MattR

I'm just curious, but, for the survivors, has talking helped?

Welcome to the forum, @AScoutIsHonest. I agree that he's a bit over the top. The SM can refuse to sign the blue card but wanting a scout to slow down isn't a valid reason, especially if the troop isn't doing anything fun over the summer. How about teaching your son a different skill: have him talk to an ASM or two or even the CC. Eventually, someone needs to gently talk to the SM. Maybe your son can facilitate that.

I'm not sure scoutreach is an official program of the bsa anymore. There's nothing about it on the bsa website. Some councils have something called scoutreach but it might be a holdover from the old program. We talked about it a while ago and some councils are making it work. My guess is it takes funding and the right person to run it. Just a hunch but that might be a better way to get units up and running than throwing a new parent into a room full of cubs.

True shame, but given that people are ripping off trailers for scrap I'm unfortunately not surprised.

The problem with the methods is that they don't include what youth are really looking for. All scouts want fun with friends and older scouts want a unique challenge (high adventure, working with younger scouts, service, it depends on the scout). To make scouting work they also need to learn how to create this on their own. That's not simple. It's more than organizing a campout every month. It includes understanding what motivates the scouts, and that's an age old problem. Most people fear the unknown yet every adventure includes the unknown.

Welcome to the forum, @MichaelD . My suggestion is find a council office near where you lived and start asking questions.

They do. That's why you want a written policy everyone understands. We used to treat scout accounts as property of the scout until we looked more closely at the law. Then it became you had to use the money for scout-like activities. Finally, it had to be scout activities. Given the cost of camping it was never an issue for active scouts, it only caused problems for scouts that left early and didn't enjoy camping.

@Spatulate, welcome to the forum.

The track is really cool. (Hope they have a big place to store it.) I also really liked that they had a build day. Every scout can at least have a reasonable car and it's no more than a few hours. That brings back the fun.

@Eagle_Chris, welcome to the forum.

For one, we talk to each other. While they're showing you no interest might not be bad, communication can head of surprises. One thing you don't want with your CO is a surprise. We also did service projects for our CO or just helped with their projects. Again, that's part of the communication.

Just ask. I fixed the not now typo

I think this is the wrong way to look at the problem and is the source of a lot of angst here. Rather than ask for a specific failure rate that is acceptable, after which everyone can say there is no longer a problem, it would be better to use methods that continually drive down failure rates. Look at air travel. Back in the 70's there were enough crashes that all the parties involved (manufacturers, airlines, regulators) got together and decided that air travel was both important and dangerous. They started measuring death rates in deaths per billion passenger miles traveled. I think it started around 3000 deaths/Bmi and is now less than one. They will never be satisfied and more people travel because of it. The same approach is used in manufacturing. Toyota charges a premium for a reason. There is no acceptable failure rate in the BSA, the BSA should continue and the model should be find the low hanging fruit and solve that first. Repeat forever. Some people say that the BSA is not the only youth program with a problem and I agree. If the BSA can help germinate a safety program that works then surely the schools, churches and what not will eventually use the same approach, databases, etc. One thing I learned back in the 80's was that quality can't be added after the fact and there can't be a "quality" department. Quality has to be built in from the beginning and everyone has to understand it. So the BSA'S one person in charge of youth safety, research, improvement or whatever that guy was doing, was destined for failure. If you're looking for indicators of a good program for reducing CSA in the BSA, look at how it's structured among the heads of each silo that the BSA is notorious for having. Just one guy or one department, forget it. But if the guy incharge of improving adult training says the BSA doesn't need more units so much as better leaders because of improved program, YP, parent interest, etc. then something great will happen. In other words, if the BSA could get more interested in quality, of all types, over money then I think great things could happen.

Rather than give any money to the council I'd suggest going to one of the camps, ask them what they need that's worth about $250 and go buy it for them. They will be thankful. Do not give them the money and do not give it to the council saying it's for the camp as the camp will never see it. This is my experience. In the meantime, tell the guy that told you the 40% fable that the deal is off the table because they lied to you. Nobody pays 40%, not even for popcorn - that has a built in 33% that goes to the council. <end of rant>

I'll add my 2 cents about camping. One reason scouts say no about anything is they don't have a fun idea to grab onto. If someone asks if they want to go camping they could easily say no but if they're asked if they want to go on a campout, spend the morning playing a new game that covers a few acres, have a Dutch oven dessert competition and hang out with their friends, they might be more interested. It is boy led, but also adult encouraged. They may need help coming up with good ideas.

I was going to send you a PM but the image, that had nothing to do with the topic, was the problem as we've posted that images that are more sarcasm than useful commentary will be removed. I would have just removed the image but that's all there was. All these images do is raise the temperature without adding to the conversation.

Dad is shouting at the scouts about how to vote and the son doesn't get the votes needed. I suspect this is a case of the acorn not falling far from the tree. When I asked scouts why someone didn't get in the common response was "that scout is a very different person when no adults are around." Just a hunch but maybe the son also yells at the other scouts.

That's not very specific. That is. I agree with the SM, and the program in this case. Something tells me this is getting closer to the problem at hand. Can you give us a bit more information? This sounds like new parents that don't like how the troop is run. Could it be they still like the cub scout model and don't understand the scout model? If so, this is a common problem.

This seems to be a common problem throughout the BSA - how to explain the fundamentals succinctly. I hate to admit it but as SM it seemed to me that the primary purpose of the OA was to propagate the OA and get summer camp ready. If I were a better leader I might enjoy rebuilding my chapter to be a place to help scouts take useful skills back to their troops. I've just never seen it done this way.

Hi and welcome to the forum, @OaklandAndy.

It's still a great project. At 16 it was gear to grow food. At 22 it was that plus teaching people how to grow food. Clearly not a typical scout.

As we all are. Election doesn't make you an OA member, completing the ordeal does. As said before the term election isn't very accurate.

I like the nomination process because it worked in my troop. Scouts knew the other scouts better than the adults in my troop. It was never a popularity contest in my troop. Every time I disagreed with the scout vote and started asking questions I was corrected. The biggest problem was that the scouts had long memories. If you were a butt it would take a few years to change that perception.

Welcome to the forum, @DocDeVivo . Any uniform is acceptable, no matter how old.

I've always thought before that having a wider age range in scouts helped promote the magic of older scouts working with young. To me that magic was what scouting was about. And yet I can see how splitting that age group could help the scouts see the transition from younger scout to older. I had a lot of conversations with scouts along the lines of you're no longer the young scouts, it's time to start helping out. Something about the UK group system could also help that as well. The BSA also struggles with the transition between age ranges because they're separate units. If the same leadership ran through the entire age range then maybe those transactions would be easier. It's nice to talk about it but speaking of an uphill battle ...