moosetracker

Here's another question. How many will question that med form with Dr. Signature when the weight is obviously wrong?? We have an adult leader who is obviously not the weight that is on the med Form.. He states he is the same weight as my husband.. He is taller and has a gut on him.. My husband is shorter and does not.. When you look at his med form you question who really filled it out and signed it.. When you are suppose to take them at their word as being honest, how do you call them out on it? Already know he doesn't judge things, he went on a hike up a mountain and turned back leaving the scouts (not a patrol, just a group from the troop) to continue the hike without him, while he went back.. (Well not good to leave the scouts on their own, but at least he didn't continue further and then need to be carried down).. Would you take out the scale and ask him to hop on?? For me, I am so glad I am not in a position where I would have to call out anyone.. This is not going to be a fun task..

Sounds good.. But, you still have work ahead of you, because you are the center hub. Take the hub out and the program collapses.. Until you do that your 5 years plan is not adding stability, it is adding dependancy.. on you.. Who can you get to fill your shoes if what comes with the position is all that you are currently doing? Next years plan of attack should be to get the committee to do their job.. And for DL's & ACM's to be at activities the scouts are at even if the parents don't show up (like the PWD building day, and pack meetings)..

I was going to say something similar to shortridge.. You can say no more PWD days, as yes most Packs get the block of wood & need to go home and make the car.. You just decided that you will be like most packs.. You as CM, run the Pack meeting with you ACM.. Make sure the DL's are doing their jobs during den meetings. And are lead person on things like a Pack campout.. Deal with problems a scout (not scouter) may have.. End of your job.. Committee.. Deals with Complaining parents. Deals with FOS & complaining DE's on the subject. Do the pre-organizing for any type of prep work for a function.. (ex. make sure you have a place to hold the Pack meeting, sets up the awards before the Pack meeting, make sure the arrows are set up before the AOL awards, on camping trips make sure the arrangements are made as to food, equipment etc.. whose bringing what..).. These are all the committees job.. And NO the committee can not do it's job by assuming the CM/SM will do every little thing they think up.. Their job is to take the work off the CM/SM so that he can plan on program.. You are the figure head of the event.. You are not the workhorse of the event. That is the committees job.. Edited to add: Remember you are not just feeding up the cubscouts, you are feeding up the parents into the troop.. Train the parents now, or you will have the same problems when they get to the Troop.. Troop is a little better because somethings can be made the responsibility of the boys, but there are still complaining parents, car organization for trips, At least 2 deep leadership on events, summer camp organizations (at least med-forms which should be confidential & not assigned to the youth..) etc.. Your older scouters are may or may not be there still..(This message has been edited by moosetracker)(This message has been edited by moosetracker)

Yes, but Hawkrod, the details would have decided the chain of command.. Without it, you can not figure out the chain of command. If I saw a scouter steal from my unit, I would get the CC & COR involved. If I saw a scouter steal from the district hike-a-thon I might start with the DE If I saw a scouter steal from the Council camp funds or the council store, then I might start with the program director or the SE.. If I saw a scouter stealing sterios and TV's out of Best Buy.. I would start with the police. It sounds like you finally got the answer you needed from the forum.. But, obviously it took details to get someone to finally give you the answer you needed.. Without the details, it just didn't click with people the right answer to give you and you might have gotten some wrong answers by people making assumptions and coming up with answers based on them.. Or you may have gotten wrong answers by people who "thought" they knew the right answer but did not.. Not all of us can be right all the time. You learn more & more as you make statements on these forums and someone else comes along and points out rule #52 or form # 83 that proves that you are totally incorrect.. Then when you figure that out those at National change all the rules & regs around, and the next month you post about something that "now" you think you know, to be told you are wrong again.. Little by little you get something right over time.(This message has been edited by moosetracker)

Well disband the pack may be too harsh, especially since it would not be your call alone to make. But a warning of thinking you will back out on your 4 year committment due to other family commitments, unless you get others stepping up to do things that THEY want done but THEY will not lift a finger to make happen.. Just explain there is too much that they are burdening you with with absolutely no help from others, and you are spread too thin.. Since your family is no longer in the Pack, and the Pack seems to be demanding the most of your time, it is the sensible thing to choose to back out of.. Then if no one steps up, step out, and commit your time to the activities that your family is involved in.. If they do step up, then you at least have changed your commitment from being absolute, to being on the condition others step up and help out.. If after 6 months they start backing back out, just mutter a few warnings to the right groups of people to get them to step back in again.

