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gwd-scouter, I learn something from this site often, which is why I'm getting kinda hooked on it. I would suggest you get involved with the process in your area and help to bring it up to the level of distinction that it deserves. In my area (I should have added this earlier) the process is left up to the district to settle. The council we're in is huge and they defer most things to the districts to administer. The EBoR's are the responsibility of the Dist Adv Committee. The Committee has a memeber who is charged with coordinating the EBoR's. It's this volunteers job to assemble a qualified group of Scouters, community leaders, etc to sit on the Board at least one time monthly. They're held at the same place / time every month so scheduling is not an issue. The Eagle Candidate is contacted and an appointment is made. If a troop would rather stage the EBoR themselves (I don't think this option is advertised very much), then it's up to the coordinator to add one or two objective non unit members to the mix. Thanks for eveyone's input, this is great.

sst3rd, We had an issue in my old Council. Not enough resources to put toward data entry functions for Scout net. When the Council folded, and on the day we were together packing up, one volunteer remained at a workstation and was imputing all of the records for the past several months...a ton of work... This volunteer was working for a couple of weeks prior and had not had the time to finish. Finally he did the last day the council was "alive" and Thank God for his work. It may be a function of just not having the resources at your council office to devote to this task. Maybe they need a volunteer to help do the mundane work of data entry in order for the product of Scout net to really be of some use to you. Just a thought.

I hope we get an update about this in a week or two. Please... We had a situation similar, but not as "violent". A boyfriend of a single mother accompanied mom and the scout to a pack check last summer before out annual week long backpack trip. The man is an Eagle Scout, former Scoutmaster, seems very knowledgeable. When the man arrives at the pack check, he starts in on my ASM's in a yelling, finger pointing frenzy. I get a call on my cell, I'm a few minutes late, and they ask "are you on your way?", no explanation, just wanted to know if I'm coming. I tell them I'll be there in a minute and they hang up. No warning, so I had a few words with them later as you can imagine :0 The man sees me pull up and unload my burbie. He walks up and starts ranting and raving about what WE expect this Scout to bring along on a hike, and he lists all of the equipment and how another adult is going over it and telling the boy that "this isn't right, you need a new ####, and this needs to be looked at, you need a different ####". this is normal and part of the process. After about 10 min of getting screamed on, another father comes up behind me and asks this man "obviously we need help figuring all of this stuff out, you seem to think we don't have control. We could really use your help to get back on track". That was a textbook classic response and he was perfect in delivery and timing. The man just stared at him and told us that he doesn't have time and we should know what we're doing. (we do) The man then asks me point blank "when were you going to teach this boy what to pack and what was acceptable?" Well, I say, Two months ago we had a campout at a local scout camp. 3 days of training for new scouts, their parents, and our leaders, and we had this boys patrol attend to lead the campout and demonstrate the use of the equipment, teach hiking techniques, etc. The man says,"we weren't there", I said "I know". He then asked me "How do these boys know how to prepare food for these trips, this boy was told to prepare a meal and he has no idea how". to which I answered " Last month I had all boys and parents who were interested come to my house. We went shopping for the right stuff then went back to my kitchen and fixed it all up, divided up the food, dehydrated the cooked meat, all in preparation for a campout". He said "we weren't there", and again I said "I know". At that point he looked at me, my friend and my son (who was standing there slack jawed) then turned and walked off into the sunset. Didn't even wait in the car, just walked away down the street. Wow. His girlfriend apologized for him and we got on with the day's stuff. Several months later this man showed up to a troop function, walked up to every boy first and apologized, then walked up to every adult and apologized, then walked up to me, apologized and offered to help in any way he could. That turned out to be a very good day for me. I just thought I'd share this story since I know that there are always similar issues within our units. Firecrafter is not alone. Bringing in so many different families and personalities into a group will produce some tensions at times, and every time there's a different solution. This time the issue worked out for me, but it may not next time. Who knows.

emb021 is correct, that is the shirt. The way she talked about it seemed to me that it IS a new policy, though we haven't obviously heard it yet. The shirt has a ghosted fleur de lis and the initials BSA on the left breast above the pocket, which makes it official apparantly. They're not terribly expensive, but I bet you could find something similar and for less money at Cabellas, Bass Pro or Campmore. It's nice to have something like the long sleeved version for hiking. Warmer when it's cold, keeps the sun and bugs off you in the heat. Regarding the "unofficial t-shirt"...we were at a Wood Badge Staff Development, and as such everyone was to be in full uniform from the toes to the nose. When she showed up, late I might add, we thought she'd just tossed on some civies. Then she got up and explained herself. Of course we all gave her a hard time for the t-shirt, it had to be something so why not the t-shirt. Such is life.

