TAHAWK

"Why is it important that the forum give feedback on this issue.[?]" Because the UK does not follow Bill's Patrol Method, as Leader (BP's "Officer") he has the power to name the PLs or define their powers, and he wants some input. Cambridgeskip, girls are often more mature than boys. She could have a test run with a adult within scream and you could go from there. There are always questions - even role-plying - to test how she would handle "issues."

Another way to "vote" is to stay and work to brighten the corner of Scouting where you are. Have J. Depp and "Babs" left the U.S. as promised in 2004 when they were unhappy?

Summer Training Camp seems to be summer camp, although in early days Scouts did not camp as patrols or troops but were assigned to an ad hoc group in a site or cabin Oakland, CA, Summer Training Camp: http://www.sfbac-history.org/LagunitasTC.html Chattanooga, 1917: W.H. Sears, Council Commissioner, advocated for a summer training camp for boys to spend several hours a day taking lessons in making items that military auxiliary units may need to furnish troops at the front or in mobilization camps. Piedmont Council 1926: The Piedmont Boy Scouts operated a summer Training camp at Lake -Lanier last summer and more than ! two hundred boys were in Camp. This year, " with the growth and deveIopment of the Boy Scout movement and with the addition of Polk County to the Piedmont territory, the officials of the Piedmont Scout Council expect ... Oregon Trail Council 1945: BOY Scout advancement is one of the main features of Camp Lucky Boy-1945, summer training camp of the Oregon Trail council, Boy Scouts of America, located on Blue river, about 45 miles east of Eugene. 1965.. Riverside County, CA Idyllwild Camp Set for Scouts The 46th season of summer! training camp at Camp Elmerson. the mile - high Boy Scout camp near Idyllwild. will be in session from July 24th through August 26th, with Bill Gruber «of Riverside serving as camp director. Over 650 Scouts from 35 troops throughout Riverside County have already registered, and the total is expected to reach I 800. Old Dominion Area Council 1971 It will be a busy summer for members of the Boy Scouts of America In this area who will be holding family picnics, going to summer camps and Jetting to Japan for a world jamboree. More than fifty troops with over seven hundred Scouts will be attending the summer training camp of the Old Dominion Area ... Pakistan 2011: Ibrahim Scouts Got Second Position in all Pakistan Boy Scouts Summer Training Camp Muree. Camp was organized by Pak Boy Scouts Association at Ghora Gali Muree from 20th June to 26th June 2011 India 2013: https://www.facebook.com/pg/ChenabCollegeJhangOfficial/photos/?tab=album&album_id=299780823499677 General Santos City Council. Philippines, 2017: https://www.facebook.com/events/654698718056276 Medals were more popular as recognition in early days, That was still going on to a lesser extent in the 1950's. More room for medals then as only 1% made Eagle. CAMP EMERALD BAY BEST CAMPER [WEEK] AWARD CAMP WYANOKE HONOR CAMPER ONE LEVEL OF SUMMER CAMP AWARD PROGRAM

San Francisco, CA, Boy Scout Summer Training Camp http://www.sfbac-history.org/SFC-CazaderoTC.html

My council as a Scout and young adult recombined with the north half of the county in 1972. The notion that I could have my records "transferred" to my new council in Ohio in 1981 seemed like a rare joke to the two people to whom I talked at the office in California. They told me all the "old records" had been "pitched." Then the BSA-mandated charge to a "national" software in 1985 wiped out every record of everything I had done here from 1981-> and replaced it with imaginary records for 1910-1985. I therefore try not to worry about such matters. After all, I can prove I finished basic Scoutmaster training in 1912 and was a three-time District Chairman ten years before I was born (of a district that did not exist).

There are also District Members at Large (BSA Membership Code 75) who can vote of some matters, such as election of the District Chairman.

My goal as "Scout Roundtable Chairman" (non-standard setup) was to give each Scouter or leader who attended material that could be taken back and plugged into the troop's program. Announcements were limited to five minutes, which created some tension, especially with the attending council employees, who largely had goals not directly related to unit program. Occasional major changes in rules or program that seemed to need explanation in a interactive discussion, or topics raised by the customers that seemed to need the same, were discussed so long as interest was apparent. Awful roundtables are, I suggest, like awful meals at summer camp - they need to be improved, not simply eliminated. Roundtables are, in theory, part of the unit support function of the Commissioner's Service - "other" training. In my current district, in part due to having no Roundtable Commissioners for years, the roundtables have largely been deadly combinations of announcements and exhortations to do something or other.

