qwazse

Nice sentiments, but "patrol" is not a method of venturing. Nor of O/A or Explorers. These are youth who in one way or another are recognized for "coming into their own" in the world of scouting. They see themselves as much part of the "adult" team as anything. They have boundary issues .... In a good way.

It's like my RT commish has an evil twin. Starting to think that the national policy is an attempt to shield the organization from liability on the slim chance that someone would want to use the IRS as a bludgeon -- not out of any real sense of ethics or impending investigation of every charter org across the nation.

Let's be honest, few of us need to know any of this. But since your typing ... Are positions of responsibility, like PL, required for advancement (i.e. for the chief scout's award)?

Seriously, it's a matter of proportions. Did they specify how much? 8 oz per person (for, say after lunch) is one thing, a liter per person per day is another.

A box of baking soda shouldn't cause that much trouble ....

I think part of the flaw is your definition of "life-changing", which has been part of the BSA profit-centered machine. Jamborees are just oversized conventions HAs are outdoor money pits accessed by a fraction of our membership. In and of themselves they are not life-changing. Thrilling, moving, memorable, etc ...not life-changing. The signature life changing experience of scouting comes when a boy takes his patrol independently hiking or camping. This is the pinnacle of scouting experience. This is "the key" that we use to unlock a youth's confidence to plan service projects, to explore hobbies and interests, to prepare to save lives. We need to get back to treating qualifying to take your patrol hiking and camping as the pinnacle of the scouting experience, and all the other "big ticket" items as nifty trails you can take down off that summit of your First-Class journey.

Sounds like you rightly called it a patrol patch. They are optional for Webelos dens (in spite of some of us old farts who totter around muttering "dens have numbers, patrols have names!"), and it sounds like your pack chose to exercise that option. Have fun with it!

Well, maybe my older youth are messed up in the head, like E441. (Well, maybe not quite so messed up .. at least they know to find the dutch-oven course on their lunch break. ) But, as far as I can tell, there is nothing particularly special about any BSA "adult" training. My older youth want to know what I'm thinking. They want to shoulder some of my responsibilities. They want to make scouting better. To do that, they need to listen (and talk back to) our council's scouters (volunteers and pros). And they need to do so in a variety of settings: both classroom and field.

Seems to me that our sex's tolerance level doesn't weigh much into the equation. Queen DD's, on the other hand ...

The kind of sorrow that follows for years ... Prayers for all involved.

Sentinel, one other thing to ask yourself: what will you be doing with the adults in attendance? This parallels the 300' thing. I recall in my JLT, the SM was "invisible" to me. They showed up at flags and if there was a first aid issue (of which I had a handful that week). But, for teaching sessions, etc ... they kept that distance, dropping in from time to time to see which other appendage I may have burned, bruised, or cut. When we provide ILSC at the council level, we make sure there's a parallel VLST for the adults -- mainly to give the youth the space they need to interact on their own. There's usually an advisor in the room, and he/she keeps in a corner but may jump in to even out the number of participants in an activity. At the end of the day, we usually bring the youth over to "teach" by serving as panelists to cover any questions the adults may have brought up throughout the day. Oh, and we don't require a youth to have taken ILSC before they can help instruct. If they've been in the program for years and care enough to take on positions of responsibility, they are ready to teach. If one of our officers has taken the course, he/she takes charge of dividing up the materials and communicating with his/her co-instructors.

Let's not forget money. The mere cost of membership -- for those who are allowed to be members -- has outpaced inflation. Other cultural issues come into play: - Single parenting. This group has to work harder than others to make scouting work for their boys. This number may increase, I suspect, when unions where there is an inequality of reproductive burden are no longer held in unique esteem. - Post-Modern Nomads. We are commuting longer than any generation before. This includes the average scout's home being further from school/troop./ball field than ever before. Each activity involves a trek, while there are fewer hours for shuttling to/from activities. - Profusion. (Yes it's a thing.) There's more stuff to do. The football team doesn't have the best running backs because most are playing soccer. Our school musical runs for two weekends, then there's the state-wide competition. Then there's the awards. Meanwhile softball season is starting. Plus online gaming and other camps. The value of BSA is diluted by the competing value of these other activities. I will also have to say, an elitist attitude. No one should brag about excluding certain groups, but some scouters do. No one should brag about our boys, except when they show themselves as public servants, but "Are You Tougher Than A Boy Scout" is the line for the day. I had one advisor/SM at his wits end because his boys were picking on a venturer because "she could never be and Eagle and the Silver Award would never count for as much." It's a tough balance between pride in your work and humility towards others, but I am a little concerned that we haven't quite got that right.

(Buyer beware: the following comes from limited experience advising ILSC, but I have a suspicion that what works for venturers also applies here.) On the plus: twenty boys! That's an awesome number. Like has been noted above, ILST is not patrol leader training. So don't make it that. If all these boys signed up for leadership training, you want their learning experience to reflect what you'd like to see in their leadership experience over the next year -- regardless of the patch on their sleeve. Look at what I've clipped from your OP. In one paragraph, you set the SPL's to conduct the training and the ad-hoc patrols do their thing. In the next paragraph, you don't like your SPL's doing all of the heavy lifting. If you don't approve of a management model, DO NOT CONDUCT TRAINING VIA THAT MODEL! Your course has three modules. Split the boys into 3 patrols. Hand each patrol a module, and tell them they are responsible to present the material of that course. You may assign an SPL/ASPL to each patrol, but make clear in no uncertain terms that during their turn presenting their course, a patrol is not to give their senior leader a speaking role. Talk to your seniors, and ask them to do their best to support their respective patrol as a "servant leader." You might encourage them to help one or two boys who they've seen taking a "back seat" to step up their game just a little. What will that actually look like? I dunno, it's your troop and you know these boys. But, leadership skills starts by practicing leading. Not by being lectured.

