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Oh my heavens! Day (maybe week) 1 of kindergarten, daughter comes home mad because 1. She can't read. 2. The bus driver told her to keep her feet off the seat in front of her. I said ... 1. Well, you'll just have to watch your teacher more closely and figure out how she does it. 2. Well, when you see the bus driver tomorrow, apologize, then thank him for me. Let him know I'd like him to yell at you more loudly the next time you misbehave. We had to ask Son #2's teachers to *tell us* when he's underperforming. (As in, he's not turning in homerwork, etc ...) We don't mind! You deserve kids who do their best. If not, they deserve to bring a note home from the teacher -- via E-mail to us CC'd to him is just fine. Come home with a 'B'? "Sorry you flunked. Do you know where you failed? Okay! Better luck next time." Evidently lots of parents didn't have our attitude. They think Little Johnny or Jane can do no evil. I'm sorry, if they had no shortcomings, I wouldn't pay taxes to get them and their friends educated. I certainly wouldn't bother asking volunteers like @@mashmaster to help me cover things I might have missed.

@@Eagle94-A1, getting 1st Class for Philmont is not "advancement oriented". It is skills oriented. Especially with the new requirments and Philmonts use of mobile devices. Do you want those boys out on the range without their cyberchip certification?

The question begs another question: what would our youth be like today if there weren't scouting for the past 100 years? That presupposes that no military leader would publish how he succeded at espionage in a foriegn theatre. The consequencies could be dire. Empires could shrink because tactics went unshared. Boys on local excursions would be chased off landowners' property as vagrants. They would rush off to armies unskilled ... many to be fodder for the enemy ordinance. Some would master scouting skills, but would be sworn to secrecy, lest the enemies use map and compass against them. But eventually somewhere in the world their would be a respite. someone would publish their methods ... and boys, maybe girls too, would have a moment to dash out in the woods, dodging the mine fields, and spend an evening under the stars ... If all of the other technologies advanced during this time, they would be able to look up on their device precisely how to manage. There would be no overaching program. Just a crowd-sourced app with dozens of ideas and ways to mobilize adults in your community to implement them.

It boils down to this: Some people do scouting like it's the Almighty's work; others, like some high-minded bishop doled out more busy work.

Something's always gotta give. I have the rattiest lawn in a neighborhood full of meticulous gardeners. (Think victory garden gone manic and you get the idea.) Lots of other extra things fall by the wayside. Half of my vacation days involve being outdoors with youth. Nowadays folks are pulling double shifts to make ends meet. But some of those folks are buying season tickets to their favorite sports teams, concert tours, classic cars, high priced vacations, or even missions. On the other hand, there are dozens of young men and women who consider me their friend. I think I've made the better deal.

It's like my sons have an evil twin (triplet?)! From hindsight, if I were you, I would ... 1. Not worry. 2. Ask him if it's okay for you to give him occasional nudges as long as he says that's his goal. Remind him there are at lest a half dozen people ready to advise him toward that end. 3. Promise you'll back off if he tells you he doesn't want to hear it. 4. Tell him if he changes his goals, he can just let you know, no strings attached. 5. Help him get his driver's licesne and figure out a way to afford the insurance and fuel. He'll be better able to touch base with counselors, beneficiaries, his work crew, etc ... 6. Talk to him about choosing girlfriends who actually admire his goals. 7. Have him spend time with an Eagle scout. (We shipped Son #2 to Son #1 and his wife several times.) I put in bold the two practical things that I think a dad can do to help a boy regardless of where his in relation to rank advancement.

A coil of braided rope ... eye splice on one end ... end splice on the other.

... spoken like a modern man in a post-modern society. Someone must have made you drink too much "timeless values" bug juice.

Fine print says plan was to "revisit in 2015 after major systems were online" ... "no return on investment at this time".

What @@SlowDerbyRacer and @@Stosh are describing are what I'd expect from first class (the concept, not the patch) scouts. One of our ASMs while an Explorer was inserted in an undisclosed location of the Allegheny National Forest and given a number of days to extract himself and his post. (I think it was roughly a patrol. It may have been just a buddy or two.) The guy always carried himself like an Eagle ... it wasn't until years later that I connected the dots and realized he wasn't. A Vietnamese priest in our community described his nation's scout's 1st class journey as being taken out to the jungle with Dad to a clearing with a stump in the middle. The boy was to make camp on the stump overnight. Dad left him there ... in reality just out of sight in the thick of the jungle keeping vigil overnight ... and came back in the morning to wake his son, have breakfast, and go home. There are a lot of Eagles who forget how to be first class scouts . (Can you blame them if they have to finish their scouting carreer doing the pencil-whipping involved in some of those required badges and service projects?) Our job is to guide them beyond the ranks so they adopt a state of mind and body that many other folks avoid.

There's this vote-with-your-feet attitude on these forums. A "marketplace of troops" perception that ignores the boots on the ground experience. For many many people in districts across this land, troop hopping is not a clear cut option.Folks seem to want every troop to be frequent campers ... And they are frustrated by uninspired leaders. But there's also this: uninspired boys. Get a dozen of them and program slacks. SM tries to camp, nobody shows. Just a few tries, and his troop is playing kickball and polishing gear. The option of finding a group of inspired boys is out there. But this bypasses the blessing of discovering his inner natural leader. At the most I'd give the boy a list of SM's phone #s, and leave it to him to make the calls. Kid's 12. He doesn't have somebody laying out a schedule of camping. Boo hoo. He is now master of his scouting career, and can effect change. Right at camp start nagging the SM about setting up a wildernesses survival camp next month. See if a couple other boys are interested. If he's any sort of star scout (the concept not the patch), he'll show that kind of leadership. Or, stay at Life for a few years. Maybe get distracted being a shepherd or tending to younger siblings. No biggie.

