Stosh

When all is said and done, your son needs to work towards being a custom computer programmer. No matter how extensive the proposal, no matter how finely tuned the communication process, no matter how many hours one has already put into the project, no matter, no matter, no matter..... The job is done when the boss says so. If the job is too big for your son, he needs to recruit more help. If there's not enough money to pay for it, he needs to do more fundraising. No matter what, ya jus' keep on truckin' 'til the job's done. It's not the answer you were looking for, but your son just found out what the real world is like out there and the lessons he's learning on this endeavor will do him well in the future. The process is not the project, but all the little struggles one goes through to complete it to the satisfaction of someone else. Just remember, this test of his character is not the most difficult thing he's going to have to face in life. Better he does with this, the better prepared he will be when it really counts. And to answer your last question? There is nothing you can do to fix it for him. He needs to keep at it on his own and with the help of those working with him. Unfortunately there's a little nagging question I have.... is your son doing this alone or does he have others helping him? I would be more concerned about him doing this alone with no "showing leadership" than not getting it done.

I ran my Webelos den as if it were a Boy Scout patrol. It is no different than starting a new scout troop from scratch. Handful of boys, expect they can do it, teach when asked, and let them have at it the rest of the time. The 6 boys I had in Webelos stayed together from Webelos 1 through to aging out after all had Eagled. One of the boys did leave the group but his dad worked for BSA so I'm assuming he Eagled as well. Over the course of their career in scouting the 5 boys did take on two or three others in their patrol, but the 5 boys stayed together even when the SM told them they had to split up to "provide leadership" in the other patrols. He relented his decision when the 5 boys made arrangements to switch to a different troop. Yes they were only 2 years into the Boy Scout program, but they did have 4 years of experience as Boy Scouts at that time.

Our unit does the popcorn sales because they sell enough to make it worth it to the unit. We don't care what the council gets out of it. FOS has not been run in our unit since it's formation 5 years ago and our boys have never opted to camp at the council's camp. If the council were to offer what the boys want, then the money coming in shouldn't be a problem. Spring camporee - not offered by the district, boys chose to camp on their own. Summer camp - two different camps, never the local council's camp. Fall Camporee - it's a Cub program run by the boys. First year was okay, no interest since. They do go out-of-council to a Haunted House fundraiser that is a lot more fun. Klondike? - Been postponed after only 1 or 2 units showed up. So one then must ask, what's the money collected by our unit going to? When the council cuts the percentage of popcorn sales to the units far enough, the boys will figure out how to make money elsewhere, too.

This process of nullifying documents one doesn't agree with has become our national pastime. The Bible, the Constitution, BSA Charter, etc. have all become dead, "living" documents of meaningless words that have no place in our enlightened world of shared ignorance. Once these societal contracts are removed, there is no longer any society.

I am transitioning out of scouts, so my boys all know that the Scout Oath and Law is for everything one does. On my honor I promise to do my duty to God and my country.... to help other people at all times... I spent 2 weeks deployed with Red Cross flooding in Wisconsin, 2 weeks with the boys, then 4 weeks deployed to Hurricane Harvey, then 2 weeks with the boys, then 2 weeks with Hurricane Irma followed immediately with 2 weeks deployed to the California Wildfires. Now I'm back home with the boys. They have never been given direct training on what those words of the Oath mean, but they have seen it lived out. My church is putting together relief teams to go help clean up after Hurricane Harvey. They have asked me to take lead on one of the teams.... I may be missing even more scout meetings in the next month or so. The example I set isn't just for scouts. I do find my church youth more receptive to understanding the Scout Oath in that they are scheduled to make blankets for the nursing home, ring bells for the Salvation Army and are scheduled for a number of other projects over the next few months. I teach leadership and the best way to do so is lead by example. The kids figure it out. If one strives to be a leader, look over your shoulder to see if anyone is following. If not, you're not a leader.

If all the parents give their sons permission, they can go and do anything for as long as they want. If one were to classify it as a scout patrol activity fine, if not, that's fine too. Parental permission trumps BSA. The adults aren't going along, so they can't be held liable.

Uninhabited island in the Mississippi River. Webelos campout, Boys learned how to make a latrine. Major thunderstorm rolled in blew down the tents and drenched everything. Boys learned how to make a fire with wet wood.

