Stosh

Perfectly unclear, as per BSA policy. I don't know if Safety Afloat training is only for adult scouters or not. However, it seems that both the driver and observer could be scouts if the driver is SA certified. Everyone, driver, observer and skiers all need to know Water-skiers Safety Code and Boat Drivers Safety Code. (Yes, the skiers need to know what the drivers are doing, too)

Although a very worthwhile experience for any scout, I don't think I would count this as an Eagle project in and of itself. As @KenD500 points out there is no planning or developing, or even organized leadership involved with merely following directions given by others. On the otherhand, if the scout where to plan out some special program for the campers while at such an event, develop it into an organized project, recruit and lead others in implementing the program, then I would be a bit hesitant on giving a flat out no to it counting as an Eagle project. For instance the boy plans out the Friday schedule having the campers do some sort of activity in the morning and afternoon and then having an organized campfire in the evening, it might go a long way to prove the boy did show planning, developing, and leadership for the day. Others may question such an approach, but I have had special needs scouts in my troop that require extra planning, developing, and leadership from other scouts and got no credit for it whatsoever. They loved doing it for those who struggle with scouting and I guess that in and of itself was reward enough. Giving up free time to get the boys to the medical office for medications, helping with feeding and personal care, making sure they get to the MB classes, etc. shows a true leader who understands what helping other people at all times is all about. By the way, Rotary Club would be the sponsoring organization on this project. My congrats to your boys involved with this program.

The emphasis was to point out the difference between an Eagle earned while the program was all boys vs. an Eagle earned when the program would be co-ed. No gender issue here, just pointing out the Eagle in one program may not be viewed equally with an Eagle in a different program. We all know that the Ranger Award and Quartermaster are not viewed the same as Eagle even when it all comes from the BSA organization.

I like the analogy of the karate system. With palms, however, the credit comes AFTER the Eagle regardless of what he did BEFORE he attained rank. A scout may have aged out at 18 with Eagle at the last minute, but what about the 2-3 years prior that he did stay in scouting and continued to work on progress throughout that time. He gets no credit for that. Yes, the after palms keeps boys going for more bling after Eagle at an earlier age, but those that use their whole scouting career to work with the troop and Eagle at the last minute receive no recognition. I wish there were a way of indicating that and although the system can be abused by the early Eaglers, it does shows the extra work the boy put in prior to Eagle rank. It's kind of a shame to penalize the dedicated Eagles who put in the effort when abuse on the front end of pencil whipping S->FC is just as questionable.

Acquiring meaningless palms isn't the problem, watered down MB's are. Why in the world is Fingerprinting a MB? Shouldn't there be a revamp of the MB program so that the MB's actually mean something. It would bring value to the palms regardless of how they are awarded.

I guess I'm the only one that views palms NOT as ranks above Eagle. Otherwise, an Eagle with two palms would be better than a scout with just an Eagle. I've never viewed it as such and I don't like the palms as part of any rank advancement. Eagle is the highest rank, not Eagle with palms.

That may be true, but the boy that goes above and beyond gets no more recognition than the boy who needs a check mark on their college application. And as a note to your comment, half the doctors out there graduated in the lower half of their class, too. I have three children and their spouses that hold Dr. as their title. I just think that a boy who puts in the extra effort should get some sort of recognition for it.

If this was a Cub activity held at the council camp, why was the BB gun activity not set up at the rifle range instead of the parking lot? I can see where Cub camps are different locales than Boy camps, but if one is going to go through all the hoops to have a separate Cub camp, maybe they ought to jump through ALL the hoops necessary to hold all the Cub activities safely, even more safety considering the maturity of the boys.

An Eagle with no palms indicate that the boy did just enough to get Eagle. If he were to earn MB palms along the way, it would show that he did more than just the minimum, too.

I agree, they really don't earn those extra palms for doing anything other than showing up for an ECOH. Maybe they did extra POR/Leadership, maybe they didn't. With the new system there's no way of telling. That I why I would prefer disengaging the palms from the Eagle rank and have them as MB credit with POR/Leadership attached once they have earned all 21 of their Eagle required MB's. Okay, at age 13 one has all 21 ER MB's earned. Now he can start his palms and as long as he doesn't double dip on his rank POR/Leadership, he can earn palms up until he's 18 regardless of rank. Palms aren't rank anyway, they should not be counted as such. In all my years in scouting in my neighborhood, I only know of one Eagle scout that earned palms and he was one of my ASM's. Never saw a boy awarded a palm, not even though they had well over 21 MB's. The majority of boys are last minute Eagles who have done great things for the troop and got no credit for it.

I agree, but not everyone follows the rules. What then? Do they get kicked out of scouting? Most of the time it's just a slap on the wrist unless the media gets involved.

