qwazse

Welcome to the forums! And thanks for all you do for our youth. FWIW, you have what the old-school Protestants called a calling. (One that comes from beyond any bishop.) I hope that, inspite of all of these high-handed shifts from your house of worship, you'll find a way to fulfill that calling. If so, let us know how you do it.

@@TAHAWK, you describe the organization's errors on particulars (although if you are a person affected by those particulars, they may loom large). The thing that truly undermines course directors and SPLs is a pervasive vision of big ticket scouting to Jambo and HA bases (including to some extent CoHs and service project bragging matches) -- all requiring chaperons -- all somewhat ancillary to what we're really after. We may pitch the pinnacle scouting experience of hiking and camping independently with your mates, but parents and many youth only see that red-white-and-blue knot or the Jambo or HA patch. Thanks to BSA marketing, we'll be the first (and maybe only ones) to tell them to look to the first class scout. So, we're basically asking our trainees (be they adult or youth) to set aside the polished marketing that they've seen for decades, give ear to our pitch for an hour or a weekend, and buy a timeshare of our vision ... one that they thought was secondary, but we're telling them is central. That's where a female SPL might have the advantage. Most of the BSA marketing is probably poppycock to her. The trail to Eagle is closed to her. If she's after bling, it's an obscure specialty award that won't betray her reason for being there. Philmont is just a foothill on the way to El Capitan. Jambo is a very hard sell to her. She likely loves scouting because she realised that a small campfire somewhere is better than palatial halls anywhere. That adults are your friends, not your minders. That to be trusted to manage your own adventure is the only first class rank that matters. So, when she speaks about doing the work for yourself and letting the adults try to keep up, it might just real enough to buy in.

Regarding knots, we tell our boys to pick them up after the ceremony on their own time (and their own dimes)! The scout shop usually asks for proof of earning the award. The NESA card will do. While they're at it, be sure they get the AoL knot (if they earned it) and maybe some service stars.

Lol, @@askyourspl! We crew advisors wallow in the "what if" game. No purple tents! As if in acres of woodland, that's where our worst fears would come true. Anyway, I think your have your options: send her (maybe both of them) packing or help build that crew. (FWIW, even with a crew, issues like Jr. High brain farts don't go away, but at least you have a structure and boundaries in which to operate.) Let us know what you try and how it works!

At the NER4VOA meeting, an new venturing adult commish invited us to this. He was quite exited about it. He called it a camporee. Gotta admit it sounded like fun.

Welcome! Enjoy the fun time with the ceremony. Bottom line: it's the boys' court of honor. Thus, it's theirs to plan down to when the patches go on and off. Our opinions on the matter just don't matter all that much. I'm looking at Son #1's portrait right now (age 18 at the time), and the eagle medal is pinned on his his pocket, which still has a life patch sewn on it. He's wearing the red, white, and, blue necker with the least expensive slide. I don't know where Son #2's portrait is (third child syndrome), but they pretty much look like twins 6 years apart.

Welciome! Oh, and thank your hockey compatriots for all the catfish! Let's go Pens.

I wouldn't white-wash it. If, as @@askyourspl writes, this dad is a good leader, then he has good sense. But, he has an agenda: to make a space in the outdoors suitable for his son and daughter using existing faculty (i.e. the leaders, old and young, in this troop). I can report, straight from my daughter's mouth, that it really stinks to watch dad and your brother go off to a camp where you aren't welcome. (Actually, the SMs would gladly make exceptions for her, but I insisted that if the SPLs weren't inviting, it was a no-go. And it wasn't that the SPLs didn't want to invite the women of the crew, but half the time they wouldn't think about it. Again, not my problem.) I've met unit leaders who thought that was crap, and are making co-ed work in spite of the BSA, and no representative from council is going to grow jaggers in their path. So, it boils down to two options, and @scouterdl kind of nails it. This really doesn't even have to involve the CO (unless it has some kind of agenda as well). Concerned parents may: Tell the ASM that his daughter is doesn't fit in, and he can work his agenda elsewhere. If you have leadership who will accommodate the more vocal parents, you can get back to status quo. Help the ASM and his daughter fulfill his agenda by starting that crew. Go with him to training. Talk to other advisors/crew committee. Lean on older scouts to put in the extra time.

