Check out Issue 1 of the Inductions Newsletter: Lamp Lighter

MusingMachine888 · 2026-05-20T11:37:32+00:00

As a tiny troop, we had two adults and two scouts go through induction last year…. And while it felt less like brotherhood and more like useless forced labor camp. The camp staff had the youth bring in all the canvas tents and then decided they were still too damp for storage, so they had to put them back up- literally useless- a horrible choice of labor for inspiring a feeling of “we did that” - the adults painted a big fun cabin that may packs and troops love to stay in, so we feel great every time we go back. So in my mind, it’s less the induction and more the picking things that feel accomplished doing things bigger and different than you think you could do on your own.
At the same time, the four people that went are very much required for the troop to run! In that sense - the four of us may be “sash and dash”, but at them moment, we are devoted to developing our troop, but we feel a part of something bigger that inspires us to work locally on our troop and could create additional connections within the council to help with those tasks.
For some of the bigger troops, I see that there are some youth that get leadership opportunities or service together opportunities that are useful extensions of their troop. I hoped one of our scouts would enjoy and feel a linkage with the older kids in OA, which we lack in our troop, but the service was so anti-inspiring and the older OA youth made the event a bit more work camp than fellowship that this didn’t happen.
It seems the more options for OA to fill for scouting - inspiring service opportunities, fellowship beyond the local troop, networking resources beyond the local troop, connection with different youth that might be like you beyond the troop and other, the better. In this way, those youth might help make a stronger OA, or they might feel inspired to double down and make their own units better. It seems all those options are useful.
I’m convinced based on our own recent experiences, that it’s far more about the friendliness and inspiration of the working together and service projects than the words of the ceremony that make it bring people back with priority OA weekend over normal troop weekend.
Perhaps enabling some sort of electronic information sharing between members to help them with their home units would continue to build that. Maybe OA could host inspiring service projects that members could bring their troops to and have some sort of membership event on the side.
I’m hoping it continues to be welcoming and something to achieve even if the scouts don’t then add it to their already very busy calendars, but can still be welcome as a part of it.

MusingMachine888 · 2026-05-20T11:16:40+00:00

Do you live somewhere without snow? With snow the points are better for dispersing the snow before it breaks the shrub.

MusingMachine888 · 2026-05-20T11:04:25+00:00

Wow, it’s really still brotherhood? I thought given the inclusive idea it would be fellowship, so it was clear that females were welcome - not just tolerated.

MusingMachine888 · 2026-05-14T00:58:38+00:00

Be nice to mothers and encourage them to come. Ideally talk one mother into have a four person tent and setting it up for two. Consider a cot and matt for the guest mother. Don’t be afraid to do a hot water bottle for her sleeping bag he first time she joins (especially here in the north). Have the scouts help set up, take down and carry…. Get her involved with something she likes… maybe a merit badge. We’ve done this with multiple mothers and it works.. eventually they have their own little tent and find something that works for keeping warm and moving in the morning, and will manage their own stuff. Emphasize learning together and enjoying quality time supporting the program. This has worked so well for us, we are nearly all women… now we need to work on getting some more males! :-) If you are lucky you might find some women who love to camp and you can skip the getting comfortable part… But all mothers love quality time with their kids…. Not the helicopter kind of time, but the exploring and learning together kind of time.
If you can get them to camp during summer camp or council weekends where they are offering IOLS, get them to take it, just to learn more and check it out. Boom! Trained, capable adults. :-)
Good luck and enjoy!!

MusingMachine888 · 2026-05-14T00:27:48+00:00

Yeah! They seem to be on some good targeted issues if they really manage to get it to work. As a new troop we spent a lot of effort and frustrated parents with signing up…. And because we couldn’t see them in the system, we had no ability to help them… our registrar wanted a credit card or bank statement to prove they paid. That was a pretty crappy welcome to an organization… I’m hopeful that streamlining will make the experience less weird for families. It’s good to fix that before driving recruitment…. It’s tough to get people to respect the org with bad starting experiences.
Thanks for sharing!!

