MattR

@@Eagledad. Okay, "models what the youth go through" is not quite what I meant. What I meant was make it fun, make it outdoors, have levels of learning (kind of like ranks but not the same ones), and have something similar to badges so adults can focus on something. It's not just about outdoor skills but also how a troop is supposed to work. Make a big deal at a COH when someone advances. Ease them in. Don't just dump a FOS presentation on them. I agree that putting adults in a patrol and expecting them to understand the difficulty of creating that for scouts is a waste of time. I've seen the exact same thing you have. The only thing I don't like about the coach idea is we already have that and it doesn't work in my council. They're called unit commissioners. I bet you'd be a great coach. I can guarantee you that we don't have anyone with any experience at turning troops around. Besides, people might not listen to a coach. As much as I don't like power point presentations some structure would help. I hadn't thought of the moms-want-male-roll-models scenario. Here's another one. Don't moms also want that for their daughters? My wife is the softy and I'm the hard one. We appreciate that both are needed for both our kids, a son and a daughter. Also, shouldn't every girl be exposed to men that treat women right? How many single moms of daughters would like their daughters to know what a gentleman is? I have concerns as well. I'm just trying to find ways to make it, which is likely inevitable, work.

Someone should start a poll: Biggest concern is -girls?, -too many moms?, -lack of moms? I lean towards the last. Eagle94-a1, Would it be easier to get moms involved in crews if they were coming up with their daughters? There's a long learning curve for adults. Eagledad says it's 3 years. What parent is going to get involved when their daughter turns 14? I know some moms of scouts that were girls scouts as kids and did a lot of outdoor stuff, didn't have any daughters and never felt at home in the BSA. Some of them made it work but it was a struggle. I know this won't change the worry about getting sued but as long as there are dads with daughters around, nobody will do stupid stuff. How about if there are no moms then at least one girl's dad must be there. Call him the designated mom. Eagledad, I believe your concern with moms not being interested. But isn't that just the canary in the coal mine? There are also fewer dads that are interested in the outdoors or letting their kids learn things the hard way. Girls or not, the program issue is still there. I think the BSA has been selling scouts the wrong way to parents. All they say is volunteer or else. I joined because I wanted to have fun with my son. Yes, I had outdoor experience but I have learned so much more as an adult. The best adults are those that act like kids so why not push that model. Have a training program that models what the youth go through. The current adult training is pathetic. It's mostly classroom. It pays lip service to outdoor skills. It's one and done. Where have we seen these problems before?

I'm worried bout this as well. But there are a few things that might solve this. I'm not worried about the easy campouts, more so with the challenging ones. 1) Do moms not show up because they don't want to be around a situation that is obviously all male. i.e., if there were girls would more moms show up? 2) If the troop is girls only then there's no problem for the all boys troops 3) While the college aged women that like the outdoors might not be interested in being an adult leader, it might not be too hard to convince a few that the girls 7 years younger than them could really use them as chaperons on campouts. All they need to do is show up and camp. I could see that a lot more than seeing college aged men helping a troop. 4) Patrol method. Girls patrol, boys patrol. Do what you want. 5) Girls or no, we have to figure this problem out because there are fewer people of either sex with good outdoor skills. Lots of people camp in the summer, few do in the winter. An advancement program for adults would be useful.

When they allowed gays they changed their minds from making it local option to requiring it in all units. As I said, I wouldn't doubt if they are going to allow girls in at all ages. What we don't know are the details. Your link to the national SE blurb sure implies to me that Family Scouting is just a way to say girls in scouting. The fact that they are staying away from the term coed might mean they are not tied to mixing boys and girls within a unit, but have all girl units as well as all boy units.

Everyone seems to be making a lot of assumptions here. The only one that I'd believe is that the BSA will increase programs for girls. Whether that means packs, dens, troops, or patrols will be coed nobody knows. Whether it means extending venturing down to 11 and making cubs coed, nobody knows. It could be local option and the unit decides. It could be they are all coed. Maybe they just don't know and that's why they're asking questions.

I got the same note from my wife.

