swilliams

His plan was to send the GoFundMe to pool members. He's building a bocce ball court, and his estimated cost is $2,962. I wish we were in a position to just pay for it, but we're not. It's making me a little crazy that our unit/district/council can't just follow what is set by National. It leads to so much confusion. Sometimes I feel like the adults around here like to stick their fingers in the pie a little too much, even as they say "scout led" with their mouths full of pie. Maybe it's fine that younger son wants to quit. Less headache all around.

The Eagle Coach says he emailed it to the District Advancement Chair. The DAC says he never got it. And here's the thing I wanted to FIGHT but my son asked me not to. Our District WILL NOT allow a scout to submit the proposal paperwork directly on their own. For fundraising, Council says under $2,500 you only need approval from the Unit/CC. Between $2,500 and $10,000 you need District Approval (DAC and whatever committee is reviewing. Over that, and you need Council approval. I have no idea if or whether the fundraising differs from National guidelines. I know the approval process does. But that's water under the bridge at this point. Eagle Coach says he resubmitted. He says, "When he (District Advancement Chair) confirms receipt I will ask to expedite." It would have been nice if the "confirm receipt had happened initially. So we're in a holding pattern for now.

So as long as I'm in "rant" mode.... I'm SO angry right now. Guide to Advancement says you can't add requirements beyond what National states. GTA also is clear that scouts are not REQUIRED to use a coach, and it certainly doesn't say anything about a scout not being able to submit his own Eagle Project Workbook. I started to fight this before, but my son asked me to just 'go along with it' and not make waves, so I did. But telling a scout that they are self-sufficient, capable young men and women and that Scouts is scout-led, then telling them that an adult has to submit the workbook on their behalf, is just wrong and stupid. Now over a month of precious time has been wasted. And for what? WHAT is this teaching our kids?! Seriously. I'm a little over-emotional right now, but I honestly feel like crying. If you set out to purposely destroy a kid's faith in scouting, you couldn't do a better job than this. I'm sorry. I'm sure this isn't scout-like.

Oh boy. Son just got an email from the district advancement chair. He says he never got my son’s workbook.

That's a good point. I've been waiting for a roofing company to come give me an estimate. Called again Friday to see what happened to the first work order that no one ever responded to. We have one estimate, but the quote was $12,900 for our little 3 bedroom, 1 bath ranch. Guess our intersecting roofline and the dormer in the attic are just too much work. And now I've just done something I complain about all the time as a seamstress.... someone questioning the price I charge for my work. 🤣

One of the previous MB counselors we reached out to is no longer a counselor, unbeknownst to him. Apparently Council only wants each counselor to do three MBs. He emailed the Merit Badge Dean last week. Hasn't gotten a response. We (since my kids don't have a Facebook account) reached out to someone online on the 16th. Got an immediate response, but then the person didn't send their BSA number or town so they could be connected on Scoutbook. I asked twice over the last two days. I can see with Messenger that the person has seen the message. GRRRR!!! Trying a second person from Facebook. On the Eagle Project front... my son called Council back. This time he got a response right away, but he found out that Council doesn't have his workbook. It's with our District Advancement Chair. Son reached out to this person via email (and cc'd the Eagle Coach) on the 16th. He finally got a response from the Eagle Coach saying "great that you emailed Mr. F", but hasn't heard from Mr. F. SPL has still not received a response from the Scoutmaster. I know that we're all busy. I know that it's easy to miss things. But this is SO much harder than it ought to be and, IMHO, is only teaching them the wrong lessons. It teaches them it's okay as an adult to ignore kids. It's teaching my youngest that the effort he needs to put in for a single merit badge is beyond what he is willing to do, and the idea of going through this 13 more times is just too much. It's teaching them that adult scouters don't have the same set of rules for themselves that they do for the scouts. Sorry for the rant. It's heartbreaking to me to see that my younger one probably isn't going to stay in scouting. (Not solely because of this. Our Troop has some extreme issues as well.)

