Stosh

Having worked in a tax department of a large corporation, they are audited by hundreds of government entities a year. Having a bank statement is not a paper audit. They want to see individual transaction details. You took in $ XX.XX and spent it how? Ever wonder why businesses expect people to turn in their receipts? Not just to cut a check on the total, but to verify what was bought in case of an audit. And by the way, the government entities can go back 7 years and make your life miserable if they find a discrepancy in a current audit. That's when the fun begins. Let's just say that the tax department's xerox machine was the most used machine of any department. Oh, in case of a for-profit business, the audit assessment is usually measured in $$$ fines and penalties if there's something amiss. With a not-for-profit, it means loosing your exemption and that means all that popcorn money you take in now become income taxable as well as sales taxable. You don't want to be messing with auditors.

The CO is the ultimate authority, they hold the charter agreement with the BSA. It's their baby to raise as they see fit. If they want all the money to flow through the church financials? No problem. Just put the parish's treasurer on your troop committee. That will take all the hassle out of the troop's hands. You won't need a bank account, the church already has one and the church's books are audited on a regular basis, probably more often than the average BSA unit. As far as a death knell for the troop, I wouldn't worry about it. Church youth groups have been working just fine with churches all around the country and not having any problems whatsoever with their finances. It would be my guess that after a year of the work load necessary to run the troop's finances, the parish treasurer would dearly love to turn it back over to the troop. Stop and think about if for just a second. Church has financial problems.... their non-profit status is questioned and is in jeopardy.... serious outside auditors come in and look at the books, and lo and behold, there are two banks being used, what's with that?, where are those books? and why aren't they annually audited along with the rest of the finances?.... oh, by the way, what's with this ISA accounts? And the parish treasurer stands there like a deer in the headlights with no answers for them. As one who has stood on both sides of the fence on this one, I can assure you that the more the church takes over, the safer you're gonna be. You're not gonna want to be around as treasurer if the $ hits the fan. I for one would NEVER take the job of treasurer for any BSA unit for these reasons. Too many troops think the money is THEIRS! Sorry to pop your bubble, but that's simply not the case.

Maybe they ought to share the vision with others so that it doesn't end up a one-man-show. To me that's what adult-led is basically all about in the first place. I use the word control, others use the word vision. BSA has vision for the boys, that ought to be enough.

Sorry, @@blw2, that simply isn't true. As a former pastor of 3 congregations with about 450 members of those churches, I new everyone by name and a whole lot more than what they wanted their neighbors to know. It is possible to get to know every scout in very large troops.I knew which kid was in what family. I knew what grade in school they were, I knew the connection they had between the grandparents and grandkids. When I was a programmer, I knew what program was associated with what person and/or process, I knew all the IT people in the 25 different divisions the company had. When I was the Administrative Assistant to the general manager of a large manufacturing operation, I knew most of the people in operations as well as the hierarchy above. How often did I associate with these people. At least once a week in the parish, once or twice a month as a programmer and maybe once every couple of months with the people in operations. To think that a SM can't get to know 100-150 boys who gather once a week or more is rather foolish. One would be surprised how much more a SM could get to know his boys if he wasn't spending all of his time doing the things they were supposed to be doing. If a SM hasn't the time to know 200 boys in his unit, he's not focused on his role as SM. While I may only have 2 active boys in my troop right now, I do know at least half the 30+ Webelos boys in the three feeder packs that potentially could be joining up with us this spring. I also know about half of those boys' parents, too. A boy comes for the winter camp outing to visit from the Webelos program. He gets introduced to the SM, Hi, glad you could make it. Spends the weekend sledding, eating pizza, having fun with the boys, 3 weeks later he walks into our AOL prep class because one of the packs doesn't have a WDL and another WDL is marginally effective with the boys, and the SM welcomes him by name, and remembers what pack he is from and when he raises his hand to answer questions the SM keeps remembering his name. It's interesting how life has changed. We can remember everyone on our contact list on our cell phone, but do we remember any of their phone numbers? A kid can remember every Pokeman character ever created, but he can't remember where his necker is? We remember things that are important to us. It's the job of the SM to remember his boys.

