moosetracker

Not to change the topic, but how do you "delete" a double post.. (It more seems that you are editting it out).. I see the way you spin off to a new thread.. But not an edit button.

Avid SM.. I agree it is not hard, but we still have those who are not computer saavy.. Your right you can get on an take training without the number.. but all I know is my sons girlfriend just signed up.. Neither she nor my son could figure out how to sign in without the ID #'s.. And I wont say they are computer experts, but they grew up in the computer age. When shown how, they still would not do it not trusting the system to move the training to council at a later date, not trusting they could find where to enter the ID # after the fact.. Basically not trusting (and I don't blame them.) Once she had her ID # she got on and got around pretty well.

Well not that I am looking for extra work or headaches, but if our DE (If we have one by then), does not come to see me to help with getting people YPT by recharter time (or after recharter time, when the charter is being held), I will ask to be involved. It is not the way to earn a popularity contest. But, in our district the training has a reputation of being poor to nil.. I need a reason for myself and my staff (I got 2 so far, looking for more) to get out there and be recognized for training being back and maybe there will be crabbing because it is being forced, and there was no forewarning.. but at least if we can try to be of help and try to be of service it may at least get us recognition. (maybe all bad).. We don't need to do the training. But my guess is with some units being 0% trained, some people will not even know how to navigate through the training. How to get logged in with or without a number.. How to get your number in if set up without a number.. etc..

I have been told over the years of scouting that only the COR can hold two jobs in a single BSA unit.. They can be COR & committee member.. OK. I can go for that.. But going through the District Roster. There are other people taking on more them one job, and the multi-jobs don't make sense.. A person being the Pack Leader and the Asst. Pack Leader.. How do you do that? Hold conversations with yourself during a pack meeting? A person being Committee chair, and ScoutingParent Coordinator and the only Scouting Parent for the entire unit.. Ok the ScoutingParent Coordinator is helping the Committee chair get parents to volunteer to help, by finding them small things to do and getting those things to slowly grow.. And as Scouting Parent Coordinator & the only Scouting Parent enrolled, aren't you basically coordinating yourself? I know sometimes for lack of volunteers people do double up on jobs.. But these combinations just seem like impossible feats!

DeanRx - Youth protection has always been a retake every two years.. If going on trips that need the special (I think 500+ mile trips) it needed to be less they 1 year prior to the trip date. That is not new.. What is new is that you have to pay attention to it.. And that committee as well as Youth Leaders must take it, and that you have to take it prior to registering.. Which means taking it without a valid ID #.. They say that once you get the ID # & plug it in it will send all the training in your area to your council under that ID #.. Anyone know if that truely works? Well from being on this forum I know that some Advancment chairs have been running this YPT before registering to be a MBC.. They say it is going well for them.. Let's hope the same will be true for YPT before registering to be a BSA leader.. My one poor YPT report indicates I have many units in my district with 0% trained in Youth protection.. This is bad, this is sad. Other types of training in my district is not fareing any better. I am trying to learn this job and figure a way to whip everyone into shape, and not have a hostile audience throwing rotten fruit & veggies my way. Besides the registered Adult members. If they are stating "ALL".. Then wouldn't that mean Charter Org Reps.? Or are they excluded? Some reps are extremely uninvolved. They may not even know what a child looks like for all we know. Now imagine trying to get these COR's to get youth protection trained. I figure ScoutNet might be able to get some reports going before recharter time to help. But seeing the poor quality of the reports we currently have, I am not too sure how helpful they will be.. Hopefully if all the troops recharter electronically before heading off to recharter day then all the headache will be done before you get there. You will just go to recharter day to find out that half your volunteers were kicked out due to not having one training or the other.

