Stosh

I tend to believe that if one were to stick with providing different options for scouters to try for differing program situations it would be far more beneficial in the long run than judging whether the people implementing the option are good or bad people, It's a good thing to have more than one option on one's tool box. One doesn't need to introduce personal judgments on whether or not these options are good or bad or whether or not the person implementing them is good or bad either. The person should be able to implement them and make that call relative to the situation they find themselves in, And they shouldn't have to be constantly looking over their shoulder wondering what everyone else is judging them as being good or bad for doing so. I would find the question of whether the person is good or bad is not appropriate whereas does the idea work or not for them would be a better evaluation.

As adults we are there to create opportunities for the boys, not visions, not goals and for sure not roadblocks. Just opportunities for them to make decisions on regarding THEIR program. For the most part, they stay within the boundaries of the BSA program and when they don't, I as SM just don't support that which I know is not appropriate. If they wish to paint-ball as an outing, they may do so outside the program of the BSA, without BSA adult YPT, etc. If some parent wishes to take on the supervision of that activity on their own, it's up to them and their homeowner's umbrella policy whether or not they wish to support it. VERY rarely do such circumstances come up and usually resolve themselves rather quickly. But whatever the boys want, I as SM with the help of my ASM see to it they get support. Just as was pointed out, the decisions for the various youth personalities varies and the BSA allows for differing interests, maturity and programmatic goals. When boys age out and new ones come on-board, the personality of the group changes and the supporting roles need adapt. Rigid adult mandates, rules, covenants, policies, by-laws, etc. are all inflexible and tend to try and regulate what the boys are allowed, thus taking away opportunities rather than promoting them. The reason why boy-led is so chaotic is because of the fluidity of the program. Boy's lead for maximum 7 years, but those 7 years are all different. Young boys lead differently than older boys and when the younger boys get older they lead differently than when they were younger.. Toss into that a rigid adult who can't handle the messy boy-led processes and one will automatically set up a conflict situation. Adults wield dominance over the boys and things "run smoothly", but one always has to be vigilant and ask, is this the adventure these boys signed on for? So, we're back to square one... is that OPPORTUNITY being given the boys as an option?

As has been pointed out many times, what is taught is not always what is put into practice. The patrol method, 3 types of patrols, boy-led are all taught and emphasized as optional obviously because in practice those are only viewed as optional ideals rather than program structure. As as pointed out, such deviations are a result of adult personalities. I guess it wouldn't be fair then to put the blame on the boys.

No prerequisites for any POR. It's not part of the requirement. It kinda sounds like adult rules that are adding expectations and additional requirements to the intent of the advancement requirement. Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.

Welcome to the forum STLBuddys.

The packs that I have been involved in usually did their pack awards all at the pack meetings with the bulk of them done during the Blue & Gold Banquets. Pretty much a hurried up, process that didn't do much ceremony other than handing out patches. I remember when I was on the Pack committee and did the awards, in 1990 for the pack the total expense for the awards handed out at Blue & Gold was over $800. That's a lot of patches and pins and a real headache for a process that lasted maybe 30 minutes at best.

Mark your calendars, we'll bring it up again in 2023.

So can the death penalty, how far does one want to push it? I guess one can justify just about anything if they really want to if they try hard enough.

Maybe some of our non-US brethren can fill us in with some insight on how this guilty until proven innocent thingy works. I'm not quite sure it applies here in the US.

Well, had National made another video showing all those adults wearing recruiter patches being taken out and flogged, we wouldn't be having this discussion now.

I find it interesting that the latest and greatest Webelos book talks about what it will be like in the BSA troops they will be joining soon. The boys are expected to put into words what is meant by the Patrol Method and the three types of patrols they might encounter in their new troop. From what I see promoted in some troops is a patrol method with a one-size-fits-all patrol program. And then I find it difficult to think I'm the BSA Heretic for promoting the latest publication of New-Scout patrols, Regular patrols and Venture patrols. EVERY AOL awardee is required to know this. Someone ought to incorporate this into the BSA SM/ASM fundamentals training someday.

I'm thinking this boy was signed up before the 2016 requirements went into effect, so my reference was correct when he was just joining BSA. And legally no one ever needs to read fully and understand without question anything they sign their names to. This is how the phrases "ignorance of the law" and "not reading the fine print" got their origins. A parent who signed their son's application is legally accountable for their signature and are liable for fraud if the document they are signing is not truthful i.e. dishonest. Yes, it's not fair to a child to have their parent sign them up for a quack medical procedure, but out of ignorance people do it all the time. We do background checks on our adults to protect children, why aren't we showing proof of age before signing up boys for Scouts? Surely this could have all been avoided had everyone been "above board" with the reality of what was going on.

From where I stand, I don't think it's ignorance. Someone deceived someone along the way. Unless we're talking about non-English speaking troops having difficulty with the wording of the requirement, there had to be some wink, wink, pencil whipping going on here or someone was being downright dishonest which is basically the same thing.

If we are promoting character in our youth, and we live by the laws we have established, then ignorance of the law is no excuse. Never has been acceptable excuse for anyone in the country where we live by rule of law. Maybe one needs to be 10 years old and have a literacy level sufficient to read and understand the words. "1. Meet the age requirements. Be a boy who is 11 years old, or one who has completed the fifth grade or earned the Arrow of Light Award and is at least 10 years old, but is not yet 18 years old." Now if the boy didn't read the requirement, didn't understand the words and received no help from anyone around him, then one must fall back on the premise, ignorance of the law is no excuse. We have a lot of people incarcerated in our country that fall into that situation.

