qwazse

Our council spent the year making some long needed repairs and improvements to camp facilities. They are planning to be open for the summer.

At the moment, I wouldn't consider it smart-alecky if our boys chose to do that. We have had rotated different adults into SM, and addressing the leaders as SM (first name) and ASM (last name) might help boys understand who is fulfilling what role now. However, that's just not our culture, so I take it in stride. The kids at church call me Mr (first name), and I'm good with that.

I’m a first name guy. Period. But, that’s not the culture I live in. So, if scouts are compelled to address me as Mr. Q., I try to address them as Mr./Miss. My problem at the moment is our troop is chock full of siblings, so I’m using first names more regularly.

I'm calling BS on this. At a very fundamental and traditional level, recruiting counselors is a district/council responsibility. Blame the units all you want, but this but if the council doesn't have the personnel in place to handle the additional paperwork, what makes them think units would have any more capacity? And, to be frank, for a while we had a registrar who basically chucked our unit councilors ... all fine people ... all whose YP is current ... all who are registered in other unit positions ... all who have paid to maintain their registration. Why aren't they still also registered as MBC's? Basically because we were victims of someone who didn't give a crap about their volunteers. So, why would they want to complete an application when they suspect that sooner or later someone is going to drop them from that position for no good reason? So, sure, I'll nag my fellow scouters to fill out one more form, and maybe after a year or so, they will. But if other qualified, trained, and caring unit leaders are like mine, blue cards will be pushed anyway. It's going to take a unit commissioner, with applications in hand and ready to process on-the-spot, talking as sweetly as possible to my scouters who should be MBCs.

Not sure what’s going to be worse: the long dead remaining on MBC lists or the most competent in their field being removed for lack of officiousness.

I've worked with boys and girls and their tracking of things is indeed a high order of chaos. I'm not saying that the "blank ticket" approach is the way to go. I'm just using it to point out that there is a lot of non-essential print in BSA's supply chain. And much of that exists to make adults' life easier, but actually has ensnared adults in a vicious cycle of increased bean-counting. Compare how many adults in an average troop are involved in tracking a scouts' advancement today vs. how many when we were kids. But, given printed media, what has BSA done over the years, especially recent decades? It has used the power of print to pack more words on a page and create an increasingly convoluted series of checklist requirements. We've uncorked a Pandora's box. If the underlying principle is, according to congressional charter "to teach boys to do things for themselves", then the ticket approach is one way to push back against the piling on supposed "skills". Besides, there are a lot of unused envelopes out there!

So, tracking advancement is a different animal than listing each requirement for every award that a scout could earn. Frankly, one doesn't need any pre-printed material to track advancement. Lined paper or graph paper would do. The date goes in the left margin, the scout writes the award and requirement number, and the PL signs in the right margin. If all that matters is lists of req #s and PL's signatures, it could literally be as small as a membership card for each rank. The scout comes to the SM and says "Sir, I've worked my ticket for ___ rank and am ready for my conference and BoR." Those Scout and Tenderfoot tickets will look gnarly, but as scouts mature, we'll see their upper-rank tickets look sharp. As I've mentioned in other threads, the killer app would be the tech that could photograph the card to a cloud drive, scan the writing, and register requirement completion. The other "universal scout tool" that I've mentioned before, is a standard-issue notebook designed for working MB's. This would replace those MB worksheets. The scout records the MB at the top of the page, lists the requirement in the margin, and makes notes relevant to the requirement in the body. The real value is that library of specialty MB pamphlets. Fewer troops means fewer libraries and less demand. The contents are swell, but it if they were exclusively online, it would be a hassle for end-users to print and bind the 23-136 pamphlets they'd use in their career. The issue of oversupply is an indication that BSA needs to move to print-on-demand and direct mailing. This would also enable every scout-shop and trading post to resupply with exactly the inventory that they needed.

