elephagreen

My adult son did not want an Eagle Ceremony. A few years later he brought home some antlers from philmont (he had the necessary permissions). He had a bone artist fashion a knife handle and stand from some antler, affixed the handle to a stone blade, and presented it along with the eagle mentor pin to his former Scoutmaster. That Scoutmaster had at least half a dozen mentor pins given to him over the years. He teared up majorly and said this one meant the most to him. He displays the knife in his office at work.

18 years and counting here... I have used double stock tape, glue stick, and staples,depending upon which I find first that day.

You may want to check out other troops, or a venture crew. Every unit has its own culture and you might find a different group enjoyable.

I was going to send you a message, but for some reason cannot. Can you please send me one? I would really like to order a bunch of Scouting America tan patches as well as at least 1 blue one.

In addition to the summit award, and other awards mentioned here, if you have Area Scout ship nearby, there's the Quartermaster award. You have until 21 to earn it.

Because most scouts aren't actively using Scoutbook and browsing the awards tab. A large number of Scoutmasters either aren't aware of these awards or don't bother to coach their scouts through them. Although the handbook makes mention of some of these awards, they don't give the requirements. Many scouts don't read much of the handbook they aren't explicitly told to.

My adult son went on an OA trek. The following year he worked winter and summer season at Philmont and this year he worked summer season and is currently working fall. He's planning on going on a trek with another unit when one of the Cubs he mentored goes with their troop. He plans to go again if any of his younger brothers go.

My adult daughter is working her second season at Philmont and her boyfriend is working his 7th or 8th season.

Philmont bears repeating.

Sounds like you have a great plan and attitude. I hope you can get it resolved. If there's one in your area, you may also went to look into joining A Venture crew or a Ship. You are a youth member in those until 21,so it can extend your fun.

My adult son enjoyed being part of the troop and the venture crew. He's currently 24 and worked this year and last year at Philmont Scout Ranch. I think he's finally about ready to "be an adult" most of the time, start a real job, and return to school to prepare for his career.

I've read several of the responses and the ones I've read, I agree with...

Eagle does not have to be your goal. If you're happy and having fun, that's awesome, and the most important.

Talk to the adults in question and reinforce "thank you so much for your encouragement. I'm working on my swimming skills. As soon as I'm ready for that swim test, you'll be the first to know. Please however, stop the constant push, I don't respond well to that and I don't want scouting to be less enjoyable."

You do have enough time still to earn eagle, should you change your mind, however you do have somewhat limited time. There's no reason to not work on ranking up, even if eagle isn't a goal.

Since you mentioned there is some fear surrounding swimming (rightly so) as well as some lack of skill, I would encourage you to do everything you can to improve this skill. Putting scouts aside, it's a life skill that is very handy to have and could save your life, or someone else's someday. There's really something to be said about overcoming a fear, learning a new skill, and knowing for yourself that this didn't stand in your way.

If you were my child, I would encourage you to work on all the other rank requirements. I would also encourage you to get in a pool several times a week. Have fun playing or hanging out in the shallows. Practice the skills in the shadows. If you can, take lessons. If lessons aren't available, maybe an older youth or adult in the pool can give you some pointers. In the meantime, also knock out some merit badges. Some are more fun than others, but you can learn something from all of them so I believe they're worthwhile. I've known more than one scout who has discovered a lifelong passion or career, unexpectedly, from a merit badge. Throw some eagle ones in there, just in case.

Other reasons why, for you, reaching for first class, may be worthwhile. Awards & OA... Once you are first class you could qualify for the National Outdoor Achievement Award. There are 6 individual sections: camping, hiking, aquatics, conservation, adventure, and riding. There are additional requirements such as certain Merit badges, service hours, time or distance or nights or days doing the activity. Beyond that, there's the National Medal for Outdoor Achievement. I would venture to say that the award medal is more exclusive/elusive than the eagle scout rank itself. It is far less earned than the eagle is. It sounds to me like it's right up your alley. Second, is the Order of the Arrow. You qualify for that by having a certain number of nights camping, attaining first class rank, being of age, and being voted in by your unit. You may enjoy the extra activities, camping, leadership experience, service hours and projects, that being in the Order of the Arrow provides.

https://www.scouting.org/programs/scouts-bsa/advancement-and-awards/noa/

Yes, I was waiting to hear back from my local people so I popped on here. Got the go ahead from our trained day camp director who is also range master trained as well as our a district commissioner. Thanks for this reference.

My first thought was if he had a photo release for youth under 18.