Hell Forum Folk, I'm curious about how your councils handle Eagle Boards of Review. Are they the Council Adv. Committee's bailywick? district? Are they done at the unit level primarily? Just curious.

First of all, be careful of what you ask for. There are way too many regulations and rules in this organization and it will only confound you in the end to make more. I'm not exactly sure what booklet or what publication would cover this. My feeling is that every volunteer run organization, and even most for pay orgaizations as well, have people placed in positions of power (wow, a tongue twister for sure). These people have thier own way of getting the job done and they can be resistant to change even if faced with overwhelming pressure. The fact that there are seemingly two standards (one at the district, one at the council) shows some lack of communications and a disconnect in the hirearchy of the organization. You may be faced with having to play this person's game for the moment, but I would definately bring this issue up to the District Chairman and the District Executive/Director. This should not be a source of confusion. It should either be one way or the other through out the entire council. If I had my druthers, I'd make the boy do the work. It's just my way. Good luck

Hello All, I was at my Woodbadge Staff Development the other day and my buddy, a new DE, just came back from Irving with the news that Nat'l is re-thinking it's (or should I say OUR) "guidelines" on uniforming. Apparantly the current thinking is for the units to wear the new activity shirts (no patches, no ranks, ghosting BSA insignia) in leu of the current uniform shirt during non cerimonial activities. The current uniform in all of its glory will be worn during ceremonies and more formal occasions. I'm not exactly sure why we need yet another uniform, unless it's to drive sales. I understand that the boys between 14 and 17 don't like wearing thier uniform out of the house at times, but is that what this is all about? My friend the DE wore her switchbacks and her new activity shirt along with a t-shirt underneath. The t-shirt was not official which may evoke some emotion among those who love quoting regulations... :0 Does anyone have any more info on this? If not, what's your opinion..and please don't quote the insignia guide.

I could be wrong, and there will probably be someone following me with a quote of the regulations, but I don't think you are supposed to wear your OA Flap with a venture uniform. That in itself is a fight for another day.

Wow, what a drama. I've had parent issues before but this was a corker. Glad this has seemingly been taken care of, now the unit can heal itself back to high productivity. Our unit lost two families in a row over disciplinary action against their boys. It was horrible to go through, but in the end our troop is oh so much stronger. Good luck

I think that's wonderful that you can get a new SE and see some perceptable POSITIVE change right away. From all of the posts I've read over the many different scouting forums, that's the exception rather than the rule. My old council (no longer with us, sniff) had a massive turnover some years ago. As I percieved the change...Regime A was entrenched for many years, sort of lost thier focus on training adults and moving forward with new programs from Nat'l with respect to program and trainings. That happens I suppose, like the homeowner who sort of gives up on keeping the lawn green, and that sort of thing. Fresh blood was called for and it came in the form of a new SE and all new commissioned staff save one (enter Regime B). We kept one DE who to this day works in our district. She's very task oriented and focused and Thank God we have her. The New SE made some wholesale changes when he first got into the office. He shuffled the NYLT adult staff, the Woodbadge staff (in keeping with new nat'l policy) and re-structured the OA Lodge (again in keeping with Nat'l Lodge Policy), and in the midst of all this, ticked off the local United Way and lost funding from them (not all his fault, but he certainly didn't help the matter any). While all this is going on, it never dawned on any of them (Regime B)that nobody had staffed Summer Camp yet (Hello, it's May). Summer Camp was cancelled after the first week. Needless to say his first 6 months set the tennor for his stay at the helm. Although he had little to do with the demise of our council (long time coming), he was "credited" with killing it off just the same because of the antimosity he generated with the wholesale changes made when he stepped up to bat. Instead of hitting a Home Run, he knocked foul ball after foul ball and finally retired the pitcher... You may have gotten a new broom, but what we ended up with was a mop!