Either they will need to get us new reports before recharter time, or during recharter time you will need in hand training cards for all your volunteers.. Currently the only report you can get from Council for your district is a YPT report that states unit Type Unit number and 20% trained or 60% trained.. Now from that, how do you tell who from the unit can recharter and who cannot unless you have a unit that says 100% trained? The reports for the other training info is just as good.. You have Adult leaders trained, and only the courses they took that are required for the specific job, minus youth protection & Fast start.. Fast start who cares if you took the other training it is a**-backwards to go back for that. 95% correct but some people are listed trained & have no courses listed.. Then for the untrained people you only know the classes they need to take, not the classes they have taken.. Minus Fast start and Youth protection. I got some people listed as untrained when they have no courses listed that they need to take.. Don't you think they would improve the reports before putting this into effect..? Rechartering is going to be a nightmare!!

I talked with the boy more at the troop meeting last night. He says the current SM was not planning to step down until December. The committee feels if he knows the situation he will remain on board until mid February when the boy becomes 21. So they will be looking for a legal solution. But, it sounds like with the SM goes many expierenced adult leaders. They have some new crossover adults willing to step in. But in truth it will be a fairly new troop. He plans to check out the troop next Thursday. He also wants to take my son & the another of our 18-20 YO adult leaders with him. But, my son is divided between helping him out and worrying that they can not pull it off. He also has good loyalty to his current troop. Also he is sort of committed to the troop until his woodbadge tickets are completed. I advised him to go with his friend next Thursday. If he sees potential problems, he can point them out to his friend and then choose to not jump troops because of them. If he just says "No" his friend will take it personally. But, who knows he may find that there is a great group of Adult leaders, who may be green, but ready and willing to jump in. (although if there is why no one wants to take on SM.....)

sherminator, I don't have a problem with that statement at all. Boyscouts is better if the SM & ASM side of the leadership is more predominantly male. A sprinkling of a mix is good. But, if the leadership is all male because no women are interested or qualified then that's fine.. You don't need to force a female into leadership in boyscouts for a mix unless you are co-ed Venture. I have never seen a skirt on a boy.. I guess us in cow-hampshire are a little bit slower in catching up to the new fangled fashions, or I don't hang out on the right street corners.

I would say the shove to get trained leaders is in the committees hands. Hopefully you have one with backbone. Your nagging him will not help your bonding and being happy teammates. And you really don't have the authority to enforce anything with him. Luck is on your side. With this years registration comes new rules that Leaders need to be trained to re-register. There is a one-year grace, which doesn't help at the Pack level because you jump in and out of Den positions with new requirements and new 1 year graces before the old grace period ended. Also by next month your specific training will be on-line. But still your committee could use it to their benefit to enact new requirements for their leaders, and make sure that they are trained in on-line in x amt of mths with a longer deadline for the course programs. Maybe with a rule of not being able to be a leader on an event without Youth protection at the very least. Just in a proactive way of making sure they don't get caught on registration day with untrained leaders.. This would mean enforcing it on all Den leaders and Committee members too.. But, it certainly wouldn't hurt the pack any to get trained leaders. And since all your training will be on-line except for Webloes outdoor leader.. How much easier can it be to do it?

GKlose does have different topics that we could look at. Thanks.. Ours is no longer on the website. It has been over a year since they ran it. Our next one is this coming March. But in the type of content that GKlose has, ours seems to be on target. Gunny - that is what I was hoping to hear. I love the way ours is run. The person who mentioned changing to be "legal" was the person who started it 12 or more years back. When she did she said she read it was suppose to be serious study, with people writing reports at the end etc.. She didn't want that, so moved to her own format. Now she said maybe SofU changed their format, in which case great, otherwise to be "legal" we should change to the true version.. If that was what she saw 12 years ago then there was a reason she changed it.. WHO WOULD WANT TO GO ????? So I am glad that that is NOT the way others run their SofU. The two that will never go away in our SofU, they have the largest turnout are definately the cooking demos.. Our favorite is Dutch Oven cooking, (Yes, you get that lots of places, but the guy we have is fantastic.. and you get to eat what he makes.. YUM.. Lunch..) Also great is utensiless cooking.. cooking on stones, in orange peels etc.. I forget what meat it was but they plastered something in mustard and threw it right in the fire. When it comes out the mustard is flaked off.. Yumm... I enjoyed the Eagle court ceromony one.. Something on balloon making (though my critters were pathetic.) I have been to one or two that the instructor was not good. But, over all they were all great.

