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Yeah, I guess there's no replicating my early career as a paperweight when the drivers of dad's beer truck were too lazy to anchor the tarp. Replace "pickup truck" with "parade float" and we'll be in compliance.

Yes. Obviously the parents who join think it's worth the cost ... even after I describe the clothing and gear that the scout will be buying over time - especially if he's nuts about Jambo or other HA's ... doubly if the parent dives in as well. Many of them also "get" that vetting adults ain't cheap. But, for the parent who's paying for school tuition, sports fees, music lessons, church camp, etc ... they are going to think twice.

If I were in your shoes ... my feet might hurt. But let me just throw this out there: Instead of a Pope-mobile, have a scout-mobile! Find an outdoor location or set of streets that form a safely driveable block. See if someone can loan you a convertable or two, or a pick-up truck with a lounge chair ... or bicycles pulling wagons ... or chariots* ... Scout families take their place around the walk/drive. SPL shouts for the colorguard to "advance", i.e. get in the cars and be driven to central locations where they can raise colors prominently. To deliver awards, one would "drive" a vehicle up to the scout in question, transport him to the SPL, who dispenses awards. You then transport the scout around the arena proclaiming, "Behold, ___ is now a tenderfoot scout." Repeat for the rest of the group. *If you were near me, I have a couple of biers on which to place chairs to carry a candidate. Mrs. Q would be happy to see me part with them.

As long as that kiss of death is approved by your local SDW (social distance warriors), you'll be fine. But I agree. Most of the discussion on my favorite trail page has as much to do with citizenship and stewardship as it does with the sheer joy of stomping around in the big woods. When someone brings up gripes about littered trails (or blazing forests), I remind them that fewer citizens are being raised up to behave like scouts. Most learn in their late twenties, after someone calls them out on the mess they've left behind.

Our CO is elderly, so scouts' use of the church at this time was a non-starter. I was inclined to disagree because I felt the boys could meet at least to help disinfect the church. But, since I was busy helping my own church negotiate this time, I felt in no position to add another discussion to the mix. It's taken two and a half months for the boys to really start interacting online. Hopefully we'll get in a few outdoor activities.

BPSA not having a Title 36 charter, they are not obliged to report their numbers to congress, or anyone else, but if you want to count pins on a map: https://www.bpsa-us.org/find-a-group/. In general, they have a spartan following on the coasts ... not much in the heartland. While you are asking, however, TL-USA claims to be growing and maintaining coverage throughout the nation: https://www.traillifeusa.com/find-a-troop/. Their early members are now young adults, and based on my relative's experience, giving back to that program.

Looks like Bryan on Scouting hasn't gotten the memo yet. He called the National Venturing Cabinet president a "youth'": https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2020/06/01/meet-tyler-grey-venturings-top-youth-leader-for-2020-2021/

@yknot, Half my kin are in WV. They'd like your business, not your germs.

There is a sense that bigger is worse. Growing up, our default camping locations: Adjacent a water dam (no swimming, just hiking and fishing) Lakes on conservancy land (again no swimming) The trail that cut across our county. The back of a farm The county fair grounds (our campsite actually was an "exhibit" for the Bicentennial) Town/township parks A church camp that needed a trail built during the off-season The county airport (SM put a gnarly orienteering course there) The nearest summer camp ... we'd do Klondike there in the winter We had so many low-budget options that state park rangers would have to ask us to camp in their primitive sites.

Oh, it is much harder to get MBC's in general now. The paperwork someone has to do just to be registered probably consumes the equivalent of a few counseling sessions. Coupled with a culture that just won't answer the phone, and our boys have a hurdle 10 times the height that I did. A good district commissioner should help you hunt down that unresponsive MBC. There might be some real-life support that we as scouters could offer someone. Heck, in this case, the person might be an essential employee, and one of us could go till his garden for him/her! I am very grateful that my son's counselors got back to them right quick. One even stopped by the house because her office was chaos due to relocation, but she wanted to get Son#2 in right away rather than wait for her life to be settled. I know that doesn't always happens. But, this is the world that our scouts will have to live and work in. Shaking trees is a life skill.

He folks, he's coming around! No little round medallion is worth sitting through a class to earn! The only reason that the MB pow-wow that I attended as a scout was interesting is that it was in a college science building, and along the halls were museum-quality exhibits. Guess how many classes, online or otherwise, the two Eagles who I spawned sat through (outside of summer camp)? None. Zip. Nada. Why? Because that was the last thing they needed for their personal growth. What they needed was to learn to call counselors and work out how they were going to complete the requirements. This is exactly what our scouts need to do in this pandemic. Infection control protocols? No excuse. Contact your counselor and figure out how to make it work. Summer camp closed? No excuse. Make a plan B. Make some calls. Include your PL and SM on the plan. Aquatics areas not open? Schedule some land-shark MBs. I can think of no better time to work on Personal Fitness, Hiking, or Cycling. Get outside and expose your water droplets to solar radiation. You know who really cares about getting your MBs signed off? Your scout, and your counselor. So much can be done from a balcony or front porch. Make it work. SMs, get your scouts in touch with counselors who you've met and whom you trust. Get the troop librarian in control of the library. If you're troop is still a Red Zone, arrange dead drops for pamphlets.

@JoeBob, I don't propose to speculate on the proclivities of the interred. I can say that, I am better for having walked among them last week with my sons and a girlfriend decorating their graves. It's an act of faith on my part, that as I am moved to do so for these strangers, someone will do the same for my father, uncles, and aunt. That memory was the sauce to the BBQ.

The purging of the godless. Egregious ageism embodied in the now-60 year-old ban on anyone above a certain age earning rank.

If any good comes from this pandemic at the collegiate level, it will be the realization that that students don't need the community built by university to learn stuff. The have the community, they need the university to come teach them how to build it.

