AlFansome

This is a known issue that's been around a while with the forum software. If you don't have a Subject: for your post --or-- if your subject contains certain characters (such as a single quote - '), then you'll get errors when you try to create a new topic on the boards.

Regarding the CO and ensuring leadership for outings... There's also a subtle change in the new Tour Planning Worksheet that replaces the old Local Tour Permits. Previously, the outing leader and any unit committee member needed to sign the form. Now, the outing leader and either the Committee Chair or Chartered Org. Representative need to sign.

Looks like a change in what a patrol can do: From the new G2SS posted at http://scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34416.pdf: 1. Two-deep leadership. Two registered adult leaders, or one registered leader and a parent of a participating Scout or other adult, one of whom must be 21 years of age or older, are required for all trips and outings. There are a few instances, such as patrol activities, when the presence of adult leaders is not required and adult leadership may be limited to training and guidance of the patrol leadership. With the proper training, guidance, and approval by the troop leaders, the patrol can conduct day hikes and service projects. Appropriate adult leadership must be present for all overnight Scouting activities; coed overnight activities even those including parent and childrequire male and female adult leaders, both of whom must be 21 years of age or older, and one of whom must be a registered member of the BSA. The chartered organization is responsible for ensuring that sufficient leadership is provided for all activities. Cue the Kudu horn...

Having a discussion in the troop about what camping nights are eligible to be counted for OA membership for adult leaders: - camping while taking Wood Badge (2 weekend course) - camping during IOLS training (held @ local Council camp) Yes, no, cheesy? Opinions, please. The OA web site says "Boy Scout camping" is what is eligible (I assume to differentiate from non-Scouting events).

Luckily, I have a wife who knows how to say "no" for me! Of course, I haven't told her (yet) that I'll be taking over as SM of my son's troop at the end of the year....must've slipped my mind. :-) Seriously, though, walking away from something you've invested alot of time and effort into is hard. After my son bridged from Cubs to his troop, I've stayed on with his pack as the Pack Trainer in order to make sure that (at least) the new and continuing leaders were trained and also to be there to share my experience and advice, along with helping transition Pinewood Derby and popcorn. It's been very hard to sit back and watch the new Cubmaster do a less than stellar job and to see the schedule for the boys no where near as full as when myself and our previous Committee Chair were leading the pack. Luckily, there are involved parents and it's not too bad...just could be better. However, the COR has told me multiple times that in his 20+ years of experience with the pack, the Pack does well, then not so well, and then the cycle repeats. I'm OK with that....

Just saw this in the latest Scouting Magazine (page 12) in a section talking about all the different awards that Scouting offers: "...there's a new, interactive scouting.org site called Awards Central. The site, which replaces the Insignia Guide, will serve as a clearinghouse of info about all the awards, including descriptions, links to the nominations or application process, approving authority, and deadlines. Bill Evans, of the youth development team, believes the new site will save councils alot of time by making all the recognition info easy to attain electonically. And Awards Central can be updated quickly when award details change.... Look for Awards Central to go live in May."

Yep..that's typically the difference. In our council, we've combined the 2 into L.E.A.D. (Leader Education and Discovery), which has Cubs, Boy Scouts, Venturing, Outdoor, and other courses as well.

1974 Ford Pinto squire (fake wood applique on the side) station wagon. Light blue like the one at http://omwoman.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/pinto.jpg Cost $3300 new and the only "upgrade" was the sport mirrors and spoiler on the back (which my mom knocked off with the garage door anyway). Worst part was the AM-only radio. I turned 16 in 12th grade and in order to have the car for the day, I had to wake up early to get my dad to the train station for his commute. (This message has been edited by AlFansome)

For new scouts, we split duties: - recruiting ASM: contacts packs, makes up recruiting flyers, co-ordinates Webelos visits, informs PLC of dates of Webelos visits, keeps track of new scouts, co-ordinate Troop attendance at bridging ceremonies - new Scout ASM: gets handed the new Scout spreadsheet from recruiting ASM. Deals with parents (not scouts) to get their head around Boy Scouts vs. Cub Scouts, uniforms, adult volunteers, troop structure, email lists, etc... - Committee Chair: paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. Gets checks to Treasurer, gets apps to Council, gets data into TroopMaster. Not sure if we even keep the troop copies for privacy reasons since Council has one and TroopMaster has all the important data, anyway. - Scoutmaster: does incoming SM conferences to satisfy AOL requirements, welcomes the new Scouts, hands them off to the Troop Guides, drinks his coffee. Likewise for new Adult Leaders, apps and checks go to Committee Chair, the Training ASM gets them scheduled for training, Scoutmaster welcomes them to the troop and discusses expectations and responsibilities, and then goes and drinks his coffee.