While we aren't ripping on each other we are ripping on national. We all agree with each other, for a change. So in a way this is a team building exercise But seriously, there is an underlying issue here. My two cents: First of all, this change in palms will have no impact on anything I see. It looks to me like a symptom of how national does not have much of a vision on how to turn things around. The one message that we, on this forum, keep coming up with is fix the program before tinkering with anything else. Changing the way palms are handed out does not fix the program. It sounds a lot like FCFY. And that's based on the view that the only thing scouts want is bling. That's what everyone is ripping on. Scouts want friends, fun, challenge, and growth. Merit badges could be part of that as a way to get scouts to try new things, but merit badges have become too much class work and the scouts are not interested. I would much rather see a rewrite of the fun merit badges to include more doing and less discussing. Or have a bronze, gold, and silver palm for each MB that increases the skill so the scout that likes shooting or climbing or first aid is encouraged to get to the next level. Or help councils create events so scouts can more easily participate in the fun parts of the MBs. There are lots of things that could be done but just greasing the bling sled is not helpful.

Because it's a lot easier than fixing something that matters? Hammers looking for nails? Because someone realized that most scouts that earn Eagle with plenty of time to spare still don't get palms. Rather than say there's something wrong with the MBs it's easier to just pave the way to increase numbers. From the survey linked to above: "Eagle Palms ranked sixth [behind good quality troop programs, high adventure, strong Scout leaders, troop positions of responsibility, and Order of the Arrow when it came to eagle retention]. However, when asked separately, 69% of respondents agreed at some level that the Eagle Palm program is an important factor in retaining Scouts." At some level?

This will have no impact on anything of importance to me. So I guess I don't really care. Most scouts don't really care about merit badges, especially those that are close to 18 when they get Eagle. I hate saying this but MBs are mostly boring homework assignments. I would much rather see a push to make MBs more activity based than they are now (describe, discuss, explain, snore). The changes are orthogonal to what I would like to see.

@@Cambridgeskip, that looks like fun. My guess is a punt is the same as a gondola in Venice? The closest thing to that in the US is a paddle board, but a lot harder and much less relaxing. @@Col. Flagg, Lake Powell is in Texas? I always thought it was in Utah and Arizona

How does one plane on a forum? Is this like a wake board? Is that even in the GTSS? I think you should be down voted for suggesting dangerous activities.

We had a similar discussion about Obedient once upon a time. Trust is a big part of it. If you don't trust your SM or PL then there are bigger issues. If you trust them, then do as they say.

Then delete the post. I mean, you pissed everyone off.

I'd be careful with green=I agree and red=I disagree. FB does not have a dislike button for a reason. What they have is a bunch of different ways to agree. And the result is great for pictures of kids graduating from school. When it comes to anything with more than one side it has created an echo chamber. Now throw in a dislike button. Kaboom. We already know who agrees and disagrees. I'd rather see green=this is helping the discussion and red=this is not helping the discussion. My guess is a lot of people don't see the difference between "I agree" and "this is helping the discussion" so maybe it just doesn't matter.

All the scouts I know couldn't care less about the toilets and showers. A nearby council's camp has the worst shower and bathroom facilities I've ever seen and every troop I know loves the place. That's because they put all their money into the staff. They have the best staff I've ever seen. That's what the scouts like. The scouts do not care about the showers. As long as they take a shower on Friday I don't care either. Move on. Scouts can figure out shower schedules. Asking the scouts what they think about girls in scouts would be much more useful. Based on previous membership issues I suspect the scouts have a much better insight than the adults.

If you go to Home -> BSA -> Camping -> Knives & Accessories -> Knives (through the menus) or http://www.scoutstuff.org/bsa/camping/knives-accessories/knives.html There are 4 Helle knives. Not sure what this is about, just trying to help.

