JerseyJohn

Why not offer both? G2SS recommends limiting caving to 14yo or older. Surely you have scouts younger than 14. Offer the district event to the younger scouts. On a second note, there may be some scouts who may not be interested or have the money to do a caving trip. A less expensive district event may get more boys out camping that weekend. YIS John

50 Scouts (adding 15 more at crossover in one week) Currently six patrols, going to be eight patrols Plus the leader patrol "The Buffalo's" SM website, camp reservations, fundraisers, facilitate Green Bar, guide and advise scouts as asked by scouts 9 ASM's - guide and advise scouts as asked by scouts 7 with specific cuties, about 12 overall Chair, E-COH, meeting agenda's, BOR, charter Treasurer acct and troop credit program Transportation makes sure we have seats for trips and recurits drivers as needed Advancement - troop tracker, COH Training and Records - maintains the Blue Book The Blue Book is all med forms and swim test records and scouter training records Secretary - cmte minutes, newsletter, tour permits, P Slips Quartermaster - Help troop QM maintain and secure euip. As SM I keep the website up to date, make all camp site reservations, provide maps to destinations, facilitate Green Bar for monthly troop meeting and outing agendas, attend committee meetings, attend troop meetings and generally be as invisible as possible plus the usual..... All of the above supports my 16 year old SPL and 2 ASPL's that truly run 90% of the show. I'm going to squeeze that last 10% out of them if it kills me :-) YIS, John

I reply in the spirit of Scouting..... Your son needs to ask his patrol leader who needs to find out what is required from their guide or quartermaster or possibly their Instructor. Which will depend somewhat on how the troop operates. YIS, John

We put troop ribbons on the troop flag. Patrols that earn ribbons place them on their respective patrol flags. John

Jeff and Karen, Thanks for the emails. GWD, Thanks for the posting I turned the three into separate PDF's and uploaded them on to my troop website for anyone who may want to download a copy. I did modify them somewhat. Visit www.troop184.com and go to the forms sections and scroll down to the Scouts Own header. I need a week or so to type out my two Scouts Own. They are four pages each. When I have them uploaded I will make a note on this thread. YIS, John

Morning, We have two rotating Scouts Own. Each one is two pages front and back, folded into a book. After three years of rotating use, I am looking for a change. Rather than make a few new one's, I am hoping there are a few folks here who want to trade. You mail me a copy of your's and I will mail you a copy of mine. If interested, please email me at jersing@comcast.net. Please use words "Scouts Own" in the subject line. YIS, John Ersing SM Troop 184 www.troop184.com

Greetings, I think it's the mix of Pack and Troop info. New parents and some boys may not know where to go. Perhaps a front page with two logo's 1. Click here for Troop 2. Click here for Pack. The second page (my opinion) should have three columns. Left side - Calendar with enough detail Middle - Events top to bottom in chronological order Right side - Updates, notifications, etc Here are the site's www.troop184.com www.pack184.com To get parents and scouts to use the site we did the following: 1. Stopped with the two or three mass emails every week. 2. Stopped passing out a zillion handouts at troop meetings. Permission slips, info sheets, updates, schedule changes. Now we do this 1. Send out a mass email when the web site is updated Example: The web site has been updated - pictures from "such and such trip" - January date changes Regards, Parents AND scouts will get into the habit of checking once they miss an event or two. We simply stopped the hand holding and made them responsible for keeping up to date --as if we didn't have enought to do ;-) JerseyJohn

Old Legos, I am the fundraising guy, as well as SM for our troop. Here is our run down. St. George's Cup Golf Tournament Run by the parents, marketed by scouts Boys sell sponsorships, post flyers, etc Makes about 5K Hoagie Mania Fall and Spring five or six locations Buy for 1.50, sell for 3.00 About 200 hoagies at each location Make about 750 per Popcorn Not a favorite of mine but supports troop and council Make about 700 Make and sell food at local pack PW derby Scouts do everything Make about 300 WaWa hoagie coupons - ongoing Regional convenince store chain sell's coupons for a shortie hoagie to non profiots for 2.50. We sell them for 3.50 If you buy one at the store they cost 3.69 pluus tax. It costs the purchaser nothing. People stock up a bit, keep them in the car, save them for summer beach trips, work, etc.. Make about 400 to 600 annually One I have under consideration Local developers cut down tree's for new developments. They take all the tree pieces to the council camp, located about 3 miles from us. There is so much wood, council and the camp can not give it away, nor can the camp use it all. So I'm thinking, we sell hardwood for indoor fireplaces and softwoods for outdoor at XX dollars a cord delivered. We then kick back council XX percent. If you want to E-mail you any let me know. JerseyJohn

All good advice folks. Thanks for the input. JerseyJohn

Edited to clarify topic: Can you have to many adult leaders.... We have about 60 boys in the troop with weekly attendance floating around 40 or so scouts. At the weekly troop meetings there are usually four or five field leaders and another one or two committee members. I have been getting the feeling that the adult presence impacts the scouts in terms of being boy led. It makes it too easy for them to find an adult rather than rely on themselves in some instances. I would say they do perhaps 70% of whats required but we are not quite where they need to be. I have been tinkering with the idea of asking that only one field leader attend the weekly troop meetings with me for the first three months of 2007. This way it forces the scouts to rely more on themselves and reduces the scout option to go to the adults. We do have them work the chain of command, etc, etc. I would like to know if you somehow limit adult participation at weekly meetings? If so, how has it impacted the boys? I hope I explained this enough for you to get the jist of what I am getting at. Thanks for any and all input, advice & comments. YIS, JerseyJohn(This message has been edited by JerseyJohn)(This message has been edited by JerseyJohn)(This message has been edited by JerseyJohn)

