JosephMD

I'm assuming that these adults are not paying their own registration fees. This isn't a practice I agree with and what I would work to change. A scout pays his own way, the scouters should be setting that example. I wouldn't take on this role as the scoutmaster though, this is more of a committee chair job. Refer the parent's to the committee so you can focus on your SPL's program.

@@sst3rd I think that would literally break our lodge. We are very large and the only way it works is for chapters to handle ceremonies in their districts. We do our own chapter ordeals, call outs, brotherhoods, Arrow of Lights, Eagle ceremonies, and so on. Our lodge is so large we also have areas (groups of adjacent districts) complete with their own chiefs and advisers. The areas usutally run their own fall Ordeals and a leadership development conference. Your lodge's ceremony committee won't get very far if they are trying to force members to do anything. They will need a compelling reason to join the committee and participate. There is nothing wrong with a lodge running the show, the lodge is the basic entity of the OA, many don't even have separate chapters. That being said, I think they will have to wait a while for some new youth who haven't experienced the turmoil of this change for them to begin to recruit from chapters that had active teams disbanded. Maybe the next election for lodge chief will go to the arrowman who promises to return the chapter's ceremonies teams!

I haven't heard anything about it. Our chapter just got our budget amendment approved to spend $750 on ceremonies gear and patches. It would be a shame if that was money wasted.

I just finished running my first merit badge class. It started last Saturday at our district camporee. I had 45 minutes to work with groups of about 25 on a couple of requirements for the radio merit badge and ended yesterday with Jamboree on the Air activities which included covering more requirements and those who addended both and did requirement 8 as homework (research a career) the would leave with a signed blue card. 1. Blue cards: Why does the concept of the blue card seem so difficult for scouts? I ran into this at the National Jamboree too, so many scouts really did not know how to fill them out. Also, one troop had their own blue card form, that was weird. I learned why many counselors at merit badge classes clearly state that the cards should be filled out completely and numbered, because when you have a large stack of cards, it starts to chew up real time filling out cards for scouts. 2. Big event classes. At the National Jamboree, scouts knew they were giving up 1/2 of their program day to take the merit badge, so they were generally interested in at least earning the badge, if not the subject matter too. At our camporee, over 200 scouts rotated through the station. Most of them were not interested and didn't want to be there, and that was not helpful to anybody. 3. I'm getting a reputation, good or bad, as someone who won't let you attend the class and not participate and still get a sign off. If the requirement says discuss or explain, each scout will discuss or explain. Many of the scouts seemed perplexed by actually being expected to discuss or explain, as if it is the first time they have had to do this for a merit badge before, even some of the older ones that I know to be star and life scouts! 4. I really enjoyed helping 13 scouts earn the radio merit badge though, and getting them on the air communicating.

Scouts, no matter how much trouble I got in to in school or wherever else, it is the one thing my mother would never punish me from.

I predict that your council will merge with another and a camp will be sold after they tell you that they won't sell any camps.

My wife is the Committee Chair of our Church's pack and has seen the pack shrink of the last few years as recruiting has not been very successful. An idea was floated to invite all children from the church to the pinewood derby. It seems like it would make a great recruiting event. Obviously, since you would need to get them a car & provide them with some instructions & rules, you'd need sign ups ahead of time, which would be good for getting contact info for later follow up. What do you think the pros and cons would be? Any cub scouters with experience doing this very thing? Thanks, Joe

if they continue with (what is in my opinion) the mistake of the separate but equal program for boys and girls age 11-17 the answer is no, in fact, I think you might see a growth in venturing for both genders as the boys and girls would still be able to earn Eagle in the crews and won't have to deal with the weirdness of separate programs. If down the road there can be co-ed troops. I think that those troops with a strong program will have scouts that don't see much of a need for venturing and we may see something develop more like the Venture program I remember from the 1980's.

Our new chapter chief loves to have activities at chapter meetings. While our ability to get some of the business done that needs to be done, attendance is up, and that is winning in my book. This month the carved pumpkins and had a bit of a bragging rights contest. It was kind of crazy (especially since we had a smaller room than normal and it was kind of packed). After the carving they had pumpkin pie! I think though we will have to hold a few more chapter officers' meetings to get some of the work done that needs to be done!

Since next year packs will be able to have both boy and girl dens, but not mixed gender. I'm wondering what kind of pressure that will put on the volunteers. If this goes as intended, it should double the number of dens in each pack - siblings will likely dominate, and their active volunteer parents are already doing it. Expanding to non legacy scouts with no boys in the family isn't likely to yield additional den leaders for some time. I'm afraid it will be hard to implement.

My son had a large stack of patches that were made for a district webelos camp out that he was running before a district merger. The camp out still happened but since they had the old district name the district chair did not want them distributed. He gave sets to his staff (there was a regular patch, staff patch, and a ghosted award patch) and the rest have gone into various patch auctions trading post dollar bins, etc. I think some of the collectability was that they were the last patch made with that district name, at least that's what he'd put in the description for patch auctions to drum up interest. The sad part was that there were not funds available to order a replacement patch for the participants.

The old sheath knife debate. ...concealed... like, in a backpack? another useless law

​My son was 12 when he earned the shotgun shooting merit badge at camp. I think that camp restricted first years and required either the rifle shooting MB or hunter safety, this ensures that the class doesn't have any scouts who have never handled a firearm before. Also, rifle shooting takes a lot less staff than shotgun shooting, so there may be a method there to keep classes from being overloaded. It will come down to what the shooting sports director is comfortable with on the grounds of safety, but there is also an element of not setting scouts up to fail. Some camps restrict the water sports merit badge to older scouts, based mainly on success rate, small scouts with no water skiing experience rarely complete the badge, and don't have access to boats or lakes to finish it at home. The same could be said for shotgun shooting. I've seen 10 year olds that do quite well in my son's youth trap shooting league, but these are the exceptions, not the rule.

Obligatory - didn't read the whole thread but : I'd say, hold OA elections in crews - use the same first class equivalent that is used for the National Outdoor Awards.

Maybe this SM has a lot going on and needs to manage it in a way that works for him. Who knows, but I think using the term etiquette to title this post is incorrect. Preference would have been the better word. Some people prefer phone calls to texts, some snail mail to e-mail. We all have our prefrences. For me, it depends. I like texts a little more than calls. But most who call me know that if your number isn't in my phone, I don't answer, so if you want a call back you have to leave a message. My preferred method overall is e-mail though, send me an e-mail and I'm good. That being said, I like to use whatever the scouts are using, for the most part, but there are those who don't.