fred8033

Extremely well written and well thought out. http://www.northernstarbsa.org/AboutUs/Leadership/Inclusiveness.aspx

QUESTION - Does anyone know more information about the coming initiatives for a more seamless Cub Scout-Boy Scout-Venturing program? Is there something summarizing this or talking about what's being looked into?

This seems very easy to accomplish because the Boy Scouts use the "Scout Oath and Law". It doesn't have "Boy" in the title, in the oath or in the law. The Cub Scout oath refers to Akela which is a reference to a cute story and lend to use by Boy Scouts or Venturers. The Venturer Oath sounds like something Superman would say: "truth, justice and the american way". I think the Scout Oath and Law are ready as is for adoption.

I like the idea and would very much welcome the change. - Cub promise seams like a washed out version of the boy scout oath. The only meaningful words are the words that are also in the Boy Scout oath. "do my best" "duty to God and my country." "To help other people". As for "Law of the Pack", most people don't follow the jungle story theme and it's nothing specific. But the Boy Scout Oath is directly applicable and easy to understand. And it leads directly into the Scout Law. - I myself can easily recite the boy scout oath and law. But after 12 years in cub scouts, I still stumble over the cub scout promise. - Many cub scout leader were boy scouts and still remember the boy scout oath. They don't remember the cub scout promise. - For scouts themselves... ---- Most Boy Scouts learn the Boy Scout oath and law by heart. We see value in that. It's something useful to remember their whole lives. Something to live by. ---- Few cubs remember the Cub SCout promise thru one meeting and I've yet to see one that remembers it from when they were cubs. - I like the idea of starting young young kids thinking about the terms "honor" and values such as trustworthy, loyal, etc. - I've never cared for installing the Jungle Book story in a promise. I'm okay structuring the program around it. But I'd rather not see it in the promise.

I'm okay with the moral equivalence here. Most smokers and overweight people readily admit that it's bad, wrong and a poor example. They'd like to change. So if we continue that ....

Scout shop want a special clearance to sell a 4XL to a scout leader. Not for me. They said anyone purchasing that need to get authorization to purchase them.

BSA24 - Your just being hateful now. All smokers know smoking is bad for them. Most want to quit. I've only met a few who advocate smoking and it's always advocating smoking pot. Same with those overweight. They know the extra weight is bad for them and it affects their whole life. Essentially, no one advocates smoking or weighing too much. No one would suggest we teach being overweight and/or smoking as a healthy positive moral attribute. It's not good for them and they would prefer to be otherwise. But, BSA has already moved in your proposed direction. Weight limits at high adventures. Needing doctor slips at scout shopts to purchase uniforms over a certain size. Designated smoking spots at camp located far away from the scouts. So perhaps your proposal isn't so far fetched.

I've used Google sites, Google Calendar, Google Docs, etc. They are good free tools, but they are flaky and generic. Some Google spreadsheet commands just don't work and other commands fail in different modes. Google docs has gone thru cycles where parts just doesn't work for a few weeks at a time. At this point, I have a hard time depending on them. They are good tools for free. And Google sites seems pretty good. For $99 per year, SOAROL.com is a specific solution. Multiple automatic mailing lists for the troop, leaders, patrols, etc. Automated emailings that go out regularly with auto-generated newsletters. Roster management. Scouting targetted features for managing files, photos and many other features.

Works much better now. It must have been re-engineered.

A good DE is humble. A good DE is more concerned about doing what's right than making a quota. .... DE is a schizoid role that, IMHO, is a no-win situation. Best a DE can do is move to the next position without getting too damanged. The issue is that the DE has conflicting roles. ---- From council view, a good DE creates more troops, recruits more scouts, raises more money, sells more popcorn and gets all paperwork submitted on time. ---- From a volunter view, a good DE is your friend, wanting to help and is truely concerned about helping you be successful. And they follow up as best they can without over promising or underfulfilling. The trouble is that to serve the council, DEs can be easily tempted to give bad advice to the volunteers they serve. A few of my favorites: Your pack charter org should start their own troop too. Popcorn is a great money earner becaue you earn free rank advancements. Let's talk about spring cub scout recruitment. Another problem is there is no performance metric for helping units. The council has no idea if our DE has helped us or not. If anything, the more a DE helps us, the more a DE is distracted from the performance review goals set for him by the council. .... I've worked with six or seven DEs. All of them got it ... except one ... and I came to dread that DE.(This message has been edited by fred8033)

