mrjohns2

I don’t like it since I feel like it is a distraction. I assume “they” feel like it is “action”, when it really is just a district from the real work. Very disappointing.

My experience with our boy and girl troops have lead me to not want us to go coed. Numbers wise, our troop has flourished now at about 15, leak at 22 last year. The other troops in our district that have acted like a girl patrol are in the 3-7 range and not really growing. We have a “brother troop” and do some joint activities. We meet at the same time and place, just different rooms. It works well.

Why not Scouts of America? Just drop the boy. I think the name change is dumb and should have been done, if it was going to be done, 5 years ago.

It seems dumb. Our girl troop had flourished with 22 Scouts at its max. We have ebbed down to 12 between this year and last. It wasn’t because of BSA. Maybe if they really moved from Boy Scouts of America to nearly 100% use if BSA they could get “there” without as much turmoil. Seems like a waste of resources. So, does this mean Scouts BSA just becomes Scouts? Again, turmoil that we already went through. Is the juice worth the squeeze? No.

Where I have seen it “fail” is when you get on local roads with traffic lights. It can easily split up and cause people to either brake hard or “blow” a light. Not good stuff.

That is good to hear! How dumb to take the old one down before putting the new one up.

I did see in somewhere. I will look. It isn't a good idea, so don't do it. Copy for 1999 has it: Guide to Safe Scouting (scoutingbsa.org)

For families they “just stop coming” how hard has it been to get these items back?

Very quick read. Very interesting book. A bit of nudity (but maybe a page or 2), but by no means the focus. If I could remember it to give it a synopsis would be almost how someone loosing grip with reality. Just interesting. It also covered how bad the bombing of Dresden was in WWII.

I think we will focus on these 2 items. Physically separate camping, adults cook their own meal, adults have a duty roster like the scouts.

Great point! Scouting is inversely proportional to "school like activities". The more scouting becomes like school, the fewer scouts we will have.

That was the version when I was a Cub. I think this one was another national one for awhile. Cub Scout Progress Towards Ranks, Tiger Cub Belt Totem (boyscouttrail.com)

@MaleficentStitchSounds like a council run activity to me. Even if it is "designed" for a single troop, it sounds like you are good. Now, if you rented the camp / range and provided the properly trained people, it would be a bit more on the line for me. Since they staff it, seems pretty clear you are still good.

Is the range staffed by unit people or council / district people?

I know. She likes to interject ALL THE TIME. Leave the scouts be.

Awesome. I just wanted to get it out there. It feels better to be validated.

Her argument is that is 3x the work. An ASM tried to explain to her that this is the process. This is how things get done. Cooking for 11 isn’t easy, or how it should be done.

One patrol has 7 and the other 9. The one with 9 are older scouts. On the campout there were 3 in the older patrol and 5 in the younger patrol and 3 adults. Scoutmaster attended wood badge maybe 10 years ago.

I just want to do a quick vent. Our scoutmaster doesn't get it. She keeps wanting the scouts to cook as a giant patrol for the Scouts and the leaders. She thinks it is too much work and KP for the patrols to cook separately. Ugh.

It is my understanding that yes it is. One would think they would keep the domain and just forward it to scouting.org forever. The lab coats aren't on scoutshop.org any longer. After I wrote the above, I realized that it used to be on beascout.org and isn't there. I used the waybackmachine to see that sometime between April 2022 and August, the option to search for STEM Scouts was removed.

One piece of news that may have come out at the NAM is that two NST/CST merged with 2 others taking the total down to 14.

I think the issue is that you already see the full value. For the Lion/Tiger/Wolf parent that we want to be a Den Leader, their buy in level is less.

It sucks. I don’t mind, but I have a job where these fees aren’t hard for me to pay AND I already buy into the program. The hard part is when someone is new, when a person can’t really afford the fees, or when a unit doesn’t have the funds to pay for the adults. So, this really hinders growth since the growth comes at the margins, not from existing members. The $25 fee that is now gone, was a good example. “Let’s make it more expensive for new people, that will be a great way to get new people to sign up.” Sure. Great plan.

Yeah, no longer ok to just say that. That is how some units have done paintball etc. not a good idea.

It can’t be FOS dollars. It needs to go to the council endowment. Most (all?) gifts to the endowment are explicitly directed to go into that fund. So, likely no, most longer term scouters do not qualify for the James West Award.