With our specific situation: The then SM and I were transitioning (he's still active thank God) and the original issue with the SPL had been ongoing. Being an ASM I was also involved in "counseling" and made several attempts at connecting with this young man. His father was a good friend and he had 3 brothers, 1 of which was in the troop as well. My friend, the transitioning SM, and I staffed at '05 Jambo. While we were there the troop went to Summer Camp. I had sent 3 adults on the trip, 1 grandfather / Eagle Scout who is a retired high school teacher and knows his stuff as an ASM for the trip, one father that had some High Adventure training but never took SM specific, but accepted the job as SM for the week, and one father that had no training what so ever. Because of the culture of our troop, I ASSUMED we were safe... The SPL (who had been voted out a couple months earlier, but was senior on this trip) chose a buddy to act as his ASPL. The two of them proceeded to bully and abuse almost every other scout that went to camp that summer, to the point of me getting a dozen phone calls of young boys wanting to quit the troop over the treatment they received. What a nightmare. I spoke to the father w/ limited training (acting SM), happened to be the father of one of the perps, and he said that the boys were great and everyone had a great time. When I explained to him the phone calls, he shrugged it off and said that nothing went on. I spoke to the other ASM's on the trip and they acknowledged that there were some issues and they'd tried to work them out with the acting SM on the trip. Nothing came of it. They told me that at one time the entire troop came to the acting SM and asked for a new SPL and explained the problems. The acting SM dismissed this and told the boys that the two problem kids were in charge and he didn't want to hear another word. They did as he said...until they got home. During a mid week adventure at camp, the troop took a canoe trip to a small island off the shore for an isolated overnighter. During the evening the SPL stripped buck naked and ran around the woods with the other boys in shock (their words) and proceeded to go skinny dipping. The boys know from youth protection training that this is unacceptable. The again complained and nothing came of it. When I got a hold of this info I spoke to all the boys and their parents. I assembled the info and came to my conclusions. I asked for a special committee meeting and asked a friend, our Council Commissioner to attend as a mediator. At that meeting I made known my thoughts to have one of the boys expelled from the troop (several warnings about like behavior issues) and the SPL step down and take 2 months off from troop activities. Needless to say both boys and families left the troop, but not after slamming everyone in the room and placing blame every where else but on their sons. It was messy and horrible, but in the end our unit was better and stronger for it. I still feel soiled from the experience. I lost great friends in the SPL's father and mother, and I lost the SPL and his siblings. The other boy and his family I didn't have the same feelings for ultimately because of previous issues dealing 'again' with bullying, the writing was on the wall with that one. Moral of the story I would say have all your ducks in a row and then proceed with caution. Make sure you as SM have the blessing and support of the committee before making a move.

I agree with most of what's on this thread. I would say that the Scoutmasters responsibility is to train the SPL to do the job right and when the SPL refuses, should then ask him to step down. I would have no problem doing that if it came down to it, and I'd make sure the boy and his parents understood why. A couple of years ago we had a young boy that was elected into the office of SPL over a much more experience Eagle. The young boy was councelled and the then Scoutmaster decided that because of his inexperience, the young boy would become the ASPL under the tutlage of the older Eagle scout with experience. They both agreed. Fast Forward 6 months. The Older Eagle stepped down as was planned and the young scout now took on the role of SPL. Within a month he became unavailable for some troop meetings, had not taken the time to make phone calls to his Scoutmaster, Patrol Leaders or his ASPL. He would attend meetings wearing a hooded sweatshirt, even during hot evenings, and when we'd ask him to remove the hood (always had it up like the unibomber) he was listening to his MP3 player or talking on a cell phone... The Scoutmaster tried several times to counsel the young scout and he became more and more unreliable and less of a leader, more of a pain in the neck. Eventually the boys was disciplined and left the troop because of a bullying incident at summer camp. The Scoutmaster said, before retiring, said that he regrets not removing the boy from office, leaving him there and trying to counsel him proved more harmful that helpful. ... I hope this situation worked its way out, but there are those times when the Scoutmaster needs to step in and make decisions based on what's right for the troop.

Believe me when I say I understand the importance of my role on course. I'm certainly taking it very seriously and am very excited about the possibilities. I took Wood Badge out of council and although I had one of the most rewarding times of my life I would have given anything to have taken it within my own council, but it wasn't in the cards. I'm excited about the responsibility I will have to provide a very rewarding experience to those attending the course, coupled with the fact that our council has just recently merged and has morphed into the 16th largest in the nation just adds weight to this task. I knew almost everyone in our old council, I felt like the Wal-Mart greeter at council functions, so now I get to re-schmooze myself into the fray and making 40 new Wood Badge friends will sure help. Oh, and I've read the Admin guide and Syllabus once. I'm done with the admin guide (yawn), now I'm planning on re reading the syllabus and remembering my own course.