E441, you'd better apply those courses to everything you do this coming year, otherwise just tear up that certificate or whatever they did give you! This is where adults don't get it. In the ideal scouting program, 14-20 year olds would be taking over the staffing at every level of the organization while the rest of us sit on our hands, write checks, or advise a few key youth. Any of you old farts want to know why many 16+ year-olds leave the BSA? There is nothing to do, and they perceive that things will chug along fine without them. Why? Because only the truly brazen ones can step up without some bone-headed old fart (myself included) muscling them out of the way.

Our youth who went to Philmont and in the process (before and after) planned two multi-tiered weekend backpacking trips for our troop, crew, AND his Philmont contingent? He payed for it by a lawn bushiness that he's kept through trade school. The only difference between doing it that way vs. earning the same via an ISA: the troop got ZERO dollars from his hard work. He contributed to the life of the troop in lots of other ways (the crew, not so much ... too busy mowing lawns ), so nobody complained. Had he sold the enough in popcorn and other fundraisers over a couple of years to pad his ISA for the trip, the troop would have got 'bout $1K in their general fund. That's 4 camper-ships paid in full between troop and council funds. Just sayin' ...

Well if all the boys had done it at meetings, they would not want to do it at camp! It's time to stop thinking about awards and such and start thinking about the boy. The point is to get the boy comfortable on outings with buddies. If it takes time to do that, then take the time! Either dad goes to camp with the boy, or they hold back a year, or maybe both. Idea: Have the boy invite the den to camp in the back yard! Not for the requirement, but just to get him comfortable with his buddies in the tent with him. When son #2 was 11 and crossed over, one cool morning he walked across the field, found my tent, and asked to hunker down at 4 am. I wasn't about to pull out the "boy led" rhetoric. I unzipped my bag and let him spoon up. He just needed that one more morning knowing that I was there for him. Since then, he's been just fine. Let me repeat: WORK WITH THE BOY, NOT THE REQUIREMENTS!!!!

Yes! You should have had this conversation. It is in no way a violation of youth protection. There is no other way to per-arrange a conversation. The boy wanted to talk about something constructive that could be resolved quickly. You talked. It was resolved. There was one less unnecessary meeting in the universe. This a great way to handle it! Thank you for your service to our boys. I'm sure if more time with a scout is needed, you will make appropriate arrangements for a meeting in a public place or in your home with another adult(s) or scout(s) present.

First, let me get it off my chest (probably stealing BD and a few others' thunder) that this particular aspiration of yours and your friends is one of the dumbest things I've heard of yet. But it's not harming anybody, so I'm gonna pretend that I support you and set you along to acquire your left-handed smoke shifter. (Anti-hazing activists, just tape your fingers before you type!) It sounds like you are trying to argue from the standpoint of fairness. Remember the thread about female venturers and O/A? The fairness argument, although sound, is not strong. You (and your friends who may be rankled by this) need to determine how "being fair" will enable your council to "be great." Then, build a solid plan to pitch it to the people who are keeping the gate. For example, you could say that if your council announces that several youth did exceptional work and earned awards that have heretofore been reserved for scouters, it may inspire more adults to take time out of their busy schedule and attend UoS. If you explain to your scout executive that you are more concerned about increasing the quality of the program than having the same plaque on your wall as some adult does, you may begin to gain some traction. On the course organizers' end, they might see giving the same award to youth as diluting the value of the certificate. Or, maybe they are concerned that once you all become adult scouters you won't participate in UoS because you already have the certificate from when you were a youth. You will need to figure out how to demonstrate that these risks are minimal relative to the benefits of changing policy. In other words, it's not enough that it matters to you. To persuade folks, it needs to matter to them.

I've never taken anything that comes out of NCS seriously since it said lifeguards shouldn't have whistles. Everything you listed just screams "catapult". The engineering would involve classes of levers, fulcrums, construction, etc... the technology would involve guidance, and upscaling from your marshmallow/dowel models, (e.g. "How much of a lever could we get from that tree?" "If we could, how far might it throw?" "If our target were on the other side of a hill, how would a scout figure the direction to aim?" "If we were on the moon or Jupitor would it work differently?" "How?") But seriously, you could take nearly anything, bicycles, PWD cars, mess kits, first aid, and generate a STEM program from it.

How are these council-specific programs related to the "College of Commissioner Science" degrees? I honestly have no clue about Laurel Highlands Council, but I'll let you all know when I find out.

It just doesn't seem like there's enough of us taking these perpetrators (before their false ideas are set into actions) on forced marches into bear country ...

NG, my Orthodox family gyrates quite well in both evangelical and catholic circles. Your concern is a non-issue. Our "cousins who left us" might be impulsive, but they are not naive as to where their theology comes from.

By all means if a pro guide is best for the job hire him. It might amount to a nominal fee, but just think of the benefit to the troop if a small number of boys tap their ISAs to again those skills. In all seriousness, most outfitters offer MBCs as part of their operation. The cost is little or nothing over their rental rates, and

Well, there's no one person to turn to. A strong committee should put a CC/COR "in their place". The other way around: any leader with good followers gets into the habit of getting approval from them before acting. Your unit commissioner may be able to sit all of you down and point out that some of the adults are feeling railroaded and that is taking the fun out of scouting for them. But your district chair may have never assigned a UC because CC/COR is putting on a good show of it at roundtable. 'Bout the only single person that can tell them that they need to change is the institutional head. But, in my experience, the best people to effect change are the parents who take time to sit on a committee and insist that business be transacted differently.