My immediate family has been involved in scouting since 2012, when my oldest son became a Tiger Scout. Over the past decade+ I've noticed it getting harder and harder to find adult scout leaders who are responsive to scouts, and in the past two years it's become downright shameful. Our current SPL has been waiting on a response from our Scoutmaster on an email for 8 days, and this is an email the Scoutmaster asked the SPL to send. (The scout's mom contacted me to ask what they should do.) My oldest son emailed his Eagle Coach a week ago asking how he should proceed in following up on his Eagle Project Workbook. Our district doesn't allow scouts to send in their own proposals to Council, so my son only has the word of this Coach that the workbook was even submitted on the day the Coach said he would do it. Son finally called Council this morning on his own. He was told, "Give us 15 minutes and we'll call you back." Guess who hasn't received a phone call? Merit badge counselors who don't respond for weeks on end, if ever are the norm. We're on our fourth counselor for Camping - the requirements have been done for months, but my younger son and one other scout from our troop still haven't been able to get signed off and it's holding them back from Star rank. Older son turns 18 in three and a half months and has been working on his Eagle Project for over a year. (First two proposals fell apart due to state land restrictions and soil contamination.) We are starting to panic. What can be done? Nothing? Chalk it up to life lessons? We are SO frustrated. Younger son is ready to call it quits, and I really can't blame him. Please, any help or advice we can get would not only be appreciated, but is desperately needed.

Hopefully this doesn't veer into the negative, but... I don't know who our DE is. I don't know who our Unit Commissioner is. I don't know what they do. I've never seen them outside of maybe once when one came to give a FOS presentation, though that could have been anyone. I used to know who the SE was, but that was only because I worked in the scout shop for a while, which was housed where Council's office is. It's hard to even try to tell you what volunteers want to see, when we see nothing to begin with.

I have a new-found sympathy for those waiting for this case to make it's excruciatingly slow way through the court system. A matter (nothing BSA related) that I filed in early June 2022 is still crawling along and according to my lawyer may take months yet. Three of the six people named are no longer in their positions, and even once a determination is reached it's more than likely that any penalty that is assessed, if wrongdoing is found, will be so minor as to add more insult. "Walk a mile" is an effective but bittersweet teacher, and any small injury I've sustained pales in comparison to what has happened here. May 2024 find some tiny amount of resolution for CSA survivors.

Layman's explanation of "equitable mootness", please?

Welcome. Almost every good scouting thing I know came from another scouter at some point in time.

I loathe fundraising. It wouldn't be too terrible if it were just for scouting, but with active kids it's non-stop, year-round. Scouts twice a year, marching band basket raffle and Gertrude Hawk, lacrosse cornhole tournament and bagels, swimming (both winter high school and summer club swim) swim-a-long pledges and winter sports night donations... It's too much. I refuse to continue asking our neighbors and friends to give money, even if they're getting something out of it. At our last committee meeting we had a loooong discussion of how much we would ask for our dues, how many adults we were going to have to register, how to pay for the adults and the increased National and Council dues and how much fundraising we could realistically expect. We decided to make the dues $200, drop two or three committee members from the charter, and continue to pay for adult participants from Troop funds. We do charge per trip, and I want to see us come up with some trips that are close to free - state campgrounds, stealth camping off the AT for older scouts, etc. Maybe even teach them to make acorn flour and forage for dandelion roots and chickweed. 🤣

Thank you all. We have our COH tonight, but will put the advice to work next Tuesday!

I've worked with youth for ages: besides scouting, as a substitute teacher and a cross-country/track coach. Maybe it's just me getting old (Get off my lawn!), but the last two new batches of scouts seem to have more behavior issues than before. We've had issues with scouts not listening to the older scouts, talking back to them, refusing to do as asked, etc. At one point last year they vandalized a school bathroom and almost got us kicked out. Nothing permanent, but spitting on the mirrors, unrolling all the toilet paper, etc. It's gotten to the point where our older scouts are beginning to avoid coming to Troop meetings. I'm not involved in weekly meetings anymore, so this is coming from my husband, who became an ASM last year. In reading BP's words that were posted in another thread about number, I'm wondering if we should look at restructuring how meetings are run, specifically breaking out groups. Any other suggestions as to how to help keep younger scouts in line? While still having fun.

