Eagle94-A1

I wouldn't worry too much about the Eagle mills. 1) Your son does not have to compete with the others. 2) You son will probably get bored real fast and want to switch. One troop locally I'd call an Eagle mill, to the point that they are only focusing on merit badges. Meetings are MB classes, and the only camp outs they appear to go to are MB weekends. Funny thing is this, they are so focused on MBs, they haven't done the basics: T-2-1. None of the Scouts who joined after the advancement oriented SM took over are above Second Class, if that. All the ones advancing are the ones who were there with the old SM. Funny thing is, the old SM wasn't advancement oriented,But they were active enough to get T-2-1 requirements met if they camped. Yep you have Tenderfoots with 10-20 MBs, but haven't cooked enough meal to meet Second Class requirements. Now the troop rarely camps.

According to the studies at the time, mid to late 1980s, the stats showed that Scouts who reached First Class within a year of joining, stayed longer in the program. In 1989 when the results came out, BSA did away with the Skill Awards ( which I thought were very good) and the time requirements between T-2-1 ranks. Don't know when First Year Camper programs started, but when I went to summer camp in 1986 for the first time, they had one. Crusty old retired master gunnery sergeant, ran the program, and if he said you earned it, you really EARNED it. he didn't tolerate slackers.

I would be lying if I said I don't want to see my sons earn Eagle. For me, the key word is EARN. I may give oldest a reminder or two about advancement stuff, but that's it. If he wants it, he needs to get it. The same will happen when the younger two get into Boy Scouts. I admit this troop was not my first choice to take him. After visiting the troop I wanted him to join, and he wanted to join, the troop folded and went Trails Life. While they had the best program IMHO, and their attitidue on advancement did cause some issues after they folded, and a Scout went to another troop. The folded troop didn't follow BSA advancement policies to the letter. This troop was the second troop we visited, after we found out the first troop was folding.We both knew going in that the troop was young and still learning. Heck the first meeting could be labeled a mess when the PL didn't show up and the APL had to take over and didn't know what was planned. He adapted, improvised, and overcame. Son loved it. Son loved the fact they they camp 11 times a year, with a lock in in January. As for how many parents are Eagle focused, BSA pushes it. A lot of adult leaders have no experience with Boy Scouts as a youth member. Still other adult leaders have youth expereince, but of the horrible Improved Scouting program of the 1970s where the BSA took the Outing out of ScOuting. Yes, I know of an Eagle who is a SM that doesn't like to camp. he's about 8-10 years older than me, putting him smack dab in teh middle of the ISP. Like I said, this was the second choice. He wants to camp. Since we joined the troop, we postponed one trip. To many folks had school commitments the weekend we chose, and we pushed it back to March, and did 2 campouts that month.

First Class First Year, what's that? Seriously there are only 2 reasons why the troop has gotton focused on advancement of late. 1) Philmont 2) Changes in rank requirements. Our best Scout in my opinion is only Tenderfoot, and the got that about 2 months ago. He's been in the troop for 3 years now, and only got interested due to Philmont. He knows that if he doesn't get First Class, he cannot go. The rank changes are affecting all but 1 of our Scouts. While we are encouraging those First Class or above to get it done before next year, there is a push to get everyone else to First Class by the end of the year. At that point most will be in the troop 18 to 24 months. Our goal is to let these guys earn their ranks. And they will listen better to the older scouts than us old fogeys.

OK switching gears a bit. I mentioned how the meeting last night was unorganized chaos. SPL was sick this weekend and didn't do any prior prep. No communicating with others as well for help until he was at the meeting, and it was adults he asked. i admit i helped pull his butt out of the fire when he asked, but I also had a little chat with him. I asked him a few questions, he gave me honest answers. Considering he's a 13 year old first time SPL, it was a good learning experience. I hope he taks the chat to heart, and follows through with what he told me he needs to work on. Back on topic. In my troop growing up, the Leadership Corps didn't promote elitism. Yes we had problems with attendance (perfume and car fumes mostly, but also sports since we me ton Fridays). But we retained older Scouts. While we worked with the younger scouts to a degree, it was when we were assigned instruction to them or running the games and competitions. One thing that helped was that when opportunties presented themselves, the LC did things away from the rest of the troop. The only "perk" or "benefit" of being in the LC was that we were able to sit around the campfire and talk after the rest of the troop went to bed. And a lot of times were close behind on going to bed.