Some of those still around.

BSA has a policy against an adult holding more than one position in a unit. One rationale, an adult becoming over-committed, certainly applies to a second job outside the unit. Since a unit has the right to determine who is a Scouter registered in that unit, it may have a policy such as David describes if enforced by ending the Scouter's position in David's unit. That policy, applied by all units, would fairly well wipe out my district's Merit Badge Counselor list, empty most District Committee slots, eliminate most Summer Camp adult volunteers, and make our shortage of Unit Commissioners worse.

When "science" is determined by how popular an idea becomes, we get "Silent Spring" and "Sea" or "Coral" Calcium. The main pitchman for the second, Kevin Trudeau, is in prison since he made money from his pseudo science. Dame Rachael is credited with stopping the use of DDT with her influential , "ground-breaking," book (Which is not clearly true. Other factors may have been involved.), and millions died thereafter of a disease, malaria, which seemed almost defeated by DDT. http://reason.com/archives/2002/06/12/silent-spring-at-40 2003:"The United States banned DDT in 1972 and environmental groups are trying to outlaw the pesticide worldwide. But in developing countries, it continues to be a cost-effective way to combat malaria, a disease that kills more than 1 million people a year in Africa." NPR, March 11, 2003. In 2006, The World Health Organization (a nest of rightists if there ever was one. ) recommended resuming use of DDT to combat malaria. 2015: "Mortality rates have dropped by about 50 percent over the last decade and a half, according to the World Health Organization. Where malaria once killed several million people a year, the organization’s estimated toll for 2015 was 429,000, the principal victims being children under 5 in sub-Saharan Africa." New York Times, January 22, 2017. My great fear is that positions taken on the basis of sincere belief but little science will so discredit any attempt to preserve the environment that the anti-conversation stalwarts, who decry conservation as "tree-hugging," will convince the masses to support truly awful policies, to the great damage of the biosphere essential to the survival of our species.

This sense that certain kids "belong" to a given unit has been around "forever," and is unseemly and bogus.