What made you commit to 4 or 5 years after your son had left??? Now they know they have you by the "you know what".. That is most likely why everything got dumped on you.. NEVER.. NEVER.. NEVER.. Commit to anything, at least without a "I will be there as long as you are also as committed as I to stepping up and helping out.. If I have no support, I am out of here"..

That's the kicker Pchadbo.. I told our DE that supposably we were allowed to go to camp without the weight/height requirement, now it is up to them to figure out how this is suppose to happen if we can't get the doc signature, or how does the doc sign this statement for summer camp involvement.. if 5yrscouter is correct and part C is no longer needed for camp.. Whoo-hoo.. Makes it alot easier for those in the trenches to get these forms to us in time for camp. But somehow, I think that would be just too nice of the bean counters to do for us.. Anyway our district is forewarned, and I believe now the council is forewarned so hopefully we will have answers from them at roundtable.. Also I or my son (don't remember who now) forewarned them of the changes to to Tour Permit into the tour planning.. So it should be "hopefully" a very informative roundtable.

Basement - How much longer before your son moves into a troop?.. You can leave whenever burn out is too much and let them figure out what they took for granted, but if you are crossing over around March, you sure can leave without feeling a single twang of guilt, or worrying about your den not having a great pack.. And you can move over to the troop and either not get involved at all until you recoup, or go on the committee for a while and pick & choose one or two things to help.. At least until your burn-out is mended and you are itching to get in the ring again. edited to add: Also is there anything preventing your Pack from putting together a form parents have to fill out in order to qualify for assistance, and an analysis of who gets what based on there need and willingness to fundraise to help themselves? That is what the camperships do, and I think it works quite nicely.. It keeps those who don't need it from applying, and if they do, there lack of need, or their lack of helping with fundraisers set up to help themselves eithe disqualifies them or gives them a very small piece of the pie.(This message has been edited by moosetracker)

I missed how the whole Holiday Inn express reference started up.. Hawkrod - I myself got myself into hot water accusing someone of stealing, but it got all miscommunicated and was a big mess. Had to do with popcorn too, and the first yeare we were in the troop. My son sold so much popcorn. I got a glance at the spread sheet and it was not the correct amount. I also knew the amounts of other kids and they were also not accurate (all too low).. I went to the committee chair & treasurer (who togeather produced the spreadsheet) and I got a response they didn't know why the amount was the way it was. So I emailed the COR stating that something was wrong and if these two people (who I trusted totally) had no idea where the amounts came from someone had tampered with the totals.. Email went to the CC and the next thing I knew I had him hauling me to a private conversation where he yelled at me because he thought I was accusing him of stealing.. I told him my problem was not with him, but with his response that he did not know why the money was the way it was.. Well I never did understand his spreadsheet, but money was split up all over the place and he understood it, and somewhere in it was the full amount.. My problem I think was I asked him when he didn't want to deal with sitting down with me and explaining it, but his response did nothing to relax me, it got me very worried and sent me to suspect that there was someone who should not be involved finding a way to manipulate the money. How he got from my email to the COR which had been sent to him that I was accusing him, I did not know, because I thought it was very clear my alarm was in the fact that he nor the treasurer were not involved. I was trying to figure out who was the culprit, and figure out how to solve the problem. Anyway it ended up with the only thing I could do to settle the whole problem was to volunteerily make a public appology to him at the next committee meeting. Mis-understanding regarding money is a very common situation..

Brotherhood, thanks that does make total sense.. I for some reason just didn't see that outside of council or district events meant "if the event is not a council event or a district event" you need to do the planning.. Originally I skimmed it and thought that the meaning was you must do a tour planning for these high adventures no matter if in council or not, but then when I re-read that first line and tried to make sense of it, I was totally confused by it.