Am I to assume it was meant as a patrol of all highly skilled leaders rather than a patrol of patrol leaders? A patrol can have only one PL. If one has a patrol of highly skilled leaders, it's not "fishy" at all. It's called team work. For instance if one were to define leadership as the one who is taking care of his boy, it can be seen in the course of the day. 6:00 am - Leader = Bugler he gets them up on time. 6:15 am - Leader = PL does a roll call makes sure every one survived the night in one piece. 6:30 am - Leader = QM collects up appropriate gear for GrubMaster 6:45 am - Leader = Grubmaster, gets breakfast on. 7:00 am - Leader = Chaplain's Aide has table grace. 7:30 am - Leader = Grubmaster gets breakfast cleaned up 7:15 am - Leader = QM gets equipment put away 8:00 am - Leader = PL gets them to the first activity for the day etc. So, then, who's running the show so far? Looks like at one time or another someone different is taking the lead on the task at hand and taking care of the boys. And while the QM is getting the equipment ready, the Scribe has collected up a couple of the boys and they are out in the woods gathering wood for the cook fire. But the Instructor has grabbed the water jug and took off for more water to do dishes with and he's "leading" no one in the process, but he is still taking care of the boys in the patrol. The APL asked the Grubmaster what he could do to help and he's taken the "lead" on cutting up the veggies for the breakfast bake. It is obvious that in a sense everyone is leading except for Little Johnny who's off by the fire poking the ashes and could care less whether or not he was "taking care of anyone other than himself." This is why I push the servant leadership of taking care of others. It is not always obvious when certain people are actually leading, i.e. the instructor going after water or the scribe with a bunch of the boys getting fire wood, but Little Johnny sticks out like a sore thumb with his total lack of leadership. Here's a kid who has promised on his honor to help other people at all times and hasn't the foggiest idea what that means, let alone knowing what to do about it.

If councils are not complaining about having too many units, why are units complaining about having too many boys? Council divides into districts, districts assign UC's to handle some of the boys, the units continue the breakdown CO assigns adult leadership sufficient to do the job, the SM has his SPL (think SE), he has his ASPL's (think DE), who has a number of patrols (think troops) run by PL's (think SM of an adult led program, ). So if the unit grows to large (more and more patrols) just add another DE (ASPL) and keep on growing. One is limited only by the facilities and resources to support the number of boys, same as a council supporting the various units. I'm thinking a lot of the "small" units might be more along the lines of adult's not being able to "control" the larger troop operations and would need to be a bit more sharing of the leadership with the boys to get bigger.

??

Of course that would entail doubling the # CO's, adults SM/ASM's, CC/MC's involved and they would all be necessary for 1/2 the # of kids in each troop. How can that be efficient. Works well for District and Council unit quota numbers, increases adult memberships. Doubles the amount of equipment, because one of the units has to start all over from scratch, the equipment belongs to just the old unit, All this effort and it doesn't do anything for the boys. I'm trying to find the up-side to it..... All that effort for what?

I have no idea how a patrol of PL's would work.

And I answered, in our district the introduction is not a tradition. The boy simply introduces himself when he comes into the room. Even the presence of the SM is optional as is the Q&A with the SM when the candidate is not in the room. I know for certain that we do not have a tradition like the one you have in your district. It might be good advice for the newbie SM's to find out what, if any, traditions the district/council may have and be ready when the EBOR's roll around. In our district, a slight would be no big deal, but a slight in your district would be a major gaff. Best to check it out!

I only buy from scouts in uniform, both Girl and Boy.... Well, the cookie sale started and I lived on a side street with my house being the only one on the block. So, I don't get my Halloween traffic and I know I'm not going to get any cookies without being proactive. So I called up the GS/USA office and announced that I wanted cookies and that any girl in uniform that stops by my house personally, (giving my address and phone number) will get a sale. I thought about if for a while and then decided that the next knock on the door would be the police with a search warrant, followed closely by Child Protective Services. So, now I buy at the grocery store if the child is in uniform and gives the sales pitch and not the adult with them. I sleep better now too.

I get really concerned when I hear of troops having waiting lists for joining because they limit their numbers. There are some troops where the size of the facilities offered by the CO are not sufficient and that will limit the numbers. But that is an issue of the BSA/CO agreement to correct and is a UC/DE issue, not a troop issue. If a troop grows beyond the 32 boys, or 50 boys, or 100 boys, it needs to be the work of the support staff to put into place sufficient officers to handle the situation. If that means adding 2-3 or even 4 ASPL's, so be it. Get it done. 3 - 4 TG's? Make it happen. 15 Instructors? Yep, May have 2-3 patrols of nothing but Instructors. Part of being a leader in a growing unit is to problem solve, adjust and adapt to the situation. Some of these boys might just need to roll up their sleeves and start actually earning their POR's. Not everything one encounters is going to fit nicely into a well organized buiness org chart and everything will have a Pollyanna ending. Sometimes things will get a bit bumpy along the way and how well your boys are Prepared for it will test their mettle, a nice skill to have in one's leadership tool box.

