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I did not write anything about edible bio-fuel because the troop no longer participates. But we’re capitalists. If a kid can hawk a couple hundred orders, there’s hope for a lucrative sales career.

You say this as if that’s a good thing. Some of us find it patently immoral to shirk the teaching of marketing, salesmanship and service industry to our youth. Our yearly dues are under $200 to cover registration and awards, then from our meatball hoagie sales at community festivals and a car wash offered by a local lawn, garden, and feed store, we cover most weekend camping costs, the occasional party, and capital expenses. Aside from increased community exposure (in both directions, citizens meet scouts and scouts meet fellow citizens) this inspires some older scouts to find jobs or start their own businesses. Among my world jamboree troop were two scouts who raised their big-ticket funds by worked at their CO’s soft drink stand during weekend festivals.

Many churches and other non-profit organizations have to do emergency drills for insurance purposes.

It’s like I have an evil twin five years later. Bottom line: how involved is the CO? The intent is that resources stay with the CO for the purposes of scouting. How does he COR think they will support scouting going forward if the troop folds? Does the CO have parents with teens? As far as implementing this: Your treasury is too deep. Presumably these are funds that existing scouts and parents earned. Pay fully for everyone’s registration and the scouts’ summer camp. Schedule outings with the other troop so the scouts can get to know one another. Pay for the cracker-barrel for any older scouts so that same-age scouts may get to know one another. IS THERE A CREW or SHIP nearby? Introduce your scouts to those opportunities. They may want to become one.

I'll let others find the sources, but there are two opposing concepts that apply to the field uniform: A uniform is not required to be a member of BSA. The intent here is that we are not to discourage from membership a scout without means to buy a uniform. This goes way back to when the uniform was the most expensive aspect of membership, and a neckerchief of a particular color was the bare minimum. The PLC decides on the troop uniform. This typically involves neckerchief design and how/when it should be worn. It also involves defining the activity uniform. But in effect, if the PLC, for example, refuses to wear standard issue pants or shorts, what are you going to do? Furthermore, the SPL leads uniform inspection. How does an SM handle this when the SPL is okay with patrols showing up at ceremonies without their field shirt? On the other hand if the SPL has got the PLC gun ho about that impeccable head to toe De La Renta look, how does an SM tone down expectations so that scouts with limited means can feel that sense of belonging? So, if it's being initiated by the boys with the endorsement of the SM, we can't keep a troop from trying to look sharp. But, my suggestion to such a troop is to maintain a spare set of field uniforms so that scouts in difficult situations (either financially, or they are just coming straight from football practice ot a meeting) can have something they can put on when they get to the scout house.

It was a pleasure traveling with the female scouts in the World Scout Jamboree USA contingent. They made a higher percentage of Americans compared to 4 years ago. Many had also attended National Jamboree. Unfortunately, some had to reckon with abysmal leadership. I attribute this to female leaders not seasoned in BSA’s (and WOSM’s) culture. It’s one thing to come in with decades of experience as an adult leader … it’s another thing to have the memory of attending Jambo aS a youth on top of it. I hope some of these young women take their experience to heart and make a better environment for future youth under their charge. We’ve come a long way. We have a long way to go.

Our ASM found this in a mug in a rarely-used patrol box while the troop was clearing the garage tonight. Does it jar any memories? I think I found local article related to the event.

Those horror stories will manifest regardless of the tools that you provide. File: adults ruin everything! I do think we have a generation of adults who don’t know how to measure anything. Do take time at a troop meeting to teach hand-washing. Alcohol base requires 20 seconds; soap and water 30 seconds. Singing “happy birthday twice is a good metric. I recommend the glee club dirge version: “Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Sin and sorrow everywhere, death and dying and despair. Happy birthday. Happy Birthday.” But, I find what churns most of my scouts’ stomachs is a failure to drain grease from their meat while cooking. Demonstrating that at a meeting where you all cook up a bunch of sliders is a worthwhile exercise. Showing scouts how to manage heating and seasoning of different kinds of frying pans will also pay off in clean-up time! Then, there’s the scout who eats seconds of everything then wakes up in the middle of the night with incredible stomach aches. I have yet to find a fix for that.

We use soap, bleach, and sun. (That last one can be hard to find.) Backpacking, I just carry soap. I look for something biodegradable without dyes.