Clarification - My son is on district on the Eagle board. But the committee position is at unit level, not district. We do not invite him to district, and don't think he would be welcome.. Besides a few people set in their ways, Atmosphere has been pretty nasty.

Eagle92 - hear you. He is also jumping into a unit he knows nothing about. What is the adult support that he will have behind him? How may scouts are in this unit? Unfortunately we can advise, but this is one headstrong person who has always jumped in feet first. I don't know if it is the sign of the times, or if we hang around with very mature young adults. We have a difficult time getting "of age" canadates to take on positions at district level as well as unit level. My son took on district Eagle board by going "welcomed, but in guest mode" until they invited him to join. He also went to the committee meeting regularly and fought to get a vote on the committee. We have 3 or 4 other 18-21 YO that looking at my son at district level want to work at district level also. This "new" SM was one of them, I think he will not look to take on district any more. If this is our unit I wonder what other fine young adults are eager to jump in, given the opportunity. We are going to bring it up at the next district meeting. Ok, maybe by age they can't be voting members of the board. Maybe they can't be the chair of a committee. But, if they are eager and willing to work there must be something I can do with them as support staff. Can I give them titled positions under the chair? Do I need to team them with an adult mentor and have both of them work the job equally? I see nothing but good from the association. For the young adults : 1) they get work expierence that they can put on job applications and if they take seriously can give them excellent references. 2) The pride in them when they get asked to serve is amazing.. When us old guys are asked, some of us are excited, but alot of times it is guarded and maybe even reluctant. 3) There may be other reasons they want the opportunity, but I'm not sure what it is not being that age anymore. For the district / unit : 1) you get enthusiastic volunteers 2) They may leave to start a family, but chances are they will be back with thier children. These will be people who will get involved as parents again. 3) We are offering these young people opportunities, and isn't that what we are all about. 4) If I do have to pair them with an adult, I think I might find the adults easier, if they know they do not have to do the job alone. Beavah - you said that Internationally they use young people for Pack & Troop programs. I wonder why the age limit here. I am also surprised they find young adults working the cub scout program. That one I though may be difficult to find a young adult with interest in, unless they are going into a field in day care, or to be an elementary school teacher.

The kid was our acting SM on our last camporee.. Did a great job. So a troop with an SM that is leaving just approached him today and asked him to be SM for their troop. He is all excited. They will need to shuffle papers & put someone over 21 in the position at least on the forms until he reaches age. (That will be in Jan or Feb) My husband told him he will need to come and talk to us because this is a great kid, but he has some organizational issues (which I don't think the other troop assessed at the camporee.) We will not be there to help him fine tune these skills. Otherwise I am excited for him. He has been a second son for us. Our sons grew up together since 2nd grade. His parents weren't into scouting, so we were his scouting parents. Still, I have to think this troop is desperate. I would think a troop would first look for a leader inside their troop, before they asked someone outside their troop. And then a boy of 21 I think you may consider if he grew up in the troop and you know him well. Again to recruit from outside a boy of 20 / 21 ... WOW... I thought our troop was daring and innovative.

P.S. I revised my earlier statement.. Of they feel women are inferior. To they just feel women our seprate... with cooties.. But you boys have cooties too, so there. Interestingly, I read in the paper yesterday of a Baptist church in our area, that a women just made a complant about. At 16 she was raped by a church member twice her age, and became pregnant. The church made the women stand in front of the congregation and appologize for her sins. The man had to appologize for being unfaithful to his wife, but that is all. No appology for raping an under age girl. Then the congrgation wisked the girl out of state, and kept her confined to some place. They reported the incident to the police as consensual, and the police were unable to locate the under age victim because the church had already gotten rid of the evidence. The man could not be brought to trial because the police could not find the victim. The victim now 27-28 (somewhere in there) is just now with help being able to realize that it was not her fault. She is now asking that the man be brought to trial. The original church with the BSA troop may or may not treat thier women as inferior. They may be a church that believes seperating the two genders is best.. But, can you tell me the church from this new article treats it's women fairly? 1997 is that long ago. From what the article states, this is still the practice of the church.