We had several exchange students live with us and we heard the exact same thing. The difference seems to be the level of trust between parents and kids here vs elsewhere. I see a lot of parents in scouts that very explicitly develop trust with their kids. I also see a lot that are flat out afraid of what their kids will do on their own. Boy led/patrol method/the heart of scouting/whatever anyone wants to call it implies trust between the scouts and adults. Many parents don't trust their kids so scouting has a big challenge. I don't see this having much to do with girls, moms, or previous scouting experience. I've seen moms make it worse but a lot of dads, eagle or not, are also guilty. There were comments on this forum that as soon as girls are let in the male scouters are going to be regularly implicated in sexual misconduct because ... we can't trust girls. I stepped down as SM a month ago and the adults have already started taking over. "We need those tents checked in and the scouts are busy so the adults just decided to do it." I guess we can't trust the scouts anymore. These are all the Eagle scouts that don't trust the boys. A month ago, when I was still the SM, I would have gently asked all the adult Eagle scouts to put the tents down and walk away. I would have asked a few questions of the SPL and then I would have walked away. Not only do I trust the SPL but I trust the system as well. Getting back to the exchange program, those kids have to figure out much much more than any scout I've ever seen. Imagine a 16 year old get on a plane and fly half way around the world and mom and dad are told not to talk to them for the first month. It's not 300 feet, it's more like 10,000 miles. Some kids fail because they won't let go of mom and dad. A few get in trouble. For the most part they learn self reliance.

To contact the Daleks you'll need a pointier hat than that.

I've seen people name things that are quirky and unique. If it can have a personality of its own, it can be named. Guns could fall into that. Cars definitely fall into that. My guess is it started with boats. The older and more you've worked on it, the easier it is to name it. As far as your shooting range instructor goes, speaking of quirky, I've met interesting young people all over the world. They are happy, confident, and content with who they are and don't mind using their character to facilitate creating a relationship. They tend not to worry about what others think, see the good in others, and they enjoy what they do.

2 cents: We live in an area that can get windy and tents with just tent stakes can get pulled up and roll away like tumble weeds. All 4 season tents have tie downs that are fairly high up the tent but they are expensive. We found 3 season tents that have tie downs and they are much better in the wind. I believe they are ALPS Mountaineering.

How about let them "see" V=IR. Voltage is how high water is in a bucket. R is how big a hole is in the bottom of the bucket (or the diameter of a tube sticking out of the bottom of the bucket that you can pinch). I is how fast the water comes out. Give them a stop watch and a cup and see how long it takes to fill up the cup given different sized tubes. Open up two tubes the same size and see if it fills the cup in half the time. Or use a bigger tube. Use a bucket with only 3" of water in it vs 3' of water. In parallel they could make an electrical circuit with a battery, a light bulb and a resister. The water bucket model isn't as simple as V=IR but close enough. And they get to play with water. A 50 gallon drum would make a good "battery."

I've used this as much as possible. But it's not fool proof, in an odd way. I had a training campout and I packed it really tight, just to add a time stress. I told the scouts if they didn't work together they'd fail. They had fun and at the end I asked them what they thought of the training and they said it was great. The thing they liked the most was how much time they had to do things. Say what? Turns out they took my advice to heart and worked so well together that everything went much more smoothly than normal. So, did it work when they got back to their patrols? They certainly are much better than before, but not nearly as good as they were on that training. Eagledad, you said earlier that cooking took up time from training. We put some challenges in their cooking. We gave them something they hadn't cooked with before (ingredients, methods, equipment). It worked well. Something like the banana split thing. They knew there was a challenge so they got into it. I think that's why the time stress training worked so well.

Charity goes to the poor, whether that be money or ability or some other hardship. Giving charity to those that aren't poor, in whatever definition of poor being used, is just being foolish. There are plenty of other people that do need that help. In your example the old lady presumably is not very mobile and helping her with the newspaper or her groceries is a good deed. You say it's not about money for this lady, which means it's probably more about community and interacting with someone that doesn't get out very often. That's the poverty in this case, a poor social network. So the kid that helps out is doing a good deed. The homeowners, however, are young and able, as a neighborhood, to pick up their own garbage, and just as importantly, they have a strong social network. They are not poor in any way. They don't need our charity.

Maybe you're misreading what I meant to say. We were free labor for a HOA with million dollar homes. They could afford to pay someone to pick up their garbage.

We wouldn't be allowed to do regular duties. We do seek out projects. We do a bunch of annual projects. We give hours for all of these and that's the score. Assuming the pancake supper (shouldn't that be a breakfast?) is a fundraiser, we never give service hours for fundraisers, mainly because the scouts profit from it. We once had a really nice HOA convince someone in our troop to organize cleaning up garbage around their ponds. It started off that they were going to make a donation to our troop and then they said it was a really nice service project. We kept our word and did the job but that was the end of that. The next year they asked and we told them $10/hr/scout. They didn't call back.