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Welcome, and thanks in advance for all you’ll do for our youth!

What do I know? The only thing I’d worry about her might be that her parent gets advice from strangers on the internet. A troop with 3-going-on-4 years of experience and 3 ILST trained … they are ready for this. It’s an advancement grey area, and the more this thread sits out there, the more we’ll find scouters who would treat this differently. It’s a big country. So, what really matters is how other scouts who she knows would like to be treated. Let her and her other trained youth leaders decide how they would like adults to handle service-hour tallies in honest-to-goodness grey areas like this. If there are some boys they trust who lead another troop, they can loop them in on the discussion. As far as I can tell with the young women I’ve met: they want to be rated on an equal footing as we rate young men.

Regarding BSA’s track record of surveys with forgone conclusions, a recent conversation with a pro who is active in O/A leads me to believe that we may add this questionnaire to that list.

With all do respect, this is an over generalization. More importantly, it reverses the causality. With few exceptions, everyone wants to have fun, but — even with the offering of an insanely fun troop — not everyone wants to be a scout.

Who’s wearing the patch, who’s working on their advancement, and who’s applying for the award? It’s time to educate them about this possible leeway in their program. Seriously, this is not an adult’s problem. We need to spend a lot of time arranging safe travels, training for all manner of hazards, and putting coffee on in a timely fashion. These little quirks that arise because the advancement method has become verbose and complicated … they won’t bother us one way or the other. It’s the youth who know what each of them as done who will feel the emotional damage if they think either a) one of their peers took a shortcut because the SM was permissive or b) one of their peers was blocked for a technicality because the SM was restrictive. Youth who know you respect their opinion will be youth who talk to you on weightier topics.

This might be one to float by your PLC. Ask if they think it’s fair that a Star scout earning Camping MB could use time served to fulfill 9b toward Life req 4, while scouts who earned camping while holding a different rank cannot. This could lead to a fruitful discussion about the morality of doing service hours for a reward. 😎

The “conservation project” for Camping 9c is implicitly done while camping and has no minimum time requirement. The requirement for life has three hour minimum but no context, and may be performed in non-consecutive intervals. I can’t imagine a Star scout so tightly managed that he/she would have to double dip, but I would be fine with it.

NO PLAQUES, PLEASE!!!

I’ve learned that every set of adults is different. When you have a contentious or unmotivated lot, it can be a hard slog. When everyone leans in a little, great things can happen … especially when the scouts start imitating those adults! I’m not beneath bribing adults who might lean in with chocolates or flowers. They are so precious.

I think this could be a part of the problem. Some lodges are in a rut with a lack of passion in mastering dance and regalia. It communicates carelessness and, dare I say, lack of reverence. And it’s a scary proposition. I don’t mind non-Arabs learning Arabic. I like that Queen appropriated a “b’ism Allah” in Bohemian Rhapsody. But, it crushes my soul on behalf of my Muslim friends when scouts rattle off translations of selected militant Quoranic verses to make a point — without taking the time to recite half a Sura in the original language. But, even worse, are folks with a one-line (or one word) understanding of the Middle East. There’s less of that now because our fellow citizens have started to actually talk to their refugee friends, cook some of their food, and quote some of their proverbs (accurately). So there are two wrong paths: to appropriate First Nations glibly, and to never appropriate anything of them at all.

Speaking of universal values, all of Baden Powell’s published versions of the scout oath opened: On my honour I promise that I will do my duty to God …. In the context of his time, and with the role he played in the British empire, he chose a term that would not refer to the named deity of any particular religion. He might have also been familiar with “non-theistic” as a category that had begun to be first used in literature the previous century. The term “God” (yes, with a capital G) is not Christian. (Anyone who doubts that should invite their neihborhood Jehovah’s witness over for a chat.) It’s word origin is unkown, but likely was popularized by non-Latin pagan clans as a neutral term for whatever they and adjacent tribes considered to be supreme and removed from their lesser, more territorial deities. In other writings, BP made clear his opinion that a boy’s understanding of God is not encumbered with trappings of theology. My paraphrase of his essay on the subject (pardon me for being short on time to find the link): a boy approaches the world with awe and wonder. We should merely teach him to treat it as a gift for which tremendous gratitude is in order. As he grows he will then be prepared to adopt the offerings and obligations of his faith community. This resonated quite well across the British Commonwealth. How this got translated when it crossed the pond is another post (if I ever get around to it), but suffice to say that Continental Europe took it in different directions than did Americans.

Here in Western PA one camp maintains the the pow-wow grounds for a tribe, who in turn provide cultural opportunities for the boys in camp. Members of the Lenni Lenape regularly provide guidance on regalia. I'll let Pennsylvanians on the other side of the Appalachians provide examples of their interactions.

@KublaiKen non-theists and atheists do have different theologies. Non theism asserts that there are spiritual practices that benefit a person in some intangible sense without necessarily involving a deity. Atheists vary in this, but many assert that if the benefit is intangible, then the asserted effect does not exist. I.e., a person would be just as well off without it. This is why, in the first centuries, Christians were labeled atheists. They asserted that sacrifices to the pantheon (especially burning incense to Caesar) had no tangible benefit, and people were better off abandoning all such practices.

@AwakeEnergyScouter Note that part of your comfort with the way WOSM presents its awards may be because Scandinavian countries have a long track record of service at WOSM. They often set the tone. The BSA intentionally steps back from WOSM programming. That’s partly because the American scouters involved in WOSM did not want to have undo influence based on their position as the largest financial donor. Also, many of us in America see WOSM as a way to connect with our cultural heritage. (It’s very interesting to see my scouts at Jamboree seeking out scouts from the countries of their grandparents.) So, BSA’s representation at WOSM is aimed at bringing hat diversity forward as opposed to foisting our way of doing things on the rest of the world. The financial picture is changing — as is BSA membership, so I don’t know how that will affect WOSM going forward.