Laurel Highlands council just cancelled its resident programs at Heritage Reservation. That'll be it for summer camp in Western PA.

@TimB as others said, you have little control in an HA aside from making yourself fit for anything that will come your way. And, given the behavior of this crew as a whole, you might be dealing with scouts who haven't even maintained their boots ... let alone their bodies. Ideally, right now, your scout (I'm not using "son," because at this point you need to detach yourself from your knowledge of his aspirations, emotions, etc ...) needs to be touching base with the other scouts every week or so. He needs to be the cheerleader, promoter, joke-teller ... whatever suits his personality. Selfies with his gear are in order. A socially distanced hike or service project is in order. (Online shakedown!) Anything that could be for the good of the group ... challenge him to think of it and put himself out there. I cobbled together a Seabase Bahamas crew from three different regions. There was a lot about that that was not perfect. But, there were things that went very very well. Building of a scouting fellowship among venturers was one of them. My WSJ troop was actually a lot harder to prepare because we had scouts from a dozen troops with different cultures. Worse, in their own troop they were pegged in one role, but in our troop that was irrelevant. Fortunately, most of the challenges happened via one or two scouts a day, so as leaders we could work through them. I talked to the advisor from the one crew in our region, and he said it was even tougher because his Sea Scouts and Venturers had few days of storming. I've debriefed enough Philmont crews to know that they face the same problems. The fittest, most well equipped boys will have a less than perfect time if they haven't learned to love one another. That scout spirit has to be the first thing in the backpack!

I'm amused that folks find it puzzling that LDS is doing what most of our other leaders of faith traditions do ... empowering its parishioners to do what they do best according to their passions. I'm not heavily invested in my church's youth program (teaching Sunday school doesn't count, that's an investment in The Church -- different concept) because other congregants are better cut-out for the Jr. High youth group dog-and-pony-show. (Yes, folks, there are consequences to having that attitude, and Mrs. Q. and I have had to work hard to rebuild slightly burnt bridges.) The fact of the matter is that most parents find the concept of sending their kids on forced marches into bear country to be slightly unnerving. So, I do my scouting thing and make it work for the scouts in my congregation. They are all in different troops. Others lean into the church's youth program as they see fit. Telling everyone to get on board with the church's program or go home is the last thing we elders in the congregation would ever do. A lot of folks on this forum were perplexed with LDS scouters because that's precisely what many of their bishops were trying to do in calling them to lead a program they didn't quite know how to invest in. I'm looking forward to VISA because, going forward, when we put LDS scouts and scouters beside scouters from other faiths, we'll respect them for the balance they are making between scouting and their church's youth program (just like many of us religious types do). And we will be able to have more fun with them at our campfires, in our service projects, and at our MB pow-wows ... just like I did when I was a scout.

I was so relieved when I actually opened @The Latin Scot's reply because right below his abbreviated message in the sidebar was an ad with an image of facemasks -- the first of which was purple. So for those of you whose cookies lead to the presentation of other ads ... visualize:

Like everything else, it's an odds game. The bulk of cases in a normal season have occurrs by the end of February. For kids, that puts their viral-related cardiac risk window in the spring semester. We have no idea if Coovid-19 will impart more or less cardiac risk than other viruses. But the timing guarantees that we won't start finding out until June.

What I am about to say is in no way an attempt to minimize the current contagion: all natural viral infections can find their way to the heart weeks after recovery. The 2018-2019 flu vaccines got a bad rep for their lack of efficacy, and accordingly my brother-in-law and his wife passed on them -- swearing by the vitamin supplements. They got hit bad the week before Christmas and by March, his heart went into a-fib requiring hospitalization. One of the most significant benefits of influenza vaccines -- even when they don't knock out every strain of virus that comes our way --- is the dramatic reduction in subsequent cardiac complications. Most years, we don't think much of this by the time summer camp rolls around because most kids who weren't vaccinated will have had their infections 6 months earlier and are well past the window where, for some of them, the infection would rebound in myocardium. Basically, those heart attacks are more likely to happen in the school gym than on a weekend camp. Given that any given scout's coovid-19 infection would have been more recent, the cardiac risk window will fall in a very active outdoor season. This begs the question ... do we want our youth to be home alone, or around other scouts should one of them has a heart attack? On the other hand, how far away from major trauma centers do we want them to be?

Contact a counselor in your district and arrange for a meeting. It's front porch weather. A great way to earn a badge. (Actually, one of the old Cit. MBPs was written around the story of a scout meeting a local judge at his house.) Neither of those MBs have a requirement of being in online classes for so many hours.

@InquisitiveScouter , I'm laughing out loud. Prospective Parent: Is ___ in your crew? Me: Yes, ___ is our CC. Parent: Then my kids aren't joining it! Me: Well, would you like to be CC? Parent: No!!!!!! Me to Myself: (Dodged a bullet with that one.)

In general, I'm sufficiently free-market to understand that someone hast to pay the bills. I just wish: 1. Ads didn't drag on the presentation of pages. 2. Ads had the same format as forum posts. Maybe a slightly different color. 3. Ads were related to forum content. We can't dictate any of that. There's a firm belief among admen that sales are better if they read your cookies, etc ... before inserting ads and presenting a page. So, the best we can hope for is that Terry is negotiating well for the hit on performance.

I nixed a "two axe handle lengths apart" concept for the same reason.

Sweden's mortality rate is still climbing -- and that includes some pediatric deaths . Ranking higher than the US is sometimes a bad thing. S Korea just had a fresh outbreak in nightclub attendees. The US strategy has been and continues to be a middle ground between two extremes. Our hospitals are getting back to treating non-COVID patients. They aren't elective procedures any more, they are scheduled essential procedures.