I wish my husband was more of a reader.. Basically in our trip our youth more go to my husband because he is more supportive of them leading their own program.. He is an Eagle scout and got it one year before the "new" program hit in the 70's. But, he does have a definite limit of where he would give youth there head. I tell him about the patrol outing.. Our troop I understand, could not do this, with the SM currently it is definately an adult run troop.. Son is now 20 and for dislikes the program, but stays in hopes to be able to change it. Husband is back & forth also of wanting to leave, and hoping to help the scouts get some sort of a decent program. Husband even with his Eagle and his lobbying for a more boy-lead program is totally against patrol outings with no adult leaders. Patrol outings still need 2 deep Adult leadership.. His comment when I told him the patrol outtings without adult leadership was in jeapordy was "Good, they should do away with this." I ask him what he had against it.. He said he was all for the patrol going on seperate outings and encourages all the time, but the scouts don't take him up on it. He is fine with the 300 ft method, but insists the adults need to be there for.. The two fears he mentioned was of someone getting injured or the boys setting fire to the forest.. Maybe it was me reading more into it, but when he said it, the things that crossed my mind was more a fear that would be more a lack of trust.. That they would bring alcohol or cigerettes, or spend the night looking a playgirl magazines.. Call it wifely intuition, it was just the mental image that hit when he said adults needed to be there in case they set the forest on fire. That of a wild uncontrol party. Probably for us the whole concept is theoretical.. If the troop ever got a new SM and started moving back to being boy-lead, I doubt they would make this much of a rebound as to even contemplate the patrol outing.. Would it even be available when they were ready? But, I am just curious what sort of arguement you would use with an adult who has these fears of allowing the patrol to go off on their own.

Basically I think this policy will definitely encourage slimming down. Like the slimming down of membership in the BSA. Also can anyone explain why Woodbadge is consider some sort of high Activity saftey risk? Ok maybe the week long, Woodbadge over exceeds 72 hours so that to BSA means high risk But most are 2 weekends at a residence camp.. Is it just because woodbadgers must set the "High example"? I am wondering our council has Heading Woodbadge this year, The ones for the past few years would now find themselves disqualified 6 months before woodbadge (and after spending alot of money going to Philmont for training).. Also many who staff woodbadge yearly will now be disqualified..

Sounds official like.. Is this what the Council is getting from National, or is this what your council has sent out to it's normal volunteers..? While some is the exact same as what we saw from the fact web page from the original post, The differences are the date of start up & things that sound like a list of what Council needs to do, sounds more like what national is sending out to Councils about the changes.. So I am just wondering.. Also can someone explain the phrase "d. When conducting the following activities outside of council or district events: " Above the list of things like Aquatics, climbing, shooting sports etc. It makes it sound like again only needed if out of council or it is a district event (like a camporee).. Why is it seperated from needed for activities that are out of council? the item B that states b. Trips outside of council borders not to a council-owned property.. Is it simply to add in the tour plan is needed for a district even where a shooting sport is hosted..? And why is that, before the tour permit was not needed if attending district events (at least in our council) whether shooting sports were included or not.

resqman - I'm hurt. You don't remember your 1 to 2 hour First Aid course during the IOLS course training? In that time you were introduced to all the first Aid from tenderfoot - 1st Class.. Ta! Da! and a new Doctor is born Seriously as others have mentioned, being able to rattle off the list is one thing, event doing simulation where someone pretends is one thing.. The real life situation, where the patient does not show all the symptoms, does not complain right away, can not describe perfectly what he is feeling.. The lists and the simulation is no real defense, for the real thing.

