Eagle94-A1

If you are referring to some parents, oh yes some are that smart. Some parents will do anything for their Scout to receive a badge, and will attempt to use any and all policies and procedures to get their child the rank. These parents will see an small, temporary opening, a try to drive a M1A2 thought it with all guns blazing, taking out any adult who gets in their child's way. If you are referring to the folks at national, the majority have little to no experience in the program. Again out of the 5 full timers I worked with at a national Scout shop, I was the only one who had experience in the program, whether it was youth or adult.

This "temporary program" is the camel's nose under the tent flap.

I don't know about now since over half the workforce has been furloughed, but if my Scout Shop represented national as a whole, then out of the 5 full timers, 1 had experience with the program or 20% And those who should know how the program works have been away from the field for so long, they don't remember.

Sorry, no. Families are not surrogate patrols. Not only in my last troop, but in other troops throughout the years, I have seen parents try and take over signing stuff for their Scout. Newly crossed over Cub Scout parents are bad at it, but the worst are the former Cub Scout leaders. They are indoctrinated to be in charge as Cub Scout leaders, that they forget they have to let go as Scouters. Even I had difficulties at times I see a lot of Tenderfoot through First Class BORs in the future, and the Scouts will be clueless when it comes to the outdoors. I assume you are a big fan of FIRST CLASS: FIRST YEAR? You do know that the 1980s data that developed this plan is skewed right? First and foremost,. it was heavily influenced by LDS troops which kept their 11 years olds separate from everyone else. The other factor is that it did not take into how active troops were. The more active the troop is, the more Scouts want to stay in. I give you an example, with the exception of December and February, until COVID-19 came along, we camped every month. December is a service project and Christmas party, and February is Scouting for Food (2 weekends), Scout Sunday, and court of honor. Yet half the kids who have been a year or longer are Second Class or lower. They are staying because the program is fun. I want to add, I think this is setting a precedent that will cause issues in the future. I am willing to bet people wil want this to become the norm, not the exception.

Day camp.

My understanding is we have to allow it. What i find ironic is that they first stated camping requirements would not be altered, yhen the next thing they do is alter the requirements. Edited: INTERESTING. I went to the link posted, AND IT IS DIFFERENT THAN THE ONE I READ YESTERDAY MORNING! (emphasis) The one originally posted not only contradicted itself, but also did not post the exact requirements altered. And did anyone note that these modified requirements are in effect to August or September?

One of our folks is taking a correspondence NCS course. He got the work sent to him and is doing it from home. Forgot to add, he was suppose to go in March and it was cancelled at the last minute.

One of the challenges with going to strictly online training, those areas of the country where dial up internet is the only thing available. There are large areas in my council where dial up and satellite (if you can afford it) are the only things available for homes. many of my friends use their cell phones for internet. But not everyone has smartphones, and somethings cannot be done on a cell phone. That's one reason why the many school systems in my area are leaving wifi on, so students are going there to do work. Heck my library is open only for the computer lab because we do have students with poor and no access.

Sadly you are correct. Last time I was an MBC at camp, I taught Lifesaving MB. I had between 25 and 30 students, and I was by myself. A lot of the skills for Lifesaving MBC at the time were skills I taught as a YMCA Lifeguard Instructor, and had a minimum of 2 instructors and a ratio of student to instructors to follow. I want to say the ratio was 6:1. So I should have had more instructors. I also had some discipline issues the first day. Constantly not paying attention, disrupting class, etc. I kicked them out of the class. Later that evening, the CD tell me he heard from the SM that I kicked out his Scouts, and that I needed to let them back in as I cannot kick out Scouts. When I informed him of the problems these Scouts were causing and how it was interfering with the other Scouts, he did not care. Long story short, NO ONE completed the MB that week because I had to deal with problems and I could not meet all the requirements as a result. Of course I had a bunch of angry SMs to deal with, and the angriest and most obnoxious was the SM of the Scouts who caused the problems.