Sounds like you are about my Son #1’s age. I prefer the term “post-modern nomads” for your generation. Many people criticized it, but as I meet parents from this generation (and their children), I am very positively impressed. I’m sorry to hear about the internet grooming that you endured. I wish that scouting was a better solution for it, but I fear that we are a generation away from best practices in a world of high speed communications. I think BSA’s youth protection has it backwards. Youth need the presence of multiple adults online. Before leaders were restricted from being social media friends with youth, I called out several abusive behaviors (by informing either to the youth themselves or their parents). Now that’s on the parents themselves.

On the flip side, I have friends and relatives who fretted over my kids’ involvement in a program as secular as scouting. (Sending them to public school probably added to that drama.) I guess one of the reasons I am a scouter is to breath some air outside of the American Evanjellyfish bubble. I insisted to my kids that their Christianity didn’t mean squat if they couldn’t live it out among non-Christians. Such friends were welcome at our table. Now adults, they are in many ways less secular than I am. Their friendship groups have narrowed into predominantly Christian circles. That bothers me greatly. We consider Scouting to be a place where everyone’s religion is out in the open. “Scout’s Own” is a way to encourage that.

@AwakeEnergyScouter, it depends on the social class of your neighborhood. Being able to monitor your child at all times has become a symbol of wealth. Even if you’re not rich enough for someone to kidnap your pre-teen, you’re supposed to act like you are. That said, there are forces that prey on children. Distributors of marijuana, for example, benefit from users starting in adolescence. Therefore, they recruit teen dealers. Nowadays they don’t have to entice youth on street corners because the information super highway takes them right to their potential candidates’ bedrooms. The child with the slightest tear in social fabric may be vulnerable to this and a plethora of other ills. Kids know this, and many of my scouts are youth whose path to fun and adventure is freedom from that cycle. So another two-word reason: Substance independence.

I like @InquisitiveScouter’s proposition. The Rev. Rick Warren tapped into something similar with the very well received Purpose Driven Life. It seems that it’s not just young people facing this particular existential crisis. But the problem remains that, although it may be true of scouting, it might not be unique to scouting. I just had a SM conference for a scout who was up for 2nd class rank. I asked him what requirement he found to be the hardest. He said the ones about financial management. I later asked him about the one he enjoyed the most. He thought a moment and said the same ones about financial management. Although they weren’t fun at the time, there was a huge sense of pride and accomplishment. Now this is a mundane skill. No doubt the original trail-to-first-class requirement to know how to stop a runaway horse was mundane for its time. But learning skills that come with being part of a complex society are intrinsically fun. That probably has some something to do with illuminating purpose, but I think it has more to do with facing a world of chaos and knowing “You got this.”

I would encourage all adults to phrase their childhood scouting experience in the positive. E.g. … ”I stayed in scouts until earning Arrow of Light (or maybe a while after that?); therefore … “ There are definitely knots that represent our proudest accomplishments and others that were more “picked up along the way.” This was my approach. It’s nice when someone reminds me of accomplishments, but I’d prefer a recognition card and the option to purchase the regalia should I want keep it. Personally, I’m not one for service stars because such pins have never stuck on my field uniform after a day or two of vigorous use. But, truth be told, I think they speak volumes more that rows of knots.

Regarding fun ... scouting should be fun. But, that doesn't address "why scouting?" That's because lots of things are fun. But many things that are fun are either extremely hazardous or utterly trivial. Fun is a by-product of skill mastery. Skill mastery in an ethical framework is fun with a purpose. Thus fun is not an end in itself, but a means of reaching those ends.

@JSL3300 it may be appropriate to consider other troops. Or, even other youth programs. I admire your son trying to turn the tide, and it is often possible for a scout to reset his patrol/troop culture. But, that depends on the SMs and ASMs intentionally supporting the scout's endeavors. There could be a back-story as to why this troop seems to be joyless. I am told that a scout is cheerful. If one is not leading cheerfully, then what is one doing? You might not be in troop leadership, but maybe you could find some time to chat with an SM/ASM about the troop culture. I personally really appreciate when a parent touches base with me about their scout's concerns -- be it troop life or something else.

@Double Eagle because the attendance is much different than previous Jamborees, things will likely be configured differently. In any case, guests will have limited access to the facilities. (I'm assuming you're not a guest coming with a seven figure donation check.) So your "must see" will be limited to what you "may see." If the SBR staff have provided you with a list of the areas that guests will be able to visit, others here may be able to tell you what you should make priority. My impressions (comparing my youth at AP Hill vs. four years ago at SBR): whatever elevation change you recall at AP Hill, quadruple that! I don't think you'll have access to the orienteering course but AP Hill's was dells with holly thickets, and SBR''s was rocks with laurel thickets. The permanent buildings at AP Hill were military drab while those at SBR are almost shrine like.

@AwakeEnergyScouter, search YouTube for “Swedish Jamboree” to see what they are about nowadays. But, indeed, USA National Jamborees traditionally drew a lot of big names — including the King of Sweden! When I was a scout in the ‘81 Jamboree pioneering area, he visited, and we launched a catapult for him.

Rise up, oh insignia dorks! Here’s the official on Messenger of Peace: https://www.scouting.org/international/messengers-of-peace/

Let’s be very clear. Reasons don’t have to be empirically based (although it helps when they are). Wether the policy was the result of speculation from experts in child development or risk-averse lawyers, it would be very nice to relay to parents when a policy was spelled out and by whom.