@MattR, most scouts probably have already earned one in each of the "outdoor" categories in summer camp. The Public Health MB is probably the toughest to earn right now. The best counselors for it are currently swamped. My pandemic guy is busy figuring out where to send each shipment of vaccine. On the other hand, Son #2 is building and testing a wastewater prototype for communities, and his company is small enough that I bet we could arrange a walk-through, then go camping someplace nearby. If the PLC okay's it, we can find the people to make this interesting. It's just a matter of getting them their shots.

In case you're the kind of scouter who doesn't want their scouts to find out on their own about any awards, be sure to add this to your meetings' agenda ... https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2021/01/19/scouts-can-help-protect-the-environment-by-earning-the-new-environmental-protection-agency-award/ Seriously, it looks like one for this year only, and it requires earning a constellation of MB's that would appeal to many scouts.

What's "real" these days? Print? Does my registration fee pay for the ink and paper that I'd need? Illustrations are not requirements. Professional? Like the Project Workbook that many scouts have trouble loading on to their devices? I get nervous any time someone asks BSA to doll anything up. More importantly, this is a game with a purpose. And, like a game FAQ, it needs to be rapidly scroll-able. The requirement's file should be minimal so that it can be comprehensive. All hyperlinks are ASCII. (Well, technically, everyone has gone UTF-8 ... and doing so might aid language translation services.) Plain text is amenable to free-form search and if it uses tags, standard apps can read it and generate the TOC, and image links. We're talking about the base file from which all other material is drawn. The pretty pictures of all the patches aren't going to go away. They just won't be a distraction for anyone who wants to scan a large volume of data quickly. Full disclosure: I do save all of my output for work as .pdf if possible. But our product is tables and charts, so formatting goes a long way in communicating to others, including my future self. The only down-side is when I want to machine-read some output, then ASCII is my friend once again.

On my honor, I have never withheld any information from a scout that could, one day forestall death (the scout’s or other’s) and generally make the world a better place. I dunno, why would I place an orienteering control in the middle of the woods and not give a scout turn-by-turn directions to it? Neither you nor I can be exauhstive sources of information on every path a scout may take. If you think you have been, you’ve deluded yourself. And, there is a risk, like at the start of this thread, of bemoaning the requirements of an award because it emphasizes something your scout doesn’t want to pursue. The next step is we fall into a Dad-shame trap. I “knew” Venturing Silver would be an ideal path for my daughter. She, like 99% of Venturers didn’t see the value in it. She didn’t even take VLST until she had to teach it as part of her VOA responsibilities. Then she had the gall to complain about why I hadn’t told her about it earlier! She had the Leadership Manual on her shelf for three years! Well, absent BSA bling, she started college early, got a full ride somewhere just across town from @Eagledad, and commenced extracting oil and gas for everyone until you all stopped driving around last year. Then she came home and started in freight logistics, and just moved to her house across town that she bought with her nest egg. There are a couple life skills her brothers picked up that she missed out on by not perusing a personal growth award, so I’m a little sorry for that, but I’m not sorry that and all her friends have grown strong and good nonetheless. And now, award requirements are online (even if they aren’t in plain-old-ascii like the game FAQs that Son #2 learned to read by). A youth’s journey can start before he/she even cracks open a handbook!

I'm of the opposite view. It is the scout's responsibility to read his/her handbook, magazines, and other literature and learn what awards they might wish to earn. It is the adult leader's responsibility to inculcate a vision of the pinnacle scouting experience of hiking and camping independently with your mates. Sure, if a scout is an avid camper I might tell him, in passing, to look up the NOAC. If he's a good shot, I'll let him no about Jr. NRA. If he swims like a fiend, and is very conscientious, I'll encourage BSA Guard certification. If he masters a knot, I'll probably tell him to demonstrate it to his PL and get a sign-off. Those are obvious "next steps." But my job is not to let every scout know every award. My job is to teach him to discover the lay of the land, observe, and report. I encourage other adult leaders to do the same. That jobs hard enough, most days.