Reviving this one. I found out the other day what my council plans on doing if summer camp cannot be live: going virtual. The powers that be figured out what MB instruction be done online, and will offer only those MBs. Max class size will be 30 Scouts, and the cost will be 1/3 of the normal cost of summer camp. " I got a bad feeling about this." My experiences with this camp have not been positive in the past few years. My sons were given merit badges they did not fully complete because they ran out of supplies. Oldest got a kit from Hobby Lobby to actually earn it. Youngest is waiting to get a kit to finish it up. (mea culpa I kept putting it off until the store closed.) I over heard a MB counselor state his class had earned the MB in 2 days, and they could goof off. There is no way everyone can earn Canoeing in just two days, especially when only 1/2 the class is on the water at a time due to not enough canoes and aquatics staff. It showed when the troop did a canoe trip, and B at that camp could handle the trip on calm, easy water. I would hate to have seen what would happen if they encountered serious weather like I did on my 50 miler in Canada. This is also the camp that did not have enough shooting sports folks, and did not provide outsidentime for Archery folks to practice outside of class.

My thoughts. 1) Officially, Cubs are suppose to go to council approved camps that meet certain criteria. Some councils have specifically stated only council owned camps are allowed. This essentially forces packs to use council owned facilities. The you have the opposite extreme, my council. Because of the "Cubs don't need to camp" attitude of many older, long time volunteers, there is NO approved Cub Scout camp ground list. Further the specialized training needed to run district and council level Cub Scout camping events has not been offered in a number of years, yet these activities continue. The closest item to an "approved" campground list that packs use is the Where to Go Camping guide the OA puts out. When my council eventually merges into the other 4 councils (see my other posts on that matter) many will see how truely screwed up we were on a lot of things. 2. And you know who mandated all of the infrastructure? When NCAP first came out, I was a CSDC program director. A lot of the stuff in it a CSDC didn't need to worry about to have an effective program. But we were told we needed to have it anyway as it was the new rules. And part of NCAP is infrastructure. We use a relatively primitive camp. Most of the structures were built by individual troops and the OA over the years. Many of the structures do not meet NCAP standards because they are not the official, predesigned, one-size-fits-all structures national wants everyone to use. Unless we can build to NCAP standards, we are not allowed to rebuild destroyed structures So now we have an entire empty campsite. with nothing there but cement pads where the Adirondack shelters were. And because the original shelters sis not have the mandated square footage, they cannot be rebuilt.

Troop camping may not suffer. Troops, unlike CS packs, are not limited to approve campgrounds. If a troop wants to camp somewhere without showers, it is allowed. Troop wants to camp at a national forest, they can do it.

Regarding virus/disease naming protocols, up until May 8, 2015, the use of countries and/or geographical regions, as well as animals and people's names were the norm. As all of you know, it takes time for populations to get use to new terms. best example of that would be Venture Crews and Venture Scouts for Venturing Crews and Venturers, after 22 years of the former terms were discounted. So naming the disease after the 2 cops is also prohibited by the WHO. https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2015/naming-new-diseases/en/

I don't know what is going on behind the scenes. Although I have been on the charter as a district committee member for a while now, we have not had a chairman for several years. They either quit because of BSA membership policy changes, family issues, or professional interference. You cannot yell demands at volunteers, especially if you have never visited the territory. As for a DE we have not had a dedicated one in about 6-7 years, either having a FD working with us, or sharing a DE. And our DE is not around much either. Someone commented that the dissolution of the council may be a good thing as we may get better service being in another council. But looking at a map, I have serous doubts. my district is lucky, we border 2 counties of one council, and a sliver of us the district borders a metro county. But other parts of the council are aways from anyone, and are extremely rural in nature. The bulk of the counties average below the poverty line, so I do not see why anyone would want them in their council.

