JMHawkins

Show and Sell in front of stores is a great opportunity for Scouts to practice social skills. Unfortunately for us, Popcorn season coincides with Breast Awareness Month at the major supermarket in our small town, so that's a complication. The store manager is a great guy, really supports scouting, and loves to have us there, but can't do it during his national chain's major philanthropy effort.

find out what the girls want - is easy answer, but if none of them have camped as a troop before then they have no real way to know if they would enjoy it or not. For the first few months after we started our new Boy Scout Troop, we had one Boy Scout who hated camping. Only went because his mother made him. At Summer Camp last year he loudly proclaimed it was TORTURE. Sixteen months later, that same scout has just earned the National Outdoor Award for Camping with a gold device, camped outside every month of the year including thunderous downpours, heavy snow, and freezing tempuratures, has completed a 50 Miler, and when home prefers to sleep in his backyard under the stars. Beyond that, it's perfectly reasonable to create a troop that has the goal of camping. Girls who don't want to camp can join another troop, but girls who do want to camp will probably flock to yours.

When the Scout leaves, is it an unjust injury to the troop? I'm talking about the troop failing the scout, not the other way around. I guess you construed retention as something the Troop does for it's own benefit. I think it's something they do for the benefit of the Youth.

But what are the retention goals? Say a boy earns Eagle early in his 14th year (or doesn't). So, once there's an Eagle rank on his shirt, there's nothing left for him to learn in Scouts?

So if they are motivated enough to complete in 5 months what others take 12 to do they will loss suddenly lose interest and leave the program? seems an odd thought. Not odd at all. If they're that motivated, then the Advancement Method is something they respond really well to. Unfortunately, because it's made super easy, they blow through all the available Advancement Method in under two years and then there's nothing left of that method to challenge them with. They're "done." That's the real tragedy of a dumbed-down Advancement Method - it fails to retain the very scouts who respond best to it.

Keep your costs in line with your budget. If you have zero budget, then don't spend any money. Crafts at RT? The goal isn't to keep the adults busy for an hour, but rather to show them something they could do with the scouts, so just do one version of the craft. Besides, crafts that cost more than pocket change might not be the best ideas for the Packs anyway - they don't get their supplies free either. Handouts? Put the stuff up on a website and let them print it out themselves. A Scouter is Thrifty.

I will confess that I indulged in some bragging about our scouts this summer. We were on Ross lake, packing up the kayaks to head off to our next campsite when another troop, mostly older boys, came along in canoes. We introduced ourselves, and they went about unloading while we finished loading. By an by, I pointed out three of our scouts and told one of the adults in the other troop "those guys each had thirty nights camping last year, their first year as Boy Scouts..." "I know," he told me. Our other SM has already bragged about it to him! How do ya like that, beaten to the punch. Well, fate punished me. As we were leaving, I broke the rudder pedal on the kayak and then sliced open my finger fixing it. As soon as my blood hit the water, a strong headwind came up that we had to paddle into all day. But I didn't learn my lesson. I'll still brag about how much outdoor time they get.

I don't particularly care what age a scout is when he makes Eagle. I'm more interested in how old he is when he attends his last meeting as a youth member, and I hope that's 17.9 years old or thereabouts. Aging out an active scout who has participated in a challenging, meaningful program, that's my hope for them. I kinda like the outdoor achievement medal, because it focuses on planning and leading outdoor adventures. But all of it, the ranks, the awards, etc., they're just tools for us to use to help guide the scouts.

So would you have said something???? I'm not sure there's anything you could say to him that would register. His reaction would probably be to become defensive about his sub-standard program, and the only thing you or I would accomplish would be to make him dig in even further. You've probably seen that reaction before, I'm guessing, in person or electronically. I'd like to think there's a way to eventually open their eyes, but I think it would take a lot more fellowship than confrontation, and it's hard to maintain a fellowship with someone you have a difficult time respecting. Perhaps the solution is first to congratulate him (in your heart as well as your words) on getting his scouts out to camp in the first place, and putting so much energy into the program. Granted, it's misdirected energy, but if you can see the good in him, maybe you can associate with him enough for him to see the benefits of your program over his. In other words, qwazse's answer... But hoo-boy. Doing that will really require living up to the Scout Oath when he's braggin' about all the MBs his little fledglings accumulated...