As with everything, there are good and bad aspects of the LDS methodology...more often than not it comes down to Scouters' attitudes regarding their service to scouting and their young men. Example: Went to Philmont and attended "Strictly for Scoutmasters". One of the facilitators was from Utah (I assume was LDS)...fantastic, knowledgeable, great attitude, asset to Scouting. One of my classmastes was LDS. His father was an Eagle and was Scoutmaster, he was an Eagle and was now stepping into being a Scoutmaster. He had the absolute worst attitude I've ever seen in a Scouter, bar none. Could not care less at all about the class, didn't contribute, was texting his wife all day during class, and frankly you could tell that he was just doing what was expected of him. I think it's that aspect of leadership in LDS that appears to be the weakness in the model....volunteer leaders are more likely to be motivated and invested than those who are asked to take a particular position. My classmate clearly didn't want to be Scoutmaster, but that's what he was going to be, whether because of his father's expectations or something else.

So to sum up: - your Pack is chartered by a "Parents of ... " organization - you're the COR for the Pack (and the Committee Chair as well it seems by looking at some of your previous posts). - you've got a parent annoyed at the new choice to be Cubmaster (not Scoutmaster, right) and this parent is active in District and has the SE's ear. - this choice of leader is an issue because of some online political comments Questions: - do you personally have the support of the other parents in the Pack? - do the other parents know about the comments and what is the consensus? - who is the IH (Institution Head) and/or how is the CC chosen in the pack? Actions: - If the SE gets involved, tell him to go pound sand. None of his business. If you want to play his game, then get a parent on your side to be the COR who will be around for a while, you stay the CC, and THEN go tell the SE to pound sand. - If you have support of the parents, tell the one disgruntled parent to go pound sand (or vote with his feet and find another pack). - If parents are wavering, then you've got to re-consider the choice of leader and/or make the case for him. Unfortunately, with a "Parents of ..." CO there is no ultimate authority who can just put their foot down and make a decision that sticks. It turns into personalities and factions and hurt feelings all around when conflict arises. You really need to count heads and see if this is a fight that you can win.

From the Silver Beaver Award Nomination form at http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/92-103.pdf: "(f) Each duly chartered local council shall be entitled to one nomination. Councils having more than 60 traditional units shall be entitled to further nominations on the basis of one for each additional 60 traditional units or fraction thereof in their territory, as of December 31 preceding the nomination, according to the records of the national office. (g) Councils not using their full allotment in any year may accumulate the unused portion for use in any subsequent year." 6 nominations from one district in one year seems over the top, unless they've been saving up and haven't awarded any in several years.

Full story on reduced cookie flavors can be found at the following link. At this point 12 councils out of 100+ are running a pilot program with only 6 flavors vs. the typical 8. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704881304576093691253234896.html As always, google (or bing or yahoo) is your friend...

I should also add, that as a former popcorn kernel for Cubs and a cookie manager for GSUSA, that the amount of paperwork and complexity on the backend is SO much greater with cookies, it's ridiculous. Running a popcorn sale is infinitely easier...fewer units, less paperwork, etc.

From a purely financial view to the unit selling, popcorn beats cookies hands down any day of the week (at least in my experience). Why? Because cookies provide $.65 / box profit to the troop on a $4 box of cookies (in my daughter's Council)....about 16%. Popcorn provides $3.50 profix on a $10 bag of caramel corn (35%). My son's old pack had 40 boys selling last year, sold $20,000 work of popcorn and now have $7,500 in the bank to show for it. (about $190 per Scout). For my daughter's Girl Scout troop to make $190 per scout, each Girl needs to sell 300 boxes of cookies or so. Much harder. From a customer perspective, however, it seems to me that popcorn is seen as more of a 'donation', whereas you get more value when buying GS cookies (even though the number of cookies / box trends lower, of course). Popcorn ordering really isn't too complicated as the boys find out pretty quick that the microwave and small packages are the ones that sell, which really limits choices to 4 or 5 items at a practical level for most customers. Anyway...my $.02 FWIW.