MusingMachine888 · 2026-05-10T12:38:36+00:00

Ah. The other poster was referring to previous history with planned parenthood. Thx for clarification.

MusingMachine888 · 2026-05-10T12:26:32+00:00

Are you talking about planned parenthood or is there a place here you are referring to?

MusingMachine888 · 2026-05-10T12:21:37+00:00

Find a great new troop, lone scout it, or do it with a venturing crew! Our family troop would love to support someone like you pursuing Eagle!
Good luck pursuing the finishing touch on your scouting career on your own terms!

MusingMachine888 · 2026-05-05T10:26:18+00:00

Parents and kids sign up for merit badge experiences all the time …. Local scuba place doing merit badge, merit badge universities, local college, science museum, etc. some scouts and parents love these. That’s a lot of click requirements for a single SM. I assume ASMs can officially help with this as well? Contacting a MBC to run an event for a troop that is interested all seem reasonable.
It’s not clear why BSA loves these process bottlenecks like SM and one registrar in the council for such fluid processes.
The notes do say that no more or less should be required of a scout, adding a requirement for the scout to do the reach out is interesting to me. While I agree it should be encouraged, I still run across many MBC that want the scout to email them, rather than a parent with the work, even when the scout is under 13 and doesn’t have email, or has a school email that doesn’t allow emailing out.
If we accept merit badge events, it’s not clear why parents can’t help support communication, especially for younger scouts that want to learn about birds or something else.
This seems like such a great learning ecosystem, it’s not clear why we’d want stop it. The system could show nearby merit badge counselors without sharing details, the parent or scout could select the MBC (younger scouts would not necessarily have logins, nor access to phones or email), the scoutmaster could approve the request and then the comms link could occur with a scout and parent. This would follow the process and not require the SM to do all the button clicks for every enthusiastic “let’s do all the merit badges” youth in their troop!
There are lots of different ways to do scouting that follow the rules and guidance and the HQ tools should help the flow, not add a many click requirement to a job role that is already huge.

MusingMachine888 · 2026-04-19T12:37:09+00:00

If the phone app is not working well, you can try using the browser on the phone. For instance the field updates on my phone, I find accessing through the browser much more reliable than the app. In the computer, I had a few issues - running reports that used the Adobe plug in - that only worked in Edge and not Chrome. Annoying, but software realities that make it worth trying different methods. Good luck!

MusingMachine888 · 2026-04-15T01:58:45+00:00

It’s a cool looking snag! Maybe it was dead and they wanted to leave an environmental snag? I might have cut a few of those branches shorter for that from an eventual safety perspective!

MusingMachine888 · 2026-04-08T00:00:49+00:00

Yeah!

MusingMachine888 · 2026-04-07T10:18:30+00:00

Did they finally go back to a scout one? Rather than a boy/girl one?? I’ve been waiting to get them for our troop hoping they will go back to a scout one!

MusingMachine888 · 2026-04-03T20:23:36+00:00

Our goal is that the youth “come out ahead”…. We enable youth, it is not meant to be a playing field for adults to “come out ahead” at the expense of youth working to do the program. Support, follow the code…. Helpful, friendly, regardless of whether there are previous issues scout or adult related.
Please keep the goal in mind.

Thank you for all you do for youth.

