Stosh

Our people just print them off on blue paper.

I'm thinking a moderator has to approve the first posting and then the validating thingy goes away and so will the problem.

And a lot of this is a result of adult abuse of a child. Demanding such commitment from kids has been around since dirt was invented. My parents recognized this and told us kids to have fun and don't worry about it. It will make no difference one way or the other in life. When I was in high school I did many different activities and joined a lot of clubs. I was involved in sports and band, I had fun and because I wasn't the "best" in any of these things, my grades suffered. I got kicked completely off the golf team because I needed to make up a test after school for another teacher. Seriously? I graduated in the lower half of my class yet scored in the top 10% of the nation on the ACT college testing. Carried a 4.0 GPA in tech school for 2 degrees and a 3.27 GPA at the university. My masters program didn't have GPAs. I worked all my life and have now retired with twice as much money as my financial advisor says I need. So, now at age 65, I am retired, I play golf on occasion and I'm still active weekly in Scouting. So out of all of life's experiences, which one paid off in the long run?

Yep, but if one has to go over to the next council over to get cards, it's a bit of a hassle. When we go out of council with summer camp and they have the cards, it's the only time the cards are available to us.

Welcome to the forum. Sorry you are having difficulty. I do know there's some sort of newbie limits that weed out spammers, Maybe once you get this post through things will work out. If not and things don't improve for you, let me know on this forum and I'll chase down a moderator to get some help.

If your son is one of the older boys, maybe he can get them on board and plan some really neat thing. If you're the SM, it's your job to protect these boys from interfering ASM's. Remember, they are YOUR ASSISTANTS, they are to do only those things that assist YOU!

Once the older boys see the younger ones having fun, they'll come around or quit. Heck, they've been quitting for years once they get to that older stage so why do we get upset now? At least now they have the opportunity to have some fun. As adults we are there to create the opportunities. If the boys don't want to make themselves available to them, there's nothing we as adults can do about it. Oh, my son quit because he got involved in sports. My son quit because he got interested in girls. My son quit because he was bored with the same old, same old. My son quit because he got to do anything and everything he wanted to do and the adults helped him do that...... RIIIIIght! Again, it boils down to, if the boys trust the adults to back them, they won't hold back If the adults really aren't letting them then the trust isn't there and the morale is not going to improve. They'll just focus on Eagle and quit. (Like that's never happened? Right!)

A rose by any other name is still a rose. In my units I have age layered patrols. The older boys seem to want to do things separately than the rest of the troop so they kind become a de facto Venture Patrol. They got themselves the Venture Patrol patches so I guess that made it "official" Age or rank requirements were not relevant. The Leadership Corp patrol was usually influenced by the boys seeking advancement PORs and the "PL" was functionally the ASPL. A lot of the mid-aged boys fell into this group. Again, no age requirements for this patrol, it was dictated by POR. This was not really a "patrol" per se in that the boys would come and go when their PORs were finished. It was basically a holding patrol for camping, activities, and such. These boys along with the PLs were the basis for the PLC and did the support work for the PL's. The SPL was a member of this group, but the ASPL was the functional "PL". The SPL spent the majority of his time working with helping the PL's he didn't have time to run the Leadership Corp, too.

Rent a trike-bike. There's always an option out there that will work, just need to figure out what it is. Otherwise, maybe one of the other boys would work out a tandem bike option for him.

According to US Flag Code and BSA Handbook, US Flag first in, state and unit flag together behind it in a second line. They came to me and asked this question for the Memorial Day parade this past year. I told them what was correct because the flag line was a total disaster. I said ONE US Flag by itself walks down the centerline of the street. ONE STATE flag in the second line and then all the unit flags in line with the state flag. That line extended shoulder to shoulder all the way across the street. Patrol and Den flags were with the individual units that followed. It looked really impressive over the rag-tag option they had been following. It really show-cased the US Flag

@@Hedgehog of course you are correct. Adult-Led and Boy-Led are not a black and white issues. Any scouter that tells me he/she has a boy-led program, I have learned it is best just to smile and nod, because saying BS and rolling my eyes wasn't working. It is always an issue of grey. Some troops are light grey and some are dark grey and still others are just grey grey, but no one is black or white. I do, however, believe that the shade of grey is directly related to the understanding, attitudes and agendas of the adults, not the boys. I think in this day and age, adults find it more and more difficult to actually trust and even believe the boys can be taught to run their own scouting program. Maybe that's a bit of my old-fashioned scouting attitude that is now passe in today's world of modern scouting. I know it can be done the old way where the boys ran the show because I was an eye-witness to it.