"The Troop and Pack have the same CO but two different CORs. The wife is the COR of the Troop, the husband the SM. He is also the COR for the Pack. The husband is also a member of the CO. These two control everything in the units." Same CO but different CORs will get kicked back in the computer at re-charter, according to my Council's registrar, as a CO may only have one COR. The obvious reason for this is that the COR is a voting member of Council and CO's only get one vote each. I'd bet that if you saw the recharter paperwork, the names listed won't match the people who are acting as CORs.

For those who don't know how to do it... Log into MyScouting. Under "Unit Tools" on the left in grey, choose "BeAScout". The checkboxes on the bottom left under "Fields Displayed on Google Pin" control which fields you can edit. So, check the ones you want, then enter the info to be displayed. I can edit all the units that I'm the chartered rep for and I assume that unit leaders (SM, CM, etc.) and committee chairs also have the ability to update the google pin on the map. As an fyi...when I updated my unit's pin on the map, about 8 people got an e-mail notification all the way up to the DE and some district folks. So, if you play with it a bunch, you will generate quite a few e-mails. 2nd fyi...the drop down list next to Primary Contact Person is a great way to harvest BSA member IDs if you don't have a copy of your recharter report handy (particularly for new adult leaders). The member ID can then be fed back into a user's profile on MyScouting to theoretically match up any Scouter's online training with their council's database.

That passage has it's genesis in various forms of documents floating around the internet. The closest to the source (with an actual reference to the author) can be found at http://whiterockdistrict.org/content/fiscal-policies-and-procedures-boy-scout-units IMHO, that passage is completely incorrect. A CO operates a unit using BSA materials per the charter agreement. The Council exists to help the CO be successful in running the unit. If a unit goes away, the CO legally owns its assets. Nowhere in the charter agreement (the only document a CO signs and agrees to besides adult apps and recharters) does it state that the Council is entitled to unit assets should a unit dissolve. I'd be curious if anyone can find information or statements to the contrary...

Cubby- I also have fraternal twins, also in 6th grade, also in GSUSA and BSA respectively. I've been a Cub Leader since 1st grade, soon to be Scoutmaster of my son's troop. Have also been actively involved in GS since brownies, from Try Its to Junior Badges to cookie sales and now taking 6th grade girls on 10 mile hikes with 2000+ ft. of vertical change. Some truths as I see them: - Leaders mean everything in the Girl Scout program...much, much more so than in Boy Scouts. With a great leader, you get a great troop that's active, challenging and interesting. My daughter's current leader is an ex-cop, current teacher and has taken on a troop of 48 6th-8th graders. She is able to harness all the girl energy and the scouts really seem to respond and enjoy doing their program. - In Boy Scouts, the program has much more structure and "meat" as it were and it's much easier for a Scout to self-direct and set goals since milestones are much more concrete and frequent. - Boys and girls are inherently different especially in the 11-14 year old middle school years. The Journey that my daughter is working on is nothing at all like anything that a boy would need or want, since it's all about inter-personal relationships, getting along socially with other girls, and deal with subjects that boys need less practice or help with for whatever reason (as I see it). - I think both programs (when done right) can do an excellent job of preparing boys and girls in different ways that are appropriate to the audience. However, the GS model can break down easier (I think) since there is less structure inherent in the program if a committed, involved adult leadership team isn't present, just as a boy scout troop can be just Webelos III if adults don't get out of the way and let the boys run with the program.

Agree completely with BrentAllen. As a resident of the Golden State, take a look at California to see what term limits and (more to the point) completely safe legislative districts have gotten us. In each party's primary, we get the most extreme candidate (both left and right) winning their primaries, followed by that district's dominant party's candidate winning in the general. They all go to Sacramento and have a p*ssing match to see who can stonewall the longest. (Oh yeah, having a 2/3 majority required to pass a budget doesn't help, either!). This year, we the voters passed an initiative (and defeated a politician-sponsored opposing initiative) that will now remove politicians from directly drawing the district boundaries....assuming the pending court fights won't gut the new law, of course. Also this year, the threshhold to pass a budget was lowered via the initiative process from 2/3 to 50% (or maybe 55%) and legislators don't get paid until they pass a budget. It's akin to taking away a kid's toy until he learns to behave.