Winds can be tricky. Seabase sailing adventures include the Sea of Abaco in the Bahamas — nice islands, but far from many amenities including top tier medical facilities. Yes sailors do try to take care of one another, but the time to rescue can vary. Seabase tries to keep participants from hurricanes - just like Philmont keeps participants clear of wildfires. So, emergency evacuations in those scenarios may require some minimum fitness for complete success. That said, the fitness for swimming, scuba, or sailing has different parameters than that for hiking/backpacking. Those parameters aren’t entirely aligned with body mass index. Kayaking and canoeing come close to having the same stressors as hiking, and therefore the height/weight may be relevant. So, when in doubt, contact the HA base before committing to a specific adventure.

Seabase let me slide. On the other hand, I was BSA guard certified and only slightly over limit. No big deal for sailing adventures.

In case you think knots are too arcane for your budding bio-engineer….

Far from it. If you wanted such compensation, but wouldn’t admit it. That would be dishonest. To nod my head in agreement to any side in this, that would be dishonest. To shrug off losses of assets and pretend that that is not affecting the youth who are most at risk for abuse in the home, that would be dishonest. Therefore, to say that monetary payouts are objectively “fair” to victims would be dishonest in two directions: 1) It gives the false illusion that this somehow prevents future victims when in fact it could be making safe havens inaccessible to future victims. Moreover, I’ve seen payouts for pain and suffering help my friends and family who’ve received them, but only after a lot more pain and suffering. It seemed that the payments just served remind them that they were kicked down and should stay down, until some other tragedy jolted them into using what they’ve garnered to slog forward. And 2) Secondly there’s no upper limit on the amount needed to compensate for pain and suffering because money is a terrible vector for transmitting compassion —compassion being the thing I know that helps with pain and suffering. The reason we even bother is that money is the best vector we have to transmit compassion beyond our physical reach.

How it “sounds” is purely subjective. I know you want empathy in the form of unanimous agreement that dollars should be paid out above and beyond mitigation costs. It’s not an ironclad argument when cost-prohibitive to youth becomes a program that many find to be a temporary safe haven from psychologically destructive family environments. From their perspective paying a past victim puts a number of current kids at risk. And then a whole cycle of counter-arguments ensues. Again by people who think differently. At the end of the day, your opinion is yours, and as it seems to be in solidarity with many other victims, it deserves to be aired. But after talking with leaders of other international scout associations over the years I feel in less of a position to say what sounds fair than I ever did.

We need to get beyond this. The only way we can help victims is to accept that in the pool there will be a few frauds who nobody will screen. It certainly galls survivors as much as it does the majority of us who never drew the attention of predators. This is the cost of actually being helpful. (This, and being more attentive to our youths’ environments.)

The other problem with having every parent registered is that some are simply not qualified to chaperone our youth. You need to find a balance. But, especially for girl troops, you need to search through all of the female parents/grandparents/adult siblings to see who would commit to becoming an ASM. Family camping is kind of a recent trend in BSA marketing. It’s a square peg that takes some pounding to fit in the round hole. Not worth my effort IMHO. The only parents who need to be in camp are those of special needs kids — and then only until the scout learns how to address his/her difficulties independently or with buddies.

Send an urgent request to your district/council camping committee. When I was a crew advisor, I often leaned on other units for that second female adult.

Having just camped adjacent to Swiss (who shared excellent teokbokki with us while we scrambled to raise camp), I spent a good four days sharing coffee with their scoutmasters and learning about their program. One important thing to note: they receive government funding, and their program provides sports education (similar to BSA’s defunct varsity scouts).

I was impressed with the number of scouts in my Jambo troop who earned Eagle ... many earned it more than a year ago. Now this could be a biased sample of scouts whose families engage the program more, but it's clear that this lot is not flying away. It's not clear that there is a "great majority" disappearing after obtaining Eagle. Looking at my troop, about 1/4 who earn Eagle before age 17 find other things to occupy their time. That's not much different the the number of older scouts who quit without earning Eagle.

Unless the scouts confront the SM and say that they think his behavior is inappropriate, you should expect nothing to change. I concluded early on that there’s nothing wrong with scouts having to choose between troop and crew activities. Venturing serves a different purpose for dual registered youth compared to its role for youth in only one program. There is one line that I used to great effect during my time of troop-crew conflict: “I’m not about to be bothered by the burr up anyone’s butt … especially yours!”