Trying to respond in a quick break. 1) I admit ILST was my idea. SM had done no training before, and I talked to my son when he was elected if he thought training might help with him and the PLC. He said it would, and he would do training with everyone, not just the PLC. At the annual planning conference, I "encouraged" the adults to let the youth switch from the traditional First Aid training they did. SM was happy to do it, one ASM wanted First Aid done at a later date because "it's important." First aid came later becasue the Scouts knew it's important, especially with one of the Scouts and his health issues. 2) Young troop. Older Scouts are 13 - 15 years in age. mostly 13-14. One patrol has mostly 12 years olds who are Scout still working on Tenderfoot, with a 13 year old First Class Scout. Beleive it or not the 13 year old FC is not PL because of a family situation that allows him to come every other week. other patrol is 11 year olds with 1 or two 12 year olds. 3) I've been trained using GBB's syllabus for Brownsea 22, and the troop I grew up in was a youth run troop. Only time I really interacted with the adults was when I royally screwed up one time as a PL, then as ASPL acting as SPL. The Scouts did it all. Current BSA literature doesn't emphasize youth lead enough IMHO. 4) Last night was unorganized chaos, more on that in another thread. But I had the chance to talk to one of the older scouts about the NSP. His comments were that they ned to leanr to work together, get things done even if they do not like them, in order to do the fun stuff. When asked how to get them to work a little better he said "separate them."

And let's not forget the 1st grade Tiger who was suspended for bringing a spork to school. Thankfully he got a reprieve. http://www.today.com/id/33289924/ns/today-today_news/t/boy-suspended-over-utensil-gets-reprieve/#.Vp24hlKJEjU

One of the former leaders/dads in Cub Scouts ALWAYS either carried on him or in the trunk of his car, firearms. He was also the head of the SWAT team, so he was on call 24/7. Currently one of the ASMs will be concealed carrying when he is on call. Yep, law enforcement again. One time it got real interesting when I was doing training, and he showed up in his work van. He was on call that weekend, and actually had to get permission to go 50 feet outside the city limits with the vehicle. Thankfully the powers that be are pro Scouting.

My old camp's staff motto, "Can't fix it, duct it. Can't duct it, chuck it."

Don't be, in fact in all of my time in Scouting, I've only seen recruiting and uniform materials with the AOL badge on the uniform. That's because as soon as they earn AOL, they can become Boy Scouts.

