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All I can say, is that I studied my knots at home then tied them for my PL at the next campout (not even the next meeting, those were for planning activities, reflecting on past activities or the nation's history, and playing pool, ping pong, or air hockey). The exception was the taught line hitch that I hadn't figured out, and the SM showed me how and set me to retying all of the guy lines around my tent. By the end of the day, my PL signed off. Really, a proper simulation is for the scout to go home and practice tying the knot in the shower with the lights off. That prepares her for her first rainy night insertion with just a tarp and parachord!

Often times, the worst-case scenarios trickle up to the interweb, and there's that. On average, when scouts are really enthusiastic about advancing, We tell them, "Show us you're all that." They pull together ways to sharpen, then prove, their skills. We give them due recognition. From time to time, you get SMs who are frustrated that, in this age of streamlined products like velcro, their Star scouts forget bowlines (or how to build patrol spirit, or show up to a shakedown ready to camp, or whatever). Other times, you get SMs who interpret "no adding" to mean "once-and-done", as in the kid grabs his book, crams, and that night can rattle off safe swim defense. Nay! It's perfectly within the intent of the Guide to Advancement to have a boy learn a skill one week and wait until he shows he can do it the next week before signing off.

My working assumption is "judge not lest ye be judged." Sorry, I did not write the rules. The troop could be like @shortridge's. On the ball, chock full of 1st class scouts (concept, not the patch), and wanting to get duly recognized for their hard work on day 1 so their next meeting is about who's gonna cook the winning D/O desert at spring camporee. Or it could be like the obsessed-with-advancement cases @Ranman328 and @Eagledad and I have seen too many of. How many is too many? One in the district. Or, worse, in your family. It really is sad to see the promise of scouting robbed from teenage nephews by leaders with a wrong vision of troop life. All I have to say to that is thank God for the good folks in TL/USA. With regard to Scouts BSA for girls, I'm not seeing a problem based on the pictures I've seen. Most of their day 1 uniforms don't have rank patches on them. With regard to this particular troop (or if you are a district commissioner hearing of any such troop in your district). Nothing can be known for sure until the UC gets boots on the ground. That might include going on the troop's next camp out. I've had more fun on camp outs simply tossing a line to a leader (adult or youth) and asking, "Hey, could you tie off the your end to yonder tree with a timber hitch?" FWIW, for the past few years, I've had a hard time getting our scouts to free up time to check out an orienteering club. I know why they don't want to do it. 1) Events are on Sundays. 2) The palpable fear of failure among the boys of upper rank. My only hope is to get one troop to throw down a challenge to ours. The boots-on-the-ground approach is not easy. But, I believe it is more rewarding.

Did UC do his/her job visit the troop and meet some of the scouts? Are they acting like they know the scout law, what a patrol is, etc ...? Then they earned the rank. Period. Make sure they know of all of the opportunities the district/council has to offer. Are they acting like they are being pushed around by their leaders/parents and completely clueless about how to order themselves? Then the UC and the unit key three need a sit down to focus on delivering the promise of scouting, not just badges, to these girls. As to how, if a couple of the girls are venturers or former camp staff, they will know how to move things along. It's likely that they trained the girls well in the previous months, day 1 was electing an SPL/PL, reciting the material they already knew, signing off ranks, and scheduling SMCs. Easy enough starting midnight Thursday, and meeting for breakfast before school on Friday. (Venturers have done stranger things.) Proud SM or CC walks the paperwork to the scout shop, buys patches, done.

@John-in-KC, are you suggesting that it is that way, or you think it should be that way? @an_old_DC seems to be reporting (correct me if I'm wrong, AOD) that he was able to file advancement for MBs for some of his crew who never earned 1st class. Thinking from scoutshop's perspective, they don't have to check if a troop is ordering badges for a scouts who haven't earned first class. If among those thousands of advancement reports, there's an order for MB's from a crew, why would they build in the business logic? Especially since that logic is not spelled out in the GTA? In other words, there's no such thing as a "qualifying boy scout", so who would tell them that they have to check that an order is for "qualifying venturers" only?

Given the AI capabilities that the guys down the street from my office are putting into robots, we might soon need a different metaphor, but so long as the analogy stands ... Implied within obedience and loyalty is a certain sacrifice of autonomy. So, if in the last century, congress defined what is respectful behavior toward our nation's banner, then behaving otherwise is disobedient and disloyal unless congress says otherwise. Now, there may be cause to be disobedient and disloyal (e.g., one comes to the conclusion that under that banner, our nation has done more harm than good), but I don't think this scout thought that far ahead. The councilman (or one of the board); however, should know better. This is no prime time pageant bought and payed for by some federal agency. This is a meeting of local leaders who are in office because, under that banner, free and fair elections are in force. Under another flag, for example, a military officer favorable to governors appointed by a foreign regent could be in those council seats. The board members could have politely explained the difference to the young man. They evidently did not. Their opponents should hold them accountable in the next election.

I feel your pain. But the larger portion of the market wants sex segregation to be the law (or at least very strong suggestion) of the land.

If the pipes are in the right position, hang hooks and post with poles horizontal. Essentially, you are hanging the flags. (You could also, put loops on the poles to hang at an angle.)

Not a hill to die on. One town councilman approved, time to see what votes he gets. For my part, I would make quite clear to my scouts that if they intended to continue to violate US Flag Code they might not be welcome to serve in other ceremonies.

Welcome, and thanks in advance for all you'll do for the youth!

Bless your heart for wanting to uniform in the out of doors!

Leave grill, foil, boil bags, and skewers behind ... Coals ... Potatoes and chestnuts buried under them, peppered (or your favorite dry rub) steak on top of them.

