Armymutt

Trying to light a spark, not take over. The problem is, the CC and the SM are married and the former SPL, now ASPL, is their son. There's a lot of undue command influence, as we would call it in the Army. I asked the SPL why we were having this drug talk again and was told "my mom said we had to have one". This summer, the SM said he was done at the end of the year. I volunteered for the job and he said he was staying on for another year. I watched this troop for a couple of years before we joined. They were very active - camping at least monthly. Things changed when the original SM left. Now we aren't even going camping in December as a troop - just a game day.

I don't know. I told him to immediately hit up the SM for an SMC on Tuesday and then we'll try to knock out both BORs.

Well, I know this one won't drop - he's mine. I retired from the Army this month, so now dad has plenty of time to support him in Scouting. His best friend (who became his First Class requirement 10) also has a retired guardian, so they are hitting as many Scouting events, with or without the troop, as we can.

We got notification that there will be Boards of Review this Tuesday. It's starting to feel like there's an intent to hold him back. Normally the BOR night is the second Tuesday. The plan was for him to have his SM conference this Tues so he's ready to go next Tues. All of a sudden, the BOR gets moved up a week, so he can only do Second Class, even though all he needs for First Class is the SM conference.

It's a massive loss of momentum. In two weeks, I can completely switch my focus to something else because the signal I'm receiving is that Scouting isn't important enough to meet every week. It's like skipping a workout for two weeks. Very hard to get going again. I don't see how national is getting any extra money from regular troop meetings.

I would be supportive of this. Maybe not 4x a month, but definitely a Scouting event every other weekend. I got scolded by the COR because of adult burnout. If a fully retired "Opa" and I want to volunteer to take kids camping, I don't think it should be a problem. I'm pretty good at saying "No". When it's honey bee season, there will be a lot less side quests from me. She also thinks that the Scouts will want participation credit for those campouts as leadership positions rather than the official troop campouts. So much legalese is killing Scouts. Personally, I'd say that if a youth in a POR doesn't want to be in a POR, don't put them in one. Let them stay in whatever rank they are in until they decide that this is their thing.

I was in four different troops as a kid. The first was worthless, so I quit Scouts. The second was in its 56th year, the SM having been a member for 55 years. It was small at that point - my patrol had 3 and the other 4. The meetings were advancement focused, but we never noticed. We worked on skill awards, had competitons, etc. My next one was a Mormon troop in England. I think there were 8 or 9 of us. All of us arrived as First or Second Class, so there was a little advancement, but mostly is was Scout skills (which is advancement) and some advanced woodcraft. The SM was an F-111 pilot. My last troop was bigger - about 15. Two patrols, mixed ages. We trained as patrols and the adults tested, if I recall correctly. I was a Life Scout by then, so it was just MBs for me. We also don't have patrol meetings. We've tried doing it, but I feel like we have too many Scouts who are there out of force. They play around, which frustrates the Scouts who want to be there, and nothing gets done.

We are chartered to a civilian organization. This will be interesting for our Cub Scout pack though. I will say that there is a grain of truth in the lack of standards being upheld. As far as our troop, we have very few Scouts who are above First Class, so doing advancement at meetings is vital. However, our PLC is failing them by not actually doing advancement.

Here's where I see trouble with this model - from the files posted: We should ensure no Scouts are excluded from events due to lack of appropriate adult volunteer leadership. If, despite best efforts, an event or outing lacks appropriate adult volunteer leadership, it should be canceled rather than excluding any youth. This has the potential to be severely damaging. No females volunteer to go on an outing, it gets cancelled. The boys blame girls for being in the program and causing them to miss out.

Our troop isn't meeting tonight due to Thanksgiving. Seems odd, since it's Tuesday and Thanksgiving is two days away. We also didn't meet on Veterans Day, for some reason. I also found out that we aren't meeting for two weeks in December. This seems rather Cub Scoutish. Is this normal now? My troops growing up met unless it was Christmas or Independence Day. If kids went out of town, fine, they missed the meeting. No big deal. Everyone else had the opportunity to get together and have fun.

