BAJ

Our contingent heads out Wednesday AM at the crack of dawn — I’m the ASM1 of the girl troop from our council. I do not believe there will be patrol competitions in scoutcraft. From reading on various scout boards, the amount of freedom scouts will have to operate “independent” of their unit may differ from contingent to contingent. Our unit basically said the scouts can do their own thing (with a buddy at all times, of course), so I expect our unit will be spread over Summit. In other posts, I’ve seen Scouts say that their unit was picking activities to do as an entire unit.

It really is a lot. My daughter is going and I am an adult leader from our council so between the two of us it was a large total cost. It will be a different experience for her (and likely her “last big thing” in Scouting since she’s getting into other things as a high schooler now) but it did make me sad that cost was obviously going to be something that kept a lot of people from going. I did decide that this year my donation to scouting was to the fund to help defray the cost of folks going (though the amount I could donate wasn’t going to even make a huge difference for one person, which was also a sobering thought.) I’d looked at JST for the last jamboree that was canceled and was really surprised at how much it cost — and if memory serves it is more this time around. I don’t know what the cost outlay per attendee is for the type of food service, etc. that they are doing, but it would seem really odd if the cost to be on JST is more than the cost to cover their ‘care and feeding.’ There have certainly been rumors that one of the reasons that this is a smaller jamboree than usual is numbers of staff (so not just the cost of attendance reducing the number of scouts with resources to go.). I am really hoping that it is a good and memorable experience. In our contingent troop we’ve got a great set of leaders who I wouldn’t have had a chance to meet otherwise, and a good group of Scouts, so it seems like the most important ingredients are there.

Working together.

I just got the news I will serve as one of the ASMs from a troop from our council — its exciting since I never had the chance to do a Jamboree when I was a scout. Any advice from the group for a newbie? Personal equipment to take (or not bother taking) that I might not think of? After action insights on what the adult leader experience is like?

I hope that BSA is at least making some substantial money from the gaming companies for promoting their products. If this event came with a substantial “contribution” that can help address some of the post-bankruptcy financial concerns…. Then….. well….. maybe.

My council (NCAC) did welding and composite materials in partnership with a local Makerspace. That meant the scouts had access to great equipment and instructors. There was a council person who was the MBC and a bunch of us helped supervise for multi-deep leader coverage. It was a good program.

As someone with a STEM degree, I considered getting involved with the program when I returned to Scouting — at least in theory, I am the sort that “should” be a NOVA/Supernova Counselor… but I had a hard time getting excited about doing it, and so never got around to it. I wonder if that same sort of issue affects scouts. That said, I think an approach — if the program itself is going to change, shrink, etc. — is to fold more into some of the existing merit badges. I actually really like the point made in this thread that the distinction between some of the “trades” merit badges and STEM is sometimes not that clear. As someone trained as a chemist, I agree. Infusing a bit more of the science and engineering elements in some of the trades merit badges (my daughter just took Welding MB so I saw it first hand) could benefit them, and strengthening some of the STEM content in some of the other more “traditional STEM” MBs like chemistry or forestry or soil and water conservation could benefit them as well. It would potentially make both categories of MBs a bit harder, but could benefit those that pursue them.

The unit I am associated with now actually does NSPs in an interesting way. There is one, but its existence is time limited. The new scouts come into that patrol, and the troop guide works directly with the NSP PL, so if there is “whispering in the ear” it is coming from a senior scout, not an adult. The NSP gets to pick a patrol name and come up with a cheer/etc. so they get that first exercise in group decision making and consensus (that is lost if they just go directly into a permanent ‘legacy patrol.’). But their membership in the NSP is both time and rank — once they make Tenderfoot, they move to one of the mixed patrols and, if they aren’t advancement oriented, they move on to a mixed patrol when most of the cohort that joined when they did has moved and that incarnation of the NSP ceases to exist and when the next pulse of new scouts enters a new one starts. That helps get the new scouts moving together on the very early scout skills (including the basic stuff for Scout rank) but gets them relatively rapidly into senior scout led patrols.

