MattR

Welcome to the forum, @Maxwell17. What's a PA?

It seems to me there's a problem when we're trying to define the meaning of words that are used to define what we're doing. Run vs lead vs led vs .... How about this: The job of the adults is to make the boys successful, where success is described as growing towards the ideals of scouting. If the scouts are taking on more responsibility then we're doing something right. A 12 year old PL is going to have a different definition of success compared to a 17 year old PL. I just got back from a backpacking trip with the scouts. One of the older scouts, who is 17.5, I met at a store a week ago and asked him if he'd like to go. He went, he was really a lot of help, and it was wonderful to see him help out. This same scout earned eagle when he was 14 and was a real pain in the butt. He was obnoxious and nobody really liked him as a leader but he did all the work and did a great eagle project. He kept coming by and I kept trying to get him interested but it took until last week before he took the bait. We did talk at one point and I told him how happy I was to see him. He told me he was a real butt when he was younger and apologized for that. We both agreed he had learned a lot. I don't know where this story fits in with run vs lead vs adult vs scout but it just seems like I did the right thing. On another topic, someone mentioned that woodbadge is based on what Bill Hillcourt set up years ago. I heard a different story. An old guy in my town went to a woodbadge class run by Hillcourt and the first thing Hillcourt did when he showed up was to tell everyone to ignore the flip charts and everything they were told. He then proceeded to focus on fun with a purpose. Each patrol made games based on skills found in various scout manuals. Then everyone played the games. That was it.

Maybe it's too easy to blame the parents on this. If you look at advancement resources vs outdoor fun resources the focus is clearly on advancement. There are pages of requirements. Manuals for judging the advancement. Arguments all over the place regarding examples of people doing things wrong. Then look at how to put on a fun, outdoor program and there isn't nearly as much. You don't even need to buy anything to keep it organized like the back of the scout handbook, no requirements to learn planning, no levels of learning how to make a skill into a fun activity. Unlike passing first aid or cooking, where there are levels and ranks to work up through, the fun things are just alluded too. Maybe that's why new parents with little experience move towards advancement, it's all laid out for them.

@Saltface and @Chris1, I sent you a PM.

Welcome to the forum! And thanks for the enthusiasm.

Holy Tintinnabulation, Batman! Good news on the grandson and your good health.

This is what I printed from their instructions. I must admit, the one they emailed to me is identical except that it has an expiration date. Guess what? my.scouting.org has bugs in it! Who would have thought?

I printed off the certificate and it clearly says "does NOT expire."

Welcome to the forum, @ncscouterz.

Welcome to the forum @mac266

Considering the 9 times I've take the previous versions every other year, it was kind of a sleeper.

Just to clarify what Jameson76 said. No, his eagle project is independent of the 6 months. He can take as long as he wants, as long as it's done before his 18th birthday. Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. He could complete all of his Eagle requirements in the 6 month minimum except for the last one, which is the board of review. BTW, that one does not need to be completed before his 18th birthday but it does need to be before 3 months after his 18th birthday. The reason for the 3 months is because it can take a month to set it all up and 3 is plenty of overhead. So, to answer your question, probably no.

Welcome to the forum, @MsAinGH.

Turns out the SE took care of it for me. The entire council staff had a sit down. Apparently the volunteers are important customers. Things have improved dramatically in the past week. Thanks for asking.

This is what I wish the BSA would focus on. I'd rather see them bet the farm on better training. If there's something that will increase membership it will be helping scouters, parents, and the community better understand the program. Axe and GPS skills are important but just understanding the basics is also important. The current model the BSA uses for training is based on the assumption that there are plenty of adults with plenty of outdoor and scouting experience. i.e., all they need to do is go over some BSA specific safety issues and they're good to run a program. Come up with a training program that solves this problem and make an issue of Scouter magazine about that. @qwazse has suggested ranks for adults and why not? Why not put parents in their own patrols to teach them about patrol method? I wonder if the whole push on family scouting isn't about the lack of skills that many adults have. I happen to think it's a half baked idea but there is something to think about. If the patrol method was working and patrols were independent then the adults could learn at the same time as the scouts and stay out of their way. For those that really don't want to camp put them in their own patrol. Make it official so every parent sees that what the PL is supposed to do and those troops that don't have PLs might just change.

Welcome to the forum, @DaBear-c5-324-15

Hi @Jishusa, welcome to the forum. While I'm not so sure about having the OA scouts decide that a scout must wait a month to try again, the idea of getting feedback from them is a very good idea. I've had scouts tell me, after an election went a completely different way then I thought, that a scout was very different when no adults were around. The best judge of a scout is the other scouts. They know who is lazy, who is a friend to the loner kid, who is selfish, who doesn't mind cleaning, who can be goofy and serious at the right times, .... I'd like to hear what other scouts have to say about a scout as much or more than what a scout has to say about himself. That said, the SM still should make the final call on this.

