nolesrule

You can sell at Lowes? We reached out to do a fundraiser at 2 of them nearby and they told us they don't allow them anymore as a corporate policy.

Yes, that's my scout. Who is also a minority gender in scouting as well as a minority religion. People who tend to be from a group that gets marginalized to any degree tend to discuss those challenges. As a female Jewish person in organization comprised mostly of white Christian males she wonders (and so do I) why people afraid of having conversations about differences? What are they scared of?

The Oath and Law are just suggestions that we give lip service to.

And you are going to get differing opinions on whether it can actually fit into the other Citizenship merit badges. I don't think it effectively can, as I think it works better as a single focused topic. But again, that's an opinion. On the other hand, I think Nation and World should be combined. And I think that you could incorporate outdoor food safety requirements into the cooking part of Camping merit badge and drop Cooking back to an elective. But again, that's my opinion. I also don't think it's something that can be effective as part of the Scout Spirt requirement. The setting is different since the MB is a discussion among scouts sharing thoughts and opinions and you aren't going to get the same level of coverage across units as you would in a scout spirit conversation for rank as you would with the merit badge. And the fact it is a merit badge means it can't get skipped over by the people who think they know better and that having in depth discussions about applicability of the Oath and Law is a 4 letter word. And for a data point, my daughter at her Eagle Board of Review 3 weeks ago stated it was her favorite merit badge of the 53 she had earned (I know because she told me afterwards... I was not in the room).

The output is a fillable PDF, so your scout can manually complete the missing data. But as @qwazse said, report the issue at the linked discssuion form which provides support for scoutbook.

Agree with everything you wrote, @InquisitiveScouter We've seen the boys troop change the rank board immediately after their EBOR (they often do them on the night or troop meets or when our troop committee meets. My daughter found that anticlimactic because the only people there to see it are the parents and the members of the board. And then on the next troop meeting night it's just there. So she requested her Eagle BOR be held on a meeting night so the board change would be both immediate and celebrated with the entire troop. When it happened (last week) it was so much more exciting for everyone. And now we wait for the credentials, although a Scoutmaster in another unit gifted her the patch, she's properly going to wait until it's official. Our scout shop requires proof of advancement in order to purchase rank patches, but I think that's the only thing they limit.

Scoutbook shows the Youth Protection Training expiration date for MBCs. MBCs must renew their registration with the district annually and like other positions need to keep their YPT current.

The requirement per the Guide to Safe Scouting is that two registered adult leaders 21 and older are required for all scouting activities including meetings. A committee member is a registered adult leader who is 21 and older. The point of being registered is that they have had the background check and they have done their YPT certification. Regardless, as a former SM/ASM, one would hope they have already taken the SM/ASM training and OLS at some point for their previous position anyway, neither of which expire, making the fact that they are registered as a committee member kind of irrelevant. Additionally they are likely to have the experience needed for outings anyway, so they would be an excellent resource. The only thing I would recommend is that all registered adults who go on outings keep their YPT current (don't let it expire, don't wait till right before recharter) and also keep their hazardous Weather training current. I'm registered in a girls troop that is now a little over 3 years old, and we only had female committee members and no female ASMs until this past November. We would not have been able to do anything at all if committee members didn't count.

@InquisitiveScouter I'm not saying everything is rosy. But I am saying people too often look upon the past with rose colored glasses and it tints their perception. Again, I'm not familiar enough with the Cub issues, but burn-out, whether for parents or the scouts, is a legitimate concern.

Some of these issues seem to be a local or anecdotal rather than National. For example, I don't see any issues with InstaPalms (because they didn't much matter in the past before the change, so why does it matter now?) The grumbling comes from people who secretly wish they could have had InstaPalms based on their merit badge counts back in the day. I don't see the same issues in our OA lodge that you seem to be complaining about. Some of what you write about seems to stem from a fear of change rather than an actual issue. I'm not familiar with the Cub Scout issues as much, as the last time I was involved at that level was in 2014 as a Unit Commissioner, but I can understand the burn-out issue from lengthening the program.

