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Feel free to use my illustration, be sure to preface with "Some stranger on the Internet explained it this way ... P.S. -- Son #2 warned me to never use it on any scouts ever ... So, you know it's gotta be good!

This is part of the Christian challenge. They know that God listens regardless of he form used, because their Master taught us to look forward to a day when everyone worships "in spirit and in truth." But they are also called to, in going into all the world. Preach good news to every creature ... So, prayers take a form that emphasizes in whose name they are doing this. The paradox is, when Jesus talked about using his name, it was about everything except praying (e.g., making disciples, teaching, baptizing ..., healing, xcorscism). When He was talking about prayer, he never said "and be sure to drop my name." So, we wind up with boys being taught that form is really important, but they aren't taught how to admit that this is the a form they are obliged to follow, and others are welcome to join him by silently using their form, and we're sure the Almighty will graciously attend to us all.

Thanks 'Skip, I figured British scouters could furnish more details and corrections.We can wait until next week for your reply, or maybe other Brits will round things out. How much do you think the workings of Scout's UK has penetrated the market? For example, here we can't go two weeks without some reference to "Boy Scout" or "Eagle Scout" in reference to some service project or rescue in news or theatre. It's hard to have a conversation with anyone who doesn't ask "Did you earn Eagle?" the minute they got wind that you were in BSA. (GIrl Scouts, on the other hand aren't nearly as well known for their Gold award.) how widely recognized is queen scout?

Lots of misinformation from both young men. The British lad clearly wasn't much for advancement, the American lad never took any true wilderness hikes. But, it is a good lesson on the different "messages" boys get from their scouting career. Son #s's roommate was an Eagle Scout, and they had fun comparing and contrasting their experiences. It would have been nice to get a video of that.

Our crew operated well with two meetings and one activity a month. Meetings ran 1/2 to 1 hour.It really depends on their objectives. Tour plans were best when my VP-Program filled out pdf for me to sign. Now they have to feed me details, and I file it. If my CO offered Internet, I would log in and have then complete it during the meeting.

Wait, everyone gets one post. @@Stosh!

By the way of helping the boy, I would encourage him to talk to his pastor about earning the religious award for his denomination. That may give him some broader view of public prayer.

Step 1: Envision the pinnacle scouting experience of youth hiking and camping independently with their mates. Step 2: Ask every adult in the room to do the same. (Depending on your audience, you may need to emphasize one word in that vision over the others.) Step 3: Ask every youth to do the same. (This may involve turning off some electronics.) Ask them what they think that would look like, where they think it would be, who they think it will be with, who will most likely get them there. Make it clear that when that is happening on a monthly basis "they will have arrived" as a scout. Then hold up the handbook and say, "Make it so by reading this and doing what's in it. Any questions?" Then, what @@Stosh said is about as good a start as any. But, it's possible that when they tell you who they think it would be with, they will answer "our respective patrols, and our PLs will get us there." If so, then start at the training. Step 4. At every success, remind them "You are that much closer to the pinnacle scouting experience. Keep it up!" Be sure to brag about it to the kid's mom and dad as well. At every failure, return to step 1 or step 2. They should go more smoothly each time.

How does the discussion about patrol method have less value because someone disagrees with you on advancement? Before my ice cream cone analogy, should I have posted a disclaimer that readers might disagree with me on troop-crew associations, the use of generic but uncommon terms for the opposing sexual ethics of the day, or my general belief in forced marches in bear country as a tonic for self-absorbed teens? You're allowed your soap-box. But I'm not seeing the relevance. Most SPLs who I know are Star or Life scouts. Their EBoR is a ways off. And if an SM (or ASMs or even a district) thinks they should or shouldn't be prepped for it has little to do with what it means to be "in charge" of a troop. Except maybe that's one more to tell a boy to prepare for: BoR member: "What did it mean for you to be in charge of your troop?" Scout: "Well sir, I read on scouter.com that it meant ..."