So, we had our first district committee meeting in ages. The council situation is worse than I thought. We have not met membership and financial goals for several years now. My understanding is that we have 1 year to turn things around or we begin merger talks. Sound like we have been on conditional charter for a while now, and no one was informed.

Does that number include the early retirements some folks were offered?

This. Also I can tell you, some families have already said "NO" to summer camp, even if everything clears up.

Considering teh European Jamboree is postpones until 2021, I have a feeling many camps will follow suit. https://ej2020.org/european-jamboree-2020-rescheduled-to-summer-2021/?fbclid=IwAR3vaT1G5PP0hEDR77BS1N6ALkt2XZJ3h5V3kaowq6hqwmt_WGS1h-T2sTg

TMI.

DO NOT USE ROTHCO JUNGLE BOOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are the cheap ones that will fall apart within a week. I had a pair that I wore one time, and the mud from the canoe launch sucked the sole off of it. Thankfully the store I bought them from gave me a credit to buy the more expensive ALTAMA JUNGLE BOOTS! They are worth every penny. I had them for years until I lost them in a move. The next pair of ALTAMAs lasted about 15 years, until I burnt a hole in the sole. I am on pair 3 for boating activities. When I was teaching canoeing, the scouts laughed at me because I was wearing my jungle boots. They were no laughing when shoes started get sucked into mud and some Scouts lost their shoes. Concur with the Panama sole. Great for gripping, and easy to get the mud out of the grooves. Also concur on wool socks and liners. A cheap way to get liners, is to use knee high ladies' hose. Just make sure A) you don't use the wife's and B ) she knows in advance that you are buying them. You don't want the wife to ask "whose are these?"

I am very pessimistic at this time. Things that I thought would happen due to the lawsuits and bankruptcy on the local are happening. And COVID-19 is making it worse. We are on a conditional charter now due to membership loses and not meeting finance goals. our DFS and 2 DEs have been RIF'ed. Merging districts was mentioned in a letter, and friends in the know mentioned possibility of splitting the council amongst 4 neighboring councils. A variety of factors have affected membership: policy changes, loss of LDS, negative publicity regarding lawsuits and bankruptcy. FOS is down because of the above and the last, minute increases in registration. I know I reneged on my pledge because I had to use my pledge to pay for increase in dues. I am not pledging for this year, I am expecting another increase in fees. Hopefully someone will realize that we need the info prior to June so that units making budgets based upon the school year can plan accordingly. My district and council are dying. Regarding the comment that BSA will be more volunteer led, I hope so. But I won't hold my brief. I not only know of professionals who ignore and overrule volunteers, but also go after volunteers who disagree with the. I personally know 2 volunteers who were removed from Scouting because they discovered some irregularities on the professional level, and brought it to folks attention. Heck one SE gave a training session on selecting volunteers, and told us to only use "yes men" in stead of the best person for the job. One of the reasons my district is in the shape it is in is because the pros overule our decisions. Funny thing is, we never seem to see them around, nor are they in communication with us until after everything is planned and organized. It seems as if they think because they are paid, they know more about Scouting than the volunteers do. As far as summer camp is concerned, I do not think it will happen. Even if things open up, I think parents will be extremely cautious and not send the Scouts. Hopefully I will get a refund for the deposit already paid, but I doubt it. Hopefully I can write it off my taxes as a donation.

Reviving this thread because an email was sent out today that my council has a conditional charter. Trying to figure out what the heck is going on, and what to expect. I am expecting the worse. The 'reduced in force" the DFS and 2 other pros. And the plan on realigning the renaming DEs.