Seattle - Not our council camps. They check the forms with a fine tooth comb, don't forget to dot an i or you are out. I wrote our DE to find out his take (who is bumping it up the line).. Basically I told him the Bottom line, it means loss of membership. First work on how to get the Dr. Signature to meet the ability to go to camp.. Still, even if we can work around that, Units now are put in the predicament of two choices.. A) Plan a backpacking trip and single out Bobby & Pete to their embarressment as being unable to go, because they are porkers.. B) Dumb down their whole program so that everyone can attend all events.. In choice #1 you will get the overweight people leaving due to discrimination.. In choice #2 you will get alot of people who want and are use to a robust program leaving due to the fact the program offers no adventure any more. I also feel for who ever is running Woodbadge this year.. First he has to un-invite half his staff that he asked to be on staff, and find new people.. Second he may not meet his participation quota to even host the program. My son would also be disqualified for outings due to having Dystonia which causes symptoms similar to an epiletic attack.. We have a boy in our troop who has epilepsy.. We also have a boy without a full heart, who could die anytime.. But parents know it, we know it and they want their son to have as much fun as possible.. But when he goes, he goes.. With my son the Dr just wrote he could not participate in things with height, so he could not do rock climb or the cope course.. Now he could not do anything.. I know the other boys have limitations their Dr has written down.. Now per BSA.. "Oh but you still can be a scout! Give us your money and attend weekly meeting. You just can't do anything else, but maybe a car camping event if your unit offers them." I think we will see many boys, boys who were not in sports for a reason, so they chose BSA for thier activity.. Now, leaving scouts also..

Look at other threads here where the volunteers are griping over the manditory training imposed on them. Training which is a pin prick compared to the training you are asking we require of each and every volunteer that goes on an outing with the boys.. Now if you made it a paid job.. Or even paid them for the hours in class to get the training, you would probably have the volunteers willing to go. (Yearly for refresher courses and new/changed procedures).. But, you would need to pay for that.. Prices like the others quoted. Otherwise, you need to except there is only so much you can ask a volunteer to spend time doing, in order to be a volunteer, without having your volunteer pool dry up.. As others have said their is a fine line balance that needs to be maintained.

Welcome.. You made me go look up what a neoluddite was.. Hopefully you will get over your ethical & moral beliefs and come visti often.

Encourage is one thing.. You stand up at roundtable and encourage, you sit around at a camporee and encourage.. Unfortunately you are preaching to the choir if all you are doing is encouraging them to be the MBC's and not encourage them to go out and ask their friends, relatives and neighbors and co-workers who they think would be a great resource to be an MBC for a hobby/interest/job.. My husband encourages, and you say he is wrong to do so.. He must go out and single handled pick all the MBC's.. That is ridiculous, and impractical.. His form of encouraging is bring in alot of new great MBC's.. Therefore he is doing his job..

Another suggestion besides Instructor positions is that the SM can assign a job not officially set by BSA up to the POR for Life scout.. Our troop use to do Web Master before it was recently added.. We had scouts organizing the hike-a-thons for the troop. I am sure that similar jobs could be popcorn or summer camp for the troop. Someone organizing, locating and keeping in contact with alumni from the troop is a good assignment also.. If you are a very aquatic troop the troops Life guard (who not only took on the responsibility, but also lined up others to take turns with the policy).. I visited a troop that had someone for the scout spirit position.. He would lead yells and cheers and organize the campfire programs.. Put your mind to it, you can make up many positions for those not at Life scout yet.

It may be written, but there is no way 1 person can track down decent people for the whole state.. It is not logical.. Per my council, the training of the MBC, fall to the district Training staff (also it is held at University of Scouting.).. That would be me.. Remember this is a volunteer job, when it becomes a paid position, (with gas allowance) then we can talk about spending 40 hours a week driving from town to town all over the state, visiting with doctors, lawyers and Indian cheifs.. Until then the 50+ hours putting together the 5 seprate MBL's his predessor had going (all different) 100+ hours spent on the phone this year talking to the current MBC's to update the list 30+ hours recalling people because they never sent in their YPT forms as asked per the first conversation. Plus the District Advancement dinner organization Plus having to key in all the advancement awards earned by the cub scouts and boy scouts. Plus the monthly Eagle boards On top of having another volunteer position in the Boy Scouts in the Troop. Will have to be good enough.. Even if it became a paid position: If you trust someone from district to pick random strangers off the streets for your MBC, then don't complain about their quality.. For certain things like : swimming the MBC must have Life guard and Swimming Instructor certificates.. For any thing with rifles or what not, they must prove they have the correct certificates for that.. That he will check.. Sorry - Reality meets words on a piece of paper.. Since everyone in our district is just thrilled with the job he is doing, I guess our district volunteers are also grounded to being realistic also..

