fotoscout

This past weekend I went to the Northeast Region Outdoor Program Seminar. As the weekend went on it became clear that many of the attendees had the same thought on their minds; How do we increase BS summer camp attendance at our local camps in the face of the huge mega camps that have been growing around us? Before anyone high jacks the thread let me get the Provide a better Program issue out of the way. Many of us have a great Summer Camp program with a great camp facility, and great staffers. Yes, if was clear that for some it was strictly a program issue. But for many, if not most, it was simply a competitiveness issue. You just cant do on a shoe string, what these large facilities are able to do. From their huge revenues comes the ability to do things that a local camp could never justify. For years the big camps have been draining resources and building their facilities, while the local camps have been struggling to just stay slightly ahead. At this point many of the local camps are not staying ahead and are on the verge of extinction, and with them are the fortunes of their coucil. The big camp in this area had over 60% of its summer campers come from out of council. Thats all theyd admit too, the reports are supposed to be out next week. When challenged, the Regional people literally turned a deaf ear to the idea of limiting the out of council enrollment at the big camps. Oddly enough, this was the only time I saw them clam up. A tough issue and they didnt want to deal with it or even discuss it. So whats the answer, the local camps are on a path to history, community Scouting, as its shaped by the local camp will become history. There is a full court press to engage CS's in more outdoor activities, many of them based on the use of the local Scout Camps. What happens?? Or, as was pointed out to me by a very tenured professional, its all part of scheme to close camps, reduce the number of councils, increase the coffers of the newly formed larger councils and in the end, increase the salaries of the professionals. (This message has been edited by fotoscout)

The two boys can absolutely play inside a tent, and if they want to they can sleep in the tent, by themselves without a parent. Although these two seem a little young for that yet. I make every effort to keep the kids out of the tents unless its bed time. I dont believe that the tent is a play place! Too many tents are ruined by allowing the kids to play inside them. On this point the lady was correct. When my son was small, we would take a small childs toy tent with us for him and his buddies to play in, they could go in the toy tent but not the "real" tent. The idea is to teach them respect for their equipment from a very early age. As for the smoking, I suspect weve all been there! The parent or leader who seems to think he (she), has some inalienable right to light up when ever or where ever they happen to be. We have so many darn rules sometime you just need to pick your battles. I feel that the people who light up, like this lady did, without regard for the people around her, are probably the quickest to go off the deep end when confronted. Those who walk away from the group to light up are probably the more considerate and understanding. So had you confronted this lady, you would have probably had a major brouhaha on your hands. Pick your fights, pick your battles, dont lose any sleep over this. You kept the peace. (This message has been edited by fotoscout)

"The whistle blows..Attention on Deck, Now hear this!!For the purpose of sleeping accommodations, we have suspended all Youth Protection policies!! They will go back into effect at 0800 tomorrow after Colors. Thank you for your attention return to your work stations." In Scouting today the YP policy sits atop everything we do. It is a thread that runs though every facet of this program.....From when you rise up, to when you lie down, and, to when you slumber though the night. You cannot separate the YP policies of BSA from any other policy. It is ever present. Simply because it is published in a separate document, doesnt mean that you can simple withdraw it because it seems to make little sense in that situation. Nor can you cubbie hole the language and make the overtly simplistic interpretation that it only applies to the leaders. The policy is intended to protect everyone, even unregistered parents that accompany us on trips. Fotoscout's sscenario would not be allowed in any council I know of. An adult cannot be in a tent with a youth for whom they are not the parent or guardian. Not without another adult, who is that Scout's parent. Why, in part because of our YP policies. And I know of no Council where this has been outright rejected.

Very technically weve been told that yes, BW and I could share a tent with Mutt and Jeff. However, you have to abide by the YP guidelines of two deep leadership. So.. when one goes to bed we all would have to go to bed. When I have to get up and water a tree at 3:00am, BW would also have to get up and water a tree. A different one would hope. Then theres the morning drill.BW and I would have to get up at the same time. Wed have to be careful about who is in the tent changing at any time, or even who went into the tent to get something while someone else was in it. For all these reasons this is a very bad idea. It is much better to tell people, no you cant do that. Given their druthers, I suspect that this type of sharing could snowball out of control in many dens. Face it, people are always looking for ways of cutting down on the amount of equipment they bring on a camping trip. Stay away from this, it is not a good practice. If the boys want to sleep together encourage them to do that without the parent, let the parent(s) sleep in different tents.

Johndaigler, your posts remind me of an empty skillet...all sizzle no steak. You string together a bunch of hollow phrases none of which have any relationship to the methods of scouting. I understand your are "going to" get trained. But don't you think the helpful thing to do for others is to first learn the program BEFORE you tell others how you think it should be done? Even I never got this one!!