Went to a Council wide meeting for Training staff. I guess being a Training chair I will be working our Scouting U, not going for fun. We hold it every 2 years, and I have gone to 3 or 4 (not sure). Had some discussion on if our SU was being run as an "official" SU should be. If not we needed to change to be official. Ours they say is sort of like a Pow-wow but it is not for just Packs, it is for Packs, Troops, Ventures. How is yours run? Also they are fishing for new ideas and stated the best place to find new ideas are from what other Councils do for thei SU.. So.. Q.. What are some of the courses you think are popular?

Yes 21 is required age. But strangly our troop just went through this. Alot of us (me included) wanted a 21 year old very skilled in Leadership, energetic charismatic young man, to be ScoutMaster. He could get anyone to follow him adult and youth alike. Could use a little more organizational skills. But, we had plans to give him a more mature advisor, who could help him organize and make sure the responsibility did not overwhelm him. Problem was we had to kick our current (inadequate) SM out.. COR & CC were against the change, for 2 reasons 1) they did not want to hurt the current SM feelings (they think we could do better too.).. 2) They worried more about the young mans organizational skills, then the rest of us. We felt the not only the youth would respond to him better. The current group of young ASM's between the ages of 18 - 21 and our one FEMALE 18 year old ASM.. Yes you heard me right.. Not in the Venture crew at all, we don't have one.. ASM.. Would respond to him better. So I can't say I would walk.. This is not a blanket statement of "NO.. We will not let him be SM because he is 21, and no 21 year old can be SM". Now, if it were a blanket statement like that..

Maybe that is one of the reasons our RT are more successful. We have the annoucements & the structure. But after the announcements you can go off to the rooms for structure, or you can stay in the school cafeteria where the annoucements were and just yak to this person or that person. Lots of people shuffle off, lots of people stay and yak.

Sad.. I have heard of boys getting all the way to their EBOR, and then not getting Eagle award due to stating at the board he doesn't believe in God, or something that would define him as an atheist. I have never heard of anyone announcing Homosexuallity at the board, but I am sure it has been done. Atheism I take to mean that they put their faith in science rather than a higher being. I don't find that so bad. Or meaning that they have poor character. I have known atheists that treat their fellow man with more kindness then some church goers.. Same with homosexuallity.. I know it could mean loose values, but so could heterosexual.. I know may homosexuals that live a pretty normal life. Maybe have a life partner (if not in a state where they married.) Now some gangs may be just a group of gays hanging on a Saturday night. But for truely people who get into violent gangs, or Klu Klux clan.. Hmmm.. I scratch my head to see them remove their colors or remove their sheet and say.. "Sorry, guys I have to now skip of to boyscouts, back in a few.." But, if there was someone like that, then they are not living up to the Boy Scout code. He can stay in the troop (as long as he is not disrupting the troop) in hopes he will change. But, I don't think he could go for the Eagle award without changing his beliefs. Now I have seen a wonderful boy go through scouts and get his Eagle.. He was truely Gothe (I don't know if I spelled that right.) The long hair, some strands colored. He might have worn the uniform, but was never without this black trench like coat.. I am sure once he left the troop he would ad some makeup and chains.. or whatever. Parents would check out the troop. Take one look at him and leave. But, if you talked to him he was the kindest soul.. The younger boys in the troop loved him, although they nicknamed him Vampire.

JHankins --- NOT the dreaded "read the book" ! Everyone else slacks off on the book reading. We started in a troop that required the scout to read the book first. So our son, continued to read the books even after we left the troop, and all the other scouts around him got signed off without reading the book.

I got the count tonight that we had over 400 at the Kick-off. Not that it was like this in past years, but they can now pull it off of the web site. Though it is more work for them. Most events are only district level. This maybe wouldn't work with all Councils, but it works great for ours. So my hat is off to them for finding something that brings people in. Now once you have their attention, you had better present some great stuff, or you wont get them back next year. But, if you have a GREAT program, and a small carrot to dangle. You can usually get people to come.