@Col. Flagg Okay, I'll bite. How about this scenario? Disconnect the palms from rank advancement. They really aren't rank anyway. A boy joins up at 11 years of age and starts rank and MB processes. Here's the next step: AFTER he has attained all of his Eagle required MB's the clock starts running. At this point he is doing both Rank and MB records. Let's say he's reached the rank of TF at 13 years of age (some scouts already have Eagle by then.) Assume also he has his 21 Eagle required MB's done. No last minute panic at age 17. So he puts in his 4 months of POR/Leadership for Star and has an extra 5 MB's. So he puts in 3 more months of POR/Leadership at TF and gains palm #1. Another 3 months of POR/Leadership and 5 more MB's for palm #2. Now he's 14, Star Scout with 2 palms. He puts in 6 months POR/Leadership for Life. Remember all his Eagle required have been done. So he continues on with 3 months POR/Leadership and another 5 MB's for palm #3, does it again for Palm #4. He's now 15 Life scout with 4 palms. He puts in his 6 months POR/Leadership for Eagle and has his ECOH at age 15.5. Every three months and 5 MB's he adds for another palm. He has two years and can earn 8 more palms easily with an additional 40 MB's providing he does continue POR/Leadership along the way. Every palm could have just a SMC to check on his involvement and encourage him in his Scouting journey. I have no idea why BSA allows only 4 months Star, 6 months Life, and 6 months Eagle for POR/Leadership when with the palm track, he could do continual POR/Leadership throughout his scouting career for credit. We've had the discussion for the boy getting saddled with 12 month POR requirements for SPL, DC National award, etc. and basically either dropping DC or being penalized for dropping out of SPL before his "term" is up. Those kinds of things are unacceptable. The boy does the work, he should get the credit. During a 1 year "term" as SPL, the boy should be able to gain credit for a rank advancement or two or a rank advancement and 2 palms with 10 MB's. Sitting around waiting to get an Eagle rank while accumulating MB's of no value towards palms is a real buzz kill for the go-getter Scout.

Yes, enforce the rules if one has to have rules, they are there for a reason. BUT, in this case the rules weren't followed. Now what does one do? Obviously, the council cannot be held responsible for rogue leadership not following the rules. Yes, the council was remiss in their enforcement of the rules because things go south when it happens. This incident should never have happened had the range been set up appropriately. This time it was a car window, next time it could be a person. Those setting up the range need to have their feet held to the fire and yes, the council should have done a cursory follow up to make sure safety was maximized.

If BSA gets enough complaints about how Cub BB gun ranges are set up, BB guns will follow suit to squirt guns and that will solve the problem altogether.

Either way it works according to your view. The boy must earn Eagle, then stay and get palms, the boys that eagle late do the same thing, but miss out on the palms. Somehow the math doesn't add up for me. A boy can attain Life at 13, sit around for 4 years doing MB's and working on his project or take a hiatus from scouting. come back and get his Eagle. That's how it works, but if the boy continued to stay active, did POR work, showed leadership, earned MB's then Eagled at the last minute he gets the same reward as if he had taken a hiatus. No incentive to do anything but work on Eagle at age 13 and then if palms aren't important, quit.

Yeah, you can shoot your eye out with those BB guns.

About the only positive it shows me is that it gives recognition for the extra work a boy does before reaching the rank of Eagle. I guess I wouldn't be too upset if they changed it even further that for every MB earned beyond the ER 21, he gets a palm even before he gets Eagle. This means that while he is doing POR work in the troop beyond the rank advancement requirements and showing good leadership along the way, and maintaining interest on a deeper level than just showing up while fulfilling rank, he gets recognized for it. It may also help with those boys who "drop out of scouting" around 15 only to come back and blast through to get their Eagle before turning 18. Maybe those two years of active participation can be recognized and even if the boy doesn't get Eagle, he gets recognized for the responsibility, activity, and leadership he puts into the program. Otherwise he gets nada. That doesn't really seem fair to me. The journey is more important than the destination. Palms could be a good indicator that even a Life scout did good things for his troop beyond the requisite POR/activity for rank advancement. How many scouts get their 6 month POR for Eagle and then sit on his hands, takes a break, or succumbs to the "fumes" until he gets closer to 18.

