________________________________________ Did you watch “60 Minutes” last night? If not, go here: www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-newark-school-st-benedicts-scott-pelley/ Or, use a search engine for “60 Minutes St. Benedict’s” It’s a 13:49 minute segment, but you don’t have to watch the whole thing. Just be sure to watch the first 4 minutes and 54 seconds! This is one of the greatest […]

________________________________________ Dear Andy, I’ve noticed that the activities qualifying for certain segments of the National Outdoor Awards have been changing rather quickly, but a few BSA activities still seem to have been left out. Specifically, can dog sledding at Northern Tier be counted for toward the mileage requirement for the “Riding” activity? On a related […]

________________________________________ Dear Andy, I’m the Chartered Organization Representative for a Boy Scout troop. Recently, our Scoutmaster started demanding access to the troop’s checking account. We said no, as it’s been our policy since the troop started. But he somehow went around us to the District Executive, who got him placed on the troop’s checking account […]

________________________________________ Dear Andy, My district has established an “Every Leader Trained” emphasis to encourage volunteers to train for their position. So far, training is up four percent. Looking at individual unit size and the number of adult volunteers, we noticed several units with very large adult registrations and discussed how this would affect training emphasis […]

________________________________________ Dear Andy, One of our troop’s Assistant Scoutmasters asked the Scouts to assist in filling in pot holes in the parking of our troop’s Scout house. The Scouts are expecting to earn service hours credit for the work they did. However, as Advancement Chair, I feel they shouldn’t receive service hour credit for work […]

________________________________________ Dear Andy, There’s a young man (let’s call him Jack; he’s coming up on his 16th birthday) in our troop who has struggled with maturity issues. About nine months ago, my son mentioned that Jack had been talking a lot about marijuana use with some of the older Scouts. “Talking,” of course, isn’t necessarily […]

________________________________________ Dear Andy, A tradition in our troop is to have a Scout who’s about to age out do the Scoutmaster’s minute at his last meeting as a youth member. I think what our most recent “Scoutmaster-for-the-moment” and Eagle Scout had to say to his fellow Scouts. Here it is. (Stuart Weinberg, SM) Hi everyone. […]

________________________________________ I’m on a brief vacation at the moment, so I prepared this in advance. I’ll be back next week to answer questions, help solve problems, and guide you to finding what you’re looking for. Meanwhile, here are some insights that may be useful to Scouters and Scouting youth leaders alike. Brett Novick, educator, public […]

________________________________________ Hi Andy, I recently transferred councils and connected with a new troop. This troop’s been around for over 50 years but right now is under brand-new adult leadership. They’re trying their best to elevate the troop to truly “Scout-Led,” per Baden-Powell, and so we’ve just had patrol elections for Patrol Leaders. Unfortunately, one patrol […]