MattR

Why? Here's my guess. No training, other than YP, is required to take scouts camping. Even if, say, IOLS were required, it's close to worthless. I say that because I taught some sections once and after having just 20 minutes to teach how to safely use and sharpen an axe I decided I didn't want anything more to do with it. Of course, I was also the district camping chair who organized the camporees and there is no training required for that as well (or at least I never took any). Anyway, my guess is the BSA is worried about clueless leaders creating dangerous activities. Am I close? I understand, but at the same time I don't see how a district event is any safer. The district people have the same training as the unit people.

All scouters or just a few? That and "hostile" could be a big red flag or it could be really poor communication. Complaints in the same troop? Or just in general? If it's from the same people that sound hostile then my suggestion is find the right people to talk to. There's a big communication problem. If it's in general and this someone in this troop said they don't want your help then I agree with the suggestion of talking to the committee chair or SM.

I can't think of anything better than the tool man thing that @Eagledad suggested. Other than that, hype the fun things. Talk about the campfire. Roasting sugar, skits, the whole thing. While they won't cook their meals they can help decide what they want to eat. Give them 3 options and have them vote. If you're experienced with dutch ovens and are willing to make a cake or brownies, tell them you're going to bring an oven - and the whole cake thing, of course. If they feel good about sleeping and food, that should cover most of their fears.

I think that's how they got home.

I hope the Russians don't see that. They seem to have their own logistics problems.

The child usa report sub topic was split off to Please note that this thread is supposed to be about things directly related to the bankruptcy case, as in whether the judge is aware of it. Thanks for your patience.

Maybe the phrase needed is the CO is legally responsible for the unit. Finances and youth safety being the biggest issues. If something goes wrong, who owns the mess? That's supposed to be the CO. It can't be a volunteer. Given that the CO is responsible, in order for the unit leaders to have any autonomy there needs to be trust between the unit and CO. Primarily, that means the CO needs to trust the unit leaders. That takes time and effort. It's the same thing for when the unit leaders allow the scouts to lead. Without trust the adults won't let go. Again, it takes time and effort to develop trust. Both sides need to actively work on it.

If they can't explain the benefit and you have to ask us, but they will take your money ... sounds like a scam. Might be better to spend that money on a photo album to give your son. He'll one day look at it and remember some good times. That's what yearbooks are for.

Update on the hawk: it tried 3 times to pick off our dog. The dog is a 10 lb fluff ball that we got after my mother in law passed. It will ignore any shouting to come home unless it's wearing a beeper collar. But it's 5 degrees out so I figure it won't go far. He didn't. I got to see the whole thing. That hawk had to pull up every time at the last second. Unlucky for the hawk. Very lucky for the dog. And the dog is usually very timid but this time he wanted to play with the big bird with the big talons. And I'm shouting at the dog while also wanting to watch this fascinating bird hunt.

I'm sorry to hear that. I'm reduced to hiking and biking. Well, and backpacking if I keep it real light. I'm still angry with bear canisters

Well, maybe it's my fault for poking a poorly written post and I apologize for that, but this thread needs to get back to scoutlike. @BobbyRo, if you care to explain both your scouting experience and where or what this confidential change in YP is, the rest of the people here might be able to make sense of some confusing statements. If not, I suggest this thread go back to where it was in 2018. I've hidden posts, including my own, that caused this mess.

@Eagledad, how ideas grow from the bottom up: a simple idea that works is easy to replicate and takes over the market. Say that a council has 5 such packs with waiting lines to get in. That would gain a lot of attention. Certainly there's an assumption that it would be popular enough to create a waiting line but, to be honest, parents are desperate for ways to get their kids away from screens and be more responsible. One of the approaches is as simple as "over the next week do something you've never done before. Then write it up on a piece of paper and bring it in." That is not only really simple but it develops confidence and instant results that parents see. And other kids will learn from it. A kid makes his family breakfast or gets a younger sibling ready for school or just walks to school on their own.