National Camping Standards require that a Camp be "certified" by BSA only if the camp has a Merit badge Counselor for each MB offered. I have attended numerous council camps over the last twenty-five years. Not one had Merit Badge Counselors for a majority of the MBs offered. That is on the paid Scouters who run the camps and National that elects to ignore its own standards. "Why if we did that, we could only offer a couple of dozen badges." Truly, if unit Scouters were doing there jobs and being "trustworthy," most camps would either stop cheating or close for lack of victims. So the volunteers share the blame for this on-going scandal. "The 'caving in' started toward the end of the last century, when identity was confounded with achievement: 'Boy Scout camping" instead of any camping nights of a large number for camping MB. "Invite a friend" requirement for 1st class ... instead of having a 1st Class Journey to brag about. EDGE method instead of a proper Pedagogy merit badge. A bizarre dichotomy between Ranks and Awards ... rather than seeing ranks as Awards. I could add more, but that speculation on my part takes us off topic. I think Venturing arose partially because boys in troops needed someplace to find their identity away from these self-serving requirements. (Venturing bronze requirements were directed toward serving organizations outside of the crew.) I think Exploring had a similar, but more nuanced, justification for its existence. But, regarding MBC's. It's not on national to enforce their quality. That falls to us via training our fellow scouters at round tables and cracker barrels, training our parents act CoH's and committee meetings, phoning the district when it seems that a scout skated by, etc ..." I grabbed the closest "old" Handbook. Turns out it is the 1940 product ("Revised Handbook for Boys First Edition"). Camping Merit Badge required fifty days and nights under canvas or in an "approved shelter" "under conditions in harmony with the standards for Camping of the Boy Scouts of America." So not quite "any." And no camping was required to achieve First Class. (It was assumed you would be camping every month - or more. I did int he 1950s.) A hike or trip by boat of fourteen miles with another Scout was required: the "First Class Hike." It was not enough in 1940 to invite someone to a meeting. First Class required that you "enlist and train a boy as a Tenderfoot...." The "First Class Hike" ("Journey" in the UK) of fourteen miles afoot or afloat disappeared in B.S.A. requirements during WWII, not at the end of the last century. It is not a requirement in the 1949 Handbook. There is, however, a camping requirement for First Class. The "First Class Camp." Not much - twenty-four hours with your patrol or some Scout. That campout was the only camping requirement through First Class in 1949. Today's Scout could not make Tenderfoot with no camping. EDGE does not replace any Merit Badge. For thirty years before EDGE, Wood Badge used a slightly different approach to teaching "Manager of Learning"/"Effective Teaching": 1) define objective - what should be learned and why teach this skill/information? (Those familiar with EDGE will note the similarity, in part, with some of "Explain."); 2) "Guided Discovery" - leading the learners to discover for themselves why they should want to learn this skill/information. EDGE simply has the leader/teacher tell the learners why. I think that is easier but less effective. The concrete example when I took this version of WB was the difficulty ,in teach a boy to hit a baseball if he thinks he is Babe Ruth. I believe the old way was better, but I also believe that the decline of Scouting can hardly be attributed to the difference. 3) Teaching/Learning - the learner is taught/shown and then tries/practices the skill with the teacher as coach. That would be Demonstrate and Guide. The "teacher" is ideally another Scout but has to have relative expertise. 4) Application = Enable. The learner does his thing, asking for help as he sees the need. 5) Evaluation - by the learner and by the teacher. EDGE does not explicitly have this step. Note sure why as evaluation, by a variety of names, is part of planning/working the plan as taught by BS for generations. BSA has struggled about what to do with "older boys" for many years. I got caught in the middle of yet another "new Exploring program" in 1959. AMong the several changes, what burned me was that I was forced to chose between the cool green uniform and my troop (troop Exploring crews went). I stayed with Troop 43 and became a "Senior Scout." Exploring stopped being high adventure-based and became (entirely? mostly?) vocationally-based. The Troop had no problem keeping older Scouts around as it had enough resources to run a great high adventure program within the Troop. I concluded that the "problem" was resources and no tinkering with structure would solve the problem. Exploring today, from the little I have seen as a guest instructor, gets the needed human resources from outside Scouting. Venturing seems to be floundering as part of a movement, allied with a corporation, chronically short of human resources.

Change. Sugar Maples are dying quickly of some disease that seems to have started in our area (NE Ohio) and is spreading. Sugar maple producers are very concerned. Something is killing off oaks. Red Oaks are often dead in three weeks after the spots appear on the leaves. White Oaks lasts longer, but dies too. Ash Borer you know about. Something is killing off the American Beech around here, a fungus I think. As new trees grow from the roots of the old as they die, the American Beech may well be the oldest living trees. But can they survive this? An Asian insect is killing the Eastern hemlocks. Mild winters are accelerating pine borer damage. It is somewhat foolish to plant a Scots' Pine around here. Giant Hog Weed has left western PA and is many miles into OH. A NASTY customer. We have Snowy Owls in significant numbers around here. Twenty-five years ago, the Bird Line would alert to a single sighting. Now, they don't bother. Red -Tailed hawks are displacing Red-shoulder Hawks. The robins from Canada, stop here for the Winter. Ditto for Canada Geese. Now we see groups of Starlings in Winter.Slate Juncos are seen all year 'round. They used to leave with serious snow. Now they forage under our feeder throughout Winter. I need to buy smaller seed to suit them.

Neither are we. Compared to the Ordovician-Silurian and Jurassic-Cretaceous periods, we have lots more people, cattle, and internal combustion engines. CO2 levels were 4000 and 2000 ppm by volume, respectively during those periods. Poor Ginko trees. I think we can make it worse than it has been in the recent past, and have, but I cannot swallow all the Flavor Aide. And the issue has become political. Main problem seems to be too many people for the size of the aquarium. https://www.wfp.org/stories/10-facts-about-hunger-bangladesh