Lisabob, funny you should mention Family Life as I teach it. I'm not a man, but the male role modeling by the advisor is not required. You would hope that they would have gotten good role models from the boy scout leaders if not their own fathers to be able to put into words what they think a good father is. Sadly from those from broken homes, regardless of how long they have been in scouts I see that familure deer in headlights look. I guide them to think out word from "father" to men they admire who are "father-like" think about the question and let them contemplate it for a while. I guess I put my foot in it on my last merit badge. The other question is The responsibility of the parent. In this I get them to explain responsibility of both sets of parents unless I know of problems. Last I knew this scout was in a stable home. In recent months the Mother was the one who I guess was breaking up the home in a very destructive manner. So the boy was fine talking about the father, but near tears when parent lead me to get him to think about both parents. Family life can be a very tricky MB to work on.

Ooops.. Cracked one egg. (That I know of so far) The female venture crew statement was not to imply that a sprinkling of male adult leaders would not be a good thing.. I have stated before men involved in female clubs would be good to get them to be more adventurous.. It is just that it would work.. Much better then a Boyscout troop with all female leaders.

Eamonn - you tiptoed around those eggs and I don't think you cracked a single one.. I think I was the most active poster on the original thread.. But, I in no way was trying to state that boys do not need male role models. Unless an all female Venture unit.. A boyscout unit with all or pedominately female Leaders would not be a good thing. IMHO.. But, a sprinkling of women on the team is great, and I think needed. Part of the role model that men need to show boys is how to interact with the opposite sex. They can see more of that when two Adult leaders of opposite sex are interacting along side him on camporees. Much more so then an Male Adult leader who is actively engaged in working with him in the program, breaking away from the group to go and talk to the female committee member CC.. The two genders engaged in activities with him, will include him into their conversations.. The Leader/committee person will be having boring conversation he is rarely a part of. Many Single female parents choose the boy scouts in order to give their sons a few good role models. If the father is still in the picture but is a poor role model, all the more important the boy grows up to know that all men do not act the same way. I think you can have adventurous and cautious personalities in either gender. But, the adventurous tend to be more often in males. I believe this will slowly change the more the two genders defined roles get more and more blurred.. And I don't believe the blur is a bad thing. Boyscouts need the adventurous adult leaders to make it exciting for the boys. But a few words of wisdom about not jumping off the cliff (be it made by a man or women) is a good thing too.

Council calendar puts into one calendar all the events for all the districts. For the full year out. In my job I wanted the training classes dates they were being done for each district. All on a single page. (On the web site the info may be there, but broken into different calendars for each district.). At a unit level this help me direct people to training outside our district if they couldn't make our districts training. I know others boy / scoutmaster etc.. Were interested in the district events. When is the Fall/spring camporee. When is the Hike-a-thon etc.. you need those dates to plan your other events around them so you don't have conflict. You hear about the events when they get closer, but to plan a year out calendar for your unit, you first must have the Council calendar. This year also they had the first intro (you weren't trained after attending) for the masses on the new Cub scout program.. Info about it and question/answer time. That had a huge turnout. 3 classes, standing room only, the ran out of handouts in the 2nd class, and had to run to the council office for more between classes. They also hold the Trail to Eagle, Info on how to send your advancement info in the new on-line format to council, and other programs. Then they have these informational booths. The CD they did not pass out this year had the paper calendar. Plus my training broken up even better then the paper calendar. Paper Calendar is Month per page along with all the other monthly happenings. The Cd had it just for training, broken down by training Course - with info of dates / district / who to contact. CD also had all those neat nifty forms you are always seeking out on the internet. What was on CD for training is not on the internet. It is just now no more.. (* SOB *).. This REALLY is something people came out for. (Although, it may not be SM or CC, we may just send a unit Representative..)

typo.. district calendar.. I meant Council Calendar.. srism - if you have an active OA, you might see if they can't meet in the same time/place. You might get the parents of OA kids showing up just because they are there anyway. If your Roundtable start putting on a good show for them, then maybe word of mouth will get others back.