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@thebigJLT3546, welcome to the forums. You sounded like one of the ‘cool’ adults. I already replied on the scoutbook forums and won’t pile on here. Except to add: look for ideas in the Boy Scout Fieldbook.

What ‘severe consequences’? Will someone be wrongfully imprisoned? Lose their home? Forced to wear some scarlet letter? What on earth kind of suffering can maligned scouters dole out? Really?

I’ve heard mixed opinions from gun owners over the years. The scholarships for youth camp’s ammo education, etc ... are nice. But a lot of folks are thinking they could get more to the kids without it funneling through an administrative behemoth. Sound familiar? That’s not to say the NY AG is free of agendas. But it has a long tradition punishing any false claims made in its jurisdiction. (A friend learned that the hard way when he posted a Times classified as a practical joke on another friend.)

Although the advice of your local health dept. is paramount, I would encourage outdoor in-person den meetings. Of course every den is different. And the risks are palpable. My grandson’s daycare reported one positive in the baby area. Fortunately he wasn’t there last week and tested negative.

Sure, it’s a big country so sooner or later your gonna cross paths with these types ... but, there’s a lot more folks willing to stand up for their youth.

First congratulations on your scout for his advancement. Second, the troop COR can report to the district commissioner that he/she witnessed the UC overstep his bounds and prosecute a BoR with prejudice against a scout. He/she can then request that the troop be assigned a different UC who visits at scheduled meetings and does not disrupt a committee performing its proper duties.

Land-O-Lakes might serve as a metaphor here. As a friend told me, “Remove the Indian, keep the land.”

Following because my institution offers it. But, I personally have not had the need.

@Mikey52971, welcome to the forums! I agree with @Eagle94-A1. And for one simple reason: Stupid happens fast. Scouts qualify to take out boats by themselves. If they can swim 100 yards, or float without panic, death can be forestalled. One wrong guess about a scout's current ability, and you'll carry a lifetime of regret. It's really worth your while to get parents up to speed with safety afloat, and truly great if you can bring a lifeguard and swim-test on site. Contact your district commissioner, they are bound to know of qualified folks in your district. Your community Red Cross or YMCA may also be able to help.

My condolences. As someone whose parents were called to the higher trail some time ago, and whose in-laws joined them recently, I can assure you that that the best way to honor the departed is to retell their stories. For my dad, who was on my troop committee and active in the VFW, it took me a while to find the best way to do that ... given that I had moved some ways from home. Eventually an opportunity came to me. I had my kids’ troop/crew “adopt“ one of the city’s larger cemeteries to decorate veterans graves with flags for Memorial Day. During that evening, I explain that I’m doing this on faith that someone is doing the same by graves of my dad and brothers. Then while walking around making sure everyone has the supplies they need, I tell the youth (and young vets present) some of the ways he encouraged patriotism among youth in our community. My goal is simple: to instill some of his values in them. Sounds like your dad would be pleased if you did something similar.

@TAHAWK, it's not me, it's the kids' earworms. This lot is stuck in the 7th and 8th decade of the last century. Stairway wasn't on my radar until I "appeared" in the midst of their hammock nest (all week, they kept wondering how I could do that) to enforce lights out, and that's the disk they were spinning.

As written for 2c: So, a 20' pool is not wide enough to adhere to the requirements as written. The operative phrase "... in a strong manner ..." So, as written , the requirement mandates some judgment in determining a feeble vs. a strong manner. This cuts both ways, as @yknot indicates. The water could be inhospitable to the point that scouts fail under conditions in which they normally wouldn't be doing aquatics. The solution is to find more suitable water and test again while making a note to self to avoid putting your scouts in those inhospitable conditions again. Or, it could be "too hospitable" that it doesn't reflect the normal course of aquatic activities and conceals a scout's true ability or lack thereof. My bottom line: recruit an evaluator who's guarded for a while, who's had to rescue a tired swimmer or two, and who can look at the pool in question and determine if it simulates a scout's "real world" swimming scenario. (E.g., getting oneself out from the middle of an aquatics area, getting oneself to shore or the nearest boat.) Edited to add: BTW: Even though I'm qualified by most standards, I don't do swim tests. I know that my desire to get everyone up and at the next adventure should be tempered by someone who's been currently guarding for the better part of a season or two over the past couple of years.

Actually, @Mrjeff, as people in the business of forestalling death, it is our duty to be somewhat particular about those “basic” requirements for little ovals upon which is a scroll with a two word declarative statement: Be prepared. If not for those two words, I would get behind your any ship in a storm approach. The nagging question that these ranks are supposed to answer with regards to aquatics: can the scout swim enough yards to save his/her life? The answer in the context of a backyard pool is only “yes” if it reasonably simulates the typical swimming area a 2nd or 1st class scout will regularly encounter.

So, at summer camp we had two adult leaders and two dozen scouts with diverse MB objectives. Plus, I wanted to re-update my lifeguard and CPR certifications, and the other leader had just joined our troop as his son crossed over, so he obviously wanted to be nearby for those scouts. Basically, there was no following older scouts around unless they were in the same direction as the pool or the one or two scouters who I knew from WSJ. If the boys did not requisition supplies from the camp QM, we didn't get it. If they didn't request low-sugar cereal from the dining hall, I didn't eat it. If camp was untidy, they took the hit on inspection. I might pick up litter in my path, but that was it. The camp staff knew that there were just two of us, and ours was the biggest troop there. Although they were busy sanitizing the snot out of everything, they encouraged us and understood that we'd appreciate their "one eye" on our boys. It was not pretty. We got noise complaints. I told the boys to keep their micro boom boxes off the trails, and sing because nobody will complain about scouts singing. They said they couldn't remember the words without the music. So, every morning I taught them the words to a pop song: Queen: stomp stomp clap ... stomp stomp clap ... "I'm a little tea pot short and stout ..." Led Zeplin: [humming intro to "rising sun" ]... ba da bum ... "I am a little tea pot ..." The Animals: "I'm a little tea pot short and stout ... By day four, they ran flags like clockwork and dismissed the troop with no interference from adults. Our boys pushed boundaries, on their own asking staff to allow them to project movies before quiet hours. (One scout's dad does tech for a school that had no use for 800' of extension chord.) Much to my chagrin, senior staff approved with enthusiasm. Did it get out of hand? According to a neighboring troop (easily 150 yards away), yes. On the other hand, the scouts who you can hear, or whose flashlights are ruining your star-watching, are rarely the problem.

