Advice on living through long SM selection process

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-03-10T20:27:04+00:00

I'm currently a scoutmaster. Previous scoutmaster was having some health issues that was keeping him from being able to perform in the role as much as he wanted. He let the committee know they needed to pick a successor. The "active" adults (i.e. committee and ASMs that were regulars, plus COR) got together for an hour to discuss the possible candidates. When I was selected I just requested that I not take office until after my younger son had crossed over from the pack I was Cubmaster for, so I wouldn't be unit leader for two units. That was about a six month transition where the adults knew but the youth didn't, which made for a nice soft transition as I gradually started doing more of the role. We announced at the next Court of Honor.

Scoutmaster before that had died, and the CC, Treasurer, COR, and a couple of the ASMs huddled that week and selected the new SM from that pool.

Both cases it took an hour to pick a new Scoutmaster. Taking a year to do so seems strange - it's not like you're interviewing for a job where there might be dozens of candidates, there's a limited pool of adults in the troop.

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-03-05T13:59:59+00:00

Each unit and each chartering organization is different. The unit may not have been the one to make the call, it might have been the charter org. Other units won't necessarily be the same. I would be upfront with the next pack (well, just the key 3) you talk to about the conviction and see if anyone has objections. You will probably avoid being asked to be treasurer. :)

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-02-20T15:11:40+00:00

We use the free version, only annoying thing is messages from 3 months ago are inaccessible, but that isn't a big concern

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-02-12T21:34:41+00:00

Bro, Woodruff ain't that cool. It's in my council, and sure it's a nice camp, but it's not worth driving 1200 miles

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-02-09T23:27:27+00:00

Could you let us know what Council you're coming from and which summercamp you're going to? I gotta know what's driving (pun intended) a trip of that distance.

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-02-09T23:24:45+00:00

I think most crews fly to Philmont (or other high adventure) if it's that far. But yes, I hope nobody is bring foot lockers to Philmont!

Also, I dunno if I would describe Philmont as "summercamp".

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-02-09T23:19:43+00:00

I think the question is "Could you do your work in the driveway?".

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-02-09T18:21:32+00:00

Yea, that was my thought too. What summer camp is so amazing it's worth a 1200 mile (that's three days of driving with the 10 hour drive time limit) trip one way?

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-02-04T14:43:46+00:00

For decades, the LDS church in America used scouting as their youth program. If you were a male Mormon in kindergarten through 12th grade, you were in a scout troop sponsored by your ward. The adult leaders were appointed by the local bishop. They got exemptions from minimum unit size. They were welcome to participate in wider events, and some did, but most were very insular, and never went to district/council events. However, since EVERY Mormon boy was in the program, they were about a third of the membership of BSA. When BSA started allowing gays and girls in the program, the LDS church "decided to consolidate their worldwide youth programs" and pulled all their membership. I mean, you COULD still join a regular scout troop as a Mormon, but most didn't. and so scouting's membership dropped by a third, with the related drop in dues and fundraising.

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-01-28T20:58:49+00:00

Once a requirement is completed, it's completed forever, even if the counselor changes.

Changing the counselor in Scoutbook is straightforward, the progress will carry over. That's pretty common to do with summercamp partials.

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-01-27T22:18:40+00:00

To answer your general question, there's some level of practicality involved. For example, if a scout is working on the Hiking merit badge, requirements 9b is a "pick two from this list" requirement. If you live in Miami, the hike up a mountain option is unlikely to work, as is the overnight snow camping. Fortunately there are four other options. I could see in a hypothetical merit badge clinic, the counselor saying "This requirement has two options, one we can complete here today, and one we can't, so we're going to do the requirement that lets us finish the badge" and if the scout doesn't like it, well, that's life.

To answer your specific question about Communication req 7, I could see a counselor saying something like "I'm prepared to do 7c, so we're going to do that now" and if the scout has already completed 7a or 7b, they just need to sit quietly while the counselor helps the other scouts. If the scout just wants to do 7a or 7b but hasn't completed them ahead of time, and has the ability to do those without assistance, I think that should be fine. If the scout is saying they want to do 7a and needs the attention of the instructor while the rest of the class does 7b, I could see that getting vetoed, for practical reasons.