We took ocean kayaks on an inland wilderness* lake this summer (6 nights, 50 miles afloat) and it was fantastic. Our PLC wants to do the same trip again next year, and I'm hoping they will be able to find time and budget to also add sea kayaking in the San Juan islands. Since we're still a relatively new troop (< 2 years old), our Scouts are on the younger and smaller side of things. Most of them would have trouble with the physical demands of carrying a week's worth of food on their backs, but the kayaks avoided that problem. Some maturity is still needed (we only took our most active and reliable guys), but it was pretty neat to see them get that kind of extended experience under their belts. We're looking for ways to add more kayaking to our program. * edit - well, it's probably not quite right to say it's a wilderness lake, they do allow motorboats, but camping is held to wilderness area party limits and pack-it-in pack-it-out requirements.(This message has been edited by JMHawkins)

bnelon, I think you're missing the interesting part of the question. It's not "what are the requirement?" It's not even really "what should be the requirements?" It's "how do we measure success?" There exists a set of requirements, and a set of guidelines for how the requirements should be interpreted. There's also an informal set of interpretations for the interpretations, if you will, notions about if and when any of those rules should be bent or broken. Although there's plenty of debate about all three of those subjects, ultimately the real issue is whether the requirements, the guidlines, and the fidelity of adherance to both, are producing good results. Hence, "what do we expect from Eagle Scouts?" Followed closely by "How many of them are meeting those expectations?" It's no good to say "all we expect of an Eagle Scout is that he fullfilled the requirements as written" because that doesn't answer the question of whether the requirements are working or not. It may be sufficient to decide if that particular scout gets the rank or not, but for the larger picture of how well we're doing, it's insufficient. It's a tautology. As long as that's our answer, we have no feedback with which to assess our program. I like Basement's list. That's not necessarily just what I expect of an Eagle Scout, it's what I expect of a young man who has taken advantage of all that Scouting has to offer in the way of personal development. If the advancement method is to have currency all the way through a young man's scouting career, that's probalby a good list for Eagle Scout too then. It's a good list that we as scouters should have for our goals for the youth in our units. With Basement's list in hand, we can gather a collection of young men with red, white and blue patches on their pocket and make an assessment. How many of these young men pass muster with the list? If most of them do, then we're on the right track. If few of them do, then we need to do some assessment. Where are we going wrong? Can't even get to that question until we have a list like that though. But it makes a lot of people uncomfortable to have a subjective list. They prefer a cut and dried list of objective criteria like "was active for 6 months" where even "active" has no subjective component and is simply defined as "registered." It's a bureaucratic mindset in action. We've checked all the checkboxes, therefor we are done and succeeded. No, that's not good enough. We need to train young men to make subjective assessments, to be comfortable doing uncomfortable but necessary things. We can't very well train them to do that if we aren't willing to do it ourselves. I like Sentinel's question and Basement's answer.

I'm with Desertrat77, it's the hype that generates the adult-run conveyor belt for advancement. So long as that exists, there will be considerable pressure to continue on the current course. But assume we fix that. What changes should we make? I would change up the PoR requirements for Star-Life-Eagle. I'd say only the true leadership positions count (PL/APL/SPL/ASPL/JASM/TG). I'd also require the performance be judged at the end, and only a passing grade would count. Who would judge? Ideally the scouts in the patrol/troop (depending on the PoR) with the SM having an override for the occasional boy-led misfire. I would also add outdoor adventure/leadership requirements. For Star, it would be completing a 3 night/30 miler. For Life, completing a 5 night/50 miler. For Eagle, planning and leading a 5 night/50 miler. Those two changes would re-focus advancement at the higher ranks on citizenship within the patrol and troop. Eagle would no longer be a solo project the Scout can do on his own (or under Mom and Dad's "guidance"), but rather something he does as a member of the unit. Leading a group of 6 peers on a week-long high adventure trip will teach a scout a lot more about the rights and duties of a citizen than all three Citizenship in... MBs.

*Managing Mom and Dad: getting them to do the work. Tampa, the only problem with this chapter title is, I suspect Mom and Dad may be the real target demographic for the book.