Motivation for this is the NSP format is not working. With the exception of the recent Crossover and a transfer, everyone in the NSP have been in a minimum of 6 months, with most 10 months are more. The youth should be able to handle things by now without coming to the adults for every little thing. I'll give you an example, an argument broke out over how to do KP and the importance of doing it correctly. TG got involved, attempted to deal with it, and eventually an adult had to butt in. One of the Scouts started yelling and crying because he didn't get the poptarts (please don't go there) he wanted. Yep adults got involved briefly because he was cutting up like there was an accident. Luckily the three adults basically said get over it, with one saying be thankful you are allowed poptarts, that would never be allowed in the troop when he was a Scout. It's gotten so bad, that I've been assigned as the "NSP ASM," which is all honesty I don't think should even exist. In the troops I've been in, except for one, the older Scouts were able to do the mentoring and counseling. Adults didn't have to get involved in the patrols' business. All of the leaders want the boys to take more control and ownership. The Scouts should be able to handle the basics, and it is not happening. And in all honesty our NSPs are essentially adult created. All new Scouts are automatically put into them. Once they get First Class, they move up. Our game plan is to talk to the older scouts first. We want to talk to them to get ideas that we may not have thought about, and talk about the ideas we have and come up with a solution agreeable to them. The other two patrols we are not worried about because they will follow their lead. Already saw that with the annual planning conference. That's why we want their input, and some of us were against setting qualifications on who can PL. I know I have one idea on how things can work based upon my experience, but as is constantly mentioned, all scouting is local. Plus as repeated mentioned , the Scouts need to be the decision makers. I also want the PLs to pick their own APL, instead of "nominations for APL" and the SM selecting them (that was in my unit elections thread, but I am going to bring that up later, say at the March-April meeting with the older scouts). I want the youth to make the decisions. And one of the issues is that the SM, because he has not had support to get the troop up and running, did do more than he should of to get the troop up and running. I'm thinking he realizes that mistake, and is trying to come up with ideas to resolve it, hence the leaders meeting. In fact, this has been the first one I know of in the 2 years! But again, up until recently, he was the only adult to show up at every meeting and camp out. The rest of us have been involved in Cub Scouts. We've tried different things to develop teamwork to include initiative games. It's been interesting to put it mildly. For whatever reason they are not melding. I think part of that is that the entire patrol is not camping at the same time, it's always 3/4 of the patrol, and usually it's different ones. As for the ideas of trust, that may be part of it. It's only been in the past year that the Scouts really and truly started organizing and running the instruction. I admit, I've been one of those pushing for that and helping the Scouts to do the job. And I also admit I'm part of the problem at times. There was a spell where both the SPL and ASPL were MIA. I took the liberty of organizing the Scouts and one or two leaders, who I knew had the knowledge, skills, and abilities to teach the instruction for the month they were MIA. What's interesting is that the Scouts, while skeptical that the other Scouts could actually do the job, LOVED IT. They have slowly taken on the job. Have they made mistakes, yep. Are the older Scouts learning from them. Yep. The older Scouts are SLOWLY coming around. As for TGs I know that is a problem. Until when my son joined, the troop was a one patrol troop. SM has 0 experience with TGs, and the ASM who brought it up and implemented has not been around to help. Plus they were in the 13 year old range as we were such a new and young troop. Oldest member just turned 15. By temporary, I mean we hope that the older Scouts can be such good examples, the rest of the troop will take off, especially when we get the mass induction in December. We really want the older Scouts to take on troop level PORs and be a "Leadership Corps" for lack of a better term, and let the 12-14 years olds get their hands on some experience working with new guys in their patrols. But the comment was made that the decision to do away with NSPs should be reevaluated six months after it is implemented. I agree they didn't know what they were doing when they picked their patrol name. It took them almost a month to pick it, and it was selected because when they did a vote on names it had the most votes (2). As for training, believe it or not, 2/3s of the patrol did ILST because we did it as a troop activity. That was a requirement in place for PL: was having done the ILST training, or go through it within a month of election. I admit I had a part to play in that in that I wanted ILST done for leaders in the troop. However my son said everyone should probably take it, and planned it as such when he was SPL. Ok enough of being a proud papa. As for trading scouts, that's the idea at the next unit elections. I don't they will be cracker jacks by May, but I could be wrong. On a different note, I've been assigned to be the NSP's ASM. Reason being that other than the SM and "heir apparent," I'm the only other leader who does not have a son in the NSP since "the TG doesn't count as a member." I've already started talking about my new role with my son the TG. He's ok with me helping to teach skills, more hands to help teach the easier it is. But he wants me to butt out when problems arise until he asks for help. I'm good with that, but it's the recently crossed over CS leaders that I'm worried about. Please keep the questions and advice coming. I've been fortunate to be in established troops in the past, save one which I wasn't around long for. I admit I feel like I'm on a highwire doing a balancing act. I want the youth to take over, make the plans, etc. But I think the youth are afraid to try new things, fear the adults are going to overrule them or something similar.