I have sewn patches and buttons on uniform shirts, tears in uniform pants, split seams on backpacks, holes in tents...when I was an advisor for Venturing reenactors, I sewed complete uniforms (12 Confederate uniforms, both coat and pants (no zippers, buttons and button holes only), and along with the occasional leather goods due to wear along with field modifications and tears that come with usage. My dog tent with multiple buttons and sewn grommets is also 100% made by me. Sewing on a button is a piece of cake compared to making and reinforcing the button holes. Making kepis and forage hats is quite the challenge. I also made a few bucks along the way in that reenactors looking for true authenticity, will pay $75-$85 for a completely hand-sewn shirt that costs <$10 in materials. Other than that I find sewing quite relaxing in the evening. My sister is a year older than me and growing up did all the housework, laundry, cooking, dishes, sewing, ironing, etc. When she went away for college my mom turned to me and said it was my turn next. I learned to do all of these things that senior year of high school. Best year of my life. I learned skills I have used every day since then, scouting is no exception. I find it difficult to accept the excuse that sewing on a button or patch is too much work for an 11 year-old to learn.

Probably, but it has nothing to do with the broken window. Even if the range was set up correctly, a stray shot could have gone off in any one of 360o's. Or up for that matter. It is a rather convenient excuse to blame the BB gun range. But who's to say it had anything to do with a BB gun and/or range placement. Unless the ATF does an investigation, an unsupervised kid throwing a rock in the parking lot could have done the same thing. Better yet a slingshot works great for getting into trouble. No witnesses, no evidence, just speculation and assumption. Not much to go on.

I have 5 boys but they are young and don't know how to pack very well yet. Seriously, that picture is to show reference to the size of the camper in the accident. This trailer is 6' shorter than the camper. Why a Scouter would need that big of a "tent" is beyond me. First of all, if I needed a camper that big at an event, I would take personal responsibility for it's transportation and not have other scouts or scouters in the vehicle with me, especially not buckled in. A trailer that size needs an equalizer hitch. That usually involves 3 points of contact, the ball-hitch and two torsion bars. I would also think an anti-sway bar would be necessary. That would be a fourth point of connection and with 2 safety chains, we are up to 6 connections. How in the world did the two become separated? Even if the wheels balanced the unit fairly well to minimize tongue weight, how was the trailer loaded? too much weight to the front? (depresses rear, reduces effective steering on tow vehicle). Too much in back? (lifts rear, reduces effective rear wheel traction and stability with road) Irregardless of the G2SS policies, this whole situation kinda looks like it was an accident looking for a place to happen.

I would think that if the poles were pointed, not flat ended, the suction would not be as great. The poles used by canoeists for poling (punting) were metal capped and pointed to stick between rocks on rocky bottom and to avoid suction on muddy bottoms.

A gondola is propelled by a single oar, not a pole. Same for a stand up paddle board, a single paddle. With punting, the pole reaches to the bottom and pushes to propel the boat.

I used a 8" length of colored lanyard. Different colors 1) black 2) green 3) orange up to #) Yellow! Everytime I saw a boy doing something "good" he got the next level of color which he would larks head knot through the button hole on the temp patch side. I never said what the levels were for, but the boys went up (AND DOWN) the levels. One went up one step at a time, but a major infraction could mean starting all over at the beginning. Finally one boy reached the top level and asked, "Now what?" I simply said stay at that level and find out. Eventually the top level boy screwed something up and deserved to drop a level or two, but I used it as a learning opportunity to reinforce I had noticed many good things he had done at the top level and got no recognition for, so I didn't take it down a level. Word got around and some of the boys leveled up, others "didn't bother, it wasn't worth anything." About a month later, the boys were sitting around the campfire and it hit the 10:30 pm, lights out. I said, "everyone with blue and above stay and put out the fire, everyone else hit the sack." One of the boys jumped up went for the bucket of water and another headed out for the shovel. When they got back I told them to all sit down and enjoy the dying coals, there's no hurry." the discussion on improved behavior and helpful attitudes ensued thereafter. 2 of the boys had their yellow lanyards on their Eagle preso boards at their ECOH so somewhere along the line it took on some importance for some.

Me? I would just get the window fixed and then stop all FOS contributions until the cost has been met. No drama, no hassle, no paperwork, no lawyers, no discussions with other scouters/council. I seriously doubt there's some Cub Scout out there that deliberately shot out the window. If he did, he wouldn't fess up to it anyway. Just smile nice, be polite and tally the costs against contributions and be done with it.

Like all self-esteem rewards, the boys see through their intent rather quickly. Yes maybe at the Cub level it is different, they are still naive enough to buy into it. Instead of some sort of award, maybe just have them be denner for the month and actively and directly help the DL with the activities. Sometimes special attention from a caring adult produces better results than a trinket trophy tossed in a closet somewhere. On the Boy Scout level, as ASM I worked to form an Honor's Patrol that was allowed to function within an adult led, troop method program as a true boy led patrol. After two years the project was dropped because according to the SM, all the leaders ended up in that patrol. (6 out of 40+ boys). The reason for that is because the others weren't running the program correctly. After the patrol was forced to break up, the boys quickly Eagled and quit scouts. Sometimes the rewards are internally self generating and external praise is rather fleeting.