A lot of this depends on a number of different dynamics. I had one situation where all three of these came together and blew up in my face. I was a minister at the time. Wednesday nights were set aside by the school district as "Church Night" Homework was less, sports didn't practice, no after school or evening events planned by the school. I had one family of 4 boys. The three older boys were all All-State Wrestlers and had all gone on to college with wrestling scholarships. The youngest was my confirmation student. I taught independent study and had open office hours on Wednesday for the kids to schedule time with me for their lessons. 3:30 pm - 9:30 pm was open. The boy didn't schedule time and when he did, he didn't show up . I finally asked him what's up, he hold me he had to practice wresting, the coach said so. So I talked to the coach, (which was my mistake). That's NOT what the coach said, he apologized profusely and kicked the boy off the team. Obviously I took the full brunt of the blame and the family quit the church. The coach went out of the way to make sure in the small town they knew that I was not to blame, but the boy himself was. That wasn't good enough for the family. That was a lose/lose/lose all the way around. In today's world that would NEVER happen. Cultural norms have changed and the definition of honesty and responsibility have bee modified.

Tradition is tradition and that's what you need to go with. However, with that being said, I would take my cues from others with the same traditions. Here, in my neck of the woods, ECOH's are still a scouting activity. Yes, the setting, the reception, dates, and such are all set up by the family, but the ceremony is a scout activity. If the troop is strongly adult-led, the adult leaders pretty much design and run the show, if it's a boy-led program, the boys run the show. When in Rome do as the Romans.... If families are running the show, I would find out what other troops are having a ECOH and have the families check out what others are doing for suggestions rather than ask the rest of us operating under different traditions. Your situation is a bit different when the family includes scouters. I have seen in our area where the adult leader will wear civilian clothing and come to their son's ECOH as a parent and not as an adult leader. Others wear the uniform and participate as an adult leader but step out of that role briefly to accept the parent pin. One leader told me he wore civilian clothing so as to not detract from his son's achievement. He didn't even want any of the pictures of the family on that day to have their son in uniform as the center of attention. With a smile one parent said he wanted his son to know it was his dad there that day, not just another scout leader.

Maybe they don't have anything like that because the ruling to not display it horizontally overrides it. The Code explicitly says over and over again, "so that the flag flies free". The Flag is just a flag, but it also has to fly free over a free people to complete the symbolism.

When I was an ASM the SM "allowed" me to work with the older boys. It was a massively run adult-led program. The older boys I worked with really appreciated the autonomy I provided them and protected them from the SM's insistence that what he says rules. The boys were all on board for about 3 years, worked hard and then all quit en mass when the SM step in and broke up their progress. It was at that point I left the troop as well. As SM of a dying troop, I brought it back to a 30+ troop and the boys were totally running the show. The original 5 boys jumped on the opportunity after 6 months of training and that's when the numbers blossomed and we grew quickly. There were other older boys who moved into the neighborhood that checked us out but decided on the other adult-led troop that I used to belong to because of reasons I assume are those described by @@Eagledad. I never bothered to ask. If they preferred the adult approach, that was fine with me. My current troop has no "older boys" and with it being a new troop, there's nothing here to compare it to. As UC of other troops I have seen them all working "towards boy-led" I had one very much adult-led troop and one troop working towards boy-led. The adult-led troop collapsed and merged into the boy-led working troop. My last visit it was obviously all adult-led. They were working on their annual calendar for the year. One adult ran the PowerPoint presentation and the others figured out the details. No boy offered any suggestions during the discussions and simply said things like, Yeah, sure." "Sounds good", or That'll be okay." from the older boys. The younger boys remained silent throughout the whole evening. The older boys weren't really reluctant to making a chance, they just knew the game and played it accordingly. When I was working with my boys on their annual calendar, as SM I was in charge of the chalk. I wrote down what they told me to. They knocked out the annual calendar in about an hour.

Does the Texas state flag need to be present for the pledge?

Yeah, like those huge flags that they improperly and against US Flag Code display horizontally over the football field that get folded back into one huge triangle? Yeah right. They may be ignorant about displaying the flag, but by default whatever they do the flag will be folded appropriately. @@qwazse if your boys falter during the Flag retirement, their backup is to just fold the flag as neatly as possible. There's nothing wrong with that and no disrespect is given. Others might think it strange but it is because of their ignorance of the US Flag Code, not because your boys are doing anything wrong. As long as they don't wad it up into a bundle, they are okay. It would be NICE if the boys all learned to fold the triangle, but it is NOT mandatory. Personally I like the triangle and it's a good lesson in observing the details of what you are doing with the flag. One would miss out on that if they just "folded" it into a rectangle. On the other hand, I don't want my boys so focused on getting the flag folded they forget about why they are doing the ceremony in the first place.

