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I think the IG, without saying as much. is trying to give female cub leaders latitude in placing temporary insignia so that it sits at a more-than-equatorial latitude of feminine features. So, IMHO, it's two options for one patch.

Okay, so these aren't straw men. I have never had a problem with counselors who read the reqs literally and only gave a partial blue card. If a growing boy cannot -- after 12 weeks of determined practice -- improve, either he made a lousy plan, did not really execute his plan, or has a disability interfering with muscle growth and tone. If a boy -- after being shown recipes and going over the principles of cooking -- can't make a meal that I'll eat, there's a real problem. Same for communications. I've seen severely learning disabled boys get a point across clearly (sometimes trying to convince us that we should let him cut corners on some requirement), start spouting philosophy, organize a rock band, play violin, etc ...Only one friend -- and him only, a very articulate fellow -- was, unbeknownst to anyone close to him, in danger of his life with the burden of giving a presentation. (He ultimately committed suicide at age 26 of such anxiety.) So, yes, if I sense a boy is like that, I would have his parents hustle him to a shrink and get him a waiver. None of these requirements are something to kill oneself over. I have no problem with an able bodied Life Scout not earning these MBs for one phrase of one requirement standing in his way. He's got a lot to be proud of, why would I ever insult him by being one more adult in his life doling out a pass?

For physical problems ... I've gotten waivers. The scout for whom I got them wasn't exactly comfortable with that, but we faced the harsh reality that anatomically he'd sink like a stone and die according to his physician. The MB straw men are not necessarily equivalent. But, if there's a disability for which I can get a waiver to pursue an alternative badge, I will. Otherwise, I expect counselors to help boys work these requirements to the very best of their ability. This is not a high standard! It's the cooking equivalent of not burning water, or not letting meat spoil. We're not punishing the kid by keeping him at Tenderfoot. We're setting a bar that he can choose to overcome, or not. If he chooses not to, that's okay. He can still run for SPL, earn every MB except aquatic ones, do awesome conservation projects toward a Hornaday award, consider a venturing award. I'm not minimizing how overwhelmingly hard this step is for certain youth (and adults). You can see it in their eyes. And it takes days of committed time helping them desensitize themselves to this sort of thing ... hours in the non-swimmers' section ... getting the student to walking you through his/her head to find out how he/she can tune out fear and tune in action ... Something that maybe nobody else ever did for the student. You wonder if you will ever succeed, but one thing sticks in your mind: There is simply nothing less rewarding to a teenager than one more adult doling out a pass.

By way of fair attribution: Although my style, this was not my idea. The adults who came before me in the troop did this. In particular, one former SM who came to camp for National Inspection and the food (no joke!) led this discussion day 1 of summer camp.

I would like to +20 Fred. Although I do agree that this is youth-led movement, that doesn't create a unified vision. I want parents in a troop to come away with the patrol method. Maintaining that with a diverse group of boys whose other activities invade those evening and weekend slots is the real challenge. So, I want parents to think of ways they can support a patrol (e.g. property to camp on, a favorite trail-head they can car-pool the boys to, a shop where they can work on their Klondike sleds, a business of theirs that could provide raw materials, etc ...) while staying outside of the patrol. I often use the phrase "pinnacle scouting experience of hiking and camping together with your mates." But, that's usually to try and correct the vision of folks who want to invest extremely in big-ticket scouting (e.g. Jambo's, High Adventure Bases, etc ...), and boys who are so advancement-obsessed that they don't have a good gauge on when they've "arrived" as a scout. Cross-over parents might agree with that vision, but don't have a clue of how to get out of the way just enough to make it happen.

If a scout is totally dependent on his face mask, he's a non-swimmer. Hit the water wrongly, and it's instant racoon-face. Even snorkeling, we put our masks on after we jump in! This is about a 15 year-old overcoming fear to the point that he's comfortable in his own skin. Not about parsing fine lines to find him an "out." One of the reasons why I declined to swim-test scouts in a local pool. Our camp's swim area is in a lake.

There are some articles on Scouting, but most of them are by way of example .. not really setting ground rules. I found the quotes here to be really useful http://inquiry.net/patrol/index.htm Plus one of my own: "As an adult in a youth-lead movement, I've eaten plenty of burnt grilled cheese. Now it's your turn. You'll be fine." I think with modern scouting, I lean on the Aims and Methods. Especially Leadership Development, and Adult Association to give parents a vision of what we're after. You have to start simply ... Leaders develop while leading ... Boys associate with adults who they know won't take the reigns from them. P.S. - I'm not a fan of Power Point. So, a page of brief notes for a one hour parent meeting (preferably when they are camping with you and most likely to be intrusive on the boys) is my style.

Boys in our troop did just this for a camp-wide raft building competition one summer. Found wood, tarp, and duct tape.