Welcome! Keep those Webelos patrolling, and that troop you're worried about will strengthen in the long run!

Where I've read people going off the rails with this "in charge" notion: The folks who think BSA has gone soft on rank advancement, when they aren't ranting about BORs not being allowed to retest, point to the panoply of PoRs in which a life scout may serve. Some go so far as to say only SPLs should apply for Eagle. It makes sense if Eagle is about being "in charge" .... one figures only boys who've actually been in charge of a whole troop have proven themselves Eagle material. Sounds really clever, until you realize that the position would reduce to a six month rotation, with some boys marking time when they could be doing something really awesome for their troop.

@@LilSisKin, welcome to the Forums! I've run the gamut of letting these things slide because most of the boys were Christians of some sort and the non-Christians felt that if the kid didn't follow his convictions, it would be an unworthy offering. counseling the boy and his parents about how sometimes God works in mysterious ways, and we have to understand that phrases which convey joy or wonder to some convey pogroms or holy wrath to others. asking the boy to get volunteers to help him so that his job is more of a facilitator than they only "voice from the pulpit." I wouldn't just count on letting him explain things at election time and if the boys vote for them, they are stuck with him. That doesn't match real life. Winners usually have to make the biggest concessions.

Not a universal experience. None of the boys from our troop who joined a crew (mine or another one devoted to LARPing) left the troop. On the other hand, a minority of boys who were not in a crew stayed in our troop. We've discussed troop/crew operations before ... so I won't belabor the point. Bottom line: Keep the boys on task. Use troop meetings to discuss troop stuff. Crew meetings to discuss crew stuff. Once trained, the SPL and Crew President can get together and decide if an activity should be shared. Then one welcomes the other to a meeting to extend a formal invite. Avoid schedule overlap about as much as the troop tries to avoid conflicting O/A and district events.

Here's how I see it: As with most organizational charts, the most functional groups invert them. The positions with "leader" or "master" in their title actually constitute support staff. The scouts are on top, with their PL and APL identifying ways to support their patrol's success in scouting (i.e., reaching the pinnacle experience of hiking and camping independently your mates). The SPL and ASPL are so designated because age (sometimes maturity beyond years) results in their fellow scouts recognizing that if the PLs/APLs need support, these guys are the one's to do it. Their primary support is to facilitate communication and skills dissemination among the various patrols in the troop. All of the other Eagle-qualified positions of responsibility exist in support the troop. Coming along-side the SPL during whatever time they can spare from their respective patrol commitments. Imagine an ice cream cone. Not one of those pre-fab ones. Rather, one with a shell rolled from cake batter baked on a proper iron. Most scouts in general are the sprinkles and nuts at the top. (I'll allow you to sort out who in your troop is which.) The PL's are the ice cream. They determine the flavor of the troop. The boys with various PoRs are the cake of the cone, if they hold together, your patrols will stay anchored in the troop. The SPL is in one sense just another PoR, piece of cake. But he's also the point where the seams of the cone come together ... the fulcrum that all of the nuts, sprinkles, flavor, and cake ultimately fall on. Talk to him for any length of time, and you'll get a sense of the troop ... just like if you broke off the bottom of the cone, you might get a sense of flavor and texture of everything that's melted down from above. But, breaking off the SPL might also result in all the good stuff spilling out. The SM? He/she's a napkin that picks the drippings. Needless to say, the wrong balance of sprinkles, nuts, cream, and cake, and that SM will get worn pretty thin when the heat is on.