Getting the kids, well parents, to attend the PLC is the tough one. I'm trying to shape things more and more. It's gotta be a force more like erosion than a hurricane. Very difficult for a guy who thrives on rapidly changing environments.

We never had a BOR, other than for Eagle, in any of the three troops I was a member. One was in IL, the others in England. I don't even recall a SM conference. We just completed the ranks and received the badge and card. These seem like artificial barriers that are unnecessary.

I'm doing my best to exert influence to get us to being patrol based. Tuesday night was supposed to be planning menus for the campout and a troop-level first aid class. Neither went as they should. They got the menus planned, but it took longer than needed. I was unable to identify any sort of first aid training that was taking place. The troop had the opportunity to elect a 16 y/o SPL but instead decided to simply swap around the last SPL and ASPL. So, another 6 months of no progress is almost assured. It's going to take the PLs standing up at the PLC and demanding that the meetings focus on patrol-level activities. A troop-level game, sure, but the rest of the meeting should belong to the patrols. The problem is, our PLCs are held at a local Zaxby's where discussion is impossible. Half the PLs aren't paying attention.

The problem is getting these kids to actually have an imagination and want to do things. After our last meeting, I was ready to throw in the towel. I've been trying to coordinate extra activities for Scouts who want to Scout. This includes things like a hike in the local state park, the orienteering day at the local council camp, participating in the council's winter merit badge camp, etc. I was told that those distract from the planned program activities of one campout/activity a month. Youth leaders feel that they can use those extra activities to count as their leadership time instead of attending the official activities. Also mentioned was the pulling of adults from the official activities to man the extras. Now, the only adults I've had for the extras are myself and another ASM who is retired and taking care of his grandson. That's why he's in Scouting and I recruited him. I also was told that I shouldn't be serving as the collection point of money to pay for events that require registration as a troop. Frankly, I think I'm capable of handling finances better than the treasurer who can't give me a statement of the accounting after being asked a month ago and who is bewildered by popcorn sales. The final straw was when the SPL announced that there would be no meeting on the 11th due to Veterans Day and a large portion of the troop cheered. Kind of a sign that my efforts are being wasted here. Somewhere along the way, Scouting went from an activity that kids wanted to join to something parents forced them into in order to check a block on the way to college.

Who can initiate a MB for a Scout? The G2A says "unit leader". Is the the SM, CC, ASM? What if the SM doesn't want the Scout to start the MB? I was planning on holding an orienteering session for First Class rank on Monday because we have several Scouts who are out of school while their parents have work. Our campout plans for this weekend have been changed due to the original campsite having problems. Now the focus will be on First Class orienteering, cook, first aid, etc. I figure then we'll just make Monday a little more in-depth and do Orienteering MB. I'm an ASM and Orienteering MB counselor. Another ASM is joining me out at the site. Does the SM need to say that the Scouts who come can do the MB, or can one of us give the green light?

Apparently not. For a troop that is so active, it really seems geared around convenience for the adults. That might be a function of the kids who don't really want to be there. We aren't meeting next week due to Veterans Day. When the SPL made the announcement, the troop cheered. I was disappointed that they don't want to do Scouting. Our committee meetings are held the same night as the troop meetings.

I reapproached it tonight without success. Poor excuses about not having a meeting due to holidays and how important the drug presentation meeting is. I guess we're not going back until Dec and he'll have to do two BORs. He already did the drug class last year. For some reason the CC insists on doing one every year and the kids can't miss a single second of it. Since the temporary SM who insisted that he was done at the end of the year has now decided that he's staying on for another year, I don't see a need for me to attend every meeting. I was told, if they were 17, then they would do one, but since the kids are 11 and 13, they have plenty of times. For a troop that holds the G2SS as almost a Bible, they play fast and loose with the Guide to Advancement.

Well, we are in between Advancement Coordinators. Weird stuff going on. The old one announced his retirement. Another parents was being courted. She needed some time to make a decision. When she said she would do it, the CC then decided that it needed to be voted on, but that vote couldn't occur at the committee meeting in progress.