Kinda like page 1 of the G2SS: I read community standards to mean most units' CO. But, it could also mean what the average cluster of parents sending their sons on a boy scout camp out might expect.

All that is to say that it is equally likely that any given NYLT staffer could have had more PM experience from being outside of a Boy Scout troop than from being in. So, what does NYLT a course director look for in their SPL?

God help us all. Prayers with you, the boys, and the troop family.

Welcome to the forum @@HulkSmash! The biggest practical concern that folks here may have (that may or may not come with underlying opinions about sex and development) is the level of experience implementing the patrol method. With a Boy Scout's resume that experience is measured straightforwardly by years in a patrol, as a patrol leader, as SPL, etc ... What about your female staffers' experience do you take as equivalent to the patrol method ... or what about her performance did you decide could be translated into being a guide to nascent PL/SPLs?

I'm pretty strict that decisions about sharing an activity must be mutually agreed upon by the SPL and the Crew President after consulting their respective cabinets. Same applies across PLC's of different troops. The youth go through protocol for each event. It's not real formal: SPL/President: "Hey guys should we invite crew/troop ###? If yes, I'll drop their president/SPL a line." This minimizes the on-going take-my-welcome-for-granted attitude. I have advised an SM whose younger daughter was of boy-scout age and wanting to do more camping to let the troop ride on its own and take his daughter camping frequently and often. The years go by too fast to miss those kinds of opportunities.

Thanks for more details @@askyourspl. I actually agree with @@RichardB that the problem has more to do with non-member siblings. We can slice and dice policy, but if a youth isn't there for you to try to recruit, or to push boys to try and start a crew for other not-yet-in-the-BSA youth like this girl, what's the point? I would step cautiously with your "not PLC approved" interpretation. If one or two older boys realize that their lack of a decision is being used as a justification to exclude someone, they might explicitly extend her welcome. It is the SM's call. He might recognize that he's going off the reservation on this. Or not. It is fair to say that parents and some boys come in to a troop expecting young women to be kept at a distance, and young men to be working with other young men in both meetings and camp-outs to build one another's character. Can that happen with girls present as full stakeholders? I say yes. Others say no. But regardless, BSA offers no pathway for a girl to be a full stakeholder in the life of a troop. (Can't be assigned a patrol, unless off-book. Can't assigned PoR unless off-book. Can't be recognized for mastering first class skills. Etc ...) So, plying some middle ground like this ASM is doing just gives a kid the worst of both worlds. Venturing is lacking for dads and moms willing to till the hard row. That is, back away from troop life enough to help concerned daughters and sons start a crew. That's the best that BSA has to offer them. When I was asked to be a crew advisor, it was because someone else's daughter and her friends wanted to attend Seabase ... among other things that the troop did. Son #1, three other boys, and I signed on the dotted line for her and her friends' sake. That was a wild ride. It payed off for me a little when my daughter was old enough to join a crew. But it really paid off when youth who were neither Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts found a place to call our crew 'home.'

Well, scratch 'cloth laundry bag' from my original reply!

@@jwest09, I am not derogating any exceptional individuals. I am allowing for the possibility that, given policy shifts, this could be in play, if not in this situation, then in a parallel situation across the scouter-verse.

I'm sorry that happened to you. I hope you give it another chance. Maybe not at camp. But, many local sportsman's clubs have good youth programs. And, they are often better able to size up boys to the firearm that will work best for them. It's a lot of fun shattering skeet with extreme prejudice.

