swilliams

If this proposal were brought before our committee, we would almost certainly ask the scout to add to the scope of the project. The amount of work to be done doesn't have to be X number of hours, but if a project is too small, how much leadership and organization is being done by the Eagle candidate? We have a scout who just finished a project similar to this. He enlarged a deer exclosure (area to keep deer out, so that native species could flourish) and raised the surrounding fencing by a couple feet. Because the fencing is plastic mesh attached to metal poles, we felt that by itself wouldn't have been enough. The scout also constructed a new gate to restrict vehicular access, and planted more native trees and grasses in the exclosure. The addition of the gate also made it clear that the beneficiary (parks department) was gaining something new from the project, rather than just having a re-do of an existing (albeit not-quite-functioning) area. Is this in a public area? Would it be beneficial to add a kiosk or other type of structure that tells guests what the purpose of the log pile is? Maybe a bench for sitting to observe what's going on in the area? In my very limited experience, it seems like adding either an instructional component or something that is useful to either the general public or the group who benefits, removes any worries that the project won't be approved. Might be important if the scout doesn't have time for a lot of back and forth with the council before he turns 18.

One other idea for Liz is to have someone in your Troop volunteer with the pack as well. I used to do all the graphic art for the pack and make take home ‘gifts’ for the PW Derby. I’ve offered to continue doing this - albeit to a lesser degree - even though my boys are done with Cubs. This year I helped their new advancement chair make derby car stands out of inexpensive Home Depot materials. I came up with the design, her husband cut the materials, she assembled much of it, then she and the Cubmaster came over and we had some vino while staining the stands and attaching a label. It didn’t take more than two-ish hours of time, I got to hang with some other scout moms, and hopefully build a relationship with the newer parents of the pack. One problem for our troop is that the cub numbers are dwindling, so we have to come up with ways to reach outside of the scouting family. We do a lot of what PackMan suggests, and it works, but we still need to do more. Or learn to live with 30 scouts in the Troop rather than 60.

An update, of sorts. The Scoutmaster gave me back the blue cards last week. The scout will need to re-do all of them. At that point (last Tuesday), the SM still hadn't had a conversation with the scout. He said he would talk to the scout at this past weekend's camping trip, so I hope that actually happened. I'm a little concerned that so much time has passed, with no conversation, from when the scout first turned in the cards. If the SM didn't speak to the scout yesterday/Saturday, I'll ask that the SM let me talk to him at our weekly meeting tomorrow. I'll admit to being cowardly when it comes to having to address this with the scout, but he needs to be given the time to re-do the merit badges, and it's been a month now.

Can't speak to a non-mummy bag, though I will say that as much as I hated the mummy bag at first, after many a camping trip it's no longer an issue. I have four sleeping pads, because I'm picky and still haven't found the one I love most of all. First one is a Thermo-rest inflatable. It's the warmest, but it's bulky and it isn't self-inflating, and takes a while to get it blown up. It also isn't quite thick enough for me. As a side-sleeper and female, it lets my hip bones hit the ground, so I end up tossing around all through the night. This is the pad I take for cabin camping where we'll have cots or bunks and where I don't have to carry it very far. Next I bought one of the egg-crate, accordion fold foam pads. Very light, but still bulky. It's not hard to strap it under the backpack, though. It does an okay job of keeping the shoulder and hip from too much contact with the ground, but it's not great. I've given this one to my son, who is younger and made of rubber. Bought a second on for son #2, and this same pad is the one nearly all our youth camp with. Third, I tried an inflatable mattress pad from ALPS Mountaineering. You inflate it by pressing on a foam pillow with a one-way air valve at the head of the pad. This one is nice and thick, doesn't require you to actually blow into it, and is slightly smaller than a two-liter bottle, but there's no R-value because of the air between you and the sleeping surface. My biggest complaint, though, and what keeps me from ever using this one, is that it's too narrow. Every time I rolled over, I rolled off, and with the little bit of extra height/thickness, that wasn't pleasant. Last up I bought a Klymet Static V, in XL. At 5'7" I didn't need the extra length, but it's also wider than the others - 26 or 27" wide, rather than 23". That extra means even if I roll over, I'm still on the pad. I was worried about it at first because it isn't solid, but has openings in the mat - kind of an X or open V pattern - and I thought it might let parts of my body hit the ground, but it hasn't been a problem at all. It packs down to slightly larger than a typical soda can and is super light. As with the other air pad, there's no R-value to speak of, but this is my go-to for all summer camping and backpacking trips. Also, because of the open pattern, it takes less air to blow it up.

