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You have the classic IT upgrade problem. There may be volumes of data in one storage format (i.e., handbooks), but only some of it adds value to your workflow by being in a different format (e.g., wall-charts, electronic databases, etc ...). Yes, you should be able to retroactively enter awards. (Lots of folks, like my troop, have yet to sync up with SB, so they will likely be doing this in the near future.) You just need to ask yourself how doing so will help your pack going forward. Are the boys really upset that they don't have a diving weight's worth of belt loops to slow them down?

@Bowline, not sure where you got info that venturers can "start" earning MBs. I mean, I guess technically there's never been anything to stop anyone from earning MBs. I guess had they asked, I could have drawn up blue cards years ago for any in my crew who wanted to try to earn the round medallions. I know some rogue troops have done something of the sort. But, they wont count for rank advancement until this February. At that point, if a 16 year old female venturer shows up with a stack of blue cards and everyone knows that she has the skills, it would be false for me to say she hasn't earned the badges. In fact I'd probably say "Please, find a buddy and a woman of integrity and help me jump-start this program for these half-dozen crossovers."

Not blaming Exploring. I think the popularity among youth should be mapped against number of people in each sector against return on education/training investment. No idea how my 3 got chemical engineering in their heads. So far they have found jobs in specialty steel, oil/gas extraction, and petroleum refinement. The hours can be long because nobody else is stepping in line to compete for them. (Well, some Saudis and South Americans are, but with the hope of eventually returning home to work those jobs at a less breakneck pace.) Going into those with a high school education demands even more hours and time away from family. But, if you show dedication, most union halls will train you. The downside: exposure to layoffs due to strikes over healthcare and other political hot-potatoes.

Pack in the saddle, again!!!!! Always good to hear from you -- especially good to know you added to the cardiologists "success" tally! Thanks for being a role model for us youngns'. ;)

Interesting that the illustration was a parent bringing a child's water bottle to school. In our school, kids were using them to smuggle alcohol, so they were banned (for a while). I'm pretty sure we scouters didn't create this style of parenting. But as Americans, we've instilled a post-modern nomadic* worldview. Part of its implication is that our families are seen as caravans in a strange land. We must be equipped with our own devices to avoid "contamination" from our environment. If we feel a threat of "contamination", our first reflex is to call on our families to resolve it. Case in point: not paying attention to how much son #2 left in the tank, I ran out of gas on the road last week and had to call the auto club for assistance. It delayed me 45 minutes, and Mrs. Q was already at the destination about 45 minutes away. I got in just a little past bedtime no worse for the wait and a $10. Next morning, I explained what took me so long, and she asked, "Why didn't you call? I would have come and brought you fuel!" I replied, "That's precisely why I didn't tell you what was happening until now. You would have wasted an hour and a half of your time and more than $10 in gas." But, you see, for a post-modern nomad, it is better to hazard helping your own than rely on the services of a stranger. *Feel free to use that term instead of that wretched label, millenial . Tell them some stranger on the internet set you.

I honestly have never met a single boy who looked up our troop on a website.

Really? Boys log on to scouting dot org? But, soon it's gonna be Boy's Life and other youth-facing publications. We have had an uptick in membership. But, the Pack will not serve up as many Webelos next year. Troops (BSA and GS/USA) have been cycling up and down like that for decades. It's like the weather: hard to catch a global warming signal for all of the noise.

Welcome, and thanks for all you do for the cubs!

@EagleMomnDad2Be, welcome to the forums! Hopefully next year you will have to drop that "2Be" from your handle. Earning Eagle during a scout's first six months at life is hard, I can think of the following reasons: Scouts usually save the required merit badges they like the least until last. Just like the rest of us, boys hate starting on something that they don't like. Often, those MBs have requirements to do daily over over a period of time. Or, there might be one seemingly simply requirement, but a boy might have difficulty finding a day in a busy schedule to complete it. Life scouts should be contacting counselors and earning MB's independently -- a couple a month. Many find it hard to get into that routine. More is expected from a Life scout in his position of responsibility. If he is neglecting his PoR, a responsible SM will have him take a break from that position, and give him a few weeks to decide if he wants to try that one again or maybe start a different one. This can happen more than once in the leadership development cycle. Eagle projects involve getting approvals from multiple people, and then mobilizing a team of folks to help him with the project. If the scout hasn't had a project in mind (one that really involve leading a team of folks to get something done), he may take several cycles of planning before he has approval to mobilize that team. Post-modern nomadic teens are vulnerable to a lot of moral challenges like drug and alcohol use, pregnancy, vulgarity, risky driving and other illegal activity. Life scouts with these issues (if they survive them) often negatively influence troop life, sometimes warranting suspension. Older scouts may have come to the conclusion that the religious are in error and that, as newly minted atheists, they have no duty to God. Many of these things can be handled, and resolved, leading to real personal growth. (That's what we're after, really.) But not in six months time. That said, many scouts don't have any of these road blocks (maybe they worked through them while at Star rank) and can easily wrap up all of their Eagle requirements in six months.