Good questions. Slow would be an understatement. Dysfunctional would be a better term. 4 hours to cook and clean? As for why the adults are "afraid," I honestly do not know. I do know that one patrol has been having problems getting basic menus and duty roosters done, and that is with a TG trying to help. Same patrol wanted to change their name, and 1.5 months later still have not come up with a new name. That play's a little bit for me. But the biggest thing is that the troop hasn't tried mixed aged patrols since they were restarted, and have not been really boy led, not used the patrol method as I know, experience, and taught. Although I have been with them for 2 years now, it's only been since summer that I have been to every meeting I 've been able to witness how things have been done. I've mentioned the elections process in another thread. Plus the Scouts know the situation is not good, but don't want to offer solutions. As to why the troop is in the situation of trying to sort out which patrol style old school or new school, I think it has to do with leaders. Current SM is old school, but has been trying to find a replacement for some time acceptable to all parties involved: youth and CO. So when the troop got into the situation that it doubled in size with the introduction of new scouts, the "heir apparant" who joined Scouting after NSPs came out in 1989, used that model to set up the troop.SM deferred to him because, the plan was the SM to step down, and he wanted the troop to be run how the replaces (my buddy the heir apparent) I've mentioned the issues with the heir apparant, i.e. CM and work, who hasn't been able to help them as needed. And the two troop guides, I don't really think comprehended what they were suppose to do, nor were able to get the mentoring needed from an ASM. For an active troop, i.e. camping 11 times a year with a lock in the 12th month, we have Scouts because of the NSP. We have Scouts trying to work with the NSP as TG who either do not get it, or are overwhelmed. Plus add into that the adult interference factor. We now have myself and another ASM who old school, having joined scouting prior to NSPs. We either have negative experiences with NSPs ( me) or no experience with NSPs ( the other ASM who is an alum of the troop and has 2 sons in the troop now.) How is it affecting the current patrol situation affecting the Scouts? And this is the important part for me. We have lost a new scouts because of the lack of organization for the NSP. The NSP has NO experience in scouting, and are constantly asking the adults what to do. As I mentioned, the TG, who is my son, as well as the OSP have commented to me and other adults that the NSP is a problem, but the Scouts do not offer solutions. My son is worried that any solution he offers will make it worse, and he doesn't want that to happen. One thing I forgot to mention, the idea of disbanding all three patrols and having the scouts reform them, limiting the number of older Scouts in each patrol and missing up the two regular patrols is hoped to be temporary, and get the Scouts to see how things can be done so that we can reestablish the OSP as a "venture patrol," for lack of a better term, with the troop level position holders, and the second year scouts learnign and gaining insight from the OSP members so that when the troop get the anticipated 2-4 patrols worth of new Scouts in December, they can step up to the plate.

One of the things discussed was doing the basics, i.e. cooking, cleaning, etc as patrols, but activities would be broken out, i.e. All the older Scouts woudl do XYZ Trail or ABC activities at a camp out, while the others would do 123 or 098 stuff.

Goal is to make the entire troop work a little better so that no patrol is waiting for the others to finish doing something. It's to get to get the younger Scouts to listen, learn, and have the older scouts do more. Me personally I see it as a way to get the older Scouts involved and the adults out of the picture.

So we had a meeting of SM and several ASMs last night. One of the topics of discussion was changing the patrols. Thankfully nothing will be done until it's time for unit elections, which will be May. Lots of discussion on this. One idea was doing away with the older scout patrol, assigning them to the the other patrols and making it so that they would get elected PLs, but then when camporees came about, they reform for competition. Thankfully that was dismissed. My comments was that it was to adult oriented, bet their would not be any buy in, we are essentially appointing leaders, and we would be forming "Ringer" patrols for competition. SM agreed with that. One of the leaders tried to point out that an older Scout patrol is a ringer patrol, but had to tel;l him the difference is that the OSP is always together, whereas a ringer patrol only gets together for competition in order to win. My idea of keeping the older scout patrol and integrating the two other patrols into two mixed aged patrols so that they would have a mix of Scouts, was discussed. Challenge was that some of the younger scouts won't listen to the middle aged ones. Adults had some concerns and we went to option 3. All three patrols will be disbanded. Everyone mixed up and arranged so that we are true mixed aged patrols. Anyone can run for PL, so the older Scouts are taking their chances. While the adults are leaning towards that one, it was brought up that the older Scouts need to have some input and some ownership on this change. Plus they may come up with ideas we did not think about. The older Scouts know that things need to change. They even commented on that this weekend at the lock in. Game plan is to let things as they are until April, then have a meeting with them. discuss this with them, and get their thoughts, concerns, and ideas on the matter. Especially since we are estimating anywhere from 14 to 29 new scouts crossing over in December 2016. We need to get a handle on this growth, and handle it NOW!.