This has nothing to do with AOL, but he can join a Scouts BSA troop on March 1 if he's currently in 5th grade.

@qwazseI won't rake you, but we tried it both ways in a one patrol troop and found that the split of responsibilities that align with the position description work better than putting it all on a Patrol Leader. It also made the transition to having two patrols easier.

In my opinion if the absentee ballot is delivered after the votes have been counted and the winner was declared, then the vote doesn't count. It wasn't timely and you can't hold the election results open indefinitely. But it's not my opinion that matters. We should be guiding the scouts to make the decision and certainly parents should not be involved. The PLC could do anything between accepting the original results to declaring a new election and specifying more stringent rules for timely absentee ballots. As for the SPL being a multiple repeat, that 's a program decision that should have been made prior to candidates declaring themselves, and i would suggest it's too late to make that decision for this election cycle. As the COR, you could make a rule, but it would be best to have a discussion with the scoutmaster about this going forward in order to guide the PLC, rather than making it be adults making all the decisions.

Congrats! And not trying to steal your thunder, but me too! I was awarded Adult member of the year for my OA chapter this year. It was chosen by the youth and came as a complete surprise. I was just trying to be as supportive of our chapter's youth as I could to help them succeed. That's why we're here.

I don't disagree, but location and meeting night/time can have a lot to do with long-term success, not just the initial size of the troop. We're in the second troop. It currently has 10 scouts, but it's located in one of the outer population centers of our district. My daughter was the 5th scout on the charter. it's 12 minutes from our house. The initial "super troop" is 25 minutes from our house and requires driving past the location of the troop we joined.

I wasn't around when things got started, because we were living in another state in Feb 2019. My understanding is that our district decided to funnel all interested girls into a single "super troop", and the expectation was that it would eventually split into other units throughout the district. If that was indeed the plan, it didn't work very well, as our district only has 2 girl troops, with the second one being started by a single family that split off from that original troop, with no one else following.

You are absolutely correct, and I probably should have chosen my words with a little more thought. What I meant to say, and i was responding to a specific post, is that the subject matter isn't something that can be done through presentations. This is regardless of whether it's a merit badge or not.

This one is actually very different from the other Citizenships even though it has Citizenship in the name. It's interpersonal. The others are pretty much history and civics, just at local, country and world levels. Completely different subject matters. The Cit in Society session I sat in consisted of a Jewish female, a Chinese female and three white Christian boys. Anyone care to guess who in that group had the more advanced understanding of the topics going in and whose eyes were opened up more to things they'd never thought about or had to think about because of the discussions? This topic can't really be done effectively via Powerpoint. You have scouts talking to each other about various subjects and scenarios without any interference from adults other than to facilitate and prompt discussion. The scouts are learning from each other. You can't get this from a lecture or presentation. I actually want to become a MBC/facilitator for this merit badge after having experienced it as an observer. I literally just sat there for 5 hours and never said a word (except during breaks), just listening to the scouts talk to each other. I was never bored.

I've been laying low since this all went down and Tuesday is the last meeting i will miss. After discussing it with my children, we've decided to stick things out with the current troop. I attended one parent meeting and the December Court of Honor this past week. I've slowly been communicating again with the SM and CC to get a feel for whether or not they have been holding a grudge. More with the SM since I've actually had need to interact with him at Council and OA events. Seems things have cooled down and we should be able to return to normal. If a conflict arises I'll be sure to do a better job of communicating. So, not having been at any committee meetings the past couple months it seems they have apparently chosen not to delegated the Advancement Coordinator role to one of the committee members with no responsibilities , and at the Court of Honor last week announced some changes to the merit badge process that could result in a violation of the GTA, but I won't say anything unless it actually comes to affect a scout. 1) They have to get the scoutmaster's permission to start a merit badge, and that he can say no and prevent them from doing the merit badge. 2) Eagle required merit badges must be done through the troop except under exceptional circumstances. Meanwhile my older daughter has completed her Eagle project. She will have her SMC shortly and is otherwise in the paperwork phase of the process. I need to write that parent Letter of Recommendation this weekend. She also was elected as the Lodge Quartermaster. And she and I were awarded Youth and Adult Members of the Year in our OA chapter, which was quite an unexpected honor for both of us (we each knew the other was getting the award, so we can keep a secret). My other daughter is progressing to First Class and she hopes to get it completed in the next month. Just trying to nail down an indoor pool to do the swim test. She really wants to have earned the rank in time for OA elections, which our troop does in the early part of March, so that's her self imposed deadline.