Stacked patrols: At a certain point, a scout is trustworthy. But, yes, it would be nice to have a quick uniform inspection with a large number of points going to patrols who present with flag, patches, and yells. Emphasis on the "quick". You're not looking for alignment of each insignia, but rather to see if these guys look sharp at first glance. Maybe, part of the competition could be to let the scouts who look sharp get started. Those whose members aren't wearing a patrol patch might have to go to a "craft area" and bang out copies before they can leave. If the yell sounds weak/disorganized, they have to come back in 5 minutes with a solid yell before starting. I agree with the reality checks. But, I've seen situations where guys have lined up solid plans and somewhere along the way enthusiasm for it fizzled. Maybe it's a problem that can't be fixed even if you are a cheerleader for those particular guys. But, you really have to take on that role if you want the idea mill to keep popping two years down the road.

Understood! But believe me, it can be the things like this that these boys, once they're older, wind up caring about. If he was in the pack since last fall, make a phone call and do what you can to set the record straight. Besides, knowing your council registrar on first name basis is always good practice.

@MattR, this .... Whatever you do, representing your district ... help your scouters and their scouts make their dreams come true. If one troop comes up with an idea, and another troop is willing to back them, lean hard on everyone else to rally behind their idea. Challenge any naysayers to come up with a better plan for the next camporee. This might not even be someone providing a theme for the entire camporee. But maybe one troop wants to provide some awesome dutch-oven desert for SPL/PL's cracker barrel. Rally everyone around that hour. A troop says they have a bunch of older boys not into competition? Ask them to come direct traffic, form your color guard, lead a scout's own service, or escort parent observers around the grounds.

Good work! And, a big sacrifice on the part of your troop to make things work well for these boys. It sounds like your council took the registration fee for the boy, so absolutely he should be on the pack charter. If they never collected fees from the boy, so that he was somehow dropped from the charter, see what else you can do to set the record straight. It may not matter to the boy now, but talk to your council registrar about the problem and see if you can have the boy's record show that he was a member of his pack continuously from whenever he started to now. This may mean someone ponying up fees in arrears. I've had venturers come to me about maintaining continuous years of service so that any service stars they had would keep counting. (These were youth who were giving back to scouting at a Council or Area level, so they weren't asking their name to idly sit on a roll somewhere. They just wanted to have a "home" crew while their life was quite transient.) I thought they were odd for caring about such things, but what do I know? I helped them keep their paperwork in order. Maybe this scout of yours will never give his years in cubs a second thought. Or if he does, he's not going to worry about what some electronic record says. But, he might be that odd duck who won't report more years in his pack that what council officially tells him. So, ironing out the record now might spare him dealing with glitches later.

This is very true. Son #1 would often try to drag me into his slough of despond. He wasn't depressed, he just was taking good times and very good friendships for granted. My conversations with him often involved me reminding him about how one of his friends would have said "Your dad's so cool!" If he stayed home from a backpacking trip or day hike, I still went. I would invest time in mapping out personally challenging hikes. One time he said "You'll hike alone!" I replied "Suit's me fine." Then, whatever he did with his friends, I would ask: would it have been more fun if you could have made it last all weekend? He went to college with the skills needed to be cheerful in tough times. Son #2 had to fight hard against negative moods. I congratulated him on every victory. It took him years to talk about every battle that he faced. But for him, scouting was the place where he could safely be a guy hashing out problems with other guys. His college roommates have been scouts, and it's meant the world to him. All that to say, point out to the boy that he has unique gifts that seem to only rise up when he's with on these camp-outs.

Welcome, and thanks for all you do for the boys. I used to be a crow! My WB patrol mate was a CC and infusing more boy-led activity was part of his ticket. So, there was some leadership training of adults, and a goal of having the SPL MC the court of honor ... with ranks were given out by patrols. I attended one of those CoH's, and was impressed.

Adults already have "control", as we have seen with national decisions on membership, insignia, and advancement. What they often don't have, is comprehensive information about what their base thinks? Who is that base? Youth, certainly. But also ... Look at the list of BSA charters (http://www.scouting.org/FILESTORE/pdf/02-507.pdf) how many are owned and operated by youth? Randomly search for a publicly-recognized donor to the BSA -- what are the odds that that donor will be youth or youth owned? Of the years that you have been a scout, how often have your dues been paid from your parent's checkbook? I absolutely love when youth band together and move adults along. It's a great thing. But, I've seen repeatedly: if the adults walk away, there is no unit. As a crew advisor in a contentious scouting arena, I field a lot of bluster (often couched in the form of "helpful opinions") from a lot of adults. My only reliable filter has been: who's doing the time? Put it another way ... do you really think I should put the opinion of a tiger DL who's been registered in the past two years on equal footing with yours?

Polling isn't about running things. It's about learning how every stakeholder thinks. Now, a young adult such as yourself (assuming you started at Tigers) had about 11 years of service. That's far more than most scout parents. But the bitter truth is that most young adults with 11 years of service will stop contributing to the organization after graduation within the next 3 years. That's life in America.