I was on the verge of sending it to them. Instead I'll print it, Mark the 2014 changes, and pin it on a bulletin board.

For the merit badge, the nights (up to 6 max) from only one long-term camp count toward the 20. The remaining nights should be from short-term (no longer than 4 days at a time) camping trips. (Look here for more gory details and painfully hashed out arguments: http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/06/24/ask-expert-isnt-camping-night-camping-mb/.) Yes they may be with another troop. Or with just his patrol. It brings a tear to my eye to hear of a troop who doesn't camp regularly. It brings my palm to my face to hear of a troop who forgoes uniform. In either case, no excuses to your son. He gets to decide what kind of scout he wants to be. And if it means swimming upstream for the good of the troop, so be it. He needs to explain to his SM "This troop should be camping every month, and I'm your guy to make it happen. Can I see if there's another 4 to 7 boys willing to join me, while you find a couple of trustworthy adults willing to camp?" Second best: he needs to call around to other SM's to see if he can join with one of their patrols on some troop camp outs. If he's able to do this, and he demonstrates the skills to get the other boys up to speed, I got no problems with him being awarded Eagle by February. The position of responsibility has to be something other than bugler, but it would be a hard-headed SM who would not want to give a boy like that a PL patch. If all of this is too overwhelming for him, that's okay. He can wait few years while those nights slowly accrue.

We really gotta stop worrying about the folks doing the bare minimum. Some boys were getting a "bare minimum" citizenship training so we created THREE SEPARATE REQUIRED BADGES all with clusters of bare minimum requirements that amount to oh-so-much bookwork and little skill acquisition. Some boys barely respected their home, so we required Family Life. Don't worry about the Birds, your Pioneering tower, Signalling, and other things that we know for a fact school, home, and church won't teach you. We're here to help take up the slack for institutions that aren't doing their job to make you into a great boy ... in the process you hazard missing out on becoming a great scout. But that's okay, so did the umpteen million other boys who looked at our advancement program and took a pass. First class should tell me you attained skills and vowed to live nobly under terms that you understand. Not that you've passed some bogus integrity check. Rant over.

@@Eagle94-A1, Cooking is listed under the new requirements (left column) ... just not under the current requirements (right column). For two years all have been trying to pound it into our 16-17 year olds that they have to earn Cooking if they want to earn Eagle. Even if it's not printed in the handbook, it is in the requirements book. But my scouts will take this document to mean "Oh, Mr. Q was talking out the side of his head. I won't need cooking as long as I am a Life scout before the end of the year." Why? Because they read "current" and take it to mean "right now, this year 2015, when this comparison document was circulated."

I got an explaination from Michael J. Lo Vecchio ... So, don't let any of your Life Scouts see this and get it into their heads that they currently don't need Cooking.

I've been telling you all. The day's coming when your uniform fabric will have electronic ink. Log that shirt into myscouting, and it will download your info making insignia and knots appear in the warp and woof of the cloth. Stay connected to the wireless, and MBs will appear as soon as the counselor signs the standard issue chip-embedded blue card. Tan fades to green as soon as the troop meeting adjourns crew meeting opens. Trained patches will fade away and be replaced with flashing "needs to update YPT" every two years. The MB sash fades behind the pockets when not in use or completely away when the O/A sash needs to appear. Some hacker scouts will figure out a way for the sashes to appear on smart-fabric uniform shorts as though they were folded over their belt.As a result, Bryan's blog will have thousands of replys to a Talkback Tuesday post regarding unofficial uniform apps. It will all start with epaulets that change color for cub unis ....

Welcome to the forums!

Starting in January troops are tracking, per boy, one new rank, six more service hours, multiple chats with the 'rents about cyber chippy thingies. The administrative burden builds from the ground up.

I have not used it for extended distances, but CalTopo.com as great tools to customize USGS maps and save them as .pdf's. I'm mostly compass because GPS has been foiled by valleys and dense foliage. But I learned compass can be foiled by gas wells. And I've made enough mistakes that I like the GPS on plateaus and open plains. GPS maps? Well, my boys will never let the SM hear the end of it thanks to the laurel thickets his lead us through!

I carry my signal mirrors in my sewing kit.

I think there's one error in the "current" requirements for Eagle: it does not list Cooking as a required MB. So, tread carefully if you are trying to nail down 2015 requirements.

Not being a fan of time wasted bean-counting, and believing that service should never be motivated by a reward, I think this is yet another step in the wrong direction.

This old football cheer has to be your line: "Push 'em back. Push 'em back. Waaay back!"

Excellent suggestion, @. Although public information seems to be sparse. Here are two paragraphs from (http://www.nesa.org/PDF/58-435.pdf page xvii) that speak to that period ... And in a sidebar on the same page: These paragraphs seem to capture the felt need to do scouting differently in the US. But, the detailed discussions leading up to the matter may very well be un-digitized or possibly lost to history. It's very easy for us to take a philosophy promulgated throughout our youth and adult scouting career, and project in onto someone who lived two generations ago. It's harder, but much more interesting to contrast how we view a thing today against how it was viewed in the past. This may or may not help us currently, but prepare us for future discussions about youth development and leadership.