I have had mixed "external" comments from 10 years ago the minute I started venturing. It took some effort to not take those personally. FWIW, BSA does count positive vs. negative media placements. I have no idea what that actually means. An exec just told me that they do.

Done this weekend. It played well on a labtop, but not my iPad ... memory issues I think. It seemed to have a hard time remembering where I left off. (I was interrupted on several occasions.) Not sure if it actually gives boys materials they would need. Venturing produced some personal safety awareness videos. I don't recall one on bullying.

It's an honor that the COR trusts you. Following your training, identify the adults who you trust the most for different things (e.g., finance, fundraising, tracking advancement, chaplain, et ...). Ask them If they would please help the troop for that specific thing. Note that some people might do one thing for their job, but for their volunteer time want to do something completely different. So, keep an open mind. At this stage, a secretary who takes good notes and circulates minutes promptly will help everyone keep track of their assignments. If you have a person to help you with that, the organization will smooth itself over time.

Congratulations @FaithfulScouter. I appreciate brutal honesty in a CC. Have you taken the training? SMs and Advisors can catch a lot of flack, we need at least one person who can tell us if we deserve it or not. (And tell the same to other parents.)

I suspect costs will be recouped from the administrative overhead needed to maintain the old, proprietary, internet advancement.

One of the most useful lines in the scouterverse ... "Show me where that's written, please."

@Jishusa, welcome to the forum! The big caveat: we have no boots on the ground in Hong Kong, so we won't understand your culture well and certainly can't gauge the quality of your arrowmen. Moreover, the only time I've heard of such a thing is in cheer-leading clubs and glee clubs. So, I am adapting from what I know of those and the Guide to Advancement (https://www.scouting.org/resources/guide-to-advancement/mechanics-of-advancement/boy-and-varsity/) to guess how this could possibly apply to a troop. As opposed to the requirement for a unit leader (scoutmaster) conference, the Guide to Advancement section 4.2.3.2 does not specify which leader (youth vs. adult) is to evaluate the requirement for scout spirit. It does use the singular. E.g., "A leader typically asks for examples of how a Scout has lived the Oath and Law." So, I don't think this requirement is intended to be a board decision. If a troop has patrol leaders signing off on other trail-to-first-class requirements, it's reasonable to expect them to sign off on this one as well; however, I would suggest you train them by having them read this section in the guide to advancement, and have them role-play interviewing each other during a PLC or other leadership training class. Based on the description of the requirements in the Guide, I would not even consider a Spirit Review Board. But if it's something that makes sense to the people (scouts and adults in my community), I certainly would not select members based on O/A membership alone. But, rather, I would have these be informal positions of responsibility appointed by the SPL. I would not have the board meet with the board alone, but rather I would have the scouts PL introduce him to the board and speak for him. If the PL can give a couple of examples of how the boy has shown scout spirit, the board should confer and permit the SPL to sign-off on the scout's handbook. If the board is compelled to prevent the PL from signing off, the scout (and probably his PL) should have a conference so that the SM understands what everyone said, and can make corrections if necessary. Because youth boards rotate more often than scoutmasters, these positions will require constant training and supervision on the part of the SM and SPL. In fact, I think this need for constant training and correction is why many troops (including ours) simply have the SM sign-off on this requirement during the unit leader conference.

A lot of long-time scouters have been vocal proponents of fully co-ed programs, and they are jubilant. They had been dismayed for decades as they saw girls marginalized. As they saw the organization meant for girls marginalize girls who we would deem ideal scouts. As they saw post-modern nomadic boys denied time for scouting because their parents put them in family programs. As they saw co-ed international scouts taking on dynamic leadership roles ... working with their opposite sex counterparts to run dynamic programs ... with very-big smiles on their faces. Long time scouters endured one of the most profound and insulting fallacies: "ABOUT THE BOYS" was never intended to mean "not about the girls"! The adjective "boy" was intended to be in contrast to the more common understanding of military scouts. Worse was my personal experience: the scouters who sputtered the "ABOUT THE BOYS" mantra (members of this forum excepted, I think) lived and breathed adult-lead, troop method, plop-camping. The resulting abandonment by boys who took their sisters and girlfriends to the family cabin was glaring. So, sure, I don't want any scouter (old salt or newbie) to be "dismayed and pissed off" about the future. But I didn't want any scouters of the past four decades to be dismayed and indignant either.