"1. Meet the age requirements. Be a boy who is 11 years old, or one who has completed the fifth grade or earned the Arrow of Light Award and is at least 10 years old, but is not yet 18 years old." This is the first requirement for the Scout badge. Either the boy lied about his age and eligibility or some adult lied to him. This whole issue is based on someone's blatant ignorance, inability to be literate or outright dishonesty. Does that make the subsequent dishonestly any less tolerable?

If the SPL is supposed to be "running the troop", why isn't he the one talking with the CC and COR? We're not talking about some young scout who's lost his necker and the SPL wouldn't help him find it, we're talking about an Eagle candidate who needs to step up his game and show a bit more leadership than just on his petty little Eagle project. That project is supposed to be able to translate leadership into the real world out there. What we have is leadership just enough to get by on the project. If one is going to run with the big dogs, one had better learn how the pecking order works. SSScouter seemed to allude to this quite nicely. Maybe SPL is 6'+ and looks like a 17 year old, if he doesn't have the fortitude to figure out this as being more than just wearing a patch or having a lesson plan written down, then he needs to find a more comfortable POR. I don't run a troop where SPL is top dog, but I would think that if one is serious about it the SPL would then probably need to be operating like a SM. If not, who IS running the show? It ain't the boys if my guess is correct. So then the SM just might be correct, the SPL Eagle candidate isn't showing much leadership. Sitting around for two weeks waiting for SM directive isn't leadership. If the SM sits around with his nose in his laptop during meetings, obviously he's not getting in the way of youth leadership. I run a PL controlled troop, so if the SM isn't showing leadership, the SPL is waiting around for some directive from the no-show SM, then the PL's had better step up their game! As ASM I would be working the patrol method and at the very minimum get the PL's to start earning their POR with their patrols. If it were my son who was the Eagle candidate SPL, I would have a bit of a talk with him about stepping up his game and start leading the troop as he has been elected to do. If he isn't doing it right, he won't have to sit around very long waiting for the SM to say something.

Welcome to scouting and to the forum!

Maybe it makes no difference which way they lean politically/theologically, the difference is the impact that is made on the program. Nothing comes from the polarizing dynamics in play in today's political arena. Everything is defined by us and them.

First North Dakota, now Missouri.... what's next. It's only a matter of time before these organizations become political enough to get a lot of pushback from the more mainline Christian organizations. What one is seeing here is NOT the ultra conservative right wing evangelicals, but the mainline traditional churches reacting to the line in the sand BSA and GS/USA have drawn. Well, these organizations can rationalize it all they want, but the standards of 2,000 years of tradition don't just blow away in the modern political winds. This is only the tip of the iceberg. One might have expected it from the majorly conservative Christians, but these people are the moderates that are now walking away from the BSA and GS/USA programs.

What's that got to do with the NSP concept? If one is all that worried about it, the Instructors could sign off at the end of their instruction, the TG's could help instruct the NSP PL with signing off and of course there's always the possibility that the NSP is PL'ed by a FC scout. Everyone is so into being anti-NSP they forget there are a number of options out there that work just fine with the concept. The only reason I am somewhat gung ho on the concept is because my boys seem to like it and so what they want, I help them become successful at it. It's not what I want that is important, But what they want and need is.

I can fully understand being FC for unsupervised patrol activities, but now that that is no longer applicable, it's pretty much a moot point.

Each patrol decides it's own leadership on whatever criteria they wish. No adult rules to follow here. They live and die with their selections. They are free to choose anyone in the troop to be their PL, they are not restricted to just their patrol members. The only criteria is that they are asked not to go over 8 boys in the patrol. Small patrols of <6 often select a scout who is interested in getting POR credit for advancement while supplementing their membership numbers in the patrol. Because we tend to have less than 4 patrols, we don't use a full-time SPL. Usually one of the PL's fills that role for special occasions, i.e. summer camp and camporees. Other troop POR positions are filled by consensus of PL's. rather than SPL appointment. The SPL whether temporary or full-time, is selected by PL consensus as well. On the rare occasion I was near to the discussion on such matters, the discussion revolves more around whether or not the think the scout can and will do the work rather than what rank he wears on his shirt.

How soon a boy takes on a POR whether they get credit for it or not depends on the boy himself. I have two boys in my troop, but we are doing the Webelos II AOL training. Last night the Webelos boys split into two patrols and selected a PL for each. The two Boy Scouts will work as TG's for the patrols. One patrol selected a PL based on Rock, Paper, Scissors and the other patrol took their time and picked what I thought was the best choice in the group even though he expressed strong reluctance of taking the POR. Neither of the two Boy Scouts were real high quality TG material, but all in all, this is the hand we have been dealt. The patrols picked were 5 boys in one patrol and 3 boys in the other. The 3 member patrol were the "left over boys". We played a trivia game. Rules were only the PL could answer the question, but the patrol could work with him in coming up with the answer. We had the PL not know the 12 Scout Laws but one of his patrol members gave him the laws one at a time so he would answer the question. This was the left over patrol. Good team work, bigger patrol struggled, too many opinions. Well as lopsided and convoluted as the whole thing was, the game ended in a 10/10 tie. One final tie breaker left the larger patrol with the reluctant leader as the winner and the PL was given the bag of cookies prize and told he could decide who got what. This quiet reluctant PL made sure all the boys in his patrol got a cookie, all the boys in the losing patrol got a cookie, the TGs got a cookie, all the adult scouters got a cookie and every parent in the room got a cookie and 3 cookies were given back to me at the end. All my ASM had to say was, "That was different!" Anyone that wishes to argue with me that 10 years old is too young to start serious leadership training will get an earful from me. I'm really excited about this coming year in the new troop!