MattR

The two dads that want to take their daughters' patrol camping but can't because no mom wants to join. The whole reasoning behind two deep leadership is that at least one of those adults will be, well, an adult. How about 3 deep leadership in this case and we'll just hope at least one dad will be okay. The BSA has never worried about two men being pedophiles with the boys but now they're worried about two men molesting girls. To me, this sounds odd.

I'm not sure if or why it was moved to Scoutmaster Minutes, but you have to admit it's a good story to tell a scout. There's nothing wrong with asking for help. There is something wrong with just hoping a problem will go away on its own. Swallow your pride and just ask. I do this all the time when I misplace my glasses, my keys, my phone, .... and my wife is more than willing to help me out.

We're talking about the same thing. I assumed it was under venturing. Anyway, it's like a crew only they focus on water craft. If you can find one that's we'll run then it sounds like your son might enjoy it. He can still be in the troop.

Do you mean a venturing ship? Could be the ticket.

@qwazse, what's the cost? For us, any Bechtel Jambo is North of $3500 so I won't even consider it.

I'm not sure what you mean. How does a business directly benefit any unit? Is your CO the PD? If so, go ahead and ask and just let them know you're fine if they say no. They may have money set aside for making donations and they might think it's a great idea.

The guy in our district did that and the scouts really enjoy it. He chucked all the MBs that were school work. They had welding and stuff like that. Some parents freaked out but the scouts enjoyed it. I don't think they went quite as far as what I think you've talked about before.

@gblotter, congratulations to your son. With 57 MBs he clearly enjoyed it so it was the right thing for him. I'm not saying advancement and adventure are mutually exclusive. There's just an imbalance. Advancement, as it stands, was an adventure for your son and that's great. It's not for most scouts. I'm suggesting either the advancement be modified to be more adventurous or that advancement have less emphasis. It's a challenge to fry an egg if you've never done it before. I hate to say this but I know plenty of scouts that have completed cooking MB and still can't cook a pancake. But they have described and discussed the food plate. My son was okay with MBs that involved doing things. The worst were the citizenship ones, mainly because he already saw it all in school.

I think there is a relatively easy way to help the boys. It may sound a bit of a cliche but focus on the patrol method. A patrol of boys challenging themselves is still within the realm of BSA's program. They will do what is natural for them, have a lot of fun, and learn what we really want them to do. On father's days I was talking to my son, who completed eagle nine years ago, about the BSA. We haven't talked about it much since then but he'd fit right in on this forum. His words: scouting should be the anti-school. If it's classwork it sucks, don't do it. Also, eagle is not nearly as important as all the adults make it out to be. Anymore, eagle is just plodding though a bunch of boring merit badges, which are mostly schoolwork. His best memories have nothing to do with advancement. They're about adventure, some legit and some not. They're about friends. They're about doing things. It's not that he looks down on eagle but he would have much rather had an environment where eagle is a consequence, not the goal it has turned into. When I was 16 years old I was one MB and an eagle project away from eagle and I just didn't even care about it. My best friend moved so I quit scouts. I told my son that and he said that's the way it should be. That's what boys want. It's not the boys that push for eagle, it's the parents, the scouters, the council and the BSA. People are worried that the addition of girls is going to wreck scouting for boys but the emphasis on schoolwork and advancement is what's doing it. Eagle has become the koolaid. And yet there's nothing that requires all of this. All it takes are some adults that are willing to support the patrol method, to explain to the scouts the options of what scouting is about, and to defend their decisions. I keep saying that fixing venturing, because it doesn't have the advancement aim, will fix scouts. That's where this discussion about what boys need should go.

Ask them what they want. I'm now our district camping chair. I've been trying to get a discussion going with the SMs to get them involved with coming up with camporees that help support them. I'm pushing patrol method but other than that I just want events that they want to come to. I've gone to troops and asked scouts for ideas. The response has been a surprise, as in they are surprised that anyone would ask. So far it's worked well.

Do I remember the adults garters and tabs? That was 45 years ago! I assume they were the same colors as the scouts' uniforms because the BSA uses the same uniforms for adults as scouts. Where are you in Argentina? My son was in Coronel Suarez, a small farm town North of Bahia Blanca, for a year as an exchange student. BTW, Skip and Ian will get email to read this thread because of the way I quoted their names.

Yes, it sure is a mess. But the tent still works? Here's a different view of this: The gear is not the goal. The goal is the scouts. In particular, the goal is for the scouts to learn how to take care of the gear. What I'd do at this point is ask the scouts how they did and whether or not they had problems. i.e., get them to see that it was not a good paint job. Then work with them to fix the problem, cheerfully. What they learn is that they can fix problems and there are adults that will help them do that. That's a win. As for the gear, it still works. The scouts that use it don't care. It's all good.

Hi @Falconidei, and welcome to the forum. Maybe the best people to ask are our friends from the UK, @Cambridgeskip, @ianwilkins. So, what were the original scout colors for uniforms? When I was a scout we had bright red garters.