Here's the disconnect: BSA has never been in the den assignment business. The whole tiger, bear, wolf, Webelos thing, for example, was never set in stone. If you were short in two grades, you could combine them ... you registered an adult leader to be DL, and found him or her an assistant. National got a list of adults, a list of youth, and never bothered mapping youth to leaders. That was strictly the domain of the pack. BSA is making clear that, even though it prefers otherwise, should a CO, the pack, and the den see fit, a girl den of any size and a boy den of any size may share time and space for any or all intents and purposes. That way they can still, maintain that their program is not co-Ed while still allowing COs who believe in that sort of thing leeway. Regarding training, our council has a pro whose sole job is to get family scouting rooted wherever a shoot is sprouting. I think she can call down a trainer to any pack the day they tell her "It's just guys running our pack, and these girls knocked at our door." Most packs around here have trained female DLs and ACMs. But on top of that, our council has been bring trained females online in each district in case they need to stop-gap.

And the 80-90 year old GS moms shake their heads. If only we had a system of sequential awards that could be given as an adult showed demonstrated skills mastery signed off by the SPL (or a mentoring young Eagle scout on loan from another troop) ... something that maybe was used in the past to get entire populations of new leaders up to speed ... hmmmmmm.

Fine point. Any parent can voice an opinion. They often do. Parents who want to be "in" on such decisions should talk to the CC and COR about applying to the committee, it'll only cost them an "hour a month." My general experience: if you ask a "how to" question when National hasn't put in writing how to handle a particular paradox, your SE is going to make up something on the fly. Instead, I would call the SE and ask for the numbers of any CM's who have only one scout of one particular age and one particular sex on their Pack roster. I'd say I want to find out how they configure their dens because the documentation sounds like it's giving me latitude while making me feel like I'm walking on eggshells. A good SE will offer to arrange a conference call for you all. This, "special case roundtable" is more likely to come up with strategies that actually help your packs. It's also more likely to get DE's marketing in your neighborhoods.

It's like my relatives' (ex)troop has an evil twin. FWIW, I've seen this happen with male leaders as well. For all our leadership's faults, when my crew took the troop on hikes that crushed half of the adults (but the boys loved), those men sobered up and either stepped out of our way or did what it took to get in shape. In the process, I got one really good scout mom who the boys loved to hike with. But, I am aware that for other troops it can go quite differently. The only way to stop it, as far as I can tell, is to identify a YPT violation (which is likely to happen with these types of leaders leaders), and report it to the SE.

Like Mamma said, "You gotta cry with the sinners and laugh with the saints." Still trying to figure out who is who.

That's a poor reason IMHO. (See note about missed opportunities above.) I'd rather have the conference, find out the scout will be away for a couple months, help him think through what his next MB should be, get him that blue card, and encourage him to accept a PoR when he gets back and commit time to it. So @Hawkwin, unless he was really creative at managing a troop from a distance, your scout might get his oval for this coming rank sooner, but would probably not advance to the one after that any more quickly in my troop. (At the last committee meeting this was a discussion, and I made it pretty clear that giving a scout a break from a position he couldn't fulfill was always in the offering.) So, same net result, but I think our approach gets to the grit of what a boy needs to experience in terms of leadership development.

There's not much down time in an Ordeal weekend. Ideally, you don't even cross paths with your SM. Regardless, I think the SM is missing an opportunity to break in an ASM to help with these kinds of situations. More importantly, a scout like this is getting to know other leaders and hear from other troops. They are learning how things could be done differently, and those ideas often come up in SMC's and BoR's. The more adults can hear from their boys, the better. Since you're traveling, your scout should consider starting Citizenship in the World, Photography, or some other MB(s) related to whatever you might be doing on your travels. Just because his ovals are being awarded a little later than expected, there's no reason he can't rack up some MBs toward insta-palms. (The delays in delivering SMCs and BoRs is is probably one of the justifications for insta-palms.) Also, for all of the kids, don't forget international recognitions https://www.scouting.org/international/recognitions/

The guideline, what the BSA put out, again in bold ... Q: Should dens for girls and dens for boys meet at the same time and place? It is up to the chartered organization and the pack or the den to decide meeting times and places. The CM should follow it. This means if the COR says "Don't be ridiculous, Bear Den 1 and She-Bear Den 2 have room A from 6-7PM 1st and 2nd Mondays. Let us know when those two dens need more space." That's what the CM should do. If the COR says "At all cost, keep that corrupting influence of a she-bear away from those boys." That's what the CM should do. If the COR says "Listen to our parents. Support them." That's what the CM should do. If the COR says "Ask strangers on the internet, do what they say." Get a new COR! The cold hard truth is that BSA has offered no specific advice about what to do when you get one girl two grades apart from all others. (Or, even, when you get one boy two grades apart from all others in a Pack that initially started for girls.) We haven't heard a lot of things. We have heard that parents believe it's ridiculous to separate the she-bear from her male buddies. I could be wrong, but those sound like parents who will proffer up the token trained, registered, female adult when asked. Pardon, me if I'm making a molehill out of a mountain.