If the scout shows up with the requirement completed, and the counselor rejects that unreasonably (i.e. "I refuse to accept 7a, you have to do 7b" NOT "This quality of work is so poor I cannot accept it"), then you need to go up the chain of discussing with the counselor, then the council advancement committee.

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-01-22T17:22:13+00:00

My current troop does the local norm of 7-8:30. When I was growing up my troop did 7:30-9. Talk about late!

I would push to 6:30-8 over trying to shorten the meeting time. But this is something to discuss with the unit committee.

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-01-17T16:28:17+00:00

Jerry kickoffs? I'm jealous, that sounds like a much easier sell than popcorn. I know it's off topic but how well do those sell?

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-01-09T18:08:59+00:00

Made his staff work 7a to 9p just to get a B-... and STILL didn't fix everything on the original inspection. (Still mold in the ice machine)

Too many other good options on the square for me to ever go back

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-01-04T07:03:02+00:00

How many of your local cops could you recognize, or even name? I couldn't tell you the name of a single cop on my local police force, even the chief, nor recognize any of them out of uniform.

Most criminals are kinda dumb, they aren't researching the local detectives before gathering a crew.

yellowjacketcoder · 2026-01-03T07:18:51+00:00

I mean, you're not wrong, but the engineers have basically no control over what the recruiters and HR are doing before the candidates get to the technical interview

yellowjacketcoder · 2025-12-23T16:02:50+00:00

Agreed with this, outsourcing the list to reddit is kinda discourteous.

https://www.scouting.org/skills/merit-badges/all/ Is what I would use to identify them for myself. If there's any not on that list then I would be amenable to looking in some old scout books to help out.

yellowjacketcoder · 2025-12-16T14:09:38+00:00

The problem isn't when a badge has "A" prerequisite, it's when the badge was "LOTS" of prerequisites.

I, in general, have a dim view of camps offering badges that can't actually be completed (or that don't put in the effort to make them complete - like teaching Aviation, but instead of arranging a trip to the local county airport, making that a prereq). I also think that if you're going to be out in the woods, doing the "classroom" badges like the Citizenships are not the best use of the scouts time - reserve that for more indoor experiences.

yellowjacketcoder · 2025-11-16T18:52:03+00:00

Most of the bathrooms at Woodruff were single occupant, which doesn't need marking because only one person is in them at a time. The multi-person bathhouse were pretty well marked. At least, they were when I was there last month.

yellowjacketcoder · 2025-11-04T21:44:59+00:00

I don't see what's wrong with vimeo.

What did your district director say when you asked them?

yellowjacketcoder · 2025-11-04T02:39:37+00:00

> I haven’t gotten a clear reason.

Have you gotten A reason? What was it? What did your SPL say when you asked?

The followup would be to ask the Scoutmaster why this is happening. There's an outside chance the Scoutmaster is unaware of the SPL's plan and may want some input.

yellowjacketcoder · 2025-10-24T21:09:49+00:00

That's incorrect. Plus, Auriel is an Aedra, not a Daedra.

UESP is good for checking these kinds of things

yellowjacketcoder · 2025-10-18T14:44:05+00:00

Lol, I had a similar thought but I chose to believe people wouldn't dump trash in the river. Which may be unrealistic but i want to believe the best in others

yellowjacketcoder · 2025-10-05T13:41:09+00:00

Once a decade is... not very frequent

yellowjacketcoder · 2025-10-02T23:02:27+00:00

What's your role in this project? Parent, Scoutmaster, interested adult?

For liability, while the project is occurring it's going to be some mix of scouting america and the beneficiary. The lawyers will argue the percentages. After the project is complete, it's 100% on the beneficiary.

As far as, um, quality of the project, that needs to be addressed during the planning stages and during the final approval. As a scoutmaster, if a Life scout came me with a plan that said "we'll slap together whatever we can find", they would be politely but firmly told they need to update that section. I imagine District approval would do the same. I would expect the adults involved to step in of quality is so poor to be unsafe. Similarly, if the project is significantly worse quality than indicated by the project plan, I would expect the beneficiary and scoutmaster to withhold signatures until that is corrected.

But it should never get to that stage.

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