I think this is a really important observation, and I would take it one step further — scouts who are eligible don’t want to stand for election. Both represent part of OA’s “membership market” that are opting out. As someone who came back to Scouting after a long absence, I think the main issue is OA actually articulating what it is and why Scouts would want to join. I was elected very late in my youth Scouting career, so I didn’t actually have much calendar time to do much more than go through the Ordeal. So when I came back to Scouting, I didn’t think of OA as much more than “Scouting’s Honor Society.” As a result, when an another adult leader asked me (when we were talking about Scouts not wanting to stand for election) “Why would they want to become a member of OA?” I had no ready answer. The communications I’ve gotten from the Lodge have focused on (1) service opportunities, often with somewhat short lead times and (2) invitations to register for things like Conclave and NOAC because they will be “great” and “fun.” So nothing that I could readily deploy in any convincing way… and really it made me realize I didn’t have any answer to that question. For the first category of activities, the service opportunities actually seem to be hurt by being limited to OA, and don’t increase the cache of being in the Order. … if the camp needs lots of maintenance, it seems like outreach to units more broadly would actually be helpful… “come camp this weekend with no camping fees, and help get your camp ready for summer.” For the latter category of events, I don’t know what I’d expect if I did go to one of the OA events… beyond vague promises of “fun and fellowship.” Given that, it doesn’t surprise me that OA isn’t something scouts jump at joining (and the potential scouts aren’t even getting that much information about what being in OA actually involves.) I really think OA needs to rethink what the goals of its program are, and figure out how to (for lack of a better term) “market” that to its potential members. It doesn’t seem like “honor society” is enough to sell itself to them, and while lots of Scouts are open to the idea of cheerful service, ideally the service that OA is involved in should be more than just opportunities to be free labor to Council or camps. Maybe through OA you get trained in ways that let you do service in more arduous circumstances (e.g., think doing more after a natural event in your area than just handing out water bottles?). Opportunities to serve in different places (requires coming up with funding to support that, since I expect even the multi hour drive to our Council camp is going to be a barrier for many Arrowmen and women to come help with the cleanup effort in a few weeks, etc.) It really has to start with thinking about the OA not as something that needs no explanation because “every scout should be honored to be elected” but something that we have to explain to them why they should want to be a part of.

While it looks like this is intended to be humor, it’s actually a practical strategy. When my Scout lost her well populate sash, we did find an EBay seller that had a sash with a significant percentage of the badges she needed replacements for. Took them off and resewed to a new sash in the order she’d earned them. It was a more cost effective approach than re-buying them all new. She found the original sash about a week after we’d finally replaced it (so even better that we hadn’t paid full price for the replacement). 😐

The troops I have been associated with have all had traditional chartering organization structures, but in the course of a Wood Badge project I did some interviews with other troops focusing on how they were managing COVID risk early in the pandemic. One was a troop that was a “self chartered” troop with a “Parents of Troop X” organization (had been for many years and indicated it wasn’t an option in their council currently). They were very concerned about insurance coverage, and coverage that included provisions to defend against suits against both the organization and the adult volunteers, not just that would pay out if there was a judgment. The concern was that even an allegation that was later found to be spurious could bankrupt an adult leader named as a result of the defense costs.

I too have struggled with this issue — and didn’t think that there is an “answer” … i.e., some Scouts will become engaged and committed to the point where Scouts became top of the list but many just won’t. But, the seriousness of the problems for the troop of participation being a low priority is related to the size of the troop. In a troop made up of single digit numbers of Scouts, having a handful that “only Scout when it is convenient” mean outings (or even meetings) could suddenly become 2 Scouts at the last minute, which is extremely frustrating for an SPL that worked hard to plan something they thought would be a good event (and, frankly for the troop committee folks supporting logistics… and cost implications if the campout had fixed costs that are now divided over fewer Scouts, etc.). But, in a troop of 25, the absence of that same handful of Scouts might be noticed but won’t torpedo an event. If I was at the District or Council level, this would be a reason I would try to facilitate small troops merging to get to numbers where the program could better tolerate variable participation at the individual level. I strongly agree with @Armymutt that there shouldn’t be an effort to make Scouting such that it tries to fit in around all the other conflicts… e.g., meeting less often, shorter campouts to try to miss when sports happen, etc. … since that waters the experience down to the point where the Scouts who are engaged and want an intense and active program and do prioritize it to bail out.

Interestingly, my WB scoutmaster actually discouraged doing beadings at a Scout COH just because it added time to the program and his view was that Scout attention spans were such that it would be a net negative to do it there. He and my troop guide really left it up to me how to do it — I (and actually quite a few others in my class) went out to the camp where WB was held for our beading. But as other posters have suggested too, I’ve seen headings at Roundtable as well.

Partially — if the activity was rock climbing and the scout didn’t want to wear the safety harness, I am right there with you. No problem — and I agree that hopefully group identification and the support of a healthy and functioning patrol might give a kid whose discomfort with the safety equipment was really because they were scared of rock climbing the impetus to try something they might not otherwise. But… if the situation is a partially clothed initiation to an honor society (i.e, the part it looks like we agree on), that’s different since that’s a case where the scout’s discomfort shouldn’t push them to sit out of an event. And then it isn’t event that the event shouldn’t happen… just that ‘half naked’ shouldn’t be a requirement.

It actually sounds like we agree more than disagree: The key issue is what is what is required. I agree that “shirtlessness as a state of being” shouldn’t be prohibited because not all scouts are always comfortable shirtless… only that there shouldn’t be power dynamics that push them to be shirtless when they aren’t comfortable with it (@PeterHopkin’s “Adults must refrain from requesting or demanding that youth remove any articles of clothing”). So I do disagree with your first sentence that this is seeking to set a bar at a point where no one is ever uncomfortable ever…