I'm sure every district has it's traditions. I as SM was "invited" but not required to attend the EBOR. I choose to do so and as a guest enter and sit quietly in the back of the room. If a SM does choose to attend (I think most do if they can make it that night) the board excuses the boy for a few moments and then asks the SM a few questions about the boy that are not part of the process. I leave when the boy does and avoid that Q&A period. This is the scouts EBOR. He has done the work, he has gotten the signatures, all i's are dotted and t's crossed. There's nothing more that needs to be said or done. What are they going to ask me that makes one iota bit of difference?

At the SMC I offer a session on dealing with the EBOR if the scout so chooses. If they do it makes a noticeable difference in how things run at the EBOR. Of my first two candidates, one did take the suggestions I had to offer and the other took a pass. The candidate that listened to my suggestions had 4 questions posed to him by the panel. The other scout had well over 20 questions asked during the course of an hour. I wish I could have taped the two Reviews as a what to do and what not to do video for my other boys. It was a night and day difference.

I put together a 1910 BSA field uniform for the Centennial Jamboree and for the spring and fall camporees which can be be in quite "chilly" temperatures (yes, we have had snow at the camporees), I still wear the uniform. Long wool underwear, wool socks, pants and leggings. The shirt is wool as is the tunic, The campaign hat is wool felt. Never get cold all weekend long. There's a reason why BSA had that uniform originally. We're the only troop I have ever met that has the full square neckers. They are large as well, hang beyond the belt on the smaller guys. To the belt or a bit above on adults.

All our EBOR's are district level.

My candidates walk into the room, present themselves in front of the panel, salute and state their names. One board actually told the boy that saluting people was not appropriate for scouts to do, it was meant for the Flag only. He cited the page in the Scout Handbook that states otherwise. From that point on, the boy was pretty much "in charge" of the EBOR. With another scout, the panel didn't know how to react to the salute and after an awkward few moments invited him to sit down. Only once did a person on the panel ever said, "As you were, please be seated."

Seriously!?!?! You can get an app for both iPhone and Smartphones so you can find cookies with a zip code!?!

At 65, a cot is nice. It's my version of a tandem axle troop trailer. I have stepped up from a Ridgerest to a Thermorest, but I still use the Ridgerest a lot because it's less bulky. OKAY, OKAY! I confess! The Mrs. had a second Thermorest and she tempted me with her womanly wiles, You happy now!

Go with E-Bay, reasonably inexpensive. Make sure 2 poles of 3 sections each, no tears, all snaps, rest is not too bad. I have a low cot 4" legs, fits nicely, move to middle in rain storm. No floor, just let the water run through, not a problem. double ends means plenty of room for "night stand" and place for boots, etc. No floor means you can crawl around without wrecking the non-existent floor. My has stood up really well to thunderstorms, don't touch the canvas, no leaks. I run a clothesline inside between poles for tomorrow's change, that way I don't have to hassle in close quarters in the morning. A throw rug works well and if it rains, just hang it up on the clothesline out of the way of any water flowing. Used to trench the tents but can't do that anymore, just pick your tent spot a bit more carefully and you'll do okay. Nothing better than laying there at night listening to the night noises and smelling canvas. Don't get that with the nylon stuff.

Just think of all the friends out there just waiting, that you haven't met yet.

So then they don't do it as a patrol?....

Of the three tents in the picture taken 6 years ago, quit using the white canvas 2 years ago, the WW II Pup was last fall's camporee and the modern tent was last November with the Mrs. I'm under canvas at least a half dozen times a year. With the sleeves, clips, rain flies, etc. I can still pitch the pup faster than the boys can getting their modern tents up. A low cot, bag tossed on top, leave the pack against the tree, we're done. Usually less than 10 minutes.

Just curious.... then when do the scouts have the time to do the typical FC teaching type stuff? Are there other meetings schedule beyond the troop meetings for such things?

Doesn't have to make sense.... I would offer up a litigation concern that maybe there is more insurance coverage at council events than what units provide for their events. Stupid rules usually have a $ connected to them somewhere.