I agree with @David CO Thirty minutes away (an hour in transit) every week is too much for young boys. It's not a good trade in order to stay away from undisciplined, impertinent youth. There are a lot better ways to enjoy time with your boys .. not the least of which would be cracking open their cub scout books (or any other book from the library) and doing the activities with your family. Revisit the idea of scouts (literally, visit the troop and talk to some leaders there) when they are 11 years old.

It is funny how procedures that are couched in "protect the scout from failure" actually are to "spare some adults grief."

Folks are tripping over "qualified venturer", because nobody knows what that means anymore. We think it means qualified to work on Star, Life, Eagle, and Palms but that's not spelled out in https://www.scouting.org/resources/guide-to-advancement/the-merit-badge-program/. How, pray tell, would internet advancement "know" that you can order an MB for one venturer, and not another? I mean, there's no business logic for a troop that keeps them from ordering MBs for a pre-1st class scout? Is there business logic to tell me who is a "qualified venturer." The whole MB thing was written back when nobody thought Venturers who weren't in a troop would care about them. We thought we could tell them, "Earn a bronze award, it's way more cool." That worked 0.1% of the time, thus the new ALPS program. Not sure how much better that's working. What if we're missing something? Maybe we've wrongly linked MB's with rank advancement. What if it's simply fun to earn an MB with another venturer? What if this bar of "qualified" is keeping someone from proposing an MB-related activity to his/her crew?

WiW, which candidate is being endorsed? This is the reverse: an elected official is endorsing a particular citizen. We're going to expend a lot of energy if we go around chasing every issue button and ball cap off of every uniformed scout. Miss Ireland is coming off as unprincipled. Her stance would be more mature if she requested BSA go back retroactively for a lot of people ... way back ... probably even before Katrina Yeaw in 1991, and then ask National to work its way forward based on the official records they may have of similar denials of the award. It's like the whole instapalm debacle. Parents of affected scouts (and maybe one or two scouts themselves) were complaining that the deadline cut their scout out, but they had no interest in cutting in all of the scouts from years past who may qualify for an extra palm or two.

@PinkPajamas, welcome to the forums and thanks in advance for all you will do for the youth! All the cool kids have BSA Guard. Yes re-certifying requires a commitment. Especially the older you get (or is it the younger the instructors get?) and the harder it is to complete those sprints. At our boy scout camp, both can be earned in the same week. But, my time has become spread so thin, that I'm having difficulty freeing up a week to do it. If you can't do both in one fell swoop, I'd recommend you get BSA Guard first, then add the other one at a later date. Then, and this is the crux of the matter, find time to assist at aquatics areas. That's how you stay fresh. If this isn't practical because someone else can't watch your kids, then focus on them. They are priority #1. Get them trained. There is no greater peace of mind than knowing that your kids can get themselves out of a rip current. Swimming 100 yards in a strong manner in the right direction solves lots of problems. As they mature, keep challenging them and in the process sharpen your skills. Then if the dark day comes when forestalling death is in your hands, the odds will tilt in your favor if the four of you are competent.

We'll that was a little weird to try an figure out! @Skye08, welcome to the forums. No two 8 year olds are the same. That said, smaller bodies are at more serious risk of hypothermia. If your daughter has not camped in these temps before, you're taking some chances. I would only visit camp for a couple of hours, then return and stay home with her, if I were you. It's really hard to make sure a child is safe when you are also helping keep track of other scouts.

Not to my knowledge. Typically, to control costs, these intensive surveys rely on random sampling. So it's likely yours is that one in a hundred troop.

I'm a bit simple minded when it comes to these things. 1) If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it most likely is. A thorough board of review should settle the matter. 2) It's probably just me, but I think the Eagle award is tarnished a little more anytime we fail to recognize someone who has accomplished what we require Eagles to accomplish. 3) Awarding ranks retroactively (all the way back to the 90s, if we have to) would take the wind out of the sails of anyone who's just in it to be 1st girl Eagle. On the flip side, I get how hard it is to trust somebody who disregards identity rules for the sake of one more smile. So I can accept being stuck with compromises.

I would like them to do that too. But lots of scouters are concerned that such charity would be open for corruption. So, we have the comprise that we do. The clock doesn't start until Feb 1 under everyone's watchful gaze, and if they are "all that" we believe they will cheerfully prove it (again) given the time to do so. Fine. But, if the girls understood and swore to the ideals on Jan 31, -unless someone tells me they have some kind of selective amnesia, I'm fine with putting at Scout Rank on Feb 1.

If you are a counselor for En.Vi.Sci., I think that's great. Then you could talk with the boy about something interesting he may have written in the essay that touches on your career or hobby. But, if you aren't committed to doing that with each essay, then you are denying the opportunities that a scout could have with a counselor who is passionate about the topic.

@PACAN, how is that any different from a bunch of boys who know Scouting's ideals before their troop is registered? Two years ago, if a bunch of boys started a troop this way, of course you'd tell them to date their scout rank from the day the charter was signed!

Typically, written word translation tests involve reading something in middle-level language. (I.e., what you might read in a everyday context. Prescriptions are often cited as a good example.) "from the written" means the writing is in the language that is foreign to the student, and the resulting translation is into the student's academic tongue (which, at times, can be different than the student's native language).

Brainstorm: rocket launches! It could be a "lifeboat" problem. The aliens could be bingo markers or small coins or -- if you have an obsessive scouter -- die cast figures. (Maybe they rescue them from the "debris".) The scouts will have to build a rocket with a payload to launch as many aliens as they can into "orbit", which would be some minimum height. Or, it could be scored, say they get 2 points per alien times the altitude traveled: 2 aliens x 100 meters=200 points, 4 aliens * 60 meters= 240 points.