I like your idea, @qwazse. We were talking about how to get some parents to help out more and I suggested putting them in a patrol and teach them the patrol method (nod to @Eagledad). Not only that but they'd start having some fun and might see scouts differently. I always told people that one really great thing about scouts is you can do something with your son, it's not just standing on the sideline or in the audience. As to the rest of this thread, let's at least get back to the topic of the BSA betting on girls. I don't think it will have a huge impact on numbers, based on what I've seen in other parts of the world. I also don't think BSA is "betting the farm." Once this plays out I hope there is a consensus that it's time to start looking elsewhere about what will help. If the only thing holding scouts together is the knowledge of a bunch of old guys then that is the problem the BSA should work on. Once they can put a dent in that we can relax and just enjoy watching the camp fire.

it's not a troop position so you wouldn't see it. The UC is supplied by the district. He/she is a volunteer with usually a lot of experience. If you can't find it on the district web page then look for the District Commissioner, who can help you. If you can't find that title then look for the council commissioner or the district chair, either of which should be able to help you find a commissioner. I think this is the way to go, if you can find someone with experience and has a level personality. It's someone not tied to one side or the other and also with experience. I'd think that maybe if the SM realized you'd be gone for a few months then it's time to make an exception. Anyway, this whole situation is a shame and I'm sorry to hear things like this. It sounds like the SM is usually a good guy so maybe there's an echo chamber that just needs to be broken up.

I don't understand why participation can't be a requirement. Imagine the soccer player that only plays one game a season. Scouts is about doing so why not let the SM make a requirement? If it's too harsh then the scouts can go elsewhere. As long as it's consistent I'd be okay with it. I always told the scouts if they don't like the campouts then let's talk about it so they can do something about it. But it's easier to just not do anything. Getting back to the aims of scouting, I'm not sure how scouting can have much impact if the scouts are never around. Without the activities the aims are just a bunch of empty words. If the scouts can't make one campout a year then what's the point? Sounds to me like they just want that last patch. The cynic in me sees the point as sending $33 to national every year. Which brings up another point. My council chucked friends of scouting and now just requires $200/scout/year. So we've taken a few scouts off the roster. Five scouts that don't participate costs our troop $1000 a year. We can't make participation a requirement to advance but we will remove scouts from our troop if they don't participate. It doesn't really sound right but that's where we're at. I'll try and stop being a cynic now.

Every time I take a first aid course there's a caveat; don't go beyond your training. There's a guy that runs the youth program at our CO (a church) and this guy has seen a lot more than I have. Suicides, attempted suicides, drug and alcohol abuse, kids coming out. He's my go to person with experience. I only had to talk to him once but it was good advice. My advice is find someone with a lot more experience than you have.

I did a few on campouts but less rushed is not how I'd describe it. The scouts wanted to get back to whatever fun they were having. As much fun as I had with scouts I could never compete with scouts hanging out with their friends. I did a lot at my house. Those were the most relaxed and I could get scouts to talk the most.

@TDCA, welcome to the forum!

An important question, at least for me, is why? Why should older scouts do their conferences at campouts? Here are my guesses as to why. 1) There isn't enough time during meetings and the conferences are messing things up. SM is busy, older scouts aren't doing their job, .... This sounds plausible. It was frustrating for me that right before courts of honor a bunch of older scouts just completely bailed on their responsibility. If this is the case there are solutions. 2) The older scouts don't participate very much and this is a way to get them to do that. This is a bit cynical. It does add requirements and this one sounds wrong. That said, I did have a participation requirement that came from the fact that if you're in a patrol you're expected to help out and participate. Patrols are teams and teams require teamwork. This came from scouts always getting pushed to the back burner because every other activity does have rather severe participation requirements. I never found a good answer and I think this is a good thing to talk about. Anyway, trying to understand things from the SM's viewpoint might help this process.

I was at my district committee last night and heard something different. There are a number of LDS troops and just individual scouts in our town that are interested in continuing in the BSA past 2019. Some may want to do it just to complete eagle before the time limit runs out but there are also plenty that just like scouts. There's an effort by the district to try and find them a home so they can continue. Some troops want to move whole and some scouts are looking for non-LDS troops to join. The guy in our district leading this, who's on my camping committee and is about to become the district commissioner, belongs to the LDS church and is reaching out to others in the LDS community to let them know they can continue with scouts. He loves scouts and bleeds green. To be honest, when I get really frustrated with the district he's a great guy to talk to just because of his optimism. I wonder if anyone else has seen this. Apparently national is also seeing this.