I think Cit in Society is different enough from the others that it should remain a distinct badge. In the same way that the former Citizenship in the Home (aka Family Life) is different. I wouldn't mind combining the other 3 although the task of paring them down so the essentials are included while not making it overly onerous for a single merit badge would be a difficult endeavor. The only thing I specifically remember about earning the 3 Citizenships when I was a scout 30 years ago is what I did for the service requirement for Community. The vast majority of the rest was a repeat of things I learned in high school history and government classes.

Citizenship in Society is my daughter's favorite merit badge that she has earned. It's a subject matter she is passionate about. The merit badge counselor invited me to sit in on their session (I asked my daughter if it would be okay with her). When the counselor puts a session together for scouts, she ensures there is sufficient diversity within the group to have meaningful discussion, so that everyone is able to get out of it more than they put in. I was pleasantly surprised by the thoughtful discussion, but at the same time you could see a thoughtfulness difference and a participation difference between those who are regularly interacting with others who are different from themselves vs. those who are not. I think much of the learning from others as well as the true in-depth discussion can't really be accomplished at the unit level, particularly in any kind of consistency across all units in a meaningful way, due to unit size, lack of time for true in-depth discussion or lack of adults who are capable of facilitating the discussion. It pains me to say this but I know way too many people involved in scouting who actually need to take this merit badge, so I wouldn't expect them to be capable of guiding scouts in the manner in which this merit badge requires.

@MikeS72 not the fall course that just happened. For some reason I was under the mistaken impression it was a few weeks later than it actually, was but looking at your calendar I see both weekends were in September. So I believe it was the 3 courses prior to fall, but it's also possible there was a gap.

He stepped down as Cubmaster of his pack recently as his son moved up. He's been on Wood Badge staff for the prior 3 courses (had to turn down SPL for the fall course because he needed a break with his son's bar mitzvah in a few weeks). He's been in OA since he was a scout, but not sure he's been active in Tipisa. He's on the north side of Orlando, but works for one of the parks.

@MikeS72 My registration is good till March. Commissioner service is a distinct possibility. I did that for about 10 years in my old council (WCFC, which merged with Gulf Ridge into GTBAC after we moved away). I am well acquainted with our District Commissioner and we have a good relationship. He also happens to be a Key 3 in the Venturing crew my older daughter is considering joining and was CD for the last 2 NYLT course which my daughter staffed as a TG. I know CFC is big but I wonder if you know my brother. 😄

@fred8033 thank you for your thoughts. Kids aren't stupid. They can see when there is conflict. I did own up to my mistake in the matter. You are also correct in that it never should have escalated. Which is why i asked for the unit to put processes in place to make sure the series of mistakes don't keep happening. But it's not my unit and I don't have the control to ensure those safeguards actually get implemented. But I'd like to see the unit survive, whether or not I'm involved in it. The first thing the scoutmaster did yesterday was send out a notice to parents of position elections in a week, something we've never done this time of year. My daughter contacted the SPL to ask about it, and the SPL knew nothing about it. So yeah, if that's how they want to run the troop, I don't have an issue moving on with my kids. But I'm going to do it methodically so as not to cause a disruption. I have reasons to maintain registration as I am active in OA as a committee adviser and with council level youth trainings, which I enjoy, but those are secondary. I'd need to find a primary role in some manner in order to be able to continue my involvement in those things. That's something to I'll need to spend some of my downtime contemplating.