Here are the B.S.A. rules that are largely ignored with the tacit acquiescence of B.S.A. "There is more to merit badges than simply providing opportunities to learn skills. There is more to them than an introduction to lifetime hobbies, or the inspiration to pursue a career—though these invaluable results occur regularly. It all begins with a Scout’s initial interest and effort in a merit badge subject, followed by a discussion with the unit leader or designated assistant, continues through meetings with a counselor, and culminates in advancement and recognition. It is an uncomplicated process that gives a Scout the confidence achieved through overcoming obstacles. Social skills improve. Self-reliance develops. Examples are set and followed. And fields of study and interest are explored beyond the limits of the school classroom. ... Recommended [i.e., largely ignored] Merit Badge Process 1. The Scout develops an interest in a merit badge and may begin working on the requirements. 2. The Scout discusses his interest in the merit badge with his unit leader. 3. The unit leader signs a blue card and provides the Scout with at least one counselor contact. 4. The Scout contacts the counselor. 5. The counselor considers any work toward requirements completed prior to the initial discussion with the unit leader. 6. The Scout, his buddy, and the counselor meet (often several times). 7. The Scout finishes the requirements. 8. The counselor approves completion. 9. The Scout returns the signed blue card to his unit leader, who signs the applicant record section of the blue card. 10. The unit leader gives the Scout the applicant record. 11. The unit reports the merit badge to the council. 12. The Scout receives his merit badge ... There must be attention to each individual’s projects and his fulfillment of all requirements. We must know that every Scout—actually and personally—completed them. If, for example, a requirement uses words like “show,” “demonstrate,” or “discuss,” then every Scout must do that. It is unacceptable to award badges on the basis of sitting in classrooms watching demonstrations, or remaining silent during discussions.' Boy Scouts of America, Guide to Advancement. [emphasis added]

When it was decided that advancement numbers were a performance metric for employees, it was inevitable that the system would be gamed as membership numbers have been games since very early on. There were no MB midways, days or universities in my council twenty-five years ago. I am sure they have been "on" for the last fifteen years. Some are worse than others in that some are more likely to hand out MBs without actual testing, but the trend is so towards cheating in the councils around here, that I have decided not to participate. When council SEs began to see MBs as party favors to drive Summer Camp attendance, Summer Camps as MB Mils were inevitable. THAT disgrace has been going on for at least thirty years. National knows it and has done virtually nothing. At one camp I observed this Summer, there were actual registered MB Counselors for less than 1/3 of the MBs awarded. Thus for "values."

True, but it fits the "Kool-Aid" theme as it is constantly brought up as THE explanation for all that is disliked. One size fits all.

