moosetracker

I am reverent of their policies otherwise If not, I would have advised nwasness to sue them up thier ass. I did not instruct her to stay and fight for her beliefs. I told her to move somewhere where she and her son would be welcomed. Somewhere were men and women are treated as equals in the program. These are antiquated beliefs. And women are being treated as inferior. Well maybe not inferior, just seprate, with cooties.. (I am sure that the women have a nice sewing circle that mwasness can join, and they equally exclude the men from joining.)If though the chuch want to have them, and they have people who want to buy into it. Let them have them. Nwasness does not though have to conform to their belief system. Worse yet, she does not have to raise her son up into that belief system. Therefore, she should move. You can respect them for their beliefs if they are not forcing their beliefs down your throat. I would consider the Omish to have antiquated beliefs. I can respect them for it. In some ways I can envy their ability to live in a gentler, quieter time and not be a part of this rat-race of life the rest of us live in. If though I went to live in an Omish community, I would probably kill them or myself before the week was out. I wonder if this troop stay at a hotel/motel, they instuct the establishment to rid the entire place of any women before they arrive? I mean if their own women can't stay in the same hotel, what sort of bad influence would strange women have? I would love to see them in a room that was next door to "interesting sounds" comeing through the wall.

I would go to a different troop. There antiquated policies will flare time and time again. Although scouting is for your son, do you really want him to learn that women are inferior by this group being his role model? I am sure your training takes you out of the mother hen role, of following your scout around, and into the role of enjoying the scouting experience, and enjoying being a part of molding these young men just as much as any male scout leader. You are in your right to not cheat yourself out of this expierence. My family moved to 3 troops before we were happy. By the third troop, we learned to not just jump. Go to 3 or 4 troops in the area, watch the troop in action, maybe visit a committee meeting if one is in the immediate future. Ask what activities they have been on in the past few year, make sure you are welcome to join as an Adult leader at the level you wish (some troops, may not give you ASM immediately, but let you camp until a position opens up and they feel you are the best to fill the role.) But even if not ASM if you can go on trips, and possible find an committee role that interacts with the scouts (advancement, outdoor coordinator etc.).. Then you can find happiness in the troop. Your feelings for the troop will influence your sons feelings for the troop. If you do not feel welcomed or comfortable, it will influence your son. Best to find a good fit for the both of you. The troop we ended up in was a 30 minute drive, and they were at the bottom corner of the district, so most centralized district events are 1 hour or more away. Still the change was worth it to us.

BrentAllen - People get those little awards without asking or wanting them. The receiving of them doesn't make you a bad person. The doing things only to get the awards makes you out of sorts with the true purpose. As for what would happen to scouting without the adult awards - Since most scouts don't know about the awards, and don't nominate people. And half the people who go to the overpriced dinners, go because they feel obligated. I think the majority of scouts will remain the same. Those who never got or knew anything about the awards will know nothing different. Those who got awards and really could care less about them, will continue as if nothing is different. Those who are in it for the awards, may leave, but who cares? Actually (for example as in Basementdwellers district), there may be alot of celebrating when the go.

Didn't say impossible, just tough.. You have to have alot of skill to do something like that! I love the transyberian orchestra and they rock well with all of that. But, that is true skill.

my mind is reeling over $20 bucks per scout. Our camporees average about $5 or $6 per scout.. Is that including the food at the cafeteria? This year we are having a pricy event. $20 for the day, or $45 for the weekend. For the Blue Angels air show, with all food provided, and a T-shirt.. But we are talking the Blue Angels!!! We did once have a camporee with no fire, but then we didn't have a fire building contest as part of the activities.. and then we could still make our own meals with propane stoves. Also how can you have a fire building competition if you can't transport in wood. No wood & no fire means you must get very creative. (or is that someone else's area) Our camporees are still seprate, you will not find a pinewood derby at our camporees. The cub scouts has a chuckwagon, seprate from the troops. Their pinewood derby by unit, and then by winners of each unit all seprate. Rock band compitition may be fun, but how many are participants and how many are going to end up a spectator because they can't play an instrument, or they play the flute it is hard to rock with the flute? Or they can play, but can't find anyone to make a group with. Trash can drums or something could get more people involved. You have an odd one!

