DuctTape

We used to use ours before, during and after patrol competitions.

If you have access to pie irons, these can be great for young scouts to prepare and cook their own. Basic premise is butter+ bread + filling. As a kid, our patrol did an entire Fri-Sun campout with just pie irons and a coffee pot. IIRC this was our menu: Fri night: Pie iron PB&J. Pie iron Choc & marshmallow melts Sat: (B) Pie iron sausage eggs and cheese. (L)Pie iron ham & cheese w/ tomato cupOsoup. (D) Pie iron pizza. Pie iron apple pies. Sun: instant oatmeal. Tang, Hot cocoa and powdered milk always available.

Yep. A ton of real life examples. Here is one... A Scout attends a school board meeting to satisfy Cit. in Comm req#3. And it isn't just limited to mBs. 2nd class req#7 "participate in a school..."

I had a few scouts who chose Hiking mB specifically b/c it appeared more challenging.

It happens in many organizations. Sometimes it is necessary to create a vacuum to generate movement.

And this was exactly my main point about putting it into the GTSS. It forces unit leaders to question ALL of the topics in the document, rendering it useless for its main purpose.

These are reasons for why a unit may decide to have a single night campout. But they are not reasons for why the gtss should prohibit it for all.

All good ideas. Another way to introduce map&compass and begin the skill progression is have them use the M&C to navigate to a large object/area on the map instead of a tiny orientering control. For example, take a bearing from their location and navigate to the playground, then take another a navigate to the sledding hill and then another to... . This gets them accustomed to the basics of using the M&C together and not focusing on straight line to stay on the exact bearing. They do not need to be as precise in their bearing so it is more fun, and they will be more successful which motivates them to the next step in their skill progression. Note: In real life this is more what bacckountry navigating is like anyway. Using terrain features and navigating to the large objects like "the pond"; using terrain features as backstops and handrails etc...

But not who is actually attending? This could be a first step towards fully planning the outings as a patrol.

Do any plan and coordinate by Patrol?

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.

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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".