Not a summer camp, but maybe relevant. My daughter and I just got back from a short backpacking trip on the AT. We met some scouts from Troop 3 in Easton, PA. Four scouts, two leaders. When we did a similar trip last year around 4th of July, we had come across a group of Jewish "scouts" (not Boy Scouts, but some similar program) - 37 of them!! I've noticed more people out and about in the woods ever since Covid, so I think interest in the outdoors is UP, but it's not necessarily translating over to Scouting. On a complete side note: hiking around Crater Lake near Walpack, NJ (side trip off the AT), my daughter and I were shocked when we turned a corner and saw a naked man striding toward us. Nothing on but some hiking boots and a bandana. Apparently there is a "Naked Hiking Day". 😬

Thanks again for your help when my son was working on this. (And for the nickname Bugleson, lol.) He was a trombone player who was able to get many of the notes on trumpet right away. It did take Bugleson six months to do this MB. The high G took a LOT of practice, as did the low C. His MBC asked him to play an actual bugle (but didn't require it), so we ended up purchasing a used trumpet for practice, then borrowing a bugle for a couple weeks to finish up. We met with the MBC a total of three times before he was satisfied and signed off. I made Bugleson play 'To the Colors' at a camporee, and he was Troop Bugler for a six-month period, where he would start the meetings. Sadly, he never played again after that. All that work... Younger son plays baritone for concert band and marching band. It would be fun to have him try the calls, just to see 1) his range and 2) what the calls sound like on the low brass. I might go start pestering him right now.

I like this solution. As a side note, our troop has several ASPL positions: logistics (planning for camping trips), advancement, service and program (take over for SPL when unavailable and support SPL with weekly meetings).

That last part would probably be a rather large savings, as so many organizations require background checks now. For myself, I've been background checked three times in the past two years - USATF, as a substitute teacher, and for a real estate license.

I think this is how he will try to proceed. He doesn’t share his parent’s inclination to fight this kind of thing, and I can’t blame him. He just wants to get it done and see his work translated into a finished series of trails. (Un-ironically, the ‘just get it done’ is what made him not want to use the Advisor in the first place.) As of an hour ago, our former committee chair has asked to become an Eagle Advisor for the Troop, so that if our District is dead-set on forcing scouts down this road, at least they have a choice in Advisors.

He will be 17 in just over a month. I just spoke to someone who is still on our Troop Committee, but is also on the list of Eagle Coaches who can be assigned by the district. He reiterated that my son MUST work with the Unit Eagle Advisor, and told me that my son's proposal would most likely be rejected by the District if it didn't come from the Advisor. I am beyond angry. What are we teaching scouts with this? My solution might just be to have him join a Troop in the next town over, which is in a different District that does not require this. I may decide to fight it later, but really don't have the bandwidth to start a war, particularly when I have a 15 year old who will still need to go through the process. I'm worn down, discouraged, angry... I can only imagine what my kid is feeling. There seems to be this strange idea among too many scout leaders that this is "real life" and will toughen the kid up. I say it only teaches them that it's okay for them to be unresponsive and dismissive. We should be leading by example, imho.

Maybe I'm not being clear enough. He knows he has to have the proposal approved by the designated district or council person. He has no issue with that. But in order to get it to that person for their approval, the district is saying he has to use an Eagle Coach and have the Coach turn the proposal over to the district. This is in direct conflict with what GTA says. This Eagle Coach (who is also a MB counselor) made my son take 24 months to complete his Personal Fitness MB because he kept delaying their last meeting. By the time this person finally found the time to meet, my son had broken two bones and couldn't complete the final fitness test. Among other things. We are NOT using him as Eagle Coach. So yes, I am going to make a big deal about it. The person from Council who was at our Committee meeting when my son's proposal was approved, and who said they would be willing to act as his coach, has not responded. My son would like to get this turned in so that he can work on the project over the summer.

It's not who we are handing it in to... it's who can do the handing in. National says the scout can do it. Our District says he can't.

Of note, none of the other Districts in our Council list this as a requirement.

That requires us to go to our unit Eagle Advisor. I know this may seem silly to you, but this is a major issue for both of us. I don't want to post details here, where the Eagle Advisor can't refute what I say, in case it becomes clear who I am talking about.

Our District is requiring the Eagle Coach to submit the proposal for approval. Yet GTA says a scout is not required to use a Coach. In fact, GTA says the District or Council will designate a coach after the proposal is submitted.