DuctTape

I did not say it was easy; anything but. I have had similar experiences. Mostly the scouts want to do scouts. We disagree about who makes the ultimate decision. Certainly parents have the authority, but IMO the ultimate decision needs to be the scouts.

Absent the youths' desire, everything else is meaningless. Back to the OP. Two words. I submitted mine.

Communication tools provided to adults to help them get their kid involved is not the same as marketing to the target audience. One can only aim at a single target.

Little League is not marketed to adults. Kids wanna play baseball so the adults (and community) provide a league. If youth want to do it, their parents would sign them up. Parents are often the volunteers, the youth become volunteers. There is no need to market Scouts to the adults; if the youth wanna do it, the adults will provide. The scouts are the only target audience. IMO part of the problem is BSA (national) was/is trying to market itself to the adults and as a result forgot the only target audience that matters.

Yes., if the youth want to be a scout, then that is all that is necessary. There are other benefits for adults... parents, society etc, but in the end the only target audience that matters is the youth.

My two words: "outdoor adventure"

Those of us in GenX often refer to the boomers as having ignored us, or as latch-key kids needing to raise ourselves. We learned quickly to be independent, and to do things for ourselves. Sadly our generation swung the pendulum too far. Not wanting to have the Milennials and Z to "suffer our fate", we overscheduled, hyper-supervised, and bubble-wrapped them. The lack of youth initiative, letting adults plan/control, etc.. Scouts is a reflection of the greater society. We did it to ourselves.

Agreed. Part of the project is to also be a learning and growth opportunity. If an error was made in planning, and not enough materials were purchased, etc... then the project might need to be finished the following week. It is these mistakes and the follow-up which help develop management, leadership and ultimately character. The final report, if sufficient time is spent on it, will include significant reflection by the scout on their growth.

If the solution to improper behavior by adults is paperwork for scouts, then the solution did not correctly identify the problem. If council and district adults are acting inappropriately, then they need training and oversight.

Deleted

That workbook, etc... is awful. Just this week I was helping a scout with it. What a disaster. I recall writing a project report not trying to fill in boxes. If I could do one thing at BSA it would be to 86 all workbooks. Scouts is not school. Even in school we don't use workbooks. It isn't 1982 anymore.

"cry's of inconsistency" -Using a straw man fallacy. "age-appropriate guideline" -Is a claim. Lacks evidence. A circular argument. "been in place for a long time" -An appeal to history. "really similar to" -False equivalence. Incomplete comparison. "broad why's" -begging the question Still zero rationale for why a two-night campout is inherently more unsafe than a single night to the level which necessitates its prohibition. Grading this essay for my 8th graders would get a failing mark. Grading the GTSS as a whole would get at best a C-.

What is missing is a rationale for the prohibition. Absent a clear concise reason, the prohibition of a 2-night campout appears arbitrary. Coupled with the volume of other clarifiers, the abitrary nature makes it difficult for folks to interpret how to implement. More "clarifiers" is NOT the answer. If us volunteers knew a good reason why a 2 night campout is prohibited for some, we could apply that rationale to help understand any appearance of conflict between different areas of the gtss. Because the rationale either does not exist, or at the very least has not been clearly communicated, us volunteers see the prohibition as arbitrary. How does a webelos den attending a 2- night campout put them at such an increased safety risk that only one night is allowed? Show us the receipts.

I think more importantly is "why not?". For the GTSS to have real buy in, all restrictions should have at their core articulable rationale for all restrictions. All restrictions, rules etc... must be written succinctly to not require a 19 page FAQ attempting to explain how to follow them. If any appear to be arbitrary (or worse) then those tasked with implementing the gtss will ignore parts they decide are arbitrary, "up for interpretation", or just plain ridiculous. This makes the gtss ultimately just a list of suggestions. This failure is owned by those who penned it without meaningful buy in from those tasked to implement it.

One possibility is to have some sort of "invitation to become an ASM".

Yes, I made my comment earlier.

I believe that the insurance is for the BSA and not for individuals. When sued, insurance covers the BSA. The question at hand is whether volunteers and/or staff are indemnified under the policy as well. One can be certain that a lawsuit will name everyone and everything and let the court sort it out.

My #1 gripe is using the term "leader" vs Scouter or "Adult Supervision". The scouts should be leading. The adult Scouters are there for supervision and safety NOT to lead. (Except for cubs). And YES this matters.

The reason I do not use pointers for astronomy is to provide scouts et al better opportunity to appreciate the greater cosmos, and to become a guide themselves and not simply an audience. Imagine using descriptive language and the stars as pointers as the main guide. The purpose is to have viewers not just see a particular object, but see it within the greater cosmos. Also the joy experienced by a new sky viewer when they finally "find" the stellar object themselves. Sooner or later they then begin to describe to others how to find it. This creates a cycle of not just pointing out specific items, but for the participants to begin looking for other objects and guiding others to them as well.

Yes. That is what I would preserve, and wish national and councils would advocate for instead of chasing quantity.

I think the focus on membership numbers (ie collecting dues for national) has allowed a corruption of the program. I would rather see national and the councils focus on promoting quality programs instead of quantity of units. It may be true that youth desire other activities, however there are some who still desire a quality scouting program. We should aim to provide that instead of trying to change the program to attract others. I would rather we have 10% of the current membership and units delivering a scout led, patrol method, outdoor based scouting program than increasing membership numbers ten-fold having an adult led, webelos 3, classroom based advancement day care.

The next step of the process is the scout being tested. They would go to their SM (or whomever the SM has granted authority. I prefer the PL) to be tested on the skill they practiced. The sign-off occurs when the scout successfully passes the test. The sign-off is NOT from the practice or the skill building activity, it is a personal test.

In most cases it seems to always boil down to programming at the troop level, vs programming at the patrol level. Example: Troop decides to do district camporee and half the patrols/scouts do not attend because they have done that camporee multiple times. vs Patrols decide individually their campout some choose the camporee some do a different campout. Some argue that there aren't enough adults to do separate patrol activities. This could be true, but unless the troop is using a bus or multiple 15 passenger vans, they will need 1 adult to drive (at most) 4-5 scouts which means 2 adults automatically per patrol just as drivers. There is your 2-deep.

Hit or miss. Same with boys. For those in stand-alone troops with a quality Scouter who understand the program, then yes. However what I have witnessed is these rare cases are the SM is a successful scouter and created the troop for his daughter. Now that the daughter is out, he is as well and the troop is suffering from a leadership and experience vacuum. This happens in boy troops too. The more common girls experience is a "linked on paper only" and typically joined a dysfunctional boys troop with a poor quality program and the introduction of a girls patrol made the bad situation worse. I think there is a difficulty in recruiting and more importantly training ALL adult leaders. Moms and dads are asked by the unit b/c they are there, but there is zero recruitment at a national, council, or district level to recruit Scouters who would be beneficial as SM, ASM, or TC for individual units. If the BSA was serious about Quality this is where they would start. A nationwide campaign focused at the council/district level to attract, and train unit leaders to facilitate a quality program at the unit level.

Awesome!