My only wish is that all requirements were in one plain-old-ascii file. Same thing for annual reports.

Regarding youth supporting basic council operations: my crew had lots of interactions with professional staff at council HQ and at VOA activities. We considered those interactions as part of their leadership training. The pros were mostly positive role models for my crew. One DE even had a spare sleeping bag for a venturer who had forgot hers. (He explained that he had just come from a cub event, and having such stuff was par for the course.) So, if put upon, I think my youth at the time would have been open to fundraising to support what you all consider "basic operations." The the boys in troops, however, have less interaction with pro's so they can't put a name or face to who they'd be supporting. When I was a scout, the DE was father of kids in my youth group. So, I could see us also fundraising to support him if folks told us he needed it. But, back the deep pockets proudly giving to BSA were ubiquitous.

My gut (and I think this is in the spirit of most regulations): if you've kept the pack running, you'll want to wait until you can share B&G with parents and grandparents, etc ... Sure, you could do something online, but folks are hankering for a celebration to look forward to. Postpone until everyone in your circles has had the vaccine. (Mrs. Q and I got round one yesterday. She's a little bit more sore than me -- but more sore that she had to wait this long. I'm only sore that my facility only doled out a sticker the size of my fingernail.) A June B&G picnic would be nice. If the AoL's have crossed over, it's all good. Invite them back. P.S. - If you all can afford it, book a caterer and maybe a local band or act.

So, here's the advantage of a Unit-collection: Volunteer labor spent presenting (and, from your parents' perspective, listening to) FOS presentations. As you mention, those costs are not trivial. Here's the disadvantage: Youth labor spent raising funds for other troops. The whole point of FOS is supposedly to provide facilities and camperships to scouts who couldn't otherwise afford them. It's one thing if your youth want to do that. (GS/USA youth seem to be quite proud that their cookie sales do such things.) But perhaps your youth have other charities for whom they want to raise funds . Your council (and, in turn, those other troops) will want its cut first. The disadvantage to council: Collection from willing individuals once they have left scouting. A lot of our folks who pledged at FOS presentations, kept doing so for decades.

If this were a scout in my troop, I would have paid for the registration in exchange for some treats (or at least a post-card) from your overseas placement. Do you use scoutbook? Does anything there say something about rechartering?

I can’t remember when it was rolled out. There’s this bit of discussion with just a little snark from yours truly ...

Thanks for the update. We scouts and scouters tend to be a plain-spoken bunch. So you're going to here about dislikes as well as likes. Shoot, you are even welcome dislike this post by down-voting! Now, SMs and ASMs are not on a board of review, we generally introduce you to the board, leave the room, and wait somewhat uncomfortably out in the hallway for you to join us, then wait some more while the board deliberates. So he will not be able to sway the board one way or the other. In your scoutmaster conference, you can discuss how things went down and how the approval process was emotionally trying, discuss what you learned from it, and voice your concerns that some members may still hold a bias against your work. Your SM should then be able to help you continue to reflect on your work so you will be well prepared to present it to the board.

Oh, for the days when Maslow's pyramids were sketched with scrawled labels on transparencies and pinned on bulletin boards in the halls of academia! I should have taped pictures of fresh sandwichs under them and a rotting ones outside of them. ;) It's not that I disagree with the concept, it's that people mistakenly put intellectually demanding actions at the top of the pyramid. Can't blame them, it's an academic concept. For example, I think you've placed Swimming and Camping too low on that hierarchy. Those two in particular are about fulfilling the vision of the pinnacle scouting experience of hiking and camping independently with your mates. Sure it's kinda nice to forestall your own death, but the requirements for these MB's in particular are to gain the strength and skill to keep others in your care whole ... thereby achieving a sense of love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Scouts should camp and swim the day after their EBoR If I recall correctly, we once rescheduled a trek for the sake of an SPL's EBoR . The following weekend's weather subjected us to a maniacal winter storm hellscape. When we were all finally home safe, I told the scout he owed us big time. Kid's, invite your district reps to visit your campsite and convene your EBoR around a nice fire. We scouters will love you forever, thereby enabling your full self-actualization. ;)

