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Because in real life, a good job speaks for itself, and no amount of beureaucratic window-dressing will improve a bad job. If it's legible, and you still want it on a computer, take pictures of it.

"We like the dark. Dark for dark business."

Mods, please tag this topic "Faith & Chaplaincy" in deference to @SSScout.

I find that there are plenty of ways that agnostic scouts fulfill their duty to God. It seems like you heard a couple of those ways. As the scout matures you can help him discover other ways.

I think the real issue is two fold: The SM doesn't care what parents think. He could be a pompous windbag, or he could see a threat that others don't. Likely there's a little of both. Parents who are concerned along with @Scoutmomonly want a national policy to use against an SM. There isn't one. And personally, I find that asking for one violates my rule #1: Don't ask for a rule, you'll live to regret it.

Since I roll sides and doors of my tent for ventilation (or, on clear nights, completely forgo roof and walls), my gear is right there. Boys can use it in my absence. They know full well that I expect knives to returned sharpened; fishing reel unknotted; diggers, clean; TP dry and in the zip-lock; coffee, unsquandered; and the cell phone log better not have any international calls on it. Tell me what you did with it when I get back. (Actually, if you're forgetful, I have a notebook and pencil in in my kit; write down what you used. Return the pencil sharpened.) Does this mean a scout may cross a line? (E.g., drinking from my pour-only canteen?) Yes. Is it a problem between anyone besides me, the other direct contact leaders, and the scouts? No. I tell the scout that I didn't like how he left things and move on. Is a scout crossing a line if he sees something in my gear that he thinks should not be there? No. He tells me what bothers him. I explain my thinking, and we discuss if there's a better way to deal with that piece of gear. From when I was a scout, I learned that good SMs and advisors eat a lot of humble pie, frequently and often. The whole "take what you dish out" takes time to master. So, yes. It does cut both ways. One side of BSA's Sweet Sixteen of Safety is qualified supervision. The other is discipline. Now, I might not necessarily have the same indicators of discipline as some other leaders. But, I can certainly respect an SM wanting to maintain whatever level of discipline he thinks his boys need so that they can aspire to a vision of the pinnacle scouting experience of hiking and camping independently with your mates. As SM's mature (soften?) most learn to communicate better with scouts and parents. But parents do need to be patient with that SM. We're all maturing. Some of us more slowly than others.

My poor scouts. Every now and then they get it in their head that I negotiate with terrorists.

Welcome! And thanks in advance for all you'll do for our youth.

I'm not sure council is going to get into this. So save yourself the phone call. You could call the chartered org rep. Did the boys know they weren't allowed to have cell phones? I mean before you toss around trustworthy, you need to check that the boys were obedient. The two kinda go hand in hand. Would I have done things differently than your SM? Before two years ago yes. Since then, I'm not so sure. One scout breaking bad has probably ruined it for the rest.

Oh, if it's fraying (or frayed once) at the seems don't take it on a week-long adventure.

Perspective: you are fretting over a 2.97 pound reduction in pack-weight a $120 cost, which means: $20.20 per pound reduction in pack weight, but you don't even know if you could strap that extra 3 pounds of whatever you want to the bottom of the new pack. IMHO, the penalty for over-packing is huge. Airflow is nice, but not a show stopper. I only switched packs when the wicking liner (Goretex, I think) crumbled. (Note to self: I need to scavenge that old pack. I could use the cotter pins and lock rings for my kayak.)

Then God's pretty handy. If we provide Him the scouts, He'll put them where they need to be.

@CarlosD welcome back from your first time as "the guy!" 1. Don't beat yourself up about this. Trust me, it could be worse. Thank the parents for keeping you in the loop about it. And, yes, let the camp director and your district executive know. Sometimes when a scout does something like this, it is exactly as the scout described. But sometimes, it might have involved more scouts either purposely or by accident. The only way you'll know is to ask broader questions. And the only way you can do that across all the other troops who've been to camp is to let them know. If yours is the only report, it will get filed and be just one more statistic. But if there's a second one like it from the same week they might catch on to it and avert a larger problem. 2. We had a different situation, but same indirect reporting. So ... in addition to addressing the primary issue, we committed some time at a subsequent meeting having a scoutmaster conference with each scout. It basically went, "We just wanted to let you know, that you guys can trust us. You can let us know if something isn't going right. And if we need to deal with it, we won't make a big scene and single you or your buddies out." That got us some constructive feedback ... especially from some scouts who thought their buddy was going to let us know about the situation. Those scouts learned about communication gaps, and the others seemed to be a bit more responsive in keeping us in the loop.

I do think one can get certain biases from sitting on just a couple of Eagle BoRs where the particular candidates were stellar in particular areas. You really have to be in a lot of them to get an idea of the diversity that we see in Eagle scouts. We respect them all. Well ... maybe not the scout thinks it's part of his his duty to mock the religious obligations of others. But, we usually address those long before they come up for rank advancement.

Welcome @CarrieScouter. Congratulations on your son's advancement. You have it right. How does your son fulfill his duty to God? Has he met your expectations? What does he do on his own? You don't have to spend a lot of time on this. Just a couple of scentences about how he's applying the religion that you handed down to him. Of course, a deeper question for yourself and none of us here is why your family doesn't go to church? Has your duty to God changed? Did you have a revelation that St. Paul was mistaken about "forsake not the assembling of yourselves together?" Have your fellow worshippers turned out to be no good? Scouting gives us opportunities to reflect on our lives as parents. This is one of those opportunities.

VOA's and lodges should have been working in lock-step all along. There's no telling where the chips will fall with this.

Foccacia is my bread of choice for panini. It's already well-oiled, flavorful, and packs easily. I'm definitely trying the rock method the next opportunity I have.

SBR's commissary model is probably the ideal. Scouts order thier ingredients and amounts and pick them up at the commissary ... old time general store fashion. I thought I would get to sample the full effect of that at World Jamboree, but the choices are all warm-and-serve type foods.

You'll really know it's working when IRL somebody says, "Hey, you sound just like that @RainShine from the Scouter Forums." Welcome!

It's a little more complicated than ownership. In exchange for space for meetings and storing supplies, the unit proudly represents its CO as it delivers the promise of scouting to youth in the community. If the unit folds, the materials it has acquired are retained by the CO for the purposes of starting another scout unit in the future. Without good communication about each other's plans, aspirations, and limitations,I honestly can't see how a charter agreement could be fulfilled.

Historical Note: Heritage Scout Reservation started out with patrol cooking at both camps Freedom and Liberty, but the demand for dining hall options was so great that the Freedom dining hall was built. The advantage of the latter is the scouts dine with staff and get to know them. There's more time for songs, skits, and (oh, mercy) announcements.

Borrowed a ladder last weekend. Anchored it to the quad with one rope and two clove hitches. Worked better and faster than ratchet straps. Now if only I can figure out the knot that would get the quad's winch to spool out as well as it spools in!

It would be nice to have a follow-up story on how many palms he has now. I wonder if he regrets not postponing rank advancement so that he could load up on instapalms.

When you spin off a different troop, do everyone a favor and meet on a different night from you current unit. There is nothing more frustrating to members of a community when they see that they have a choice of location, but meeting times are the same.

Our troop got in this funk. It's hard to shake. In this case, it sounds like there are too many adults in the room for the PLC. Your best bet, if you attend events, is some form of positive reinforcement. If you have a patrol-specific prize like specialty chocolate for the patrol wins some challenge (loudest yell, win at Kim's game, fastest to tie all knots) you might encourage more patrol-specific behavior.