@Eagle94-A1 What you are talking about is what I did for one of my WB ticket items. It worked well, the 6 boys that crossed over, stayed in a patrol throughout their scouting careers (1 left the area) but all 6 of them stayed with Scouting and Eagled, including the one that moved away. It does work, but parents can be a pain. I was an ASM at the time so the SM took all the heat for what I was doing. Worked out great for me. Recently we invited Webelos boys from all the packs in the area and the Scout Troop runs the AoL program for them. Those that chose to stay with us have been good scouts and the new parents have been supportive of the boy-led issue and have supported it by staying close, but not too close. Those that went to other troops, we did not follow up.

When I was doing Civil War reenacting, it was standard procedure that when someone went down in the horrendous heat, everyone was to dump their canteens on them. There was plenty of water, but many of the younger bucks felt they could handle it and couldn't. Only once in 15 years of the hobby did I have someone go down on me and he ended up in the hospital tent packed in ice. He later admitted to me he wasn't following my directions on water consumption. You can lead a horse to water, but.....

It is experiences like this that totally reinforces my premise of boy-led. Nothing worse than a bunch of adults stepping in with some overly planned activities that bore the kids to death. There is nothing so bad in any scout unit that the adults can't step in and make it worse.

1993, I was doing my Woodbadge ticket. I went back to Webelos and transitioned boys from Cubs to Scouts. Trouble is, I had to go back 2 years to pull it off. Strong Pack and strong Troop, but NO Webelos II boys that year. That was 25 years ago. Things are no different today than back then. Some years one is going to have okay numbers, the next, a total void. It happens and it's not the end of the world, or pack for that matter. The only thing that does matter is making sure the boys get a good Cub Scout experience. If that means some coming to your pack and vice versa, so be it. It's for the boys!

Then that lets everyone off the hook for the requirement, doesn't it? Obviously there has to be some sort of evaluation or judgment going on with this process or how in the world would anyone know whether or not the requirement was satisfied? The reason I changed my profile name is because Lurking is becoming more and more the better option on this forum. And where did I say it was up to me to decide whether or not someone has faith. I only pointed out a number of options one could consider that would satisfy the requirement. Read what I wrote and take it at face value. No need to look for some obscure meaning hidden in code. There are many ways one may express their duty to God other than showing up for church. Maybe it's just stepping in and protecting someone from a bully, or sitting quietly next to someone having a bad day, or thousands of other ways most people don't even think about. Brian seemed to be kinda stuck on doing something "churchy" to get some sort of okay on the requirement. One does not need to be doing churchy things to be faithful to one's calling in ministry.

Gee, I spent 4 weeks down to Houston TX with the Red Cross doing relief work like delivering food and water, setting up shelters, etc. Is that: 1) Duty to God? (active/social ministry?) 2) Duty to Country? 3) Troop Service project? 4) ?? By the way, I missed going to church and/oi Bible Study during those 4 weeks. I'll probably go to Hell for that. I was 2 blocks from Lakewood Church and was always too busy to go. It might have been fun. I have an appointment tomorrow morning with the Red Cross staffing. I have my choice of 4 different hurricanes to choose from. I can go back to Harvey (TX), Irma (FL), Maria (VI, PR) or now Nate is heading for the last piece of shoreline in the Gulf not yet hit. After a weekend of camping with the Scout unit, I'll be heading out for another 2-3 weeks. I don't officially "belong" to any organized church denomination. I "tend to lean" towards conservative Lutheranism if I have to actually write it down somewhere. So, does any of that have to do with my Duty to God? "Goin' to Church" every week isn't always a good answer to the question, How have you done your duty to God?. Just sayin' If this requirement causes one to be "concerned", then 1) they aren't living their faith or 2) they don't have a faith to live by in the first place.

Clue #1

The reason certain cultures use a variety of spices, especially those with a bit of "heat' in them is to cover up the fact that not all the ingredients are as "fresh" as they should be and might be going bad. As a kid I did learn that if one puts enough ketchup on anything, it will go down without too much of a struggle. As an adult I did learn that if it doesn't look palatable, one doesn't have to eat it.

