qwazse

God be with he family as they mourn.

All of the above is why I advocate “forestalling death” vs. “having fun” or even “be prepared.” The latter are are scout-facing goals. Preparedness is a path to saving life. Fun is much more probable when survival is maximized. Mastering preparedness is its own kind of fun. But, that’s still an inward-facing answer to “why scouts.” If we want someone to sponsor a troop over many decades, that sponsor needs to know that what it’s doing is bigger than the sum of its parts.

First ain't always best. There are other terse scouters out there. Let's look forward to their offerings.

Forestalling death.

@Benjamincook, welcome to the forums. Sorry it's on such challenging circumstance for your troop. Nothing personal with the SM, but somehow he violated parents' trust. We've now learned from history that for every 999 people who had one-on-one encounters with youth with no ill intent (and with many favorable results), there was someone who took advantage of that situation to prey on multiple scouts. Now, when adults in my troop "accidentally" find ourselves one-on-one with a scout, we promptly inform a scouter or parent of the encounter. Failing to do so sews mistrust in the troop. It can be very destructive. Sometimes, it shakes parents to the core. Even in situations where the parents are the abusers, none of us try to help the scout in the absence of other scouters. There's very little excuse for not doing so when everyone we trust is a mobile phone call away. Learn your lessons. Appoint a new SM. Get him/her trained. Make sure everyone goes over barriers to abuse from the Guide to Safe Scouting. Scout more wisely.

I would register the participant as an assistant scoutmaster. I had an ASM with special needs when I was a scout (long before that term was used), and he was great! Going from youth to adult positions of responsibility at age 18 used to be the default trajectory just a decade or two ago. And in the 50s and 60s, a few ASMs could complete their work for Eagle — often after their scouting career was interrupted by a deployment. This “unit participant” is new to everyone, and is used so that BSA can continue its half-century ageist policy of maintaining Eagle as a youth award. I take that to mean that while “unit participant” one can earn merit badges, perform service projects, camp, hike, and hold youth positions of responsibility. I think that would be especially true of special needs scouts. All the best to your scout. Let him know he has a stranger on the internet rooting for him!

I’m confused at the first line … A fella can be the first one, the other two, but not all three. Now, we do have an ASM who logs advancement for us and chases Scoutbook bugs to ground, but in doing so frees up MC’s interested in advancement to catch when things fall through cracks. Like others said, you may have latitude to act, but doing so can foster hard feelings. Not just with the guy who you’re dismissing but with others who will not be as ready to fulfill roles because you might treat them the same way. Also, you’re not Teflon. The troop can ask the CO’s institution head to appoint a different COR. Frankly, if the committee is happy working with this guy, and this is his only hang-up, then let them have at it. There are more serious reasons to not want someone as your MC or ASM.

As with all of my qwazseisms, you all may quote with the citation “Stranger on the Internet”

@InquisitiveScouter some councils and units have produced their own ILST. It’s a little more work to pick your flavor, but you might find a YouTube that suits you. But, not every scout needs ILST. Get a critical mass to do it over a weekend of games, and they will infect the others if you are an active troop. Also, video instruction might not suit the personality of the scouts who miss it. Don’t hesitate to share the syllabus with them. When my daughter had to read the ILSC syllabus because she was going to teach it, she asked, “Why didn’t you teach us this?” I bit my lip to avoid saying something unscoutlike in reply about their unwillingness to schedule a weekend for it.

The really good news is, if you do this long enough, you also meet people who will throw down a couple of Ben Franklins for no particular reason other than to help out your scouts. Keep those folks on your mind, and forget about finding salt for the slugs.

Maybe this link will work better for one-click … https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/training/pdf/ILST_IntroSyllabus_9_11.pdf

No surprise that lack of comms is frustrating. Each time that happens, you need to decide if it's a hill to die on. Regarding the youth's choice in uniform, do your best to see things through the scout's eyes. She's there to have fun. The stark distinctions between GS/USA and Scouts BSA have been mostly the inspiration of adults dickering over centuries. There's no reason that girl that young would see any difference. Regardless of the uniform, she's surrounded by caring adults. We have to take care to not treat things like her preference of uniform as some form of rejection.

Although @Armymutt has grievances, and although others may suggest better or worse ways to handle this, we need to start with one bottom line: The COR wants situations like these to end amicably. That means, although the past cannot change, leaders in this CO need to prepare their unit to be open to people who aren’t contributing to the life of the unit. There are limits. The advancement method loses its effectiveness when conventions for account are skirted, but a simple conversation with the scout can clear up if he at least gave requirements a try. Morale erodes when one member shows up at multiple event without paying and does not participate in fundraisers, but those are situations that can usually be put in the COR’s lap. On the whole, life is just better if we comply with the CO and move on.