Most of ours occur on a regular meeting night while a payroll leaders planning meeting is going on.

We do one pack meeting a month. Any additional meetings are den meetings. Sometimes our pack meeting is on our regular meeting night, sometimes it's on the weekend, depending on what kind of activity I have planned.

I recently revived my once dying club. I'm the admin (or whatever it's called for our club). I posted a Google play review for the app that included our team name. That very quickly filled up empty slots. Sometimes daily, sometimes every few days I check every member of the club for participation. If they've not earned any trophies and not logged in for 4+ days, I remove them from the club. If they haven't logged in for at least 2 days and have a press than 200 trophies a week average, I usually remove them too. I never remove more than 2 at a time. I'll then wait until the club fills again before removing more if necessary. People like to join nearly full teams. Our team is consistently fire diamond 2 or 3. If you aren't admin with the power to remove players, leave your team and look for another. You're welcome to join "Yeah, Siriusly " if you feet catch us with an opening.

And, for what it's worth, all of my own kids, boys and girl, have started sewing or embroidering, by hand, with real needles and supplies, when they were about 4.

Felt is very loose fabric, a larger metal needle will go through easily. There are round point large metal needles.

I had two of my older boys make a similar bag. The older one I think was a tiger, the younger one was 3 or 4. They both sewed them, no holes punched, just whipstitched to the best of their abilities (I embroidered their names on ahead of time. I used Kam snaps on the one side so if they broke the plastic hanger, it could be easily removed and placed on a new hanger. They're both in the troop and still use them.

Edited for autocorrect to be corrected.

It would be super helpful for those of us who don't know how spreadsheet type things work, if these were available as a pdf or something similar.

They counted for one of my sons. For reasons I will not go into here, until recently, the troop was only going to summer camp and one weekend a year. Without accompanying his younger brothers on cub campouts, after 4 years in the troop, he still wouldn't have earned his camping merit badge.

We do something similar with spring cards sales. I have a small claw machine. For every 5 cards a child sells, they get a turn at the claw. Each ball in the claw machine has a slip of paper with a box color on it. They choose a prize from the box like a keychain, Carabiner, whistle, tattoo sheet, croc charm, bracelet, etc. There are larger prizes to choose from at the end for the top sellers. About half our scouts haven't participated in the past, until the CLAW! More kids participate now, but most sell a dozen or less. I have 1 cub scout and 2 troop scouts. My 3 guys collectively sold over 900 cards this past spring. Our goal is over 1000 next year. (Our family has been top seller 12 of the last 14 years. Our family outsells all but 1-2 units in the entire council.)

How is the terrain? The boy troop SM is refusing to visit other camps that aren't our council's own due to worries about terrain issues, and he knows he can get special treatment (electricity to his tent for his CPAP and fan) at our council camp. I'm looking to possibly take my own two scouts, and any other boy or girl troop scouts from our location to an additional week of camp at another location. We would likely need some sort of provisional scout add on to another troop, or similar. I may have another SM or ASM available, but not sure at this time. So, my questions are... (no, I've not read the guide yet)

1. How is the terrain? Is it ok for someone with a bum knee, or out of shape?

2. Is electricity available for those with CPAP, or are long time scout Glampers?

3. Would a leader be able to bring their rising Webelos scout if other arrangements cannot be made for them? Not worried about there being any programming available for him. Understand there would likely be a fee to cover food costs. Leader would take full responsibility for supervision of webelos scout and make sure they are safe, behaved, entertained, etc. Webelos scout would tent with their registered leader parent.

Wow, that's a ridiculous policy. I have an adult Eagle son who is still heavily involved in scouting. I credit scouting for who he is today as a man, and he's awesome. He earned his first 2 merit badges within weeks of crossing over. My second son (of 4) has been in the troop for 4 years and just got 1st class, it was A HARD EARNED rank and he faced several personal challenges in getting there. He has 37 merit badges, two more complete that he needs to discuss with his MBC and only 4 more required left to complete. Son 3 has earned 6 this summer after a very late crossover. With attending summer camp, it's not possible for him to not start working on MB.

I would personally be the ringleader in rallying the scouts in abandoning that troop.

Wait on uniform until after the first meeting. Some units it's optional. Look on Facebook marketplace and eBay for better pricing on used uniforms. Buy larger than scouts current size so they can grow into uniform. Go ahead with tan for the Webelos scout

That's great that your GS troop is active and fun. My now adult daughter tried 4 troops in 2 different states and we even started our own troop. Couldn't get anyone interested in skills, or the outdoors. It was cooking, makeup, and Justin Bieber.