qwazse

Red herring. No organizational chart exists for one patrol. Well,the closest we come is the last page of ILST, which has a "small troop chart" with one patrol leader, a new scout patrol leader, and venture patrol leader. It doesn't specify the minimum numbers for that organization, but we know that BSA allows as few as five boys. If those boys were all 1st class rank and, say 13 through 14 maybe a 16 and 17 year old, the logical inference would be that there is no new scout and venture patrol ... So trim those branches, but the SPL still remains with the ONE TRADITIONAL PATROL. And that's how boys who haven't even taken ILST generally conceptualize it! It takes a lot of adult intervention to get them to believe they don't have an SPL. I'm our case, we just stopped buying the patches.

As in, what happens in every patrol I've ever known.

A can't speak to O/A numbers. Our district's advisor seems to have a good number of boys at roundtable every month. Spring camporees in our district are hit-and-miss. Musical, track, and baseball season are the prime distractions. Come to think of it, I don't think they were done all that often when I was a kid. My patch collection backs that up (more from fall camporees and Klondike). Do you have crews in your district? I know many venturers are arrowmen, and many area summits are also in the spring. There are some young arrowmen across the nation who are put out that their no access is granted female colleagues who are first class scouts (the concept, not the patch). I can't imagine this having a big impact, but when your talking about that one rare talent for a ceremony team, who knows? Your best bet is for your son to call around and see if there are three more guys who can just come out for the evening.

In one sense I agree. It's already for a "select few", so why call it a troop thing? On the other hand, we're talking older boys who can probably get a hold of a vehicle and (like more than one scout I know) go off-roading with his buddies/girlfriends and break its axle in a ravine or get it buried in mud above the wheel wells ... then, to avoid getting the 'rents angry, radio his other buddy to grab the tow truck from the fire hall ... thus getting his buddy in trouble when the chief sees that one spot of mud that was missed ... but no entry on the requisition log. I'm just saying sometimes sheltering the boys can cause the harm you're trying to avoid.

Nobody's tying your hands, but I would strongly suggest you get everyone in the same room and decide what's best for the community. Just because most of the boys are not Roman Catholic, scouting still may be better served by that CO (e.g., space for meeting/storage, your families might rather not have the boys near a bar, etc ...). On the other hand, splitting might divide your scouters into two packs. That's not always bad. Right now the Catholic boys aren't among your membership, but maybe church parishioners might step up and do more to get such boys involved in scouting if one pack was more secular and the other had a more religious bent. Whatever you all decide, try to do it while maintaining the best of terms.

Of you're asking, there may be a little voice that is nagging you. But in case you give it a go ... Jeep with a purpose. Have the boys ... Talk top the ranger/property owner. Identify some potential conservation project. Plan an overnight. Learn about maintenance. Check the fluids Rules for safe conduct. Helmets etc ...

The committee chair and the charter organization representative need to get together and decide if the cubmaster should be replaced. Missed events and sales awards, however, can't possibly be all of his fault. Somebody besides the CM should have been responsible for the popcorn drive. Somebody else should have been in charge of the the B&G banquet. Yet someone else in charge of PWD. You all get together, set the date, and he shows up with a song and a cheer and appreciation for his den leaders. Den leaders ensure opportunities for boys to do what they need to do, Not sure how that's his responsibility. Basically, he's only dropping the ball on awards which the boys did earn. Solve that problem. If he's not ordering them. Appoint someone else to do it, and just get his signature on the paperwork.

Nobody's gonna judge your project, so anything goes. But, it is about time for spring planting, and I think boys still like dirt, so something along the lines of filling a spring planter or window box might be welcome. Ask the super if the boys can do something like that for your community. Another fun thing since Easter is on its way could be hosting an egg decorating evening with some shut-ins.

Thanks 'skip. You may or may not know that BSA has incorporated a Cyber Chip program http://www.scouting.org/cyberchip.aspxinto it's advancement.

Yes, I have bigger issues. But you're not the folks to fix those. I'm hoping that, however this plays out in my crew, others might be better prepared to handle it as their dual-registered youth turn 18.

You know the interesting things about YP trainers? They resulted in the course taking triple the time, but for that nominal fee of $5 ... They brought cookies and coffee. You got out of the house and away from that screen. They looked to see how many packs, troops, and crews were represented and tailored their presentation accordingly. They inserted little facts about known incidents (the former camp director had some great ones)! They did not ask you to take the course again just because you were in two different positions.

I know how long it takes me to do it. And it takes me twice as long to coach someone else to do it, which I usually have to do for a couple of adults. All of a sudden, I'm missing a playoff game. So, now let's pretend I have venturers willing to do this AFTER THEY'VE ALREADY MISSED THE FIRST HALF OF THE GAME DOING BOY SCOUT YPT TRAINING. It's a non-starter. In reality, there's no trading between YPT-redux and a b-ball game. The trade is between taking redundant training or making a few phone calls to grab some tarps, pull some steaks out of the freezer and meet in the woods, or on the shooting range, or lining up a climbing or whitewater guide.

