MattR

Thank you for joining the forum, @Jadalexm.

Welcome to the forum, @Brannigan. I hope you have a lot of fun with your kids in scouts.

Sounds very familiar. I came back to help the plc plan, as events were waiting to the very last minute to have a plan. Sometimes that resulted in events getting dropped. Wait too long and campsites can't be had. Wait too long and there's no enthusiasm and nobody signs up. So, the importance of having a calendar with enough detail far enough out can't be stressed enough. We just had a committee meeting and all sorts of problems stem from not having a plan with enough detail that people will look forward to doing it. Bringing this back to the original post, our cutoff used to be the meeting before the campout because we never canceled events when we had a good calendar. Recently, the plan has been too vague and we did cancel a campout because only one scout had signed up prior to the meeting. This alone really hurt me but anyway a couple of parents complained and there was a big discussion about when the deadline should be. My view is to work on the calendar process and get it back to what it was.

I see kids on powered toys and I think have fun, but some day you'll pay. Better to find a fun way to exercise. But I keep my mouth shut.

Welcome to the forum, @skop. "politics in scouting" is a really loaded term. I can imagine everything from drama to actual politics. My suggestion for mending relationships is to first remove the "politics" from the vocabulary. Also ask them what you did that offended them. Listen and apologize. Even if it's nothing you did. How they clear their conscience is their business so don't expect an apology from them.

I was a BSA scout in Belgium. We went to international camporees and we never thought about anything other than "they" had a wild mix of accents, uniforms, and clothing, even compared to what we saw in Belgium. I wouldn't make generalizations about people in the BSA. People are unique everywhere. I spent a summer in Japan and, once you cut through the facade, everyone still cares about their family and tries to do their best. Different cultures have different ways of doing things because that's what evolved. Not better, just different.

Any bets on how long before @SSScout asks for a sub forum? 😀

Enough. This was a discussion about recognizing adults.

The scouts can hand out more than one. It's just a nice way to thank adults. I find the mentor pins more meaningful than the knots.

You seem to not like that word. How about enjoy instead? I enjoy learning new skills as well as working with the scouts. And when it comes to scouts, of any age, if there's joy then there's also fun. If the scouts are not having some related fun then I suspect there is no joy and it's become a grind, very much like what happens to adults. This all gets really contorted as to what the difference is between fun and joy. I've read things that suggest a difference but then I looked at the definitions and they refer to each other. I suspect fun is what children, and adults acting childish, do while joy is what adults strive for. That explains why fun can't be the center of a program that's trying to raise young adults. I mean, ethical decision making is what adults do- that can't be fun. And yet, think about ethical decision making that doesn't include joy. That's where I see burned out volunteers and fed up, angry volunteers. This is not a scouter thing. It's our society. The number of volunteers has plummeted in recent years. Maybe it's because, when people were young, they never learned to have fun, or enjoy, helping others. Maybe they saw it as a slog that they had to do rather then something they could enjoy. Happiness today comes from an app. So, yes, I think fun is important as a way to finding joy. That doesn't at all mean all meetings can be ice-cream and Gaga ball. It means that all the skills scouts learn should be done in a fun environment, so they learn how to enjoy doing all the things scouts should do. That's why I think fun should be a method. Also, Barry, I know you find joy in scouting when you sign many of your posts with:

This might help you learn the melody. https://www.whosampled.com/cover/170658/Cornelis-Vreeswijk-Brev-Från-Kolonien-Allan-Sherman-Hello-Muddah,-Hello-Fadduh-(A-Letter-From-Camp)/

Whenever I list out the scout methods I add two: fun and service. Fun is an odd idea. Everyone knows it when they see it but it sure is hard to define. It's also dependent on each person. An eight year old's idea of fun is a lot different from a 12 or 16 year old. Fun is also something that changes. Gaga ball is fun, for awhile. Just like zip lines. One thing missing from the BSA is that playing is one of the best ways to learn something. The first thing I want to do when I get a new tool is to play with it. Another challenge the BSA has is understanding the how hard it is to keep a program fun. Advancement all on its own is not fun. It takes imagination. It also takes discipline to let the scouts find their own fun where it arises, like in a snow bank or at a stream. Again, when you see fun, it's obvious, but often we walk right by. To me, this is fundamental to what scouting offers. Learn how to find and have fun, within the confines of the oath and law, and you'll do well.

Sounds like a MB win to me. Another idea, at least one I could use, is a fireplace rake for separating coals from ash in a wood stove. It's a pole attached to a double sided rake. One side is a flat blade to push everything to the back of the stove and the other is like a regular rake to pull the coals forward out of the ash. So, a plate for one side and pieces of rebar welded to the plate to make the rake side, along with a pole sticking out perpendicular to that. No need for them in Texas but maybe Etsy.

Do a search on welding scrap metal art. Gotta be artistic but there are some great things.

Welcome to the forum @QBearHugs.

Fun outdoors

I might have handled it differently. A family shows up, with scouts in uniform, to some event and they haven't paid. That's fine. I think the first thing I would have done was consider how much the pack will go into debt for them paying nothing. Apparently it's about $4/scout, so call it $10. Next, I'd consider the shame and embarrassment on these scouts of being turned away. About the same time I'd ask myself why they didn't pay. That's always tough to figure out. They could be just trying to get a free ride, might just be really disorganized, might be broke and too shy to ask for help, or maybe just dealing with something horrible like family troubles, medical issues, ailing parents or the like. So, given $10 vs something I might not understand I probably would have said "welcome, come on in. We haven't seen you in a while. Can we talk later so we can straighten out a few things?" I'm not sure being the bad guy in public, in front of the scouts, is productive in the long term. I understand that rules were in place but I've learned the hard way that rules sometimes have unintended consequences. Long story short, friendly might be a way to think about it. And if it helps, add a rule (unknown to the families) that covers friendly.

Welcome to the forum, @TwoColdCamper.

Welcome to the forum, @JesseMills . And my apologies for dropping your post and taking so long to approve it.

Welcome to the forum, @Ranger55 . Sorry about the delay in your post being posted.

I wasn't laughing at you, but that emoticon was the closest thing I could find to "touche."

In defense of @RichardB, there's a chart in the 2019 post that does clarify all of this, so don't shoot the messenger. That said, we did ignore that rule because having webelos (aol now) join us for a campout with their parent was the best recruitment method we had. Going up for the day or just one night doesn't compare because the cub is not integrated as well. Other than sleeping we put him in a patrol. They loved it. As others have said, what's that much different between one night and two?

Very nice of you to help all those kids. I hope you collect a lot of good memories.

That's a great idea. The only thing I'd add is a chance for memories. Either a slide show of the scouts through their scouting career or even stories from anyone. It's the best part of our ecohs.

Two usefull bookmarks: Https://scouter.com/messenger Https://scouter.com/notifications