Tokala, I could be wrong, but I think that's a different subject from what SeattlePioneer was talking about. Well, I'd say yes and no. Both what SP lead with and what Tokala mentioned are instances of "bureaucrats" making decisions without understanding how they impact actual program, and without having any real responsibility for making their rules work. In Tokala's case, it's guys saying a bunch of improvements need to be made that the camp cannot afford. Now, on the one hand, you think gee, if the place can't be maintained well enough that it's not a hazard, then maybe it shouldn't be open. But on the other hand, my experience with risk managment types is that they do not prioritize or differentiate risks very well. They tend to lump everything into one bucket and say it all has to be done. This can have the effect of actually lowering the safety of the place, as the really important safety improvements have to be done on shoestring budgets in order to fund the trivial ones. In SPs hypothetical Eagle appeal process, it's idiotic advanceent rules that declared "active" to mean "registered" and then got so caught up in the hype surrounding Eagle rank that a special appeals process exists. But those folks don't need to invest the 80 hours that unit and district volunteers report spending on cases like this. And they don't have to deal with explaining things to the other scouts when Danny Do-Nothing gets awarded Eagle on appeal when every boy in that troop knows he's a slacker and just gamed the system.

Not really sure there's much left to thrash about here, but I did want to respond to one thing Guy wrote. Are we being unfair to this Scout? I'm not sure. I am sure. You are being fair to him. He came to you/Chris and asked what he needed to do to get the Troop's support for his Eagle application. You outlined a very reasonable set of goals. He agreed to them, and accomplished almost all of them. But he failed to accomplish the most important one. Being active on outings is the most significant part of his "work" as it is the part most closely connected with citizenship. Like Kudu says, citizenship in Boy Scouts means being a citizen of your patrol and doing your share of the work and having your share of the fun in the micro-society it represents. Some of that can be done indoors at meetings, but the biggest part, the most relevant lessons are learned outdoors where the difference between good and bad planning, good and poor teamwork, are magnified by the adventure setting. His troop used the advancement method correctly, as an incentive for the Scout to engage in activities that promote his growth and maturity. Unfortunately, the scout doesn't look at advancment as a method for growth, he just looks at is as a credential to help get him into the next credential program. At some point, he will need to learn that no matter how many pieces of paper you have, you will be judged on how reliable other's feel you to be.

This thread has helped me clarify something in my own mind. I don't give a rats rear end about Eagle Scout rank. When we've gotten to the point that people can't have a civil discussion about ways to use the Eagle rank portion of the Advancement Method in a good unit program, then we've gotten to the point where the tool has outlived it's usefulness. Rank, any rank, is just a tool for guiding and encouraging scouts towards becoming good men. A set of requirements can give a scout structure for his effots when he doesn't know himself which way to go. "What sort of stuff should I learn? Well, the book here says learn how to do first aid for serious bleeding, and also to learn to swim..." And when he learns new things, it gives us - the adults who are supposed to represent the larger Society outside his family - it gives us the change to recognized him and grant him the privlige of displaying our recognition to others by wearing a badge. But giving him a badge isn't the goal, and it's clear too many adults now act that way when it comes to the Eagle Scout rank. It's at most one-sixth of one-eighth of the program. It shouldn't generate so much anger. I think BSA pushing it as a marketing campaign has been a mistake.

Not sure of your quote about 10-30% of endurance atheletes being over-hydrated. It's from the report at the link Dean. It's speculative, the studies weren't entirely controlled and there may have been sample problems, but there seems to be enough to think about it, eh? It's also a reason the L in SAMPLE is important. "Have you been drinking water?" If he answer is no, then you can probably rule out hyponatremia. If the answer is "yes, losts" then maybe you need to think through it a bit more. And yes, "have you been eating anything?" is one of the next questions, along with when did he last pee and what color was it. It's probably dehydration and not hyponatremia, but asking the question is important. The guy in the dining hall wasn't asking the question.

