MattR

Good catch. It's now in Open Discussion. While friends are currently the best way to get new members, @Snowball makes a good point in that there's not a good sell of why scouting is good, primarily aimed at the parents. In other words, just because friends is the current best method doesn't mean that's good enough. As the numbers go down there are fewer friends and hence, fewer new scouts. We ask the scouts in our troop to bring freinds and that's a small number of kids that show up. Of the ones that get in the door, many join, but we don't see many friends. Scouting is a weird mix and it's not at all obvious why it's a good program unless you've seen it. That's a problem. Everyone understands what sports is about so teams don't need to sell the why, scouting does need to sell the why. So let's try here. Give a few words that describe the benefits of scouting, directed towards the parents, that do not come from the law or oath. I'd say responsible, confident, and caring. Anyone else?

My understanding is indoor crowds (bars and tattoo parlors) are much worse than outdoor crowds. A fair amount of analysis has gone into this. I'm cautiously optimistic those scouts have a fun safe trip. That would be wonderful news. 69roadrunner, keep us informed till a few weeks after they get back.

I don't. But I suspect a critical mass of girls having fun doing scoutish things would really help. Campfire, s'mores, girl scout songs along with cheerful, friendly and kind. All new scouts are looking for the same thing: will I be welcome here? The worst thing I've seen is a program for new scouts that the old scouts don't care for. The new scouts get some lip service about how great the troop is and then the new scouts are mostly ignored for the rest of the night. The new scouts read right through it. But that.doesn't answer the question of how to get them in the door.

Not sure if this is considered legal, given all the lack of clarity, but our take was that scouts had accounts and any money earned could be used to defer expenses that pertained only to scouting. So, paying for summer camp or uniforms was okay but buying gear that could be used outside of scouting was not. After the scout left the troop the remainder of the account went to the general fund. So, the money was used in the context of scouting and the scout gained experience at earning money and managing it, both of which are skills we want them to learn. It didn't bother any of the CPA's in the troop and they were much happier that scouts couldn't use the money to buy skis or bikes. They were extremely happy that we wouldn't write a check for the balance once scouts turned 18, which is what was going on before I was SM. Pick your battles.

Just an FYI, we've been removing media that does not pertain to the topic. I'm tired of being the school marm with the ruler smacking knuckles. Consider your knuckles spared

@mashmaster, I always tell scouts that email is not effective. If the scout wants others to show up he should talk to them. Phone will work but going up and asking them, personally, is the way to do it. Since it's such a cool project, he could also tell them there will be pizza and a chance to use the trail afterwards.

Is a McDonald's franchise considered a separate legal entity from the corporation? Maybe it's time for someone with legal expertise to help us understand the relationship between councils and the BSA. Just a hunch, but since the courts haven't thrown out the idea that councils are part of the BSA, it's not simple.

Looks like you're right. Once upon a time I thought it was.

If the scout does a great job as APL then give him credit for it. It's up to the SM. There's nothing that says an apl can't get credit. That said, it's the pl that should give the apl a job to do. The pl might need guidance on how to do that, but that's okay. There's plenty of work to be done as pl. Good leadership is about working oneself out if a job.

What does it take to sew canvas or typical tent fabric? Canvas seems way to thick for a standard sewing machine. Can it be done by hand? I think it would be a great scout project. Make a patrol tent composed of a single pole and segments, one for each patrol member, that zips, ties or snaps together. </wistful thinking about camping>

If you have more than 29 fingers and toes than ... you're a centipede?

I'm on my 3rd anniversary of my 29th anniversary of my 29th birthday.

Hi everyone, it's me, again, a moderator. It seems that the temperature on social media has gone up in the past week. I've seen some really ugly things posted on facebook recently by scouters I know. Bad enough that I'm wondering why I should even be in scouting anymore, much less trying to keep the peace on this forum. But then I remember that scouting is good for the world and I try for another day. While things are not too ugly here, I see people talking past each other. Buried down in the core of this argument is something worth discussing but instead people get hung up on peripheral comments that were either not well thought out or taken the wrong way. Either way they aren't helping getting any sort of solution to the core of the problem. What is very clear to me is that before anyone can deal with bigotry they have to first master Courteous.

Hey everyone, moderator here. This thread is a bit past Courteous. Comments are getting personal. I'd say the easiest way to fix it is to walk away from it for a day. YIS, MattR

A scout, that used to be in my troop and is now a cop on the city police force, said it's a very complicated mess. As long as people appreciate that fact I think it's possible to talk about it. We talked about a lot of issues and I learned a lot. Let's just say I'm proud of this scout and my town's police force. I think this is one of those areas where there are lots of assumptions on both sides about how easy it is to solve that just make things hard to talk about.

Here's another idea: Make scouting more available to kids in poor neighborhoods. Rather than describe and discuss, do. I read a discussion among some people trying to figure out how to reduce violence in poor neighborhoods. A study was brought up in which three different approaches were tried. The first was increase police. The second was increase social workers. The third was replace dilapidated buildings with parks and playgrounds. The first two did very little but the third made a substantial impact. They also mentioned how important youth programs are. They mentioned Boys and Girls Clubs but not scouts.

Wow. The things I never knew about scouter.com. Hey guys, bring your friends.

I copied and pasted the text here, as @SSScout's link didn't work. .

I think scouting is missing a huge opportunity right now. I was reading a discussion about positive ways to reform police departments and there was a really interesting observation. A study was done on ways to reduce crime in poorer sections of cities and they tried 3 things: increase police, increase social aid, and just tearing down abandoned buildings and putting in parks. The most effective was putting in parks. It created community and places for kids to play. They then mentioned that youth programs greatly help police. They mentioned Boys and Girls Clubs but didn't mention scouts. That kind of hurt. It hurt even more realizing that, as scouts currently stands, it would likely not work. And yet if there's ever a part of our cities that could use scouting, these are the places. Put another way, if scouting can't figure out how to work in these places then I think scouting has become irrelevant. And it's not because parents don't care for character development, it's that the current program is all twisted out of shape from what it started as. Didn't scouting start for kids in cities? To me it seems that the target group of kids are those in suburbs.

Any chance we can borrow Bear for a few years?

Sometime I wonder if BP's push for scouts was a case of trying to make amends for what happened in his military career. If so, I think his statue should stay up. Plenty of people with problems have turned things around.

I almost went to Philmont. Other than that I've done about 15 trips with my troop, all of which we put on ourselves. I will admit, it does take more work than just writing a check but a wiki full of ideas would cover that.

Well what do you know, that's the perfect description of why I'm not a fan of BSA training. I keep telling scouts if they really knew the material they were trying to teach it would be really easy to both teach it and easier to come up with fun events to use it. I went and read the BPSA Pathfinder manual. In all honesty I really liked it. It stops at First Class. Very little describe, discuss, explain. Lots of practical do. Some MB's, like first aid, require retesting every year, just like the adults. Senior proficiency badges. And the capstone req for First Class is to go on a 14 mile backpacking trip or 30 mile bike trip on your own or with another scout that goes overnight. No eagle, but hey, no eagle! The scouts would have to figure out what they want to do. That and it would be a lot cheaper.

One of our camps is used by a local university's forestry program as a lab on how to thin forests. Is that the type of logging you're talking about? Or is it logging wood to sell? If the latter then not us, as all we have is Ponderosa Pine.

Hey everyone, this thread is not in Issues and Politics, so please keep your issues about politics for another thread Just to be clear, this thread is about Philmont not opening.