qwazse

Equipment belongs to the CO, so it's their decision how they use or dispose of it.

When this ever actually happened, and we thought it mattered, we asked one of the boys in the den if he'd make (or bag-n-tag the materials for) a second project to give to his buddy who missed the event. When I was a kid with tonsillitis and missed church camp, my buddies did basically that and brought home some natural clay figurines and a tin can of the stuff that they kept damp for me to play with. Not sure what my mom thought, but it was a fond memory. Never in my wildest dreams would I ask a director to take up the slack. Heck, I'd be grateful for one less thing cluttering my attic or my in-law's fridge.

<counting to 10 to suppress rant about ideal skills acquisition methods ... 7 ... 8 ...9 ... 10> Okay: Who cares what you saw? Did he teach another scout one of those skills? All you needed was for him to give you his word. Maybe there's more to the situation, but if there wasn't, it's just a shame that this is what folks have come to split hairs over.

Clearly the Merlin PL, by virtue of being older, is senior. What Stosh said. Avoid letting your boys fall into the rut assigning someone to do their pencil whipping for them. The two PLs can get together and make a camp-specific roster for whatever needs to be done. (E.g. who's morning color guard, vs, evening color guard.) The older PL then offers to the Ghostly Goats: would you like my guys to teach you to ___? Merlins are also effectively a venture patrol. Challenge them to set up the "cool" campsite, plan a unique trek, or serve in a unique way. Whatever. My one-patrol troop, by way of mocking positions of responsibility and pushing back at my wanting them to only have PL as top-gun, elected an SPL, ASPL, PL, APL, QM, and Librarian. Being older boys, they all work together well, so I let it slide.

Alrighty. We know there are gonna be spin-offs, decisions to be made about girls and the godless, etc ... all of which will be equally divisive. Assuming we all look at ourselves in a year or ten, and discover in the US we have a federation of scouting organizations (of which the BSA is one). Forces (mainly external) may pressure organizational heads not to collaborate, but we seasoned boots on the aren't gonna care. Eight kids and their parents from any of these groups are gonna show up at our door wanting to hike and camp independently. We're gonna find a way for them to do it, and that will involve finding an adult or two who all local parties/sponsors agree fit the bill. To avoid the problem of skilled predators taking advantage of the national rifts, do we share "ineligible volunteer lists"? How?

Question: for days backpacking (i.e., you're on the go while the sun's up, at a different campsite every evening), can any of these configure for (and endure the depredations of) charging while moving?

What profiteth a boy if he saves his own adventure but loses his soul?Remember, the exposure to folks with a more sexually permissive ethic at national events is at the center of this hurricane. The CO has the right to direct those boys to other adventures where the standard under which they contracted could be upheld. They might even have the right to demand refunds of deposits already made to BSA for reneging on its contracted membership standard. That could happen, or they could allow the troop to transfer assets to another BSA unit, or anything in between.

The folks who founded Trail Life would agree.

Yours is a situation where we scouters get together and work it out. On paper the boy would be in one of troop, but a welcome guest in another troop. But, there's also no stopping a registrar from accepting his application as a multiple of a second troop.

Not even a $1 (that's the fee to transfer). Multiples get coded as such gratis. However, for troops it should be a good reason like splitting time between parents living some distance apart. Not because you like the canoe trips of Troop A and the bowling nights of Troop B. It's just as easy for Troop A to invite Troop B up the river (maybe for the additional cost of whatever is not covered by Troop A's dues) and spare us all the paperwork. I tried to encourage boys from our troop to help a troop in their neighborhood start up. (That's how my troop got started back in the day.) Just doesn't seem to be in their mindset. But yes, the council registrar can make things happen if it would truly help the boy and his parents, and the SM's are willing to make it work for everyone involved.

@@T2Eagle, it's a given that the Eagle project hours would be reported to the EBoR. That includes a breakdown of who put in hours doing what. I actually find this the most interesting because it says a lot about how the boy leads and networks. What's optional is a tally of all the boy's other hours of service (either since earning Life or career total).

This is between you and your den chief! Also, think of ways the boys can participate in the skits with handling stage props, as ringers in the audience, puppeteers, etc ... Maybe ask one of the introverted boys if they would like to help write a skit for the other boys to act.