As for your case of hypnoatremia, how was this diagnosed in the health lodge? Well, nausea, headaches, fatigue, cramps - basically the symptoms of dehydration - except the patient has been drinking plenty of water and most likely not eating very much. It's pretty important to understand the difference between dehydration and hyponatremia in the field, where you don't have access to blood tests, so you don't tell a hyponatremic kid to drink water. Perhaps "diagnose" isn't technically the correct word here, and "suspect" is better. The camp suspected the scout had hyponatremia. It's actually apparently much more common in endurance sports than most people thought, likely somewhere between 10% and 30% of the athletes had hyponatremia at the end of the race. There's also this: There have been at least 8 reported deaths from EAH (Exercise-associated hyponatremia). Many of these reports relate to a series of fatalities in the military between 1989 and 1996. During this period, military recruits were encouraged to ingest 1.8 L of fluid for every hour they were exposed to temperatures above 30C. At least four other deaths have been attributed to EAH in the United States. It is interesting that two of these deaths occurred in doctors. The exact incidence of mortality related to EAH is not known but is likely to be low. - Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology http://cjasn.asnjournals.org/content/2/1/151.long Interesting there - the military had rules intended to help keep recruits healthy that ended up killing a few instead becaues the (well-intentioned) rules were outdated.* Anyway, for those of us with scouts out in the heat, don't automatically assume it's dehydration. The kids at greatest risk of hyponatremia are probalby the ones in the worst shape who have been taking the most breaks because they're drinking the most water. The key in the field is recognizing that there's a problem early, before it's a crisis so you have the luxury of going slow with your response. * edit to add, outdated and monolithic one-size-fits-all. That's also the problem with the dining hall "rule" - it didn't account for the kids who had been drinking enough water already and treated everyone as if they were inexperienced at managing their fluid intake. Certainly we have scouts like that, but we also have scouts who do fine. Sort of like the poor rules on tool use - one-size-fits-all fits nobody very well. Better are rules that encourage personal capability and responsibility, rather than group-wide dictates. (This message has been edited by JMHawkins)

Your really only option is to just not sign his Eagle application because you don't think he deserves Eagle. Some would see that as petty even though you might feel your justified. Pefectly justified and nothing petty about it, given the facts as presented here. Let's reiterate why Guy isn't satisfied with the scout's performance: he hasn't lived up to the agreement he made. The scout was absent from the troop for two years, wished to get the troop's support in completing his Eagle application, and the Troop - as represetned by Guy and Chris, reached an agreement with the scout for what that would take. The troop has lived up to it's side, the scout has not yet done so. Until he does, Guy and Chris are perfectly justified in not signing off. Neither "added to the requirements" so let me head that argument off at the pass. They simply clarified, in partnership with the scout, what the "Active" requirement meant. Now, regarding a point that was made by several folks, which Eagle732 put the most bluntly: Oh, and he'll be an Eagle irregardless of the SM signing off or not. That, while quite possibly true, is irrelevant. What badge the scout has on his shirt or puts on his college application is - in the grand scheme of things - meaningless. The experience he gained while earning (or not) whatever rank, whatever badges, whatever bling, that's the real thing. I can buy an Eagle Scout badge right now off the internet for five bucks. It's just a piece of cloth, there's no magic in it. But I can't buy the experience that comes from really earning that award. The rank itself is nothing. What honor there is in it comes from what it took to earn it. If the earning is cheap, the honor is too. And that's an individual thing for every single Eagle Scout. Your Eagle rank is as valuable as what you did to earn it. It's neither cheapened nor made dear by what anyone else ever did for theirs. To the extent any of this discussion is even about the rank it's off track. Guy and Chris are doing the right thing here, and I applaud them. They are doing their best - amid a fair amount of stress I imagine - to give this young man the opportunity to grow and mature, using the rank as a carrot to help him focus and find motivation. It's hard, they have to fight with him, they have to fight with his dad, they have to suffer slurs about being petty (sorry fred, perhaps you didn't mean it that way, but it was a callous remark). It would be a lot easier for them to just sign the paperwork and send the kid on his way never to be seen again. But he wouldn't learn anything that way, or worse would learn the wrong things. The easy thing for all of us is to just hand out free candy and wave everyone through with a big smile on our face. But that doesn't do anyone any good. Might as well turn in our own patches and go fishing. Someday this young man is going to be in a situation where there isn't anyone there to wave him through, maybe not even anyone there to reach a compromise with. He'll either have to sink or swim on his own with no shortcuts to take and no district committee to appeal to. If he's never had to do that before, it could well be tragic. Guy and Chris are trying to give him a chance to learn to swim now, where the stakes are low. If having "Eagle Scout" on his college applciation gets him into a good school and he tries to skate through his courses the way he's trying to skate through here, he's either going to flunk out our gradutate with a worthless degree that opens no doors. In ten years, if this young man tries to hold down a job with the work ethic he's shown towards his own rank advancement, he's going to either starve or have Dad paying his grocery bills. If, on the other hand, he learns a little bit of perserverence, a little bit of self-discipline, learns to indulge in a little less self-pity, that will serve him, his family, and his community very well over many years. It's those lessons that this is all about. It's not about some stinkin' badge. Guy and Chris, thank you. (This message has been edited by JMHawkins)(This message has been edited by JMHawkins)