The troop is heading to NYC for a weekend in December. Looking for public transportation (bus, rail, whatever) to get from the Jersey side (Englewood, Palisades, Alpine) to mid town, around Rockefeller Center. Any park and go lot's up that way? I can not make head or tails out of the NJ or NY public transportation web sites. Part of me just wants to hike there, seems it would be easier.... I can provide BSA camping info and public transportation for Philadelphia if anyone is in need of that. Any assistance would be much appreciated. YIS, John

Old Grey Eagle, I placed three presentation's on my troop web site for you. You can find them at the following link. http://www.troop184.com/forms.aspx See header - Old Grey Eagle After you download them please email me at scouting@troop184.com and so that I can remove them. John

Old Grey Eagle, What council, what state are you in? Are you looking for a generic "Here is what a council does" powerpoint or one that is specific to your council? JOhn

google the following and you'll have 100's to choose from venture crew+PPT scouting+PPT cub scouts+PPT John

Thought I would provide a trip report on the Chicomacomico Challenge. This is a weekend HA trip out of Henson, Del-Mar-Va Council. Canoe trek theu the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge, south east Maryland. You can stay at Henson Friday night and depart Sat morning or if you get there early enough, paddle 45 minutes to the first campsite. Second night is spent on an uninhabited island in the refuge. We arrived at Henson 6:30 Friday night, so we overnighted at Henson. Henson provided transportation of canoes and a repositioning driver to place our vehicles at the put out site. The boys billed this trip as "Survivor". No tents, patrol boxes or anything. What you brought is what you had. Only exceptions were: they were provided with an MRE for Sat dinner and a 10 x 10 tarp for their shelter. Saw many Eagles, turtles, snakes, a wide variety of birds and other wildlife. Canoeing was good as out timing coincided with tidal flow. If not, it would have been much tougher. 9am - Departed Henson to put in site 11am - hit the water 12:30 - stopped for lunch 1:30 - hit the water 4:00 - arrived at the island Set up camp, explored a little, enjoyed the solitude 8:00am sunday - departed 9:15 arrived at put out site After thoughts, I would depart Henson Saturday morning around 7am. This gives more time for exploring the island and taking you time enjoying the scenery enroute on the canoe. A fair amount of mosquitos on the island - mosquito netting for the sleeping bags would have been a plus. Recommended for 14 years old, swimmers and experienced campers only. Island has no facilities what so ever. The folks at Henson were fantastic. Could have provided a little more detail on the island landing site, but we found it eventually. If you wnat to see pictures of the trip click here http://www.troop184.com/pictures.aspx Click 2005 - 2006 - Survivor Trip Del Mar Va details on the trip can be found here http://camping.delmarvacouncil.org/ChicamicomicoChallenge.htm I would be happy to ansewr any questions you may have. YIS, John

Thinking out loud and brainstorming Ranch and scouts....hhmmmm Lashing a split rail fence - timed Fire wood chopping - say 1/3 of a cord - timed then you will have split wood for the evening) Blindfold X number of scouts and have one scout "herd" them to a particular area. Somehting like troops at a time, each troop has say 8 scouts blindfolded in a common area, all mixed together. Each troop has one herder.... THe herder has to give verbal directions to get them separated and into a certain area (maybe an 8 foot by 8 foot area) "Harvest time" - something along the lines of a bushel's of corn and other items spread out over an area - collect it somehow. Thats about all I can think of right now John

Ooops forgot this excellent resource This is all you really need. http://nationstrails.com/trails/ John

Jockey Hollow Historic Trails Morristown NJ http://www.nps.gov/morr/ http://www.nps.gov/morr/pphtml/maps.html http://www.nps.gov/morr/pphtml/events.html John

We use the troop defined "Scout Spirit" as cmap / trip attendance guidelines. For our troop of 68 scouts it goes like this.... Trips are broken into three categories 1. Fun trips 2. Skills trips 3. Educational trips You must attend a Skills and an Educational BEFORE you can attend a fun trip. Everyone knows the rules and thats the way it is. Regarding HA it's like this 1. You must attend 4 of 10 of the years trips 2. You must attend two meetings a month 3. 14 or older 4. First class Regarding summer camp Everyone is encouraged to attend and we normally have 75% attendance. John

A real Father and Leader God Bless

firecrafter, 2K in a year is alot to expect to fundraise per scout (30K - yikes). What is this trip that costs 2K. Sounds like Europe to me. For our HA program, the scouts pick the destination and the activities. Then they make a list of what they want to do. I assemble an itinerary and travel route to accomplish their desires. Then, each of them is required to become the trip expert at each of the "stops". HA's run 400 to 1000. I make it known to the scouts that I expect them to raise 1/2 their HA money and I hold them to that. They have plenty of opportunity. The scouts sell $50.00 sponsorships to businesses. They keep 40% as a commission. If they work, they make money, if not, they don't. We do hoagies sale's, but for $1 sell for $3. 100% profit is split is split between those who participate. We run traditional summer camp for 13 and younger and HA for 14 and older. They are at different times in case someone wants to do both.

JohnNJ, Thanks for the comments. The scroll bar works on about 1/2 the pages. That's just the way the software is. Meeting place is on our calendar. JerseyJohn

http://www.troop184.com http://www.pack184.com Been using a free service for about four months and I am very happy. Software is text based - no need for html. Regards, John (This message has been edited by JerseyJohn)

Rat, Nice informative site. I "borrowed" the spinning glass logo. I also like the troop number style counter. I am going to replace my counter with that one. Here is my site www.troop184.com John

First, Doesn't matter Secondly, All of your suggestions had already been completed done prior to my first post. I would urge you to not read between the lines of short post's that condense months of activity. YIS, John