Hotdog roast is one I hadn't come up with - thanks! The nearest girls' troop here also pulls from multiple towns. At a recent BOR in our town's troop (boys), one of the committee members mentioned that it's a shame our town doesn't have a troop for girls. Well, the town that has the troop had everything organized and ready to go prior to the official start date for girls. They had a CO, CC, and SM. They had already done recruiting. We didn't. The reason for bringing this up is that I think being first goes a long way and applies to several situations. As it applies to recruiting, be first. (In addition to other good suggestions made here.) While any recruiting is helpful, if your troop is doing something fun and original, it may draw more interest than if you're second to hold an event or are doing something similar to what's already been done. Part of the reason I logged on this time was to run an idea for recruiting past all you fine folks, so I hope Liz doesn't mind my piggy-backing off hers. Here's what I want to do, and where I'm struggling with implementation. One of the biggest things I've run across when trying to recruit in person is "my kid is too busy with ___". I want to highlight some of our scouts who manage other interests and still find time for scouting. Some examples: one of our scouts just became a National Honor Society member, he holds a regular job after school, and is an active scout planning his Eagle project; one plays varsity football and soccer (and has letters in both as a Junior), is a straight A student, and is an active scout - currently our Quartermaster; yet another has won championships in chess and robotics, plays bass guitar, and just made First Class. One way I plan on relaying this will be at our outdoor recruiting event. I'm planning on having scout-shaped cut-outs that have these highlights written on them at each station. But... they don't get seen by anyone who isn't at the event. I've asked for other ideas from our committee, but got what basically amounts to a shrug in response. One idea (which still needs to be run by the committee) is to utilize our town's FaceBook page. On Mondays, businesses are allowed to advertise. I'd imagine they would let me write a recruiting post, and with no names attached, I'm hopeful that the parents/committee would be okay with it. Anyone else have suggestions?

I gave the blue cards to the Scoutmaster last night. Will let you know how he decides to handle this/approach the scout. On another note, our young-ish and very eager MC for the next COH is driving me up the wall, lol. I told him Friday morning that I would send an advancement report later that afternoon so he could start working on the program. He emailed a half-hour later telling me I "must have forgotten" to send the report "in the rush of things".

Of course he is. I do think this has shown that it would be a good idea to have the SPL go over blue card procedures at an upcoming meeting. In addition to this issue, I had a heck of a time trying to get one of the young scouts to understand it. I didn’t have a print-out of the most recent MB Counselor list with me (had come straight from work), and couldn’t get the document to load on my phone. He couldn’t understand why I wasn’t going to forward the list to him. He wondered aloud why, if scouts were supposed to be responsible, he couldn’t have the list for himself, lol.

Couldn't decide between a 'like' or a 'laugh' here. There are a couple things going on here. On some, the previous person approved/wrote a counselor, on some it was me who gave the counselor name. On those cards, the new counselor was written over the top. On a few, they were issued for summer camp, so no counselor was written in when they were given.

Your first bullet point - yes he handed me the unit copy and his copy. Our troop usually returns the scout portion along with the MB patch at a COH. Second - yes the counselor signed both portions. Third and fourth bullets - the blue cards that were issued by my predecessor are signed on the unit section, and on the applicant's record. The ones I issued to the scout are signed on the unit portion, but not the applicant part. No one ever told me how this was supposed to be done, so I've been signing the applicant's record part upon completion of the MB. In this case, the scout handed the blue cards to me at the end of a troop meeting, so we didn't discuss anything, and it wasn't until the following morning that I had a chance to look at them closely. This person hasn't been registered to the council associated with his address for the past three years, and even when he was, he wasn't a MB counselor for them. Unless he was registered somewhere else in November of last year, it sounds like he's not a MB counselor at all.

To the point about the signatures, all the blue cards have a unit leader signature on the front, whether mine or my predecessor’s. The counselor signatures are done. The final unit leader signature would either be myself or our current SM, and neither of us has signed at this point, given the concerns we have. In our unit, since we have a fair number of scouts, the blue cards are issued by the SM’s appointee - me - and typically I’m the one who goes over the cards with the scout when they’re completed, though on occasion the SM goes over them and gives them to me to enter and purchase the corresponding badges. The troop, following guidelines, discourages having MB counselors who are family members, but I did hear back from our CC and he says he and the old advancement person had given approval to the scout to use family for “a couple” merit badges. CC and I agree that at a minimum, the scout needs to request a new blue card for cooking; the card where the original subject was crossed out and cooking written in. While waiting to hear from the CC, I called the council for the town listed on the counselor’s address line. They do not have this person listed as a MB counselor for any MB, and he’s not currently registered with that council. Spoke to the SM last night, and our first step will be to simply ask the scout which council the counselor is registered with. I’ll also let him know that he’ll need a new blue card for the cooking. There’s a counselor near him who is very responsive, so hopefully we can resolve that one quickly. So here’s one more question. In re-reading the guide to advancement, I was paying close attention to the part about not retesting the scout or having the scout prove that they did the work. I would think that questioning the counselor’s eligibility doesn’t fall into that category, but if it’s determined the signatory of the card is not a counselor, where does that leave the unit and the scout in terms of the retesting?