My observations generally concur with @gpurlee's friend -- chances are we compared notes. With some added detail: 1) Each American unit was in a different subcamp, so there was only international contact. In contrast to the last WSJ, it felt good to be the minority. For those into trading, US swag was in high demand. Regarding facilities and emergency services, they were adequate to the task at hand, and we saw them improve daily. 2) The contingent management team (including our troop's commissioner) did not visit our site (which I found to be splendid) until after they decided to evacuate. Communication was primarily via Basecamp (before the trip) and Whatsapp (hastily assembled after the trip). Neither is as useful as these forums would have been. 3) It's summertime on a warming planet. My scouts (from across the southeast US) had camped in heat and humidity like this before. And the amount of dehydration/heat stroke among our boys was par for the course. This was a relatively safe environment to learn how to listen to your body. The Brits, were not nearly as disciplined, and talking to the youth, many were not consuming the needed water and electrolytes, and were not slowing their pace in the afternoon. (Mad dogs and Englishmen ... out in the noonday sun.) 4) We were not merely confined to base. We were confined to the garrison's school grounds. There was no visiting the PX, or the library, or any of the base families (who weren't even allowed to visit us on day one, but that was relaxed when we were staying there on days 7 through 11), no access to a kitchen to make my coffee! (I'm still kicking myself for not buying fuel for my burner when we stopped at a grocery on the pre-tour.) Excursions from base required coordinating all 20 buses to leave and return at the same time, and it took time for the MPs to clear the convoy in either direction across the gate. (Police escorts are cool the first time ... not so much after that.) So, for a two-hour shopping trip in Seoul, we were on a bus for 6 hours. 5) Coordinating with leaders of other troops was not pleasant. There were numerous violations of my rule #1 (don't ask for a rule). We would be given instructions, followed by the phrase that I came to dread: "Are there any questions?" On base, this caused delays in execution of simple tasks like dropping your gear and getting dinner. I finally started taking on tasks just to prevent second-guessers from wasting all of our time worrying about doing it wrong. For this reason alone, we would have been better off dispersed to the various campuses, sharing quarters with other contingents. 6) I'm no fan of conventions. But, the simple format of having 40,000 kids from hundreds of nations camp together is a heady brew that I won't pass up. I would have definitely preferred to stay on site until the day before the typhoon made landfall. (I actually slept out on my hammock under a porch the night it landed.) I think this is the experience of most of our SMs. We would have preferred to have helped the troops who were hurting to relocate to our seemingly better sites. In fact, we requested that the contingent management team rescind its total evacuation order allow us to do just that. We were obviously denied. Following up with contingent leaders, it seems the root cause for the premature withdrawal was in US/UK vs. Korean medical teams' conflicting standards of care for edge cases (i.e. those needing surgery). Contingent management estimated that the risk to the one or two scouts who might need that care outweighed the desires and abilities of the leaders in camp. This is a subtle story that doesn't make headlines because it doesn't sound as dramatic as the rather common rate of heat exhaustion, mediocre infrastructure, and high probability of foul weather. But, I think that type of conflict will require close scrutiny before we find ourselves in Poland in 2027.

Each US unit was in a different subcamp, so there was variation in hydrology. No two pieces of drained seabed are alike! This is no surprise. But, US and Brit camps were also worse simply by virtue of arriving a day late.

Heartbroken. It took me all day yesterday to come up with the word for how I feel. It was also how most US SMs feel. The contingent management team, under the guidance of National, is acting against our wishes to remain on site. The KSA had been very good to us. Health services delivery and sanitation were improving daily. They added multiple mitigation strategies. The youth had adjusted to less movement during the day. Our campsite had a constant stream of visitors trading, bringing coffee, or simply chatting. Then at night things began to pop! We exchanged this for hours-per-day rides on busses. To whatever features might placate youth. I’m in an underground mall and the boys are making the best of it. They have encountered some Scouts UK, but it’s certainly not the same. The volunteers at Humphreys are kind and consoling, but they are volunteering in order to comfort the traumatic loss of autonomy we feel. Ad steak and eggs for breakfast makes up for a lot. Hopefully the next couple of days of local fellowship with the garrison’s youth will make up for a lot. Expect BSA-favorable spin on that from National in your inbox soon.

I’m too emotional for comment. Will recap when WIFi is better.

@Tron, all I have to say to your committee is that there are no uniform police, only insignia wonks.