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If everyone's on board with training, start-up should go quickly. One piece of advice. Pick a meeting night different an the ones of your adjacent troops.

Few things would make me seriously consider dropping ties with BSA, mailing in my Eagle, and striking it from my resume, than BSA abandoning this practice.Of the program materials they provide, encounters with public servants is one of them. Teach boys how to handle off-color speech, that's on us.

Nice to know things haven't changed much since the 80s. I went to Jambo once and decided that I preferred rocks in the middle of nowhere alone or maybe with a buddy or two.

Lock picks don't wear a badge announcing their skill. (Not that I'd know for certain. ) Yeah, Son #1 and his posse were all scholar athletes. They didn't bother to earn Scholarship or Athletics.

I guess, because I rarely ever did structured fitness, I would not buy into this. But I could see myself helping guys who wanted to master some of these skills. But, this shows that BSA, by denying adults advancement, created a vacuum that someone else will try to fill.

Props to ship 100. Huzzah! Instead of JTE, I'd love to see an annual "best troop in the nation". In my fantasy world, the national award would start with a camp or HA base putting in your nomination on an annual basis. It could be for your troops conduct on weekend activities as well as long term activities. That creates the pool. Repeated annual nominations of your unit increases the probability of further review by an area or national team of scouts and scouters -- youth and adult commissioners, if you will. But then someone would complain that every troop should get a trophy. Now that I think of it. Summer camp used to have a "best campsite inspection" award. The prize itself amounted to a decorated tin can ... I can barely picture it. But, I was so proud when our troop earned it while I was SPL. Now it's just if your troop's site is spotless the first round of departure day inspections, you get to be first in the checkout line. Not the same feel.

Well, that's not placating anyone who wants BSA's key three to denounce the man. But, I don't look for palliatives from national. Anybody who does, I refer them to my rule #1 (don't ask for a rule). As far as I'm concerned this is between scouts and their SMs. I'm looking forward to hearing all about Jambo from the scout from our troop who's there. As the week continues, he'll have a lot more interesting stuff to go over. Hopefully it will make a positive impact on the troop (maybe even the crew) program. Part of that may or may not involve a letter or card from the troop to present or former POTUS's. His call, not mine. Other SM's and Advisors may act differently with their youth. Their call, not mine.

Praying for you all. You may want to look into the possibility of planting a tree on your CO's grounds in the lad's memory. That meant a lot to the mom when whe drove by the property. It meant a lot to me when Son #2 and his friends stood under it for a picture at his ECoH. Also, this advice from a mom at our CO: "Tell the boys to always remember the mother." Meaning, make plans to stop by the house on occasion, visit before you go off to or come back from college or war, drop of flowers. Just sit a spell and catch her up on your life. Make a commitment to do that now, so you will never forget this duty. Invite to CoH's, but understand if she declines.

As a WB crow, I will assure you that we have impeccable taste. Actually, whatever space boys may need, the one your daughter describes isn't it. The handbook makes clear that such behavior is conduct unbecoming of a scout. However, that section of the handbook is rarely read at Boy Scout meetings. In venturing, on the other hand, conduct toward the opposite sex is part of the program. We don't need to spend a lot of time on it, just enough that expectations are clear. The real problem: venturers do not feel like they are part of the program. They are not trained to expect more from these scouts. And they are often not welcomed cheerfully by scouters in camp. So, they don't feel free to take up the usual chilling phrase: "Scout, may I have a word with your SPL/SM?" (Yes, we teach all my scouts to say that. I also let them know that, when put upon, they may welcome the person to camp to discuss the issue with the SPL/SM.) Will that problem correct itself if the organization was fully co-ed at all levels? It's hard to say. I have only heard from international scouts outside of their troops. It sounds like the scouts they are with comport themselves with more courtesy. I suspect some training is involved to set the tone. I know my Italian scout simply would quote Baden Powell (back-translating from Italian) nearly verbatim when discussing how things like this were handled. But, she was very well read. I'm not sure if other scouts in her unit had the same sensibility. (I really need to talk to Mrs. Q about a visit, for investigative purposes. )

I never doubted ... stupid faith of mine. Merl, I saw a couple of posts elsewhere suggesting, in addition to asking concerned citizens to ceas contributions, that BSA should lose tax exempt status for effectively holding a partisan rally. Sounds frivolous to me.

I've asked myself the same thing.

I am no partisan. I will admit to being a bit of a hack. I see scouts at Jamborees as judges of history. If a Jamboree is successful, a scout sees something of the real character of public figures. Something they can use that as a baseline. Not necessarily of the person him/herself, but of how much time and effort one must spend listening to the full message from people and sifting through the good and the bad. Using that to decide who you want for your next leader ... you may make an effort to hear more from all parties. I think POTUS missed an opportunity: to lay out every area of concern facing the nation, and ways scouts can/are helping, to get beyond stumping for the next round of primaries and elections, and to recognize other erstwhile scouts among his political opponents. I think he did put forward: a vignette of his strategy for success (momentum, persistence), examples of cabinet members who were scouts and the challenges they currently face, his rather flawed personality. His presentation is more "intimate" than I'd like a scout to have, less than what they already get via post-modern media. As mentioned, that's good and bad. So, to quote this town's current football coach, it is what it is. But how should a concerned citizen respond? I think it is wrong to judge BSA for the behavior of a POTUS, but I am afraid that's what will happen. Democrat activists will be motivated to withdraw funds and bring suit against the organization, Republican activists will be motivated to "invest" in the organization and contribute towards any defense. This may give us smaller membership, but also ratified and polarized only making behavior at future Jambos worse.