He can have the MB counselor sign a new card, SM can't do it. We don't have blue cards in our council anymore. It is all done with submittal of the advancement notification given to the council personnel when the MB's and cards are purchased at the scout office. If the advancement notification was not given to the council office, that should be easily addressed with signatures from the CC and SM.

The key here in your comment is "in every case of a SM taking over and changing the program ". The SM doesn't take over, he lets go! I found that my older boys were the first to figure it out and really liked the idea right from the start. They faltered a bit at first because they really didn't trust the adults to really deliver what they were advocating. Once we got beyond that, things turned the corner quickly and the younger boys started making the change as well. They were more difficult because they didn't have the maturity and experience yet and couldn't adjust as quickly. They weren't that far removed from Cub Scouts where the adults ran the total show to transitioning into, "What? Now we've got to do it all?" That training of the young boys and the example of the older boys will bring them around quickly especially if they have a functional TG working with them. One has to be careful with that kind of pressure. The boys will figure out the game rather quickly. "If you want to similar trips." threat speaks loud and clear that you reserve the right to pull their leadership back to you whenever you find it convenient. I would focus more on "You guys have been to Philmont, it would be nice if you would share that with the younger boys and help them get that opportunity as well." Appeal to their leadership skills rather than threaten them.

@@Hedgehog it looks like you have a really good handle on the process and seem to be moving heavily in the right direction. My comments are not meant as any judgement on the program you are running, but as an opportunity for you to maybe see the next step in the progress for your program. I found that in the back of my head I have a small voice that constantly challenges me to trust my boys and expect great things out of them and it's not my responsibility to get in their way of that progress but to do what I can to offer suggestions to help them become successful. Bottom line? When the boys are successful and look good, so does the SM who supports them.

Welcome to the forums, sounds like a challenging job ahead of you. The forums, that is, not your regular job.

Recite? You must be Lutheran.

it's the simple explanation for the Catholic's "Sunday School" I think it means something like Catholic Church Doctrine. All I know it's intended mainly for the Catholic kids that don't go to Catholic parochial schools. They really aren't messing with you @@cyclops, if they were you wouldn't have caught on so fast.

First of all, Welcome to the forum. I get these "non-authorized" tokens over the years and have just adopted the policy of putting them on my red jack-shirt. Then no one can complain. A few of the pins and other other non-authorized items go on my hat I'm a stickler for full-uniform, but cut a little slack on the WB patrol patches on adults, mentor pins on collars and flaps kinds of things. There's nothing on the uniform inspection sheet that identifies WB beads either as appropriate for uniforms. I have one of my uniforms with all the Banana Republic General items on it. It gets worn for special occasions. Normally my uniform is pretty well stripped down to the basics. Most people don't notice or don't care what others are wearing. At the OA call-out at summer camp I wore my sash for the first time and the boys commented about not knowing I was OA. Well, I wear the OA flap all the time and they didn't even make the connection.

Sometimes's it's a translation into a different language that poses difficulty. Eros, philios and agape are three Greek words all having different meanings that get translated into one English word "love". Eros is romantic love, philos is brotherly love and agape is spiritual love. Two words are needed in English, but translators don't always put both down together thereby using only the word love and the reader has to figure out which one if possible. Then there are offensive words that culturally would offend. The St. Paul when writing about himself uses the word dulos to describe his relationship to God. Dulos means "slave" in Greek, but we don't like it so we substitute a different word "servant" and thus distort the original intent. Then there are words that get used on a regular basis that the person has absolutely no idea what the word means. We pray in the Name of Jesus. What does that mean? Most people don't know, but it doesn't slow them down one bit. Because right now in English there are contradictory meanings and even context would give no clue what they mean. Language is a tricky thing because it is very culture and time specific. @@Renax127 But it doesn't stop people from doing their authoritative wild guesses when they try to convince others of the meanings. Then of course there are the slang-uages that purposely change the meanings of word. When we "don our gay apparel" in the Christmas carol, it doesn't mean we're getting ready to head out to some homosexual parade somewhere. There are of course the African Americans that have never been to Africa and the native Americans like me that have no aboriginal blood in my heritage, too. When people come up with the document is a living document, it means we haven't figured out a translation twist for the wording that plays into and spins into our agenda. It's a wonder anyone really knows what someone is trying to say in today's world.