Okay, let's all step back a bit. When we start talking about liberals, Trump and Obama we're well past trying to come to agreement. The OP was about parents gaming the system to have their kid be the first female eagle. Here's a solution to that problem: Don't number the first 1000 female eagles. Oh, and call the parents on the obvious gaming.

Those Iowans! They need to come up with their own city names. There are two cities I've lived in with duplicates in Iowa. Waterloo is the other. BTW, my wife is from Iowa and we drive to Dubuque multiple times a year. It's pretty along the Mississippi. Either way, that's a great story. Every scout needs good friends in a troop, or OA, in order to stick around. The friendships that started in cubs are great. An adult pointed out to me that a scout has to make friends by the time they're 14 or they won't stick around.

Something also that's amazing is that scouts in Colorado were reported in a local Iowa paper.

Is it possible to quantify this a bit? How often does a scout get permanent damage on a hike from mishandling a first aid situation? How often does a parent know enough to make a difference in such a situation? What training does an adult need to make a difference in such a situation and how many adults have that training? Standard first aid assumes there's an ambulance 5 minutes away. First aid MB is mostly a joke. If it weren't then I wouldn't have to renew my first aid in a week from now. Wilderness first aid touches on more issues. So how many adults have taken wilderness first aid and how many of the two deep leadership, on a hike, have done this? All of these numbers suggest that, for one, this is a very unlikely scenario, and for two, an adult won't make much difference. All in all, if someone is going to sue then they're going to do it whether an adult was there or not. But let's look at the benefit of letting scouts go on their own. I've had discussions with scouts about what they're going to do if things go bad. This is not a normal discussion with a teenager. They know it's for real. It's not pretend leadership with the adults off in the wings ready to jump in. The scouts take this very seriously. It's one of the best experiences a scout can have. Real responsibility. This is an adventure for the scouts. Every single scout that has led a group on a hike has learned something useful. Rather than a blanket rule about assuming 2 adults will solve every problem I'd much rather see some form of training for SM's on how to ensure the scout motto is applied in this scenario.

It seems there are a few assumptions here about what it means for two adults to be at an activity. If the activity is cooking a meal then does that mean there needs to be 2 adults in each camp site? That's ridiculous. So there needs to be 2 adults on the camp property? That makes more sense. What if the property is a national forest? My point is until someone starts describing in some detail what this means you may as well not read too much into it. It really gets down to trust, as it always has been.

@Sentinel947, you can run but you can't hide. Anyway, good luck and thanks for your help.

@jjlash, I had the same experience. The people I met were very enthusiastic and that rubbed off. The rest was just okay. I wish I had had a better mentor for picking my ticket. I was just guessing. BTW, I deleted your duplicate post.

If anyone asked me for help right now in starting a troop, and I had the time and energy, I absolutely would because I could do it the way I wanted. There would be no baggage to deal with. I'd explain to the adults how it is going to be and they'd vote on whether I should continue. I'd have a list of job descriptions that they'd have to fill to get things going. I'd come up with a list of games that involved teaching outdoor skills for the scouts to understand what meetings and campouts looked like. The scouts would pick a calendar. As for leadership development every single scout would take leadership training. The first thing would be teamwork training. Next would be patrol training. Next would be QM, Grub Master, and How to Teach Scout Skills training. Next would be patrol leader training. Eventually there would be SPL training. I'd make leadership training look similar to rank advancement. Focus hard on an aspect and get some bling when mastery is shown. One of the big challenges for boys and girls is getting them to take a chance. Scouting doesn't work without it. It used to be that boys were quite good and just jumped in and made do. Anymore it's not so much. That's a challenge that any new troop has to deal with. I would be very upfront with scouts about this issue. I would have them pick their own quarterly challenges. These aren't just goals of tasks to complete, but something out of their comfort zone. A real challenge that they'd never done before. It could just be go camping without mom and dad or it could be backpack up a 1000' hill, or pass the rifle qualifying requirement. Bring back the sense of adventure. Everyone has a challenge and everyone else knows it, encourages it, celebrates when it's met.

Welcome to the forum, @malraux

I wouldn't know. Google is my friend. I just read the one paragraph. But thank you for the explanation. I do enjoy this type of thing. I haven't asked for it. And in all honesty I'd be a bit afraid of one. It might sound odd because I really do enjoy reading bits of wisdom from people much wiser than I. But I'm not sure if it would work. I'm a bit cynical but how many scouters really do respect the religious beliefs of other people? The only way it would work would require everyone to accept any and all beliefs of everyone. Pagans, Baptists, Wiccans, atheists, Hassidic Jews, .... Without that anyone that started drawing lines as to what a legitimate religion was would just create a storm. It has to come from the point that each other person's belief is right for them. I've had plenty of people insult my religious beliefs and some were scouters, so I'm not sure it would work. You're welcome to contradict my skepticism.

Birthday cake.

@David CO and @The Latin Scot, I've sent you both a PM.