If it's a membership drive, it's gotta be one that will take decades to yield results. It's doublespeak, pure and simple. There's a special interest. You can define it on the participant level (the occasional girl who is one of the boys) or the parental level (the occasional family who claims they would sign up their girls as well as their boys) or the activist level (the occasional action committee who claims without evidence that the membership policy is a pane in some glass ceiling). But it's still a special interest. Were National to speak plainly, they would say "There are a minority who we and some of our youth leadership feel deeply about. We think we know how to accommodate them. It's a huge gambit, but will you support us in trying?" 'Rat, besides your daughter (who posted a topic once or twice, sounds like an outstanding scout), how many other girls in your circle are chomping at the bit for this sorta thing?

Thanks for the transcript, 'Schiff. I only had time to hear part of the video this morning. What I like about the DJT is also what I dislike: he doesn't bother changing tone given the expectations of his audience. I do believe, like @@EmberMike intimated, that it's possible to be less bombastic and still get more of your agenda across. That seemed to be something BHO had a real knack for. In fact, DJT omitted topics that elsewhere he claimed were important to him: immigration, trade, terrorism, coal. These scouts are just two years from being on the front lines of these issues. (Some venturers and staff may have already done their first tour of duty.) He would have done well to ask them to put some thought into those issues. I look forward to hearing the take of the scouts I know who attended.

So I've learned from transplants from TX, and more recently from having relocated my daughter to OK, and then TX. I won't divulge which she prefers, lest friends from either state discern whose dad I am.

Welcome aboard! Thanks for staying active. It'll be great to hear from you. Sentinel has gotten too stale and responsible. It is time for a new "at bat"!

Okay @@DadScouts, name names. Some of these scouters will no doubt want the camp's brochure. You might also want to consider drafting a thank you letter to that managers camp director, copy the SE, and have all the boys who earned partials sign the bottom with the by-line "Scouts proud to have good MBCs!"

By the tone of some of the internet flamers, those boys SM's might be accused of corrupting the morals of a minor. Related to the background of the photo: Hey, Texans. Is there anything in your state's code about using your flag for capes?

I'm guessing Flagg is referring to private schools and colleges, and we shouldn't complain about their selection criteria. I suspect that on the whole it's their loss. We'll see in the next decade. Wanting to join? You said you'd sign them up if that's what they wanted. So I took that to mean you hadn't asked them. My daughter (who I signed up for BSA as soon as she was age-eligible) wanted to go camping as when her brothers went. Did she want to muck about at troop meetings? Be in a patrol? Etc ...? Not really (at least not until her current job running rigs with a bunch of rough-necks for her posse). She had a clique of about 4, and they did give it a go. But it was nothing like what I've seen when any random bunch of eight guys were asked to pull together for months on end. I thought my Italian scout would attract a few of the ladies who were on the fence about our crew. At least she would encourage the ones whose parents were enthusiastic about scouting. The opposite happened. Their enthusiasm for theater infected her. I'm willing to allow that my community may have a particular bunch of American girls who are stuck in a fad. Other communities seem to be different. But I think it's a very long bet that this will swell our ranks. I'm guessing it will just change the boy:girl mix to something like 19:1 for quite some time. With continuing net membership decline in the 6-18 year age range.

At least you could demonstrate how to hold it out front so it looks bigger in the camera! Tell him, if he wants the next one to look any bigger, he'll have to hold it himself and walk closer to whoever is holding the camera!

Hope the boys can cheer him up. And, I'm really, really hoping he goes off script!

... or aspirations beyond the roles of their sex, ... or age lines.

I'm sure OB meant "discriminatory against the popularly pitied class du jour."

I've suggested in the past the design of clothes with electronic ink. A boy's sash could have a digital subscription to scout-net, and when the troop recieves a blue card, the SM snaps a picture of it, which is wirelessly uploaded, and an image of the medallion would appear on the sash ... saving time, toil, and textile. Same for shirt pockets. It would be cool as a boy comes out of a BoR to watch an oval "float" from the right front pocket to the back of the sash, and the new oval reappear. Youth-led wonks could ad voice recognition processes so the the whole visual transformation would only occur on the SPL's declaration.

I think this is the point where numbers begin to really matter. Not numbers physically (or even virtually) present, but what those numbers represent. The fewer percentage of American boys BSA holds as members, the easier a POTUS can brush them off. Not necessarily because he/she would want to, but because he/she would need to find other avenues in addition to BSA to reach out to that demographic. @@ALongWalk, sorry to hear that. It's really hard to figure out how to help scouts stand up against the "not my president" rhetoric. I don't want them going around blugeoning suspected anarchists, but I do want them to enforce that we're all in this together under the same constitution.