Correction. Now it has a printable calendar. Really nice. I'm pretty excited. I have three units to get that have annual planning sessions pretty quick here. http://www.soarol.com

Great news. Our scouting web vendor just released an updated that includes a printable calendar. Go to their site and try their demo. Pretty nice. FYI - The demo site doesn't yet have the printable calendar view yet. Still nice demo. http://www.mytroop.us/features.html

I learned early on that the best interaction a scoutmaster with scouts and especially the SPL is thru questions. What's the plan? Where's the duty roster and schedule? When is the next event? Why did you assign ### to ###? How did that work for you? Is there anything you need? And my favorite question of all time ... Where's the coffee and cribbage board?

accu40 ... great point. dennism manipulated the situation to make a point. The hike was not going great for the younger scouts. So dennism forced a failed buddy check using his own son. Unfortunately, it back fired on him. It does NOT excuse another ASM losing his temper. Period. But intentionally making a scout effort fail is just not cool. It's like when getting ready to leave camp and the scouts are walking a patrol line to look for trash. After they pass, an ASM throws trash on the ground in a few places. If not caught, maybe it's a learning situation. If caught, some of those scouts are going to be pretty pissed off and won't trust you again. Heck, I've seen adults use tricks like that. Pisses me off too. Then on the car ride home my son has asked me "Did ### throw trash on the ground?" I can't lie and say no. But if I dance around it, my son knows it's true. Correct bad situations. Use outings and the normal course of events to teach. But any manipulation can easily back fire and is a bad leadership style to teach. IMHO, manipulation is essentially a form of lying.(This message has been edited by fred8033)

On long hikes, have the slowest person take the lead. That's the only way they get rest. The faster scouts will find things to talk about or look at or keep themselves busy. Otherwise, it's not manageable. An adult losing their temper and getting physical with anyone is not acceptable. If it's once, you can attribute it to stress. If it's a pattern, things need to change. It's NOT a good example for the scouts. That's the number one role of the adults. To set an example. Your troop also sets an example by how they respond. The scouts see what happens and they see how the troop responds. What lessons will they take away for life? You also set an example for your own son by how you respond to this. What lesson do you want him to learn? What do you want him to think about his father? Our troop had an adult repeatedly use attitude and loud voice to passively aggressively affect things. I've had to take scouts asside and let them know it's not acceptable and it's not their fault. We've taken adults asside to let them know it's not acceptable. Ideally, wish ya luck on making this happen, the ASM who lost it should stand up before the group and apologize and say his behavior is unacceptable. Period. That's what we'd expect from scouts. We should expect the same from adult leaders who set the example for the scouts. ... And ummm... good luck making it happen. (This message has been edited by fred8033)(This message has been edited by fred8033)

Yeah. Never realized that. Female adult leaders in Boy Scouts can be selected for OA. I never thought about the Venturing implications. All I can say is that change is come'in. Slow. Years away maybe. But change is inevitable.(This message has been edited by fred8033)

From what I understand ... BSA doesn't want service projects to be primarily fundraisers because #1 Friends Of Scouting and #2 popcorn sales. That's how BSA finances professionals, camps and much more. If people started donating cash to Eagle projects all the time, they'd feel their good deed was done and then not donate to Friends Of Scouting. Or buy the popcorn which itself is essentially just a donation. It's not that scouts doing fundraiers is bad or there is automatically more value in physical labor. The fundraising restriction is BSA's way to reduce competition for the almighty dollar. (This message has been edited by fred8033)

Some cool ideas for tents. I really wish we could afford some of these tents. I'd love to get one of those Icelandic tents to have an entire patrol share a tent. On the flip side, I like smaller tent camping because two people can fall asleep fairly quickly. But ten scouts in a room and they are up all night and need to be watched so that the stupidity level doesn't get too high. http://www.blacksofgreenock.co.uk/acatalog/patrol-tents.html http://shop.scouts.org.uk/c-76-group-tents.aspx

Gotta admit, I think Sunday night meetings would work great. And very appropriate for a Sunday. Just think about drying out tents or cleaning up the trailer or other meaningful activities.