Not that I would interpret this way (having started a venturing crew to address issues like these), but the following paragraph in The Guide to Safe Scouting could lead one to infer that a female child may be brought on a troop overnight, if one of the leaders is a female adult. Furthermore, according to recent BSA decisions to play the identity game, the adult need only identify as female, or the youth as male ... problem solved. @@askyourspl, here are some more questions to think about: Is this a no-other choice situation? (E.g. single-parent SM, only weekend with custody.) Could the weekend go forward without the SM? Does the youth in question like to hike and camp? Sex of the youth aside, is she first class material? Depending on the answer to these, the best solution might be to get acquainted with the SM's daughter. Find out if she, along with a couple of the older Boy Scouts would like to start a venturing crew. If yes, then find a few adults who are willing to step up and make it so.

This bug is back. Hope it can be squished.

Again, not every trail is back-country wilderness. Several in PA were designed for high volume (country roads, old railroad beds, etc ... leading to sites that patrols could set themselves up far apart). That said, even with trails designed for extensive use, I do try to arrange different hike plans for each patrol. (E.g., insert at either end, rendezvous in the middle.) Hiking through town for the first time to some sweet hidden plot of land, on the other hand, I wouldn't worry about that 25-person group.

Flagg makes good points about WRFA, etc ... for back-country. But, you're not there yet. I was assuming that you would pick someplace more within the reach of local first-responders. (As evidenced by thinking of someplace where a trailer could be parked.) At this stage, don't plan any hike where you are more than 2 hours from rescue. Last year I dealt with a heat exhaustion victim in a county park, and that 10 minute wait after his wife made cell phone contact with the 911 was nerve-racking. However, your troop should be beefing up your skills for eventual back-country outings. If your troop doesn't eventually try for something like that, eventually some of your boys will on their own. So, @mikemac4498, don't let those lists and the big red letters discourage you from trying. Rather, let them encourage you to work on accumulating skills over the long haul. I would also add to Flagg's points: the larger the unit, the slower you will move. This will try the patience of some scouts who want to cover more territory. So, plan accordingly. Make sure everyone listens to what everyone else wants to get out of the day.

This SM is creating a we/they scenario that most of us don't live by. Give other troops in your district a call. I'm sure one of them will welcome you on short notice.

Unless these scouts are all in their late teens, ten miles per day is a big chunk and, honestly, not much fun. The first hike need not involve a trailer or much transportation at all. Identify the campsite nearest your meeting place. It could be a community park or someone's wooded lot. Meet, prepare, go there, come back. You may have to identify property owners along the way whose land you might need to cross and give them a call requesting permission to cross it. The second hike could be the nearest state park with a good trail system that you drive to, hike in 3-5 miles, camp, hike out. If you have multiple patrols, each patrol can take a different trail or loop. Then, get a trail map of your state. (Maps are these paper things that unfold and spread over table.) and have your boys highlight the trails within an hour or to of you, then research them. In all of these, do after action review. Use that to help boys decide the next move. Also people from your neighborhood are your best resource. Go to district roundtable and ask scouters there what their boys prefer to do. NEVER hike to a food drop, like your trailer, etc ... and call it backpacking. That's not backpacking. That's general infantry. That can be fun (e.g. 5 mile land navigation to a campsite where supplies are in a lock box), but it's a different animal.

And this is why I despise self-serving stipulations in MB (and other advancement) requirements. The SM is merely imitating the control trip that BSA started. Go camping, have fun, tell your boy to take his blue card to a different MB counselor.

Thumbs again! I'll never get this hand-held and it's moving targets! But, following on T.Hawk (who is worthy of a plus, not minus) ... it's not just one home. The second home is a must have. The in-laws really could benefit from our watchful eyes, either here in PA or at their other child's in FL but they won't countenance sharing a roof in the towns where their kids live, but none of their childhood friends have moved. Worse, we've stopped reproducing. So that soft-hearted grandchild who loves to caretaker and needs a roof is harder to find. (Thank God for the immigrants who have come to fill in our voids.) Then, there's the cabin in the woods someplace (a given for many WPa families). In our case, it's a lake house that we're trying to keep in the family. Live like kings? Gotta work to maintain it.