In every den of 13 boys, there are between 13-26 potential den leaders. That should be more than enough to work with. This seems like a very naive observation. My observations are that in a den of 13 there are maybe 3 or 4 potential den leaders. Not everyone is cut out to be a Den Leader or even an assistant. After that you need to look at whether these potential people have the desire and time to do the job. BW, would have us think that its just a matter of selecting the individual and schmoozing him/her for a while. Unfortunately, it is just not that simple. (This message has been edited by fotoscout)

All very interesting, we could probably debate the merits of big den little den & big pack little pack until the cows come home. The success of either of those situations, depends solely on the leaders and their ability to deal with the situation that they have. Some leaders can handle the big numbers and some cannot! As for us, we referred 4 boys to a neighboring pack, 2 bears, and 2 Webelos I. We were able to keep 2 new Bears and 4 new Wolves. We signed up nine new Tigers with what right now looks like 4 adult leaders for the Tigers. This will become two dens if I have any say in it. Our Tigers seen to stay at the end of the year and we always recruit a fair number of Wolves, so this arrangement will allow for growth next year. My only concern is the den of only 4 scouts. I personally dont believe that this is enough to gain a critical mass for any activity that they do. To me it sounds boring. Well have to keep an eye on it and if needed suggest that the two dens schedule some activities together.

Wow all this good stuff and no one has answered your question.....Who is responsible for getting the kids through the book? Its a simple answer, everyone is! Some of the achievements are simply better suited to the home environment. The parents will be responsible for those! Then pick the ones that you feel comfortable doing in the den setting. Plan out your year, based on the ones you feel comfortable doing and figure out when you want the boys to earn their badge. Now all you have to do, is to figure out how many more achievements the boys will need to complete the badge requirement and tell the parents that they are responsible for the remaining achievements. The fact really is that you will be able to do much of the work in the den setting. If you leave it to the parents they wont do it or at best it will be done in a whirlwind just before its time to award the badges. Remind the parents that Cub Scouts is Family based program, part of the boys enthusiasm with the program is that they get to do things with mom or dad. Good Luck.

Wow all this good stuff and no one has answered your question.....Who is responsible for getting the kids through the book? Its a simple answer, everyone is! Some of the achievements are simply better suited to the home environment. The parents will be responsible for those! Then pick the ones that you feel comfortable doing in the den setting. Plan out your year, based on the ones you feel comfortable doing and figure out when you want the boys to earn their badge. Now all you have to do, is to figure out how many more achievements the boys will need to complete the badge requirement and tell the parents that they are responsible for the remaining achievements. The fact really is that you will be able to do much of the work in the den setting. If you leave it to the parents they wont do it or at best it will be done in a whirlwind just before its time to award the badges. Remind the parents that Cub Scouts is Family based program, part of the boys enthusiasm with the program is that they get to do things with mom or dad. Good Luck.

I dont know where you came up with this..... Please don't say that you are administrating the pack based on rumors and stories from friends and families! When we draw the line at 8, how would you suggest we determine who stays and who goes, perhaps a game of Russian Roulette until only eight are left. Maybe well just play favorites. Or of course the Den Leader could just be nasty enough until he or she chases enough of them away. I kiddingly said wed coerce the new parents into becoming leaders, but you are talking about forcing someone to become a leader who really did not want to be one. You are suggesting that someone get up in front of the group and say, If someone doesnt step up, theyll be no Cub Scouts for these kids, now thats coercion!

Let me start with this, everyone knows someone who was or is in Cub Scouts. This is especially true for people currently in the program. What that translates to, is the simple fact that parents know a good Den (Leader) when they have one. The parents are also painfully aware of friends, relatives, coworkers, and acquaintances that have horror stories associated with poor Cub Scout Dens. As TwoCub pointed out, some would quit before moving their kid from a good den to a lousy, or even an unknown den. As for District support, maybe UCs should be required to go out to each of their units every year and do the talk about becoming adult members of BSA. Acco40, as you say it might be crass, but you've all heard me talk about parents who are always there to help, but won't make the commitment to be a den leader. The only way these large dens work is with tremendous support from the parents. They are astutely aware of the fact that without their help it just wouldn't work.

We looked at that option. It wasn't going to happen. Even if it did, at this point in time the dens have been together with their den leaders since Tigers. The kids and the parents would not spin off into another den with a new den leader. So at best the new people would have become ADL's and the den size would have remained too big. It would have been nice to have enough boys to make a new den and then "coerce" one of the new parents into becoming a den leader. But to follow up on your throught Bob, we signed up two maybe four new leaders with our Tigers and Wolves. (This message has been edited by fotoscout)

As TwoCubDad mentioned in the related thread there are benefits to having more than one pack in town. I just got off the phone with three families that wanted to sign up with us this year. Our Bear Den and Webelos Den are overflowing. But we only have one of each. It would have been unfair to take any new boys into these dens at this time. We didn't have enough new boys to make new dens, so we referred them to another pack in town. It was a tough decision for us to send boys to another pack but it was the right thing to do. One of the familys I referred, was referred to me by a third pack in town that had the same problem. We dont need more kids, we need more leaders.