Our pack typically plans on paying for guests like troop leadership at the B&G, although many of those guests have donated time and $ to the Pack in one way or another. If the COR says you shouldn't have refused them, then that's it. You can argue about your "if it was some other family" hypothetical when one is at the door. Next year, pad your budget a little for such eventualities. The most important impact is when this scout may join a troop. If registered but have not completed 5th grade, it's at age 10; if not, age 11. If the youth is 11 already, it's a moot point. But, the troop might appreciate knowing who's available for membership as of a certain date.

Welcome, and thanks in advance for all you do for our youth!

Our council kindly plays bad cop for us. They won't let us keep anybody on the charter who is not trained fro their position.

Scouters across the nation were clearly doing an end-around and dropping their registrations as direct contact leaders to avoid exorbitant fees. But just because they are now MBCs, many of them are competent leaders who are very helpful to have around. They are just making the registration fees more expensive for the rest of us. Sooner or later BSA would shore up that loophole. That’s why my troop pays for leaders’ registration fees. (It amounts to maybe an extra hour of the scouts washing cars.) I think it’s kinda dumb and make up for it by providing a little extra here and there, but it removes one barrier to good parents signing on and getting trained.

False. “For decades, “ leaders of both sexes were required for overnight coed activities — two of each for coed wilderness activities where a crew should prepare for the need to split the group. Other than that a male advisor could certainly hold a meeting with a mixed group of youth, or arrange for another male adult to meet them at the range for a morning of firearms training. Not even 5 years ago, in 2018, this was extended to include “all meetings,” and the language became one-sided “where a female youth was present.” The latter was to perpetuate corporate double-speak that skirted around “coed.” But, it also was probably to avoid disrupting boy packs (and maybe a few troops) who could only field a pair of female leaders for activities. Venturing instantly became much more costly to implement for crews whose female adults were not available for every meeting.

@InquisitiveScouter, keep complaining about it and those 19-20 year old ASMs will be reclassified as program participants. I want to make it clear how much of my life involves deeply personal one-on-one conversations with 19-20 year olds of the opposite sex. It is very hard for some young adult women to navigation their world — many are facing abuse, caregiver burdens, financial stress — and they open up about it to very few people. They often look for second father figure and, along with their friends, arrange a meeting with him. Sometimes that person is me, often I can rope a second elder into that conversation, but often time is of the essence and we can’t ill afford time to screen that fellow qualified elder by sex. This is how the real world works and will continue to work. By imposing this kind of restriction, BSA will remove itself further from meeting the needs of young adults.

What it means @Eagle1993, is that if the proportion of females is nonzero, I could not meet collegiate adult Venturers for coffee without me finding 21+ registered female adult to join me. It effectively makes it pointless to be a male crew advisor.

One small suggestion … if it’s at all that important, a scouter shouldn’t have to click through and advance the video to find out what s.a.f.e. stands for. It’s also not clear how the checklist would have addressed the incident that inspired it. I would love its implementation to forestall death. But how does this do what the sweet 16 does not?

Art imitating life. From marines at boot camp “remembering all those orienteering lessons that I had tried to forget” during their night in the crucible to veterans who told me about how calm and fearless Eagle Scouts were when their platoon had to bivouac … I’ve heard this story multiple times in multiple ways from multiple people.

A capacity of 15,000 is about 2.3% of 2021 Scouts BSA membership, so this is a lean year. But … most Jambo-bound leaders had to choose between World and National Scout jamborees. A small minority have chosen to attend back-to-back events. That’s contributed to staffing shortages at Summit, and small numbers representing the USA in Korea. For wannabe staffers, I have suggested and will repeat … if it really matters, take whatever you would spend to go , maybe divide that number by two, and offer it to another young adult who should go. For example your limit might be $500, but the scouter who knows you think that much of him/her might pull together balance of what is needed to attend. The same *could* apply to youth. If your Eagle Scouts and others think that their troop should be represented at Jambo, pitch in to cut the fare for your best scout to go. This decade is really forcing scouters to come to terms with what is really “worth it” for them. It may be that future Jamborees will forgo big name acts, and the arena will showcase more scout-grown talent. There might be fewer add-ons, like tours of the DC. We might pass on some of the circus that is WV’s playground. Or, some really great council camporees might come to the fore.

Oh, for the days when completing an Eagle application was none of an adult’s business. … Just a scout, his typewriter, and correction tape! Thank you for trying to help your scout, but it sounds like you should just save the .pdf for him to complete the rest. Meanwhile, report your problem on the Scoutbook forums: https://discussions.scouting.org/

More details about his scouting career at 2:40 in the link below. I admire anyone who says “I am a Life Scout.”