They should have known I was an adult, and would not qualify. So why did I get it? Perhaps the folks responsible for BSAs training database software were also in charge of the survey?

CalicoPenn is right that the youth leaders should be reminding the rest of the troop, and it's important for them to remember, which is something you can work on as part of their training. I also agree that 3-ring binders seem a little too schoolsy for my tastes. Maybe you can model something more woodsy - carry a small notebook, maybe one of the spiral ones, in a pocket. Pull it out to take your own notes (even if you're sure you can remember the information). As frustrating as it can be when things don't go smoothly, remember that the real goal isn't for the Troop to put on a fantastic 95th celebration, but rather for the scouts to develop maturity.

Well, if you specifically sent a scout to MBC 1, and the scout comes back with a card signed by MBC 2, you can have a SM conference with the scout to ask why he did that. When you express your concern that you think he was looking for the easy way out because MBC 2 is known to skimp on requirments, evaluate the scouts reaction. If he is embarrassed about being "caught", ask him if he wants to re-do the MB with MBC 1. If he does, hand him a new card and let him learn. If he doesn't want to re-do it, or doesn't seem particularly bothered by having his plan discovered, that's something to keep in mind as you work with him through the rest of the program. Perhaps he needs to demonstrate a willingness to be challenged by the material before he is ready to work on his next MB. It's a problem when there's another authority figure telling him it's okay to essentially cheat, but that's going to be true MBC or no MBC, so be the authority figure that tells him it's not okay and that there are consequences.

You have a job. You have a hobby. You are a scout leader. You can also take a class in school, or you can also attend training. To say that someone is incapable of wearing more than one hat is absurd. Come on Yeah, I'm not saying you can't wear more than one hat, I'm just saying wearing another hat during troop meetings and activities is going to take away from wearing the hat that helps the scouts. Sure, you can do it. You'll be distracted from the meeting or the campout. Outside the troop, sure, knock yourself out. But the unit exists for the youth. The focus should remain on them.

BSA24: Adults can only do one thing at a time. This part is true, at least if you want them to do it well. People can multitask, but they tend to do a poor job on the tasks. People do a much better job when they focus on one thing at a time. Any attempt to learn anything new will cause adults to self-destruct as scout leaders and will bring BSA to its knees Nobody is saying that, so why do you insist on exaggerating? It's a poor debate tactic and not one we should model for the youth. They'll see enough of it when they pay attention to their first political campaign anyway. I've been suggesting reasons that adults engaging in advancement-like activities at the unit level isn't a good idea. You're certainly welcome to disagree, but please try to avoid straw-man arguments. They're quite annoying.

BSA24, the "competition" that I'm worried about isn't between the youth and the adults. It's between the adults devoting time and energy to the youth program vs adults devoting time and energy to the adult program. If adults start getting ranks and awards as part of the unit - if the unit has a program for the adults as well as one for the youth - then there's a very real danger that the adults will divert a big chunk of their attention to the adult program. That means the youth program will suffer. I think providing training at the district level is a fine idea, and it can even include some sort of recognition. However, there still needs to be a reasonable cap on things. Time spent in training, while valuable, is time NOT spent with the unit. I'm missing two of our troop's upcoming trips because I'm taking Woodbadge and serving as a trainer at the PTC. That's three weekends over two months doing scouting stuff not with my unit. We have enough ASMs that I can do that, but we're pretty blessed that way and a lot of units might be in a real bind.