So, some advice from a guy who's seen some boom and bust cycles ... Meetings are tedious. Keep them to a minimum. They are basically to determine what your crew will be about. It sounds like you all are halfway there, so you won't have to go through all of those steps. Have training sessions. Involve baked goods ... preferably with chocolate ... or pizza. BUT DON'T LIFT A FINGER FOR THESE YOUTH. E.g., if one of them hasn't called about a campsite or guide/consultant by a reasonable time before the a desired weekend, the activity is in jeopardy of no-go and there should be no bailout. All you are there for is to sign where adult signatures are needed. To be honest there are some things in particular that interest me, so all they have to do is whisper some magic words (like "Dolly Sods") and I'm making sure that we have a plan suitable for the youth attending. IMHO, any paperwork that you have typically assigned to an adult troop committee (e.g., treasury reports, health information, tour plans, training) must be offloaded to the youth. You simply can't afford to have them ignorant of any accountability/safety issues that would be of concern to any adult committee. You and your crew committee are there to look over the youth's work, help them do a good job, provide a little continuity as youth come and go, and offer the occasional bright idea if one of your committee is into something cool. As far as the amount of time youth should dedicate to organizational stuff. If you have a crew of six, then everyone's an officer, and thus the officers do all of the planning. Most days, they can show up at the departure site, and pretty much wing it. But that's not a recipe for growth. If you have a crew of twelve then the folks who aren't officers are activity chairs (an officer can choose to chair an activity of interest to him/her). Officers coordinate activity chairs, who are basically youth who want the crew to do a particular activity. If you have a crew of twenty-four then you are really leaning on the officers to identify the best activity chairs from among your most active participants. Your VP-finance (a.k.a. treasurer) is tracking thousands of $s. Your VP-communications (a.k.a. secretary) really has to know what was discussed at the last meeting. Your VP-program should have contacted every activity chair in the last month and know who needs help with what. Your President or VP-administration should be working a substantial agenda. One of them should be attending district/council VOA. With those numbers or greater, the officers may need training in parliamentary procedure so that during meetings everyone has a fair chance to put forward their ideas. So, be clear to your 14 year-olds, that meetings may be few or brief, but adults are not to mask venturers' lack of time put into the program by constantly bailing them out. Certain reductions in busy-work may create efficiency, but too much results in reduced accountability, which results in people not doing their jobs, which results in fewer activities. At the end of the year, if the youth are bothered about unmet goals, they may decide they needed to meet more after all.

BTW, you're off to a good start calling it a "venturing" crew. Way to polish that brand!

@@Eagle94-A1 You need to accept the fact that the adults don't share your vision ... and the fact that there is no branding authority that will enforce the patrol method on any body of adult leaders. Politely point out to them in some after-action review when they squandered the boys' leadership opportunities. Let them know that you're there for them in spite of their cutting corners with the program. When you see boys pulling off the littlest thing, be prepared with high praise ... fire-works even (depending on local ordinances). We know you're gonna have lots of "two steps back." I am certainly having them in this merged troop. That's your baseline. Let us know when someone warms up to your way of doing things. Good luck with the tests.

Talk to your Venturing Officer's Association (VOA) they might be able to help with that search for good women with strong backs! Older sisters and young GS/USA leaders may also be open to the idea of back-country backpacking. Talk to college fellowships ... some of them have 21-and-over outdoor clubs and are looking for service opportunities. (I've loaned gear to several such young women over the years.) It's ideal if you have your committee chair do that legwork for you. It's really hard to balance SM and Advisor. If your crew committee is different people then your troop committee, encourage them to meet together once or twice a year. I actually insisted that the crew committee never meet in the absence of the Crew President. I tell my venturers that Advisor = Good for nothing and best used that way. To that end: Sign yourself and all your people up for VLST asap. Invite your youth along as well. That ceremony that you found? Pretend you never saw it. Ask the youth to research joining ceremonies. Accept no youth application that has not been completed by the youth except for the parent's signature. Strongly encourage any 17 year olds to take youth protection training, because you will all too soon be giving them and adult application. It's a wild ride, enjoy it!