As far as verifying some of the requirements, he is active in the troop and I'm sure has done a lot of the requirements through participation. I'll see what I can find out. Still troubles me that almost nothing was signed off prior to November.

I don't know, as the town where this person lives is about an hour from us and is in a different council. To be clear, it wasn't his dad that signed them, but the someone with the same last name. The blue cards date back to 2016, but only two of them have any partials recorded on other dates. They're all marked the same day in November of last year for completion. Six of the nine are for Eagle required merit badges. I haven't heard back from our CC. I'm leaning toward just emailing the scout and his dad and asking them about it, but I don't even know what to say. "Excuse me, but are these fake news?" LOL. Seriously, though, this seems very shady. If the scout says (as I expect he might) that they're all legit, then what? Should I find out which council it is and call first? Ugh.

I very much dislike it when I feel the need to question a scout or parent, but sometimes it happens. This one is a biggie, and I've reached out to our CC, but wanted to get some other opinions - opinions and advice from those who don't know the scout. Last night at our troop meeting, a Life scout handed me a stack of completed blue cards. I sat down this morning to get them entered, and after recording two of them, realized that they all (9 of them) had been signed by someone with the same last name as the scout, on the same day. In one case, the original subject of the blue card had been crossed out and Cooking written in its place. Thoughts? If this is something that should be questioned (and in my mind it should), how do you approach the scout? Oh, one more part of this is that dad is an ASM, so maybe he knows something I don't, since I'm new-ish to troop-level scouting? Or maybe not.

What is "Tatoo"? Do you have sheet music? Bugleson (or maybe we should just refer to him as Scoutson, now that he's not really bugling anymore) felt that Taps was too melancholy. Maybe our new bugler could use it as a replacement.

My recurring nightmare is that my husband will make me use the chainsaw. I can, but I hate it and it scares me.

No, sadly. He stopped as soon as his six months was up - a year and a half ago. He played at one of the Camporees with much encouragement (force? lol) from me, but he never really got comfortable playing in front of people. He still loves band, where he's one of three dozen kids up there performing, and trombone is still his instrument of choice, but he will pick up the trumpet from time to time just to mess around. I don't think he could hit that high G now. Use it, or lose it.

Just wanted to thank you all once again. Bugleson did get his merit badge (a long time ago now), but I came back to this thread for a reminder, as our Troop now has a second scout willing to take on the position of Bugler. I'll pass along suggestions for him when he meets with the SPL to determine what his role should entail.

I have no experience with other Venture crews, but ours is probably not much like any other out there. It is all girls, for starters; mainly sisters of Boy Scouts. The crew advisor quickly realized that while the girls wanted outdoor adventure, they had little interest in Venture advancement. We meet once a month for an hour and a half, and have one outing a month during the school year. One of those is a day of outdoor service. That’s pretty much it, but it has done really well. The boys’ troop our CO charters is about 30 scouts, the girls’ is 15, and the crew is 22 strong.

I've been saying similar, but my (admittedly hopeful) estimated number of LDS scouts/families who go this route are higher than most folks here agree with.

Found a few things while browsing old threads, but could use some specific tips for recruiting. I recently agreed to take on recruiting, as we haven’t had much luck in finding another adult to step into a formal recruiting position. Here’s a little info about what’s up in our troop. We had previously drawn from two towns, but the neighboring town has been able to get its own troop up and running, and they seem to be doing well. As a result, we won’t see any new scouts from that town. In addition, the packs in town have been going through some pretty major changes, and have seen their numbers drop to half of what they were when my family first moved here four years ago. This is also cutting down on the troop’s numbers, since we’ve had fewer cross over - three this year, and only one the previous year. One last drop in our numbers will happen in the next year, as 11 of our current 44 scouts age out. We held an open house last year, but despite advertising with flyers and on our town’s community forum, we only had two boys show up. We’ll have our invitational camping trip coming up, which is usually AOL scouts and maybe one other boy who is a friend of a scout in the troop. We’ll also be at out town’s Winter Walk a week from Saturday, making Smacos (s’mores in a flour tortilla) for attendees. We have signs showing some pictures of our high-adventure trips and other info that we’ll put up. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far for us to try. Ive gotten permission to put an electronic ‘flyer’ in the schools’ Friday Folder email that goes out to all parents. I’ve asked the SM, and he’s agreed, to request that our younger scouts try to get the ‘Invite a Friend’ requirement done sooner than later, so that if a boy does want to join he’s not too far behind what his friends are working on. I’m currently working with one of the Packs to either have them visit the troop as a group, or have a group of our scouts visit the troop. The scouts will come up with ideas as to what to do at their next PLC meeting. (The second pack only has scouts up to Wolf, so less of a priority right now.) Other ideas? Thoughts on what I’ve proposed so far? Any help is appreciated.