"WB was never intended to be a leadership course. The course was always intended to be an adult troop leader skills tune up course for "experienced" scouters. Problems occurred when the course staffs allowed the perception to become a leadership development course. Eventually the course marketing morphed into a leadership course, but the syllabus was never changed to reflect leadership development." Per my experience and per the syllabus, the original course was intended to make the learner comfortable with teaching Scoutcraft through first Class. That ceased to be the case in 1971. So "never" is incorrect. I have several versions of the syllabus and the administrative guide for subsequent versions of Wood Badge, and you are incorrect too ragarding a change in goals. Offering the "Eleven Skills of Leadership" became the formal, official primary goal of the course, with a much reduced focus on Scoutcraft. Further, I both took and(three times) staffed the second version as well. "The original intention of the new course (WBIII?) was neither a leadership nor management course. It was supposed to be a team building and team management course." That is your interpretation. However, given the actual contents of the course,which I have taken and staffed, (for example the goal of learning the "Stages of Team development" is to know what the "leader needs to supply" tpo the team.) I believe that you are incorrect. Patrols have always been described as "teams." Ideally, in the well-developed patrol, every member of the patrol is to be a leader, just with different responsibilities. "Most unit problems are the result of unit staffs not understanding the unit goals of the BSA as well as the duties for specific positions. So, the course pushed participants to understand the goals and objectives all the way from the BSA Mission and Vision down to expectations of each volunteer. It also spent time in managing the team to become efficient and productive. The hope was the scouts would get a better experience from adults who stayed within the boundaries of their understood goals. But, reputation of the old course and the desires of new adult leaders have kind of morphed it into nothing really specific at all now." Previous versions of the course were by invitation only and the learners were typically well-trained and experienced. The course I staffed in 1969 was notable for the general understanding of, and devotion to, BSA methods. I generally agree with your opinion about the cause of "most unit problems," but WB, like BSA generally, does not teach those roles. Especially, it does not "explain" the Patrol Method at all (Ironic given the supposed adoption of EDGE as THE way to teach.) . BSA asserts that WB demonstrates the Patrol Method, but teaching by a very brief demonstration (of the Staff being all-powerful) with no explanation has not proved effective. This may, in major part, be due to the reduction in "requirements" to attend to breathing. "Participants" with little experience and no training have a harder time "getting" more abstract concepts given the relatively brief time allocated. WB WAS an eight-day course. Now it's 5.5. Also, those who have actually completed basic training are more poorly training on average than they once were given the significant reduction in the length of the basic training. (Basic training in my council once took twelve hours for "classroom" sessions and twenty-six hours of outdoor training. This year, twenty-three 1/4 hours was allocated for both "classroom" and outdoor sessions. Subjects have been eliminated [first aid; safety] and more topics added for other subjects. And I hear dark muttering from the SE that we need to "help" the Scouters by significantly reducing the time for training.) Those currently in charge of WB think the "old course" was the second course. Not sure what you mean. The "Coordinator" in my council is fanatical on "the syllabus, the whole syllabus, and nothing but the syllabus." "Where is the word 'bargain' in the Syllabus?" The notion that some other version of WB controls is, in this council and the three others where I help, unrelated to reality. "Where I believe National failed is by giving this course the Wood Badge title. Nothing about it reflects the old WB design, but National tried to make a reflection of the old course by simulating patrols and typical troop organization. It shouldn't be a long camping course that it is. That being said, my observation is the participants gain the most value from applying their lessons to the Ticket Items. " The current course is a relatively short, non-camping course. The "ticket" is an old business leadership tool, dating back to the 1920s. It wroked just fine at AT&T and my troop. "The one size fits all wasn't BSA indifference, it was intentional because the goals of team management for the program were equal for the Packs as well as the troops. I personally believe, National's mistake was trying to make this a WB course. Barry " I take your points. To explain, I believe that if program were important, then training would be important, and if training were important to BSA, many things would be different: selection criteria for staffers (I have tried to train many who have too little ability and too little knowledge of the material. I have seen those types reading into their verbatim notes instead of leading a discussion. But the "1/3 new staff" rules has been met.); time devoted; meaningful evaluation of the quality of training and consequences from the results of those evaluations; coherent training materials; real pressure to get trained; recognition for use of BSA methods and pressure to use them; consequences (including frank retractions vs. just having the misstatements crawl out of sight) when National employees make gross misstatements about BSA methods. They call it "Wood Badge" out of the same motivation as calling it "Journey to Excellence" - sales puffery.

WB is not inherently good or bad. Any "Kool-Aid" is unhelpful, including the Kool-Aid you have consumed and are dishing out. Imagining that one is something special just because you have the beads, is like thinking rows and rows of knots make you, ipso facto, superior. Some Scouters got nothing out of Wood Badge. Other were offered little at the particular course they took. Others "knew it all" before they started. The six Beavers I worked with when I last staffed were, and are, active unit Scouters. Two of them started an inner-city troop that has grown steadily for ten years despite the odds. You might want to be introduced to such people as you apparently don't know that they exist.

Happens all the time. I have had CO representative (NOT CORs - they said they had none) come to recharter night to explain that they would not sign the recharter papers. We then had to find some other organization to not simply provide a meeting place but also act as an actual CO. The institutions explained that they thought they were doing enough - a good deed - by providing a meeting place and saw no reason to commit to more. One non-CO CO was a Buiddhist temple that had purchased the building of a dying congregation and had been asked by the previous COH to " let the troop keep meeting." They were nice enough to do that and apparently did not read what they signed the first time around, much less understand it. The next year they did read, refused, to sign, and dropped out of the picture. The troop had doubled in size during the year becasue it had excellent uniformed leadership who offered a great outdoor program for the Scouts, including advanced program for the older Scouts. The other troop had added boys but lost one more, for a net -1. Active COs are as it should be, but hardly the overwhelming state of things. Benign neglect is the typical order of the day. Sad.

There was a patch that size and shape with an owl - predominately blue - that was given in some councils as a symbol that the Scouter had completed basic training for his position. Some councils wore it on the sleeve, others on the bottom point of the right pocket.