Start from the bottom but make sure the entire program is so simple that you can teach it to someone over a cup of coffee. Simplicity will make it easier to grow, much like scouting when it was new. Make it explicit such that everyone involved knows. Just as importantly, explicitly remove the distractions. There is only one method - scouts learning to play and make their own decisions while abiding by the scout law. Advancement is a distraction if the goal is for scouts to define their fun or challenges. Simplify the uniform to be a tee-shirt and a neckerchief - both of which the scouts design. A good picture is defined as much by what's not there as what is. Make a good picture.

I was thinking about this in the context of, well, this thread - scouts learning to find their own fun - and maybe fixing the cub program might help the scout program. As a den leader I tried to follow the program of activity pins. It was difficult, hard, time consuming and not many cubs from my den moved to a troop. I was burned out, relieved it was over and the only reason I went to a troop was I knew what scouting could be. Contrast that with a program, linked to on page 1, of encouraging kids to learn how to play. The adults don't burn out because they're not trying to entertain kids while going over a bunch of repetitive activity pins. The kids do what they're naturally good at, they play. They make up games. They solve people problems. They look out for younger kids. The adults learn to back off. It also takes fewer adults. Imagine those kids transferring to a troop. They would already have the skills to be in a patrol. Given some options they could pick the skills they wanted to learn. The parents would already understand to let the scouts deal with issues.

Welcome to the forum, @BobbyRo. I hope you realize the thread you responded to is 3 years old. Maybe you can describe the changes coming?

And the irony is this isn't a very elegant way to help But getting back to the OP, @5thGenTexan, I wonder if the approach used in Let Grow might really help a pack. The age range is similar. I think the basic idea is get a bunch of stuff, let them figure out how to play with it and only step in if it really is a safety issue (or maybe an opportunity to talk about the scout law as it pertains to a specific incident). If some scouts want to make skits then that's their program for the meeting while others do something else. I suppose adults could also be there to help with an activity pin, if that's what the scouts want to do. And if they just want to play with wood blocks and crash cars into it, then fine, they're at least not playing video games. One of my goals as SM was to push for a good game at each meeting. A successful meeting was a bunch of sweaty, smiling scouts at the end. It absolutely hurts me to see the troop push off a game because there are more important things to do. For a child, playing is important. The challenge for the adults is understanding how to play. Unfortunately, requirements are the antithesis of play.

I haven't seen the '21 report but our numbers were cut in half in '20. We had about 4000 cubs and scouts in '20. I don't keep in touch with those in the know anymore. Other than we were losing packs before covid, for lack of volunteers, I really don't know more. As @vol_scouter said, it's time for someone younger to take over.

Welcome to the forum, @plumlee

Okay, let's make it official, no more references to the Holocaust.