Robvio, Good luck and congratulations on taking the plunge. Being a Scoutmaster is one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. There's tons of fantastic advice here and I'm going to reiterate some of it. Beevah said you should visit another troop that has a program you believe to be the model for your troop. This is probably the finest example of what is good about Scouting, we're not in competition with each other (unless it's at a Camporee ;o) but we're here to work together to provide a quality program to our boys (and girls). Training training training. You'll never have enough and there's always more to take. I'm on my second tour of duty as Scoutmaster, and while I'm no expert I'd say that you need to get the parents of the boys involved as much as possible, helping to set up a working legitimate committee, providing adult leaders to help you provide great program, etc. My first troop died on the vine as I only had one adult assistant, an alcoholic father that was more problem than help for me. (this got my eye twitching again...dang) Take full advantage of your resources. Paid professionals are there for you, and with each one of those there are 50 or so volunteers to back them up, so you're never alone, and in case you've not noticed, scouter's love to give advice... Good luck

Eagle Pete, Thanks, and right back atchya. I've got to check this forum more often...ha! To answer your question: "What staff position will you serve on?" Troop Guide, just like you. I think it's an entry level position, but one I'd rather have as well. I'm very excited to say the least. "Share your experience... I'd love to hear about it." Oh you know it, I'll be giving a blow by blow. We've had our first development and I'm really pleased with the staff we've got, all top notch people. This is the third time I've been asked to participate as a staff member, but only the first time I have been able to because of other scouting related events (NSJ 2005, Troop 50 miler, etc). Regarding our patrol presentations, on our course the TG's will not be using PowerPoint, but old fashioned presentation binders. The sheets will be Black block print on white paper, the separators will be full color. We've been practicing our presentations for about 2 weeks now so we'll be ready for the next Staff Dev meeting. I'm a bit nervous, although I do presentations for scouts all the time (other trainings and FOS, etc.) These scouter's on staff are such heavy hitters I feel a bit out of my league...I suppose that's normal. In the end it all sums up to the need to practice practice practice and become overly familiar and comfortable with the material. Matt

SR540 Beaver wrote "We ran the song both times WITH pictures of the participants rather than the stock BSA pictures. Staff watched it thru the first time and then quietly slipped out of the dining hall where it was playing and went to Gilwell. The SPL and I believe the CD led the participants down to Gilwell with the staff all in place waiting for them." Now that's cool...I'm going to let my CD know of this. How emotional and strong is that. Matt

Wow, I just read this thread. I too am taking the WB Staff plunge next spring and am looking forward just like Eagle Pete... The Course Director called and asked if I was interested, of course I said yes...he then asked to take my wife and me out to dinner. His way of smoothing out the "time away from family" concept with my wife (like she's not used to being a Scouting Widow). While I didn't order the fanciest thing on the menu, I did make him pay for it...nice tradition I think. Some day when I grow up and can be CD I'll do the same. Have a great time staffing, I certainly plan to... Matt I used to be a Bear... WE4-51-2-03

I too attended Woodbadge out of council. I did not expect anyone from my patrol to attend and indeed they didn't. I had one other ASM in my troop that attended with me, so we had our beading together at our troops quarterly Court of Honor. We decided to hold the beading at the CoH because part of the focus was to promote Woodbadge to other adults. My WB beading was attended by my Course Director, Troop guide, and two other troop guides to help with the ceremony. Also attending was the most recent Course director from my council's WB course along with a couple other 4 beaders. I couldn't attend my council's course because of a conflict of dates (troop summer camp activity and week long WB course). The CD from our council said a few words that helped tie the two councils program together, and it made quite an impression on the audience. Having your boys make a critter is awsome. I love the idea about the skit too, that's fantastic, I would have loved that at my beading.

Thanks folks, I appreciate it. I think I'm gonna like it here... Matt

Has anyone else seen this badge. It's the world crest with Woodbadge Beads surrounding it. Purple crest on a field of white, egg shaped, tghe bottom of the "egg" is the beads, the outline is the thong the beads are on. I saw this recently but cannot figure out where to get it. Any ideas Matt WE4-51-2-03 I used to be a Bear