Sorry @Bowsprit, DE&I (the concept, not patch, not political mantra) is interesting. For example, to @Eagledad's point: A cultural issue, a broken family issue, and a drug and alcohol and tobacco issue. Plus, a negative feedback loop where educators in certain districts have expected less of my scouts. It's the latter that has to be defeated as it was for me about a century ago: The day that the school superintendent walked across town and explained to my grandfather why his kids should continue into middle and through high school ... is the day that rewrote history for eight children, dozens of grandchildren and great grandchildren, and who-knows-how-many citizens of this country. Wars were won, freedom was secured, and death was forestalled. Frankly, the reason DE&I mantras seem to go nowhere is that it pushes solutions before giving someone a problem to solve. Instead, we train a scout to find a disparity (e.g., a swimmer is showing signs of fatigue while others are not) offer some manageable solutions (e.g., Reach, Throw, Row, Go with support) and enable the scout implement the solution (i.e., rescue the swimmer so that he/she can swim like everyone else). Frankly, I think the MB would get traction if were named "Disparities", stripped of that bookwork and ridiculous pledge stuff, and boiled down to: a. find a disparity, b. fix it a little, c. reflect on your experience.

They support my statement. More numbers of, and a higher percentage of, young men than ever before in our nation's history are enrolling in college, graduating from college, and getting advanced degrees. Bonus: their sisters, girlfriends, and wives are enrolling as well. Simply put, higher education has never been better for guys of any race/class. Regarding equity, minorities are still not entering academia at a desirable rate. That's a disparity creating disparities that are hard to overcome via trades. My hope is that new media will be able to help minorities sharpen their business acumen so that they and their children may enroll later, and possibly with less debt. Sadly, fewer young men know how to solder copper pipe. But I'm not blaming girls. I'm blaming Sharkbites.

@Bowsprit, you've been lied to. But, you're not the first one ... Fact: More boys (in raw #s or percentage of adult males) are entering college than ever before in our Nation's history, more are completing college, more are going on to advanced degrees. We could credit many things (the GI bill for one), and one institution would be the coeducational system allows boys and girls to be inspired by the achievements of the opposite sex. In a decade, the rates of suicide have doubled for females (tripled for black and Hispanic females), they have less than doubled for males (and increased marginally for black and Hispanic males), but for a long time males have had a higher rate than females. Females, on the other hand, have had higher rates of self-mutilation. I have not seen any studies of fire/shelter building skills between resident vs. non-resident camp. All I know, from observing the kids in my family, if you need a fire started fast ... ask the Ugandan niece who lived the bush life for 9 years. Sure, it's a sample of one. But, most education research -- especially that of differentials -- is on skills taught in a classroom. I have none that discusses learning differentials in skills taught in the process of communal life.

There is also significant data (a preponderance of it so great that US public schools remain integrated) ... that shows that sex differences in learning styles is marginal at best, defined by prevailing cultures and fashion, and so biased by the educators themselves that it is not worth investing in separating sexes. The evidence leads one to conclude that a successful arrangement will keep sexes in the same environment and teach both how a given sex may acquire and retain knowledge differently. Individuals adjust accordingly and are able to segregate when needed. Most all of this only partially applies to a scouting environment of 24+ consecutive hours living together.

@Owls_are_cool, the way I read it was that the scouts' proposal was reviewed by the district and got a "good enough." The scout is now concerned that those dissenting opinions might bleed through however many months from now when he has his BoR. It's actually a pretty decent life-lesson. You could convert a run-down bowling alley into the Sistine chapel, and someone's not gonna like it. How do you muscle through that opposition when you are up for an award and the opposition is sitting on the board? It's tough to say, "Respectfully, Sir, I got approval from your district on the exact spacing between God's finger and Adam's." You might want to consult your allies before the meeting.