You all need to what I did when I was a kid and make friends with the Dr. who put in a 50' foot pool just up the hill (I kid not) just up the hill from the county pool. Of course, by the time we could hang out at his pool, we had all made it through the gauntlet of the ARC program run by a WAC vet. You knew you'd pass any swim test when she stopped cussing at you about your form.

@CommishJulian, welcome to the forums. I am afraid that your optimism is misplaced. First, BSA’s program for girls (let’s not mince words: separate troops + imbalanced YPT regs = separate program) Is a niche, although a noteworthy one. Most that I’ve seen have males SMs and it may be that way quite some time, I expect. So, that influx is more like a trickle. Second, I’ve known female leaders who have tried to muzzle males and females. The more female leaders we have, the more frequent that will be. It’s nothing to do with being female in particular. It’s just that whoever rises to the top has a chance at being tyrannical, and that’s not bounded by sex. We absolutely need more women of color working with our scouts — if not as scoutmasters, most certainly as merit badge counselors and unit committee. Again, it’s not that they bring anything more special than do white folk, it’s just healthier for our scouts to meet folks of various races and sex in positions of authority. Our only chance is to encourage those kinder, gentler, “super grown-ups” and firmly correct any “adult-children” who we may come across.

@MattR and @SSScout, let’s be clear that as far as fees go, Jambodemic would be as expensive. Good tech and reliable public health won’t be cheap. Transportation to a camp in a scout’s area would be less, but delivering a similar experience to isolated council camps may vary.

I posted the following on Bryan’s blog ... What would you think of a massively multisite national camporee? (Assuming tech sponsors would come on board to provide infrastructure.) Maybe call it a Panoree or Jambodemic.

If a scouter forum can’t countenance dumb scout jokes (now called dad jokes) over the likely autocorrect of “tentage” to “tent age”, it’s probably not a forum that I’d continue following. Therefore I’d encourage moderators to tread lightly, in conference, and discretely.

Well, I guess we could do @MattR a solid and quibble over an end to gaudy council names and patches ...

Doublespeak: as in when one promotes "Family Scouting" instead of simply offering the Boy Scout program to girls. Think about it: Why "Scouts BSA" instead of continuing as "Boy Scouts" and adding "BSA for Girls" (or as I still affectionately say, BSA4G) as the new parallel program? Because the collective wants to give the impression that we are more Northern European than Indonesian or Indian (or, now that they have girls in their program, Saudi) in our approach to the sexes. Even though, for the majority of Americans, the thought of sexes mixing so liberally is anathema. Why not BSA and GS/USA going to Jambo (National or World) together? Because Seton and Lowe believed that their respective scouts were learning mutually exclusive skills when we know for a fact that both groups develop youth into fully capable homemakers in short order. Why propagate this vision into the 21st century? Because pro's in both groups know that we parents will need fewer of them if boots on the ground were at liberty to work in lock-step across organizational boundaries when they felt that it suited their communities. Why, in the 30s, stop calling the GS/USA troop leaders captain and merely call them adult leaders -- not (as BP was heard doing in an audio address to leaders of Guides and Scouts) scoutmasters? I suspect it had less to do with any true egalitarian sense and more to do with the profitability of organizational autonomy.

Considering the need for isolation bubbles that folks in some parts feel, would this be a time to switch from age-based dens to dens of nearest neighbors? Regarding JTE ... so you get bronze or lower. What’s the big deal?

All the cool kids have a camp towel (synthetic wannabe tericloth) and shammi type towel. Both require a lot of rinsing and drying to deodorize. But, they do dry quickly.

Brainstorming for future reference ... right now is a good time to snatch up 5 gal bottles from office water coolers. Because of restrictions, many suppliers aren’t taking them back. Careful pioneering, some work with stoppers and hoses, and you should have a camp shower.

Camp Conestoga was a welcome break for our scouts. The aquatics director did me a solid and helped me re-update BSA guard including my CPR cert and a thorough first aide review. I told him it was a little weird seeing the other side of their “little square lake” during swim qualifiers. He actually apologized for landing the black 10 pound weight on the black and marker. I thought it was the most visible weight I had to retrieve in a long time! Their trades program area was a hit with four of our boys. I let the welding instructor know that he was the topic of conversation at many dinners (which the older scouts picked up at the dining hall and brought back to camp). Their handicraft area had stained glass, which if it weren’t for the recertifications, I would have jumped at. I did walk by one day and those grinders were humming! Funny how something that’s not a merit badge could be so popular. The night sky was excellent. The food was good, although in retrospect we probably would have done better to bring our own and worked on patrol cooking. I did miss chatting with SMs in the program hall. I was sad to see it empty. Their was sufficient space for distanced flag ceremonies and campfires. Because sanitizers were used at full strength, staff took responsibility for cleaning shower houses. Yes, I missed sending the scouts off to their day of latrine duty. By day four and no fevers, you could tell the sense of relief.