Actually there was a survey or questionnaire on the matter. But from the questions on the survey, the manner in which they conducted the survey, and the results they excluded from the survey, it seemed that the decision was already made. The questions were very biased towards the decision they wanted. Anyone taking it would have known what answers they wanted. as they really didn't give options The manner in which they conduced it ticked off a lot of folks, professionals included. First national informs the SEs and council presidents and commissioner, DAYS PRIOR TO A NATIONAL SCOUT JAMBOREE ( emphasis) that they want these town halls done by a a date that was 15 days after jamboree ended. When it was announced, many SEs council presidents and commissioners were either on their way to jambo, or already there on staff. My council key 3 were furious at the short notice of it, as they were only able to schedule 1 town hall prior to the date. Then in order to have a town hall, all three people had to be present. THEN only those attending the town hall could take the survey. In my neck of the woods, were were given so short notice, that only 14 people were able to attend FROM A 15+ COUNTY AREA ( emphasis). I was the only one who could make it from my district. They had a second one scheduled, but it was AFTER the deadline, so thsoe folks were unable to take the poll. Then when the results were tabulated, LDS members in the Western Region were excluded from the results. Don';t know about the rest of the regions, but some booklet that was published had a foot note stating that fact. Why would you leave out 18+% of the membership out of the poll? What i find intersting is that the booklet did nto have the results of the poll. In fact I cannot find the results of the poll published in any BSA publication. Instead National used non-member polls to justify their decison.

You are not joking about unit leader personality affecting unit culture. SM is the one who does not understand why they need to camp every month, and stated he did not like camping. He also earned Eagle in the 1970s when camping was not required. When I last conducted ITOLs, it was specifically for him and his ASMs, as he just assumed SM, and none of the adults were trained, let alone gone through ITOLS. He showed up, and no one else did because "it's too cold to camp." Temps were in the upper 30s, lower 40s. I do not know if it is still the case, but at one point all leadership positions were appointed by him. Rationale was the same boys kept getting elected over and over, and everyone needs a chance to be a leader for advancement. Multiple UCs (when we had them) have been sent in to help him out, including several former ASMs from that troop. They have been ignored, told Scouting needs to change with the times, and worse, told they don't know what they are talking about. I stopped trying to help when I was not only accused of stealing his Scouts (Webelos Crossing Over into Scouts) but also accused me of trying to take over a Cross Over Ceremony for our troops when the OA backed out at the last minute, and the CM asked me to write a single ceremony script incorporating the two troops. Sadly the district is on life support. We do not have out own DE, but have been sharing one for years now. I hate to say it, but I lost count how long it has been without a FT, dedicated DE. I think it has been 7 years now, at least. Volunteers on the district have been burned out and frustrated by pros. Several have quit over pros overruling them and/or taking over events and duties they are responsible for. I would say we have a Key Three now, but no one has seen out DE since university of Scouting/Council Silver Beaver and Eagle Luncheon that was advertised with 2 weeks notice. That was a month ago. Prior to that, I honestly can't remember when I last saw him, maybe the district camporee. Regarding the troop, they had major issues in the past. Hopefully things have changed. They got a friend of mine as ASM who likes to camp. Challenge is that due to health issues, he can only car camp. While there is nothing wrong with car camping, it seems that is all they do. I have seen one ASM show up to camporee in a popup camper.

I think you are right. National has focused solely on folks getting Eagle, and it has spread downward through the ranks. Heck I had one SM tell me one of my Scouts was wasting his htime because he took a MB he already had a second time because he enjoyed it. Instead that Scout should have been taking MBs he needed for Eagle. Scouting and summer camp in particular should be about fun. In all honesty I do not think he had fun in Scouting. He did it because his mother pushed. As for meeting the purpose, again I don't think so. Scouting is suppose to prepare you for life. And he is afraid of leaving his family to go to college. I have only seen this once before in an Eagle, and it was one form the same troop. He passed up scholarships to out of town universities to stay with his family. I know, I know, meeting the requirements. He met them. Thankfully I have been extremely fortunate in that regard. Every Eagle who has asked for a letter has been outstanding. I even went to bat for one Eagle who had some delays in his EBOR due to his dear old Uncle Sam sending him to San Antonio for sometraining.