Honestly, I think different council board meetings operate differently. So few COR's show that if a CO sends 3 different reps for its 3 units who all showed up at a board meeting, they may be given three votes just to beef up the minutes. I've only attended one board meeting and the agenda was one of those warm fuzzy things. The only votes were to approve minutes and the nominations for next year's officers.

Whatever you do, if you invite enthusiastic young adults or youth to promote an adventurous camporee (like a canoe trip), shout down any scouters who would pan it, get buy-in from a couple of troops who would lock it into their schedule, and commit to calling every unit leader in the district personally to promote it. Shooting sports at a local sportsmans club was really successful one year. Multiple ranges, well trained adults, as well as enthusiastic volunteers, including a local game Commisioner.

As articulate as your replies have been, I'm not entirely sure your experience should carry the same weight as someone like Stosh, Schiffe's, or David, who worked with multiple generations of units. In any case, I don't see this as a distinct disadvantage, because your ability to rally multiple youth with few service stars should far outstrip an adults ability to counter with cumulative service-stars from adults. Technically, that's one vote per CO. So, for example, a troop's "vote" is diluted if it is under the same roof as a CO with a Pack, Troop, Crew, and in two years a BSA4G pack and troop.But those votes are for actual board decisions - which are few - not polling, which a CO may or may not use in its decision process. Poll results could, in theory be drilled down to the scouts in a CO. Voice of a Scout surveys got down to district level for its key three. Some districts found them helpful. Others less so. The only "free" polls I've responded to besides VoS are the ones you all have posted. That's mainly because you've paid me with copious good ideas over the years. I've been able to articulate those to my unit, and it has helped me be a better scouter. But, it's been pretty clear that you've invested in your questions and revised when asked. I'm not sure that would happen on a scale of millions. Somehow, there needs to be a governor for whose surveys get to take up he time of hundreds of thousands of members. I chose a capitalist model because that greases a lot of things smoothly. With something like FOS, there is greater potential for full disclosure. The bottom of the Preferred Pancake Batter survey could have a by-line like "sponsored by contributions from General Mills." Features of really good poll results should include bias estimates. For example if respondents were more male, northern, southern, older, younger, etc... then the known demographic of our membership.

We can file under "may not see it in my tenure" but let's lay some groundwork: IT through scouting.org just needs to improve even to manage what it does now, but let's suppose it gets better (and this would have have to be on the par of Google campus better) and can reliably track each user's scouting career ... Once a scout, always a scout. Opinions from old and young alike matter. So ... Votes are proportional to service stars (years registered in the program). For issues specific to the program, votes are proportional to time served in that program. Current vs. lapsed vs. never registered categories would be important to know. (There are direct marketing opportunities in collecting info from never registered users, even if half may be international spy bots.) A fee would be required to vote to underwrite the cost of delivering voting tools to the underprivileged. It could be on a sliding scale according to service stars A very large FOS donation would be required to request a survey. This may wrankle some "it's just for the boys" proponents, but I would remind everyone that the BSA was posting steady gains in membership over its first 50 years until it codified an ageist policy of rank advancement. Youth are not the only people we need to hear from. It will also wrankle the want-something-for-nothing crowd. But a little skin in the game is its own form of security. Results would be posted in full, with room for debate and up or down votes.

Welcome and thanks for all you do for the boys!

I'd agree with @Stosh, if you were the den leader. You're not. Run with this plan. Friends make good dens. You have nothing to lose by letting this play out.

Hosting Jambo was a healthy exercise in managing civilians -- a stress-free exercise until our sworn enemies gave themselves props for inflicting casualties on them. Military bases -- AP Hill especially -- were facing closures. This made it especially hard to train and prepare on a 4 year plan. BSA agreed to not have bases charter units so that it could maintain its right to have a publicly available membership standard that excluded athiests. In turn, their right to use public spaces was upheld. This is the same principle that guides public schools to not favor a religious practice, but does allow religious groups to practice in them. Also, at the time, large youth concerts were increasingly popular. (I think one festival reached a record 80,000 attendance.) So the possibility of a revenue stream was not that far fetched. Some negotiations with WV limited that. SBR resolves a lot of issues and offers real potential, that's why large donations and bonds are readily available for it. But, it should come as no surprise that businessmen often make excessive projections. They may be making them with this decision as well. But let's not discount that there are folks who are having fun with girls in the mix.

Good points. Another fine point: That Venturer who was 13 and graduated 8th grade last year? You might want to set her birthdate forward to it's actual date so she doesn't age out too soon in several years.

Oh, now I understand. I would never push the boys to have a troop campout in addition to a camporee in the same month. Basically it takes a lot of effort to prepare a troop for a good camporee. Training. Equipment checks. Rules for competitions. We usually need one or two weekends for some kind of training for each patrol. This is especially true if it's the boys' idea. The more enthused they are about something, the more effort they'll put into it. So, unless there is a patrol who wants to do something completely different, I wouldn't add anything more than the camporee if that's what the PLC elects to do for the month.