We actually have two Troops in the area that tried this. For three years they met as one. Two troops, two SMs, they shared the chores, and two committees that met as one. It worked well. Unfortunately it did not help their recruiting in the long run. They had hoped that together they could recruit more kids from there respective areas, and them split again. But that didnt happen, so now they are in talks to dissolve one unit and move forward with the remaining unit.

Our SNFS went very well. We only got 8 Tigers but we got 9 older boys. As I talk to other leaders, this seems to be a trend in this area. Our problem now is what to do with some dens that are already too large. As for my soccer theory, a few of the parents mentioned to us that they pulled their children out of soccer because they didn't like the directon is was going in. I suspect thtat this is why our "older boy" recruitment is up this year.

Like the other posters, we have no requirement to sign up Tiger Partners as as adult members. Most provided the SS # without question. I did have none question and the hesitation was quickly eliminated after I explained the purpose and process. This was a non issue for us. A question did come up at our last DCM about internet chartering and Tiger Partners. I am curious how other Councils are handling this.

One of our neighboring packs signed up 14 new scouts last week. Only 5 of them were Tigers! My Pack is on for tonight, well see what happens. I already know that the school did not distribute the flyer to all the kids, so it will be a turkey shoot from the get go! Our local Soccer Club lost 350 kids this year. I am very curious to see if our recruitment numbers are higher than the surrounding towns. If they are, it will confirm something that all of us in this area have been saying for quite some time.(This message has been edited by fotoscout)

Nothing can spin a unit out of control faster than the impression of financial favoritism or impropriety. This is everyones job!! When your DLs transfers money to the Treasurer, they both need to know what that money was for and whos money it was. The treasurer needs to record that information as he/she received the money. In this country we call it checks and balances. To do anything less is suicidal. Conversely, when the Treasurer writes a check, he darn well better be recording what the money is being used for.

I think that this is a terrific project!!!!!!!!!!!!! We would never be allowed to do this; we're not even allowed to move tables for our meetings. My suggestion would be to do this with a very limited number of boys at a time. The parents will of course have to make it nice when the boys are done. Cub Scout project or not, its the programs reputation that will be judged here. You dont want to be foolish about it and leave it so that it looks like the kids did it. Finish the job in a professional manner.

Acco40 you are of course correct. At this point in time Im not going to go thru the macerations of earning the AOL, doing Troop visits, signing the BS application, and ultimately joining the Troop. If they are bridging they will be going to a Troop, and theyll need a BS uniform. In the past this wasn't an issue, but now if you go strickly by the book, the boys will be in the Tan uniform before they bridge. I have to think of it as one more step in the transition process. Perhaps if they wear the Tan uniform earlier, they will think of themselves as BS earlier. foto

Sorry, I forgot that little detail. It's the Council Position.

I've been asked to become the chairmen of our camp promotions committee. Does anyone have any suggestions or comments that would be of help? thanks foto

It sounds to me that what you are trying to do is something that happens everyday. Units team up and do things together. Most often this is done solely on the basis of the relationships that the leaders have built over the years. There is nothing formal about it. If you have another crew that you would like to explore some activity with, then pick up the phone and say, "I have this great idea, do you want to do it with us" On another level, Council does offer, from time to time, Camporee type of activities for Venturing Units. Maybe you just need to talk your Council into doing this.

We have standing policy of our pack of picking up the costs for families that are in need. Our Council will do the same on an appropriate basis. If you can "certify" that the family is truly having hard times, then your committee can simply offer to carry this boy with Pack or Troop funds. One of the difficulties here is the determination of need. Is the family really in trouble, or is the kid playing football /baseball / soccer, and there is no more discretionary money left for scouting? And of course there is this.the boys went to camp! If there was money for camp why isnt there money for dues? Maybe its just timing, maybe not, or maybe he earned his camp money. Either way you need to ask a few more questions.

Last Monday I held our yearly parents meeting for my den, now Webelos. The first thing on everyones mind was the uniform change. Right, wrong or indifferent, here is what I told them. If the uniform fits wear it! Dont run out and spend $105.00 on the new uniform unless you really want to, not yet anyway. You can buy the hat, neckerchief, and slide for now! If you insist on buying the new uniform, dont transfer over all of your sons badges and arrow points, it will only ruin the new shirt, and make it sloppier in the long run. One push point to buy the new uniform will be when they earn the Webelos badge. Even then if you dont want to buy the uniform yet, your son can wear the Webelos Badge in Temporary holder until he has the new uniform. In the end, you will have to buy the new uniform for the Bridging Ceremony in Feb. 2006, when the boys bridge to Boy Scouts. Again, right, wrong, or indifferent, thats what I told my parents. (This message has been edited by fotoscout)