Well I didn't mean you as in YOU.. literally.. I meant you as in your Troop, your crew, and your district.. What a volunteer District Advancement Chair (and their volunteer staff if any).. Do is the coordinating of all the units information from the district into one packet and keep that updated.. That is something that would be difficult, if not impossible for each unit to organize, because they need the info from all the units around them, or they are stuck only using their own troop MBC's..

The District responsibility is to take all the MBC of all the troops and then organize them (and keep them up-to-date) so that all the units can utilize them. My husband will not run all over the state asking complete strangers if they would be an MBC in every city and town for every MB there is.. First off he wouldn't know them at all and could recruite the town drunk, village rapist etc.. But once he has knowledge of the MBC the unit has chosen he will call them periodically and ask if they would like to continue being an MBC.. So that the widow of someone isn't getting calls for him as an MBC 10 years after he passed away. That is what your District Advancement should do for you in organizing the MBC's.

clemlaw will be a stranger to this troop, although affiliated with it for MB counsoling. As my husband who is district advancement tells the units in our district.. "It is not up to us to find the MBC, it is up to you.. Go out and ask your neighbor the doctor, or your best friend the Veterinarian or your brother the auto mechanic.".. Being associated to a troop, just means the troop has asked you to help with the MB counsiling and you agreed. Or in Clem's case he asks them and they trip all over themselves with welcoming him in.. Then you are affiliated to a troop.. Doesn't mean the kids know you anymore then they know the person teaching the MB in the unit down the street. Hopefully the SM will ask you some questions and get an idea about who you are before he sends his scouts to you.(This message has been edited by moosetracker)

jblake - sounds good, but in the real world if the youth ignore the adults or basically say something to the effect of "Give me that, and get out of my face!!".. They are seen as basically rude, arrogant and breaking all the scout laws.. Any adult who may have been on their side will whomp them upside the head with all the other adults.. Youth need to tread lightly and politely in getting control of the reins (or in this case the wheel of the ship.)

I posted, but seems it didn't take for some reason.. So I will try again.. Even though my troop may never use the Patrol outings. Even though the thought of getting the parents to give permission for their son to go on a patrol outing without adult supervision, may be a difficult thought for many troops to ever envision the day. I love the possibilty, because it makes the SM ask himself if he would trust his patrols on an outing without supervision. If he says "No" then that is the goal he should be shooting for, he has just stated his patrols are adult-led. Then it is a matter of shooting for the goal of having the parents see that the patrol their son is in is capable of going out without adult supervision. Which means the goal is boy-led and fine tuned.. I love the fact that this option give the SM a very tangable goal to shoot for to be able to gauge if he is running a troop that is boy-led or adult-led.. As for car-pooling, it really is not very sensible for a patrol outing to be 100 miles away from your home town, unless as indicated the whole troop is going on the trek there is already car-pooling involved and then the patrol goes on their own once they arrive at the destination.. The reason it would not make sense is the fact that you have adults then hanging around with nothing to do, or having to set up a camp or get a hotel room while they wait.. Not pratical IMO.. Remember in the end their planned outing must be approved by the SM.. Therefore with car pooling this should be checked by him for accurate coverage.. But a parent dropping off & picking up locally is 100% do-able, and even an organization of a car-pool for a trip maybe an hour out, is well within the ability of boys who have been taught to lead themselves. Don't sell these boys short.. If they can't organize a car pool, they are not ready for an outing of that level.. As for swimming, most of the boys in the troop are the ones with the BSA Lifeguard. My son had BSA Lifeguard & Red cross.. It is a wonderful summer job for them. Adults usually don't have the time to keep the Lifeguard certificate up-to-date, kids can do it as a summer camp activity and while earning money in summer jobs. But a trip to the public beach with lifeguards on-duty, is also a possibility for fun.. For fear of getting hit by my fellow posters though I can see some high adventure activities being either not allowed without adult suprevision, or a professional guide. Like whitewater is normally with a professional guide unless your unit owns it's own raft equipment.(This message has been edited by moosetracker)