with his friend, NOT the new scout patrol. The PATROL is designed for the new scouts. It is not meant to be dictated to individuals. They can choose to do whatever they want. So more power to them if they come in at 14, get FC by 15, and when the patrol of his buddies goes venture, he's right in there with them.

I am aware of the problems with the chassis of the extended vans. I have a class-B camper on such a setup and know the problems well. The camper carries far more non-load weight than a 15-passenger filled with kids. The water tank alone would weigh more than 2 of the kids. Of all my vehicles my camper will roll mover often than my pickup, which when loaded increases the rollover posibility. My CRV is next with it's high center of gravity, then comes my Saturn station wagon although has a low center of gravity still is quite light and then there's my '74 Nova. They made good heavy, low riding cars back then and is still the safest vehicle I own. I did take into consideration that I had 3 adults and 7 minors in the vehicle, 3 of which didn't weigh over 100#'s. It was an easy call to make. It's all part of the mental calculations one must determine in terms of risk when taking any group out on an activity. Thanks for the review on the policy.