As NJ, points out, this is a new rule for venturing participants as of last year. As a result 3/4 of my young adults in the crew concluded it was not worth the trouble. They can just hike and camp with young adults and whatever high school friends they choose without price of registration and be as many miles down the trail in the time they've taken the online training. The lawyering world is so out of touch with our youth that it's decimating us. E94, while I was ASM and Advisor I took either training every two years and let the other one lapse. I told the DE that's what I did and said "Make it work or I'm out." I actually didn't transfer myself or Son #2 to our new troop's roster to save them this hassle (among others). Likewise I employ SMs/ASMs on crew activities without requiring them to be venturing trained because I want their heads in the game with material that might actually forestall death. If they took boy scout YPT, they'll do just fine in my crew. Son #2 took the time for BSA YPT to ASM for me last year, took time out of his schedule for our church's YPT the week before last. ... What do you think he'll say to venturing YPT when he extracts from the spring break wilderness trip with his college fellowship? I'm asking the DE for a waiver.

Not Just any YPT. It's gotta be Venturing YPT! They also have to complete BSA adult application. But I've skated by with one app if the boy is also serving in a troop.

So, finally got my DE to find out why my crew's roster got pulled ... Turns out my 18 year-old's only had Boy Scout YP (since they were serving as ASMs) and they needed Venturing YP. And even more drop from the charter ....

Well if it were the Izod patrol. There was no love lost between me (grunge before they called it that) and yuppie wannabes back in the day ... So, like I concluded in my previous post: If your son thinks this will be emblematic of how the patrol operates, then he'll start a new patrol soon enough. This is where an SM guides a boy through to the heart of the matter. If it's a patch name, but his buddies are stand-up guys, get over it. If they have rough edges, help him point that out to the boys in ways that helps them do better next time. If these guys are keeping him on the outside, help him find guys who will want him in their circle. Sometimes an SPL is mature enough to guide a boy. Sometimes not. So, you may give the SM a "heads up" and make it clear that you don't intend to bring up every little thing, but since this simmered for more than a week, you thought he ought to know.

Importantly, you can collect receipts at the end of the campout, and -- if you choose -- tally the balance and write the checks then and there.

Unless someone comes forward with another printing attached to at least a few more pages (or even the lowly binding), we may not ever know.

Plus, BSA guard, COPE/climbing, etc ... some ASMs/Advisors are very busy getting trained in what might forestall death. They have precious little patience for "fluff" training. A training coordinator needs to get to know his/her audience and accept that some guys are gonna have to be brought in by stealth, others are gonna have to be rubber-stamped to make up for some IT snafu, others are on the way out the door -- so don't bother. Deal with those (or write them off) and a quick phone call to the rest once a year is the best you can do, and probably more than anyone else has ever done.

You all are beginning to make me think that a few rounds of British bulldog has more leadership training potential than most of what we pawn off as such ...

@@scoutldr, based on what I could read, it seems the use of advancement for adult recognition varied greatly by councils. So, many of us may have never seen this sort of thing while others would have been on the "tail end" of it's use in their area. It is interesting that once all councils stopped using it (presumably by national consensus), insignia for adult training began to appear. Nature abhors a vacuum?

Peanut butter jars with the massive indentation at the bottom.

Pardon the severe clipping, but you see where I'm going with this? Modify every lesson in ISLT into a wide game. Simple example: the Telephone game should be played with each member spread out at least 50 feet (preferably vertical as well as horizontal) from the next. The best "home grown" training I ever did was on a crew backpacking trip. Nearly all of the youth had shown some leadership skills in the past few months, so the "pump was primed". So, I put key words from the Venturing Leader's manual on index cards, folded them and sealed them and gave one to each hiker. These were "break passes". We would only stop and rest so long as one hiker would pull out his/her card and give an impromptu speech or lead a discussion on the subject. As soon as that person stopped talking we had to up and move.

BSA's ageist policy toward rank advancement began around 1964, with a nation-wide ban enforced by the end of the decade ... a harbinger of changes to come. (Here's a decent official posting on that adults who earned Eagle during the first part of that history http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/07/02/10-times-history-adults-earned-eagle-scout-award/with links to sites devoted to that history.) Some scouters on these forums do have memories of the odd adult being awarded rank advancement. I would recommend any SM/ASM to make a good faith effort to complete 1st class (only without bothering over the patch) ... Getting his/her advancement signed off by the SPL.

Welcome! Thanks for your service to the boys! I've ASMed so long they made me a crew advisor, so here's the advise in a nutshell ... Assist your SM as best you can. There's one way to make coffee ... Strong as love, black as death, Get trained as much as you can. But don't be in a rush for Wood Badge. Try not to act bored when the fire-starting demo at IOLS fails, that terrible instructor is a great council advancement chair. Go to roundtable often. Go camping more often. On rare occasion use a tent.