I'm betting within five years. It will be as with many things ... fought and protested and the end change will be much ado about nothing. As much as we complain about BSA's backroom old boy's national leadership, that same leadership style could make this an easy change.(This message has been edited by fred8033)

snugharborlabs - Sounds like your troop is working hard. Gotta applaud that. Just focus on giving this scout a good experience so that in the future he naturally leans toward helping others and giving service as part of his personality. That's the important part. As for service projects, we never have trouble with them. - We do a small service project on virtually ever camp out (scout camp, state park, other). The SPL asks if there's a service project the scouts can do. Usually a one hour project or less. - We do a few hours of service for our charter organization once or twice a year. Cleaning the grounds or other. - Many scouts do service at their church, school or other community group.

You are going to get answers all over the board on this. As such, I'd use the basic rule of thumb that if the scout is doing a good deed, then congratulate him and get out of the way. Officially speaking, I'd look at two things from the Guide To Advancement, http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/33088.pdf . GTA 4.2.3.3 Service Projects - Essentially leaves it open to the scoutmaster. The only real key is pre-approval. But even that is scoutmaster perogative. IMHO, a perfect example would be a scout walking up to the SM (or an ASM) and saying "I'm going to work on Timmy's eagle project this weekend. Can I use that for my Star rank service project requirements?". Scout thought ahead and asked. Not going for star rank and looking to hodge podge together service. ... Scoutmaster perogative. Lots of flexibility. Nothing strictly required each individual scout to talk with scoutmaster. Could be group approval too. GTA 9.0.2.10 Fundraising Issues - Says "eagle" projects can't be fundraisers for the sake of raising funds. Okay to raise funds to get materials to work your project. Not okay to raising funds to donate money. Not directly applying to your case, but I think it's an important message. We want the scouts doing something tangible. In your case, I'd be 100% fine with the scouts plans. My only comment is that it seems pretty darn formal process for just a star life servic project. ... That gets to the heart of my response. Star and Life service projects are definitely NOT mini-Eagle service projects. No signatures are needed. No write ups are needed. If your troop wants to do that, I don't see anything officially written saying you can't add as much burocracy as you want. But the emphasis for star and life is doing a good deed. Again ... IMHO ... the best time to discuss service project for the star rank is at the first class scoutmaster conference. Take a moment as part of the scoutmaster encouraging advancement to ask if the scout has ideas what he'll do for service for the next rank. A friendly conversation is enough. ... IMHO. ... Now if you want to get "legalistic" the scout doesn't even need to talk to the scoutmaster. The requirement is "While a #### Scout, take part in service projects totaling at least #### hours of work. These projects must be approved by your Scoutmaster." - So if your SPL arranges with a camp ranger to clear brush for an hour on a weekend camp and your scoutmaster agrees, the time should count. - If a scout has an approved service project, another scout can help out. No official need to talk with the scoutmaster because the project is already approved. ... I think the key points are... - Doing a good deed for others and recognizing that's what we do because we are scouts ... and because we are citizens ... and because we are people of faith ... and because that's one what person does for another. - Giving the scoutmaster a chance to have feedback into the service project ... for safety ... for consideration ... for coordination ... for simple planning. For example, if a scout want's to use his time as an alterboy to count as service, I'd hope he'd talk to the scoutmaster. I know our scoutmaster would count it. But it's really a matter of communication. .... To be blunt and I apologize if I offend, it sounds like your troop is over the top on what's to be done for service projects for star and life. If many troops do this, you can count on two more pages being added to the GTA. (This message has been edited by fred8033)

I would be very interested to understand... Where the tradition of eagle scouts planning their own COH started? Where it started as a separate event from a normal COH? Where it became so much more formal filled pomp than all the other ranks? Our troop usually does separate ECOH planned by the scout family. We had one recently that was just part of the normal troop COH. I much prefer the normal troop COH, planned by the troop and including recognizing the new Eagle scout. I'm not trying to diminish eagle. I'd just rather see it as a troop event.

Scout Oath and Law are all that are needed. To deal with disrespect, bullying and teasing is a matter of knowing the scouts and dealing with issues in a timely way. The Oath and Law spells it out in a very simple way. We had a new scout who pushed those limits this summer. Picking on new scouts. SM, an ASM and me (CC) sat with him at a picnic table on camp and said it was not acceptible. That it was a membership issue. It repeated. We repeated. One the next occurance we indicated the next incident would require notifying his parents. Any incident after and he would be going home. I can't say he was better, but he was much much improved. All we used was scout oath and law. Really all that's needed.

Link failed because I punctuated the sentence with a period. Try it without a period in the URL. http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/33088.pdf Page 21.