Lacking any suggestion of more neutral and adequate terms besides "permissive" and "restrictive", I will proceed ... it's safe to say there is wide variation in the country about this. I grew up with people who were perfectly comfortable with restricting the activities of homosexuals (until their best buddy or family came out to them). In one sense the ban was an attempt by restrictives to use BSA as a tool in social engineering.Local variations aside, we aren't hearing anecdotes of folks seeing membership booming at their permissive CO. Maybe it just takes longer in this activist climate for any group to move forward with chartering. Or maybe more concessions are in order ... This is also a consideration of COs who may have a restrictive sexual ethic. Even very conservative church boards have members who may be offspring of atheists and may be parents of atheists. On one hand, BSA tells them they can select who leads the program, on the other it says that they have specific restrictions on philosophical grounds that must be followed for leaders and participants. Except for confirmation classes, this regulation probably does not apply to any of the church's other programs. It amounts to one more nuance that gives a board pause. The other secular trends that may play: More CO's may be looking for coed programs, With more readily available public land, boys are hiking and camping independently.

Some cheap seat math here: http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2016/05/26/dr-robert-m-gates-america-needs-scouting/ So Gates referenced membership loss of less than 3% last year, compared to more than 6% in each of the previous two years. If the trend holds, BSA will be back to it's usual bleed. My definition of thriving in this climate: 1 or 2% gains over a number of decades.

What, pray tell, do I get to do? Read a dictionary? From Webster's ... 1 archaic : granted on sufferance : tolerated 2 a : granting or tending to grant permission : tolerant b : deficient in firmness or control : indulgent, lax What one person sees as 2a, another sees as 2b. Seems like an adequate description of how certain contemporary movements are viewed by themselves or by others around them. I understand that it is far more convenient to demonize someone's language on the path to do dismissing his/her observations. However, that behavior (as opposed to, say, suggesting more accurate adjective) is exemplary of what leaders of some public organizations weigh in regards to forging partnerships with BSA. Thank you again for making my point.

Well @@Stosh, that day may come -- or it may not, but I think your speech trickles down to lay leadership as "don't make waves".

There is nothing hypocritical about finding non-incendiary terms for broad movements. The organization in question identifies itself as restrictive in terms of sexual ethics. The prevailing mood nationally is toward a permissive ethic. As far as I can tell, this is precisely what people are arguing about. If you have more neutral terms for these opposing sides, suggestions are welcome. Now the published desire of certain activists is to ensure insure that BSA goes further in mandating a permissive ethic, regardless of the wishes of the chartered sponsor. So, my repeating to a board -- one that recently came off of litigation to preserve it's right to uphold restrictive sexual ethics -- that "there IS no legal action" rings sufficiently hollow as to give half of them pause. Add the one guy who thinks two dozen 10-year-olds will wreak havoc on a building, and the scouting proponents can't overcome a motion to table. @NJScouter, obviously, I think none of this is rational. I am just describing a situation where perhaps other programs are fast-tracked, but rolling out a BSA unit is shelved. If the opposite is occurring elsewhere, it would be encouraging to hear that story.

Take the "or equivalent" to mean parallel Red Cross certification. In fact, if a RC supervisor like the Women's Air Corps retiree who taught me how to swim (as in we 5th graders knew we mastered the stroke when she stopped cussing at us) runs the pool, don't even think you'll be allowed to walk in with your BSA-trained staff and borrow the facility. She wouldn't be prejudiced against BSA Guard, she just would make darn sure people who she knew could forestall death (i.e.,the ones she didn't have to cuss at during drills) were managing your event. Of course people are different. And the ones who have never had to rescue a drowning victim will behave differently than the ones who have. I'd be more worried about a manager who doesn't give you a hard time. I would be REALLY worried if trainees like E94 felt like they couldn't demand to extract tired swimmers.

Thanks for making my point, Merl.It's not the legal action itself. But, the potential rhetoric promised to all who step outside "the line." That's what certain CO's have limited stomach for. Sticks and stones, no problem. Names, they hurt.