We have 2 Scouts who need boards of review. One is going for Star and the other Second Class. Both finished their SM conference at least by last Tuesday. Our Troop normally does BOR on the second Tuesday. This year, that's Veterans Day, and we aren't meeting, for some reason. The first Tuesday, the CC has a committee meeting for our girl troop because she's also the CC there. The third Tuesday we have a drug program for the Second Class requirement. The CC said she doesn't want to pull any Scouts or adults from that, despite the Scouts in question not needing it. We also aren't meeting the week of Thanksgiving, another questionable decision. So it looks like these Scouts will have their BOR delayed for an entire month. The Second Class candidate will likely be ready for his First Class BOR. Can they be done the same night?

The requirement says, "On a Scouting or family outing, take note of the trash and garbage you produce. Before your next similar outing, decide how you can reduce, recycle, or repurpose what you take on that outing, and then put those plans into action. Compare your results." What happens when your troop is very LNT? I'm trying to coach a few Scouts, but coming up short here. They could repackage some food items, but that introduces food safety issues. Everyone eats out of mess kits. The only trash being produced is usually meat packaging, maybe some bags protecting veggies, or a can or two. Thoughts on how to proceed here?

They do the same dumb skit they have done for the last 4 years that I have known these kids. One introduces himself as POTUS and his body guard is Chuck Norris. He gets kidnapped and the kidnapper is revealed to be his body guard. The body guard's boss is revealed to be someone else. That's literally the whole skit. It's about as funny as it reads. I've tried to introduce them to the old ones, which apparently will seem new to the kids today. For example, the filming scene where they go through many iterations until reaching perfection, only to find they ran out of film. The new socks where the last one needs i pair a month.

We attended the Railroading MB weekend at the NC Transportation Museum this past weekend. On Saturday night, there was an all camp fire. I noticed that almost all of the skits were terrible. Not funny at all. The kids were laughing, but, as one ASM noted, "so was the audience watching 'Ass' in Idiocracy". Did we lose the idea that skits had a punchline? I thought it was just our guys, but almost every troop who performed had something that was about as funny as kids saying "six, seven". At this point, I'd be happy to see a kid run on stage declaring a small leafy branch to be the infant tree. It's not just skits, but most of the other stuff is in the Handbook, if they ever actually open it.

The problem we have is a transient environment. I'd say about 50 % of our troop is military. We are also a very active troop, so we attract a lot of kids from other troops. That's great, except they come with varied backgrounds. For example, we just received what one might consider a really great gift in Scouting - two 17 y/o Eagles who are "Scouting nerds". They are smart, have a strong interest in the program, and have the experience and capabilities we need. While they don't want to be patrol leaders, they are the perfect pair to demonstrate what right looks like to our Scouts. The other side of the coin is the kid who's been in Scouting for over a year, is a Second Class and doesn't know the Scout Law or Oath. Having the older Scouts teach briefs well, but when they don't have the skills, knowledge, or motivation, it's a recipe for disaster. We just had our first campout as new patrols. The storming phase of team development was very evident. It didn't help that one PL was more likely to be found playing football with the rest of the older Scouts than he was leading his patrol. The other PL arrived with a fever and spent the weekend in his tent - way to go parents. The third one "didn't feel like coming" because he wanted to play video games all weekend. His patrol also contains the SPL and ASPL and they still were all over the place. Maybe in 6 months, we'll have some well tuned patrols. It will help when the rest of the older boys age out in January.

We don't get more repetitive training than the oath and law. This is a kid who has been in the troop three months. He came to us from another troop. During his BOR, it came out that he wasn't aware he earned Fingerprinting MB at summer camp and doesn't recall the classes. I can recall the exact setting, location, and principles in attendance at my Fingerprinting MB in 1991. How this kid can't recall his from Aug 2025 is beyond me.

One of the questions that comes to mind is, does a Scout have to know the Law and Oath after achieving the rank of Scout? It's no longer a requirement for advancement. We all take it for granted that a Scout would know the two things we say at the beginning of every meeting, but is it a requirement? I suspect they are not doing BORS correctly. My wife is a committee member, soon to be the Advancement Chair. She said they don't have a discussion with the Scout not present. Another problem is, they try to cram all the BORs into one hour. Last night we had 4 for Tenderfoot and 1 for Second Class.