There are a number of members here who have offered help and asked for clarification from you, despite what some of us saw as a rather offensive opening. There’s a lot to learn here - if you were really looking for help.

Half glad you opened this, and half not, because now there’s an opening to let others in on actual church teachings. And there’s the possibility that I’ll be admonished for this post, but I’ll put it here anyway. I’m also a Mormon, and there’s a very good reason - besides being married to a Catholic - that I choose to not be an active member. I appreciate your views, but you don’t get to dictate what Mormon doctrine means to anyone but yourself. Did you have to sit in seminary every year and watch that hideous movie about how many cows a woman is worth? Did you ever have leaders teach the lesson of how pre-marital sex makes women the equivalent of ABC gum, rather than just telling us it’s a sin? Don’t presume to tell me what the church thinks about women Does it honor them? Yes, but only in what the church believes is their role. Take a look at the new ‘oaths’ for young men and young women, and tell me with a straight face that females have the same encouragement as males outside of their familial roles. The boys statement starts “I am a beloved son of God, and he has a work for me to do.” For girls “I am a beloved daughter of heavenly parents, with a divine nature and eternal destiny”. How can you look at that and not see that girls and women are pigeonholed. Their entire destiny is to marry and have kids; that is their “work”. As this relates to scouting, that the LDS Church wasn’t happy about the inclusion of gays, but that adding girls sent them over the edge... it has re-opened every insecurity and wound that I thought had long been scarred over. Yes, I’m angry, and yes, I’m riled up, and since you opened this can of worms I will absolutely speak up on the topic even if it’s critical of the church’s decisions. You don’t get to tell me that I’m misinformed when I lived it.

It's possible to respect what they're doing but still feel a bit hurt by their statement or diminished by how the program was presented. I've done my best to refrain from what would be considered attack, while still expressing what recent events have meant to me, personally, particularly given some of the teachings I was raised with - and which are not appropriate to go into here. In any case, it's less about how they are running their program, and more about the presentation. I wish they would have given different examples of what young women can accomplish. I am thrilled that the young women's camp will still be running. Absolutely the best part of the young women's program for me during the time I was growing up. I still have my YWMIA certificate somewhere.

I’ve been stewing on this statement about the BSA leaving the Church for a while now. Churches/religions exist to guide us in being closer to God. By extension, deserved or not, they have an inherent moral authority. Having a church leader say the BSA left them is essentially saying BSA stepped away from morality. With the high-profile acceptance of gay males and then females into the program, the implication becomes that allowing these youth to participate in scouting is immoral. Is it any wonder this subject gets heated? It was an unfortunate statement that I don’t think was really meant the way it sounded, but from a female perspective it was somewhat hurtful nonetheless. Add to that the examples of the new program shown in the video, and it has me struggling to stay positive. ‘Here, young women, we’ll show you a quorum (a word loaded with power and authority even outside the Church) of boys that are going out to do something new to most of them. You worship with your family and bake a cake.’ Good grief, it’s almost like saying ‘go make me a sammich’.

I added the non-practicing Mormon part to my post because I DO understand the doctrine. I love the LDS Church, and am very grateful I was raised the way I was. I fell in love with and married a Catholic though, and have taken a couple steps back, which gave me a slightly different perspective. I also understand the need to feel like one has to defend the Church - there is plenty of misunderstanding and hostility out there, but Mormons tend to see any criticism as hostility, when it just isn't there. As to the claim that the Boy Scout program was not a priesthood program, you're right, in that Baden Powell never set it up that way. I have four brothers, though, and can tell you from first hand experience that in our wards, scouting absolutely WAS being used that way. You may not see it, since your ward(s) may not have utilized the program that way, but it did happen. There is nothing in scouting that one can point to as not being a suitable method for learning for girls/young women. Yes, of course the sexes are different, but scouting principles are human principles. We're seeing the patrol method work beautifully in girl troops, and girls becoming good leaders. They're learning outdoor skills with no trouble at all. With girls having their own troops, your statement above doesn't really apply. Girls are learning together in a group just as they do at camp. In any case, this whole argument is because of the gentle disparaging from Church leaders. Making it mild doesn't excuse that it shouldn't have been said in the first place.