What I liked about that chapter I linked to was that the author has a very clear, concise description of the program. It is as close to fun with a purpose as I've ever seen. The kids have fun making up games and playing them. The purpose is they learn people skills and imagination. I think the BSA could borrow those ideas heavily. That model is really close to what younger scouts want. Just make it outdoors. Adapt the safety so, for example, if a scout wants to play with knives they first have to learn knife safety. When they realize the blade is no longer cutting it's a great time for them to learn how to really sharpen a blade. There is no need for requirements. Requirements are an external motivation whereas playing is all about internal motivation. When I play with my camera it's never about taking a photo that might impress anyone. It's not even to impress myself. It's just to see what happens. It's the best way to learn. Older scouts are a bit trickier. Some will be happy guiding younger scouts. Some will be happy doing campouts. Some will like the external motivation that a rank requires. However, none of them enjoy any requirements that can be done over zoom. When I was a scout I was driven by requirements that looked like a challenge. Cooking for your patrol seemed daunting. A 5 mile backpacking trip is still a memory I won't forget. Describe and discuss never existed, I never did it, or I have completely erased it from my memory. I agree. I may quibble that it's not so much too easy as too boring. The issue for me is the detailed requirements that get in the way of having fun while playing. The requirements for eagle should fit on a single sheet of paper. The Camping merit badge has 10 requirements, many with sub requirements, but if you flatten that tree there are 36 requirements. How about just do 50 nights of camping? First aid is do a wilderness first aid course. Swimming is swim 1000 yards. Biking is ride 250 miles of which one ride is at least 50 miles. Cooking is cook at least 21 meals that will feed at least 2 people with 3 of those that will feed at least 8. If you cook 21 meals, ride your bike 250 miles, do wilderness first aid, swim 1000 yards and camp 50 nights, you will learn something good. That's all that matters. Get rid of Personal Fitness, all the citizenship MBs, Family Life and all the others that tend to get done within 3 months of turning 18. The scouts remember none of it and it's just a time sink at MBU and summer camp. As for summer camp, it should be doing fun skills to improve those skills. No merit badges or requirements. For the scouts that really like the classroom environment, they need to be broken of that habit in scouts or at least not catered to. By catering to the zoom crowd the kids that want to do outdoors are pushed away. It's really difficult to get backpacking permits in national parks because there are so many people that love the outdoors. A lot of them were never scouts. A childhood friend of my son is a river raft guide, spends a fair amount of time in Costa Rica doing that, teaches snow boarding, has a wilderness EMT certification and can easily carry everything he needs in a backpack for months at a time. He has an adventurous spirit. He does not like schoolwork. He was never interested in scouts as a kid. That's the kind of kid that scouts should encourage.

Lenore Skenazy, who wrote the book Free Range Kids about just letting kids play more rather than all the structure/school work, helped start a new program called Let Grow, which is about setting up more play at schools. There's more info at letgrow.org (there's a free chapter in a second edition of her book at https://letgrow.org/free-chapter/ about how to set up a program at schools - K-8) but anyone here could have written it. Kids learning to be social, solve problems, help out younger kids, be self sufficient, gain confidence and, most importantly, have a lot of fun. It also explicitly calls out the challenge of forcing adults to back off. It targets a different age group than scouts but there are a lot of similarities. Kids are in an environment where they're let free to figure it all out. Adults are around for safety only. One other important point is that where they've set this up at schools there tends to be waiting lines for kids to get in. What struck me about this is that the niche that the BSA supposedly has, the outdoors, is just wasted not only because of adults crowding out the kids abilities to learn how to make decisions, but that the advancement program is a major black hole of time, creativity and fun. Maybe it's time for the BSA to eat crow and admit they don't have it all figured out.

Welcome to the forum, @NJScout1980

As for footwear, find an outdoor shop with lots and lots of options. Feet are all different and so are shoes. What fits me might not fit you. If they only have a few options in your size then look elsewhere. The best store in my town is a local shop with knowledgeable people that will just start bringing out piles of boxes. Also, make sure they have a ramp to stand on to make sure your feet don't slide forward and mash your toes. Long hikes down hills can result in a lot of misery, dead toenails, etc. That's the main reason I went back to boots when hiking steep grades. Plan on replacing the footbeds. Most shoe/boot companies put in fairly worthless ones. Good ones can provide support for your arches. Oh, and bring in your old footbeds. The guy in the store took one look at mine and told me my boots were too small.

That's amazingly short sighted. I can see how the BSA wants to use fun pictures for advertising but some parents don't want their kids' photos public because they're afraid an ex might find their kid and kidnap them. I didn't make that up, we had to deal with exactly that situation once. I take photos for my school district and they have the final say on what photos can be published. There are parents that don't want public photos of their kids. It's fortunately very few.

That would be much prettier than Philmont. There is a scout camp 8 miles from Yellowstone- Camp Buffalo Bill (campbuffalobill.com) that has a program that uses Yellowstone. I'm not sure but maybe you could just use their camp as a campsite for day hikes. It wouldn't be free but it would be nicer than the tent camping in Yellowstone. While wind river might not have permit requirements they might have a "number of heartbeats" (so people and pack animals) requirements for group size.