"In actuality, you'll have few brave pioneering girls join up at first, but most won't want to deal with the lukewarm reception they will receive in most troops. They will wait it out and miss an opportunity. The ones that join will have some support and much opposition. They will be encouraged and they will be discouraged. They will be made to feel equal and made to feel inferior. Welcome to the same journey of your adult female leaders in scouting. Think about that." I thought there has been no decision announced about co-ed troops. I confess freely not have focused on this business as BSA still seems to be working out what they will do with, for, or to the program. "IMHO Current WB is a problem because it is now a management course and not a leadership course. As someone stated the pre-WB21C courses were different than today's course. Back then there were 2 to 3 different WB courses ( Boy Scout, Cub Scout, and briefly an Explorer courses). Not only did you have to complete specific basic training for the course, you also had to have 2 years tenure in the program was for. Only way to waive that was the 18 and 19 year olds who went straight from Scout to Scouter. Now WB is a one size fits all management course. And from everything I hear and read, including the syllabi for the different courses, the new course is a shadow of the original courses." When WBII replaced WB I circa 1972, there was the introduction of leadership skills into the syllabus and a sharp reduction in the former 100% focus on Scoutcraft through First Class. The first version of "It's All Wood Badge's Fault" was that the introduction of leadership skills was the Devil destroying Boy Scouting. Ask "Kudu." WB21 (or WBIII) in 2001 introduced new leadership skills and presented some of the old ones with new language. Since private enterprise had seen the virtue of leadership vs. management/bosses in the 1990s, the same sorts of training were being given to management employees of companies. I received the ten-day version of Situational Leadership in connection with my employment in 1995, an accurate version of Stages of Team Development and all. So WB21 was denounced as "management training." I note that Karl Marx supported literacy and opposed malaria. Interestingly, the Army and Marines, at least, are teaching the same stuff. "Be, Know, Do," for example, seems to appeared first in that context and only later in Wood Badge and NYLT. See Department of the Army, U.S. Army, FM-22-100 (08/99). The one size fits all critique is fair, although Cub leaders complained to me pre-2001 that there were so very few Cub WB slots, unlike in Canada and the UK where there was a single WB program for all Scouting programs. In 1989, my council was allocated one slot in Cub Wood Badge, and that did not go to a lady from my district. The notion that Scout side adults should know something about Cubbing also seems prudent given the common contempt of many Scouters for Cubbing.. Even worse than one size fits all, training, Scouters with no training are allowed to take WB to "Fill the Course." I see this more as a matter of BSA indifference to program quality -- training being the traditional way to drive quality unit program. Told that some Scouters found some training less than wonderful, one Scout executive told me the solution was "less training." Apply that 'logic" to complaints about meals in the camp dining hall. The quality of a given course depends on he quality of the staff, inclusive of the leaders of that staff. That was as true in 1959 and 1984 as it is today. The-one-size fits-all denunciation of all WB since 1971 or since 2001 is fairly described as simple prejudice, which is or is not accurate as the facts in each case dictate.

Things may not fail according to plan. That is the essence of a "survival situation." Not many are planned. The Boy Scouts of America asks candidates for the Wilderness Survival Merit Badge to prepare a Personal Survival Kit to back up the "ten essentials" in their backpack at a basic level. Internationally-recognized survival authorities advocate PSKs. Examples are Horace Kephart, Lofty Wiseman, Ray Mears, Les Stroud, and Mors Kochanski. For generations, a pocket knife - in your pocket appropriately enough - has been recognized as a "good thing" in case a survival situation arises, as has the pocket compass, a water container, and a filled match safe. Backpacks can and have been lost. I got to watch one tumble down a hillside at Philmont twenty-seven years ago. A shoulder strap came loose. Shouldn't have. Did. (Amazingly, the "milk jug" Nalgene water bottle was still functional thereafter. The aluminum water bottle, not so much.) The Scout had a compass, water bottle, knife, matches, compass, map, spare socks, 20' of paracord, and water-treatment pills on his person - "belt order" as Lofty would say. He was "prepared." I was also on a canoe trek in Canada in 1991 when one of the party's canoes rolled over. The two occupants could have started a fire and built an expedient shelter on shore with what was on their persons. They didn't have to as there were four other canoes that survived the unexpected blast of wild on Talon Lake. But they, wisely, had the capacity.