That former DE wasn't in East Carolina Council by any chance? When I was a DE, I was "fortunate" in that if i didn't get stuck behind a tractor, It would tale me only an hours one way to get to my all day meeting. I had friends who would take over hours, if they got stuck behind a tractor .

My troop growing up had a saying, I want to attribute to a dad who was colonel in the army but can't remember: " Military surplus. If it's designed to survive combat, it may survive Boy Scouts."

Yes, I remember one of the service crew members I worked with being so proud because he was selected to be part of armed response and was authorized to carry on duty. To me, the British firearm laws did not make sense and seemed crazy since someone could not defend oneself and family. Then I realized you did not have a revolution that permanently overthrew your king. And unfortunately I do not know enough British history to know how the Lord Protector handled firearms to retain his dictatorship. As for being on call, on our side of the pond, some law enforcement will have extra duties that they perform as needed. One example is our Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) members. In my city, they have normal areas to patrol, but can be called out to do a SWAT job. Also sometimes there is not enough personnel, or special situations occur, and folks who are suppose to be off, need to report in. One of the ASMs department is short staffed, and they take turns doing night and weekend duty. Also if something major happens, he may get called in. While at summer camp one year, his department tried to get him to come back from vacation to work. Thankfully the police chief is supportive of Scouting, and he was allowed to stay at camp since if he left, we the troop would need to leave due to lack of adults.

Did you have the "Centennial Edition" by any chance? I was hoping someone who has that version, and the one who has the current version could compare sections. I know I complained that a lot of "basic" information from my day ( I too used the 9th edition) was left out of the Centennial edition. I had to creatye handouts for IOLS.

@@Cambridgeskip, correct me if I'm wrong, but I beleive the Scout Association in the UK turned their supply stores more into outfitters. I remember the one I went too didn't look like a BSA scout shop on the first floor at all. More like REI or Gander Mountain. It was when you got to the wall at the end of the first floor, where the stairs were at, and saw all the Scout patches from all over the world, that you realized it was a Scout Shop. Always wished BSA would go more that route.

"Ever wonder if the REI associate REALLY has used every backpack? Or are they just pushing what the back office tells them to? There's your answer." I would hope they would be honest. I know from my supply division days, if I didn't use it, I would not recommend it. If a friend of mine used a product, I would state what they thought to my customers. If I didn't like a product I would discourage someone from buying it. Badge Bond comes immediately to mind. Did I get in trouble a time or two. Yes. But as Scout is TRUSTWORTHY. Besides, the boss left me alone when, after spending 30-45 minutes on how to select gear for a new Scout's parent, and even advising to shop around, the parent left, and 20 minutes later showed up with son in tow. We outfitted him with gear he would use and grow into. Nice sale for the store, and we got a new Scout outfitted for adventure.

ROTFL And I don't know how to do the pound sterling symbol. And i though using # people would think weight. I love me some ALPS. But I've been on a USGI surplus kick of late as that is way cheaper, even with the hiker direct program.

You are a law enforcement officer and you are on call.

ALPS Mountaineer has a discount program via hikerdirect.com . Don't know how much the shipping would be, but the MYSTIQUE 2 is $113.06 which is approx. 86 pounds.

WWWWEEEEELLLLL, there was a place in Los Angeles that had authentic Cajun food. Then again they did have my brother as the chef.