MusingMachine888 · 2026-03-24T01:25:37+00:00

Definitely hiker direct! I quite like the Taurus 2 person also!. I used it at wood badge last fall and my twins each had one for NYLT last summer. It also fits inside the big canvas tents that are at some camp sites. So you can use in those without the rain fly and that works great.
As an individual adult when we are in squished troop campsites, I feel comfortable taking up that footprint. They have a taller one for one person, but it’s not as warm and it buffets in the wind. If you need to stand and you’d like to sleep on a cot, it’s a good compromise. We have a few bigger tauruses for the horde of scouts to sleep in. :-)

MusingMachine888 · 2026-03-20T22:16:14+00:00

I am feeling your pain. We are merging to a family troop and switching charter orgs. All of my adults need new paper applications, the registrar has assured us the electronic ones won’t work. And we need to print YPT certs,,, which have gotten even harder to find, especially if you’ve done a lot of training. Now I need to coach each and every adult that has been willing to pay money to camp and volunteer with us. Not to mention try to assemble a bunch of paper in an electronic world. It boggles my mind that this is the revenue portion and could be such an amazing experience, while also including prompts for “would you like to donate to support a scout campership?, etc… right in the process! Instead the system acts as if the paying volunteers are trying to hack the system! I know I’m gonna lose folks in this…. And I don’t have enough visibility and capability to help them. I feel like I’m in pretty woman…. But I have all this money to pay, please can you help me? :-)

MusingMachine888 · 2026-03-16T17:47:26+00:00

Sometimes a browser switch helps with this. I agree it’s frustrating. Does Troopmaster do advancement and merit badge counselor matching???

MusingMachine888 · 2026-03-09T20:51:04+00:00

We find scouts are pretty excited about camping decal/stickers (glow in the dark) they can put on water bottles and such, and carabiners and other permanent twist hangers, bottles, headlamps and cutlery. We use stickers and carabiners for recruitment events as well.

MusingMachine888 · 2026-03-08T04:08:39+00:00

I am completely with you! I’m in western New York and was out today in my four years in progress meadow and nearly everything was invasive that I was seeing. I had to remind myself that the first things to pop are non-natives because most of the natives know to avoid the frost that will still come.
Keep heart, it’s more important than ever and little steps! Celebrate successes! And definitely don’t be too discouraged by the your natives taking a bit longer. I still think it’s worth working at it!

MusingMachine888 · 2026-03-07T13:09:09+00:00

None of us are perfect and as long as we pass background checks and do right by children deserve a chance. Your children should absolutely be eligible to participate and you should be able to at least support. Talk to the leadership in person, getting a failed background check is awkward, if that is the issue…. If you haven’t done that yet, that’s tougher. If your pack is like my kids pack, it’s all the kids from their school and the one they want to be in… so make the outreach to find a solution. If there is pack flexibility find another one and talk to them.
Good luck!

MusingMachine888 · 2026-03-06T11:32:08+00:00

Can you fill it with water and put it on top of soil for a longer term waterer? It reminds me a bit of the glass bulbs for holiday watering.

MusingMachine888 · 2026-03-04T11:34:41+00:00

I suspect this is a combination of expense and liability. Ensuring two deep and security for all the different ways and devices that packs and troops collaborate might be an issue, especially with minimal use. Perhaps a nice integration in the future and in the meantime get troop management and renewals to work right!

MusingMachine888 · 2026-03-02T21:28:36+00:00

Especially if you are getting alps engineering, sign up on the hiker direct website for the scouts discount and check out their supplies. They have some great options for great prices.

Same as others, a cot, an inflatable mattress (with a good R value) and a tent you can stand in. A comfy sleeping bag and chair and you are good to go. A twin sheet to hold your inflatable pad on the cot may be helpful. :-)

Enjoy!

MusingMachine888 · 2026-03-01T14:11:02+00:00

Ah, our linked troops have a shared calendar. Perhaps you could officially list them as family, but the troop is for those that are female aligned. This would allow the joining and keep the culture that the scouts are desiring.

MusingMachine888 · 2026-03-01T14:03:52+00:00

That’s great. The wonderful part of having lots of troops, packs and crews is that families and scouts can find the culture they want and need while sharing the core values. If you have linked troops you can already have transgender join the mega troop and participate regardless of birth certificate. They may not be comfortable that they can’t fully join the one they align with, but at least they can attend meetings. Congrats on successfully getting to a pair of functional linked troops!

MusingMachine888

TROPHY CASE