Camp fee doesn't pay for MBs. Troop dues and fundraising does. So, if the kid is paying dues to your troop and helping your fundraiser, this should be your troop's responsibility. If the SM's have compared notes and are confident the kid actually did the requirements at camp. Signatures are not a problem. If the boy knows his stuff (e.g. comes back with an Indian Lore blue card and one of those homemade lawn darts), it's all good.

The BSA pathfinder compass from the '50s has not evolved much from what we have today. This looks a lot humbler than the standard issue of the time. No BSA logo. Probably a leatherwork project. The button is probably more valuable than the compass itself. Check if a company and serial # is stamped on the back of the brass housing.

Fuzzy numbers. A majority in one year is a minority the next. In this case, the representative majority voted on a policy, which the executive/judiciary could not countenance.

Best I've ever seen: http://councils.scouting.org/Council533/Camping/Camp%20Karoondinhahas a massive cinder-block 20 room edifice with individual unisex plumbed toilets and showers, heating included.

@@acco40, "may be" is not a policy determination, your word choice implies that there are different ways of doing things. I have done just a few EBoR's and since then many more ESMC's (for younger candidates especially we have several ASMs sit in to get them comfortable addressing a table full of old farts). And from talking about this with lots of others, total career service hours is just not something that comes up. We like to understand the project break-down of the boy's hours vs. the time contributed by others. That helps us ask effective questions about what the boy learned about leadership. I suppose the number of hours of service outside of his own Eagle project might tell me something about one boy vs. another. So, sure, that would be a nifty figure to hear about. I guess I'm a multivariate kind of guy and would prefer to see the figures for the two kinds of service separated. But, that's just me. Until someone digs up an official quote on the matter, choose the method that works for your district advancement committee. If they don't care, choose the one that works for your troop committee. If they don't care, ask the PLC and maybe some troop alumni how they would like it recorded.

@@skeptic, sorry, I must have read it wrong ... The grand total (likely an undercount if the kid is a first class scout) is a neat stat, maybe for a COH, maybe for BSA to brag about the good it does in the world. But if it's split between Eagle and other, it's still a neat number.

Although those are both nice things to do, what relevance is it to the EBoR?

This often where adults go off the rails. (And one of the reasons why I think if they had opportunity to earn the same ranks the boys did, they'd wise up.) Leadership does not come from positions of responsibility. Leadership comes from the service project requirement. Does Tom ask his fellow scouts to help? Does he get them to sing his favorite song? Does he make them feel welcome? If so he's leading. And he should do so again through his service project.

I know y'all think that this permissive vs. restrictive sexual ethic thing is what's dooming the BSA, but that's not where the ship needs to be righted. In theory BSA could have gone more restrictive, and the membership drain would continue. There's one thing that would restore value to the BSA that would undermine every micromanaging adult: Move aggressively from a vision of "adventure boy" and toward A Vision of Hiking and Camping Independently with Your Mates. Think about it. If my Johnny or Jane is never going to Jambo, or an HA Base like all the glossy photos talk about all the time, but instead is finding a little nook just outside of town (or even in town) where he or she can grow and learn do some good in the world, I won't give a care about who some crack-pot troop on the other side of the nation is letting be their leader.

Officially: it's optional. Frankly, there is no need to count any service hours at all. Scout tells PL he served, when, and how. PL remembers seeing him doing at least as many as was required. Signs off. @@lepzid, you don't want opinions, but how 'bout a story? National Honor Society loves collecting all of the service hours every candidate put out while in high school. Yeah, whatever. Son #2 fills out the paperwork turns it in. Well our school's chapter holds a big old banquet (which, we learned from Son #1 after the fact, it is bad form for parents not to attend) and current members are assigned a candidate or two and asked to write an bio-sketch introducing them. So, we have 'bout 40 speeches with mind-numbing statistics (___ is a wonderful student in X clubs with Y awards and Z service hours) and the country club coffee really has something to be desired. The boy who introduced son #2, ignored all of that, and testified to how, no matter how miserable the day was, son #2 would show up at their after school club, committed to spending long hours, always with something cheerful to say ... and how he was a great person to have by your side. Not a mention of grades, varsity letters, class rank, or hours of this or that. Well, guess which boy, by virtue of having his priorities straight, was declared a member of our family? Go ye and do likewise.

@@Eamonn, it's just the stupidest, craziest thing I've heard in a while. And it might just work. You could tell kids it'd be like Minecraft or some other world-building online game, 'cept they'll be moving more than their thumbs.

They don't need charging if I turn them off!

As long as they shun athiests, they will likely have repeated visits from district executives.