As a Chartered Representative for 5 units, here is my $.02: - If the concept of a Chartered Org went away completely, the leaders of a large percentage of units wouldn't even notice or care. There are so many non-involved COs in my Council that COs aren't even engaged by Council staff whatsoever. I never get mailings, e-mails, phone calls or anything at all (literally) from Council about anything in my capacity as a CO for 3 pack and 2 troops. - The CO model is a very good one when a CO is engaged since there is an organization (not just a bunch of volunteer leaders) who have ultimate control over the unit direction and focus. Too many "Parents of..." units collapse under the weight of leader's egos, personality conflicts and the like. At least with an (involved) CO, there can be a clear authority to set direction and deal with issues. - As with everything, it goes both ways...a good, involved CO can only be a benefit to a unit as long as it's there to provide support, engage the unit in the CO's activities, and send a framework in which the unit's leaders operate. My units appreciate the financial support we provide and also the fact that I'm willing to back up my Committee Chairs and be the "bad cop" (if you will) when needed to "encourage" leaders to get trained, fill out Tour Permits, or whatever. On the other hand, an overbearing CO or one that doesn't "get" the BSA program can clearly be a detriment to a unit...no question about it. - The Girl Scout model fails IMHO not because of the lack of COs but because of the typical single-grade focus of the troops. When a GS troop draws from one grade only, there is no new blood (leaders or scouts) to take over via a succession plan. As a result, as girls age, leaders get tired of leading, girls have little chance to mentor younger scouts, etc... My daughter just joined a multi-level Cadette troop (6th-8th grade) with 44 girls that's been around for 25 years. A multi-level troop looks much more like a CS pack or BS troop, since new, fresh leaders and scouts are always entering to take over when the current leaders' girls move up.

Straight from the Adult Leader Application: "All leaders must be 21 years of age or older, except assistant Scoutmasters, assistant den leaders, assistant Cubmasters, assistant Webelos den leaders, and assistant Varsity Scout coaches, who must be 18 or older."

Just got this from BSA off of our district's e-mail list (formatted for readability): ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Below is information on how the BSA is addressing requests for reinstating the Beekeeping merit badge. We have carefully considered how the beekeeping hobby and industry can have a more integral presence in the BSA's merit badge program. Background The Beekeeping merit badge was offered from 1915 until 1995. From 1980 to 1994, the number of youth earning this merit badge ranged from 700 to 1,000 per year. That decline in interest eventually led to its demise in 1995. Future After receiving input from youth members and review by merit badge volunteers and professionals, we have formulated a way to bring greater exposure of beekeeping to youth. The plan includes the following: Emphasis of the importance of bees and their symbiotic relationship with humankind may be added to or enhanced in as many as eight existing merit badges. Merit Badge - Estimated Revision Date Environmental Science - 2011-2012 Pulp and Paper - 2011-2012 Bird Study - 2012-2013 Insect Study - 2012-2013 Forestry - 2013-2014 Plant Science - 2013-2014 Gardening - 2014-2015 Nature - 2014-2015 The first merit badge to receive the addition will be Environmental Science, which is requried for all Eagle Scouts. Annually, nearly 73,000 youth earn this merit badge. When fully integrated into the targeted merit badges, more than 100,000 Scouts each year will discover the importance of bees and beekeeping as part of a larger environmental picture. Beekeeping projects, such as working with a colony or harvesting honey, will be considered for addition to one or more existing merit badges so that highly motivated youth members can use their beekeeping activities to help fulfill merit badge requirements. We believe this plan will increase the awareness of honeybees and their critical impact on our environment, and prepare America's young people to help care for this important natural resource. If you have any further questions, please contact merit.badge@scouting.org

Here's what the BSA says about unit websites: http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Marketing/Resources/UnitWeb.aspx

2.5) EDGE is a tool like any other that has it's place in our Scouting toolboxes. Some boys will benefit from using it...some boys use something similar naturally...some boys are effective with other teaching techniques.