The patrol flag is marking the PL tent. That's as much as I want to know. I should be able to see that from say couple hundred feet away.... The QM wants to mark the tents somehow? Anyway he wants, works for me.

If no one wants to be Tiger DL, why have a den? Even one does corral someone into the job, will it be done correctly or reluctantly? Are they going to take the training? Instead of a sloppy, half-done job why not hold of on the DL-less den until someone steps up and wants to take on the job. There's nothing written anywhere that says all Cub Packs have to have all ages represented. I would think it more beneficial to send all the boys over to another pack where they are more likely to get a quality program from someone who wants to be a DL. If parents want to play brinkmanship, play it better than them.

If this is a boy led operation, why is any adult involved in the process at all? If anyone should be expressing any concern, it should be the PL of the boys doing MB homework. Otherwise, it's no one else's issue to be involved with. If the adults allowed the boys to run a scout troop as it should be run, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

Outside the box, people, outside the box......

It was mentioned in a previous post how a boy went missing. It all tied into the necessity of vigilance when it comes to leadership. How can one take care of you buddies when you don't even know where they are. Roll call? I do it all the time. Safety first! I know where they told me they were going to be. "Hey guys, heading to the waterfront?" "Yep" Roll call for those 2 is done.. when their PL comes looking for them, I just offer up the suggestion, try the waterfront. Now I know where the PL & buddy are too. I keep a running tab of the boys all the time. If one is missiNguyen I am usually the first to say something. If the 2 boys doing MB homework, why didn't the ASM know This? Definitely a poor job of leadership demonstration going on here.

This is what happens when one doesn't use the proper boy-led, patrol method in the unit. Adult led, troop method, SPL/ASPL held in limbo and the discipline goes down the kybo.

Go talk to your patrol leader... unless you need an adult to give both barrels to some slacker who may or may not have had permission from his PL to skip the project. Unfortunately it doesn't look too cool for an adult to go into a rage because some 13 year old pushed his buttons. Not cool no one in the troop had the bravery to step up and put this bully in his place. It can be done respectfully and tactfully if taught to step up to leadership in the troop. Boys aren't looking to macho blue collar men to mentor them in the good-old-boys methods, they would much rather learn effective leadership/interpersonal dynamics that produce men who don't fly off the handle when 13 year olds push their buttons. If a boy gets lost on an activity and everyone goes into a tizzy, and the troop goes into panic search and rescue, does anyone bother to ask a few questions like: 1) why was he alone? It might be good to know what direction he headed and why his buddy didn't go with him. Oh??? now that you mention it, where is his buddy, maybe we have 2 lost boys.... ??? 2) has he done this before? Only when he wants to go to the latrine.... Did anyone check the latrine? Did he fall in? 3) Where's his PL? He should know where his boys are. If the PL's aren't taking care of their boys, maybe it's time for someone to step into that role that does. 4) How long has he been gone? When was the last time roll call was taken? Never? Now we don't know how far he could have gotten so we have to search all the way back to his house. 5) are all the adults present or do we have a YPT issue going on here. "That would never happen in our troop" -- famous last words of the naive and uninitiated. 6) how long are you going to play search and rescue before notifying the authorities of the issue? 2 minutes?, 30 minutes? an hour? Time is important in a search and rescue operation. Along with poor leadership, there seems to be a gaping hole in the management plan as well. Sounds like from the adults on down, not much "taking are of your boys." going on. This is a safety issue. Don't put the onus on the boys when there's gross negligence on the part of the adults. If one can't handle a simple,"somebody didn't show up for a service project." how can one be trusted in a serious situation?

Well, if the ASM's aren't going to behave, they need a babysitter. Not everyone's maturity matches their chronological age. I've worked with youth all my life, produced fine Eagle Scouts, young men going off to Seminary and a lot of boys in the military serving their country. Never in the past 50 years did I ever give any of them "both barrels" (good grief) as has been suggested.

Put the link on its own line, there his a hidden carriage return embedded in the automatic wrapping of the sentence.

Ya gotta think outside the box. 1) what's their reaction to the suggestion of buying a ticket 2) and what's your reaction. It's really not that difficult. The key is really obvious, maybe too obvious to see.