qwazse

I will say that certain young teens have a special knack for those especially challenging kids.

No. Fun gives no specific benefits.

An adult sibling serves as a designated guardian. E.g., on the permission slip, who can take a child home from an activity. BSA is ambiguous on these scenarios because they are many and unpredictable. But think of it from a litigation perspective. Right now "public service" announcements are reminding us that being exposed to pornography is a form of sexual abuse. How many youth were introduced to it by their older siblings? How many older siblings were also ASMs? Things to keep us awake at night.

Photographing the color guard: cool. Photographing players and audience: not cool.

For me, the training offered a little more than the ticket. I was pretty good at goal setting and project management. The networking gained through the training pays dividends to this day.

Don't know about where you live, but eight buddies pitching in $15 can get a kid to some very sweet campsites in Western, PA. That includes filling their bellies with some quality ingredients -- possibly fresh eggs and milk if you're willing to pitch in and help the farmer/ranger with a project or two. So, the calculus has become: pay BSA registration vs. go camping once a month. I am honestly astounded that the parents in my troop think it's worth the price of admission.

Also, the dollar cost advantage of MB pamphlets are when they make it to a troop library to be shared with other scouts. Do you envision that your app for a particular MB could be purchased by one scout (possibly the troop librarian) to be shared with 40 other scouts over the next few years?

Are you aware that the scouterverse has been here before? https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/06/16/casting-call-bsa-seeks-boy-scouts-star-instructional-videos/

Thanks to @HICO_Eagle’s nods, I just realized, we were just two weeks to lockdown when I wrote this. The moral of the story: if your 1st years ask to mix, let them do so ASAP. You never know when the next wave will come.

We make a commitment form for each big trip. Here is an financial section that I used for a trip. It was not the crew's responsibility if you couldn't go. How much you got returned to you was between you and whoever replaced you. A. Finances/Paperwork: I will raise funds (no more than $1500) for the trip by participating in crew fundraisers, working on my own, or negotiating fairly with my parents. From now until April 2011 I will make monthly payments to Crew 321 to cover the cost of the trip. If I cannot go on the trip: I am responsible to find someone else to go instead of me, and they may reimburse me for what I have paid. I will complete a physical exam by within 12 months prior to the trip and have my physician complete the Seabase medical form. I will obtain a passport for travel to the to the Bahamas. qwazse, I edited this so it doesn’t take up two screens. John.

Go outside, mask on, extorting candy from neighbors, driving demons to flight. A perfect holiday for a pandemic.

Sorry the chips didn’t fall your scout’s way. But you are a greater victim of a propaganda machine that makes people think Eagle Scout is a “must have” on a scout’s application. It isn’t. Star and Life scouts get accepted to college at the same rate. It is more important on college essays to describe one’s leadership experience or how one overcame a trial, be it in scouting, school, or family life. Should a young man who has already applied to college work on Eagle? Of course! It flags to many employers that one pursued a goal for 7 years. Furthermore, I encourage scouts like this to not merely mark time. They should earn merit badges and rack up insta-palms during these relatively minor delays.

Interesting. I get the impression that two of the characters are female. Maybe a patch from Europe?

I don’t think GSUSA has an interest in being saddled with more land. With a motivated philanthropist, Trail Life USA could buy BSA. They seem to be expanding, but not rapidly enough to justify such a move for the assets they may gain. And they’d still gain the liability of the legal actions. I don’t think any other youth organization is up for a merger, at least not until the dust settles.

So, really, 25% of your troop’s scouts earn Eagle. That number is even lower if scouts drop out after 2 or 3 years as well. That approximates how National calculates its proportion: Eagle ranks conferred in a given year to percentage of scouts registered that year. If you used a cohort model, e.g. number of 11 year olds in 2012 who joined a troop vs. those who made Eagle by now, the two methods of calculating would yield a similar percentage. But, your perception highlights a very important point. It seems that troops have been brainwashed into thinking that the only thing that matters is rank advancement. If everyone isn’t doing it, they feel like the troop isn’t scouting. So, one forgets about all of the youth who left the program, and all of the youth who never joined the program, and all the youth who are fulfilling a vision of the pinnacle scouting experience of hiking and camping independently with their mates. All eyes fixed on Eagle perverts that vision.

Your district and/or council advancement chairperson would be the next person to talk to. If this involves applying for Eagle there are formal procedures if the troop is denying the scout a board of review. The other issues will involve polite conversations with your troop’s key 3.

Quantity has a quality all its own. - Thomas A. Callaghan Jr.

How are the lodges in each council? Which lodge has the most ownership of their camp?

The ranger at one camp had set up numbered tags on the sides of buildings and other landmarks. The bearings for multiple 3-control, 4-control, and 5-control courses were in a large binder. Scouts follow the bearings, record the nearest tag (or take a selfie with it in the background), and return to camp to report their findings. They may take another course if they’d like.

A noble cause. If involves boys, just add bacon. That’s their main motivator, it seems. That and deep fried chocolate chip cookies.

@admiral8079, welcome to the forums! And I think you're answering your own question. Most of us here have hiked rugged paths ... rocks and bogs ... just to stretch a hammock between two trees nobody else would ever see. So you're not gonna get a lot of encouragement to settle for the comfy assignment that you know a half-dozen other parents, with a little training, can take. What you're feeling a calling. High probability of failure, rewards for success unlikely. Your district is likely poorly resourced, so professional help will be a disappointment. There is likely a cultural chasm between you and the boys (girls?) in the vicinity of the scout house. The best uniform to give these youth would be a neckerchief of their own making ... distinct from gang colors. You might find yourself telling parents and guardians how to do their job ... not fun. If you're lucky, one boy from your old troop will be willing to help you. If his parents are like most parents in my troop, they won't let him. First class first year is a lie, the skills in them are difficult to master. This is especially true when parents aren't there to help the scouts. On the other hand, precious will that one tenderfoot scout born out of a year or two of troubles. Nobody gives you a knot for helping a kid be 10% less gansta. The only paycheck is when you get the phone call from a young adult going down the list of people he knew to thank for getting him to the point where he could buy his first house. Maybe you are hurting for some wins right now, so taking on your home unit might be a good idea. There they have moms who probably will bring cupcakes to their tenderfoots' courts of honor. But, maybe your hammock just won't hang well in any familiar trees. Your call.

Last night the SPL was regretting not planning ahead enough to get rope for an instructor to teach 1st years knots. I offered to bring my car around and share any spare rope in my camp box, and the instructor graciously accepted. The 1st years were happily wrestling in the lawn, so I started throwing balls of rope at them. Later the instructor had them corralled and was telling how to use knots in combination to raise a tarp. I shouted, “Don’t explain! Demonstrate!” And threw them a balled-up tarp. Pity these scouts don’t have a patient leader.

One of our VOA VP’s called it “structured unstructured time.”

The church is basically closed except for retrieving gear from storage. Two local parks have made their pavilions available to us on our meeting night. We had a recognition for the six scouts who earned Eagle, and the SPL distributed MBs earned so far this spring/summer. We are still in the midst of operation give-the-new-SM-blue-card-writer’s-cramp. The next meeting will be the day before school starts, then we’ll start weekly meetings. We have September and October camp outs lined up.

Welcome to the forums! Thanks for sharing. We often hear from folks starting troops abroad, it’s nice to hear from their charges.