I just hope when they merge the two programs WeLots & IOLS, my council will think about returning to at least a two day program if not a 3 day program. I am told that although not all districts in my council think this is a good thing one district was allowed to do it, and then everyone elses district training ran empty while everyone flocked to the training in the district that they could get trained in one day. The other districts ended up following suit in order to be able to offer the training course at all. Therefore, it might be my suggestion that my district goes back to a 2 day training. But, I don't know if it will do any good unless the other districts in my council see that with the added training it would be better to go to 2 days. For me, if it forces them to bring back (2 day training, if not 3) then it will be a good thing.. A combined outdoor program in one day though, bad thing. I know some is similar. I trained along side the OWLS, but there were different courses that we went our seprate ways for. With the Weblos leaders being trained with the BS, their will need to be alot of emphisis on "You can't do this with the Webloes yet".. Unless National is dropping some of the rules that Webloes can not do that Boy Scout can (like cooking on open fires, I do not think that weblo scouts are allowed to swing an axe.. etc.).. If these new Adult leaders are rushed through these skills in order to get everything in in one day, then made to not use them for 1 1/2 years.. Bad thing.. Yep, I know. No one else in the country is one day for IOLS.

OK... Lets all agree to meet up right here in 20 years to compare notes. For sure whatever happens, it will be different then what we have now. And most likely us "oldtimers" (and even if right now you are fairly new to scouting in 20 years you'll be an oldtimer).. will be be-moaning the good old days, while the new timers will either welcome the change (because their mass priorities and values will be driving it), or they will be oblivious to the changes and not care.

While our troop allowed parents to go, they needed to be trained parents, so they knew what to do. they needed to get the essentials done before they could go on any trip. These now can be done on-line in a few hours. When we made the rule, they could get done withing a month or two if not in our district, then a neighboring district. And we let the parents of the crossover pack know months before their children crossed over. Then they had a year to get the outdoor Leader training and SM/ASM specific training done. If not done after a year, they were banned from going until they got it done. Still we would have some parents who would take their kids to other troops because of our "unfair" rules. Since you can't ban parents/guardians from going due to you can't have anything secret. (You can't even at an OA ordeal, though they try disuade you.) But, you can put in rules that are fair for everyone to obtain, that make sure that the adults are not the ones that the SM & ASM have to worry about and watch during a campout. But, a sibling or other children not registered with BSA, would not be insured. If there is an accident, you and/or the CO are personally responsible, not BSA. So they can be banned from going.

Even those of us who state that "someday" the outdoor training will go on-line, know that right now the idea is proposterous. That it is definately something that current National is not contemplating. Still if technology advances, and society makes people cram more into their valuable time, who knows what we will see in 20 years.

Welcome, Although you cannot "do" for your scout, parents involvement is critical to their success. If you pay attention, you figure out how the methods of scouting work, and can help your scout understand them by talking with him outside of the troop meetings. Rather then get upset and protective if the troop is asking him to take on extra responsibilities he is not comfortable with, you can encourage him to try. If he has problems with his patrol leader, or someone else in the troop you can help him understand the correct path to resolve the issue. Best of all if you get involved you will enjoy watching him and the other scouts in his troop go from a young boy to a young man that you can be proud of and have trust in the decisions he makes. I would suggest you get involved in the committee. It is a meeting once a month you attend, and you get to have a voice and vote on policies for the troop. This way you have an influence on getting your troop to move in a direction you would like to see it go. Even if the vote doesn't go your way, you have knowledge on why the others voted the way they did.

Maybe some people will say their job is just to have fun. Well they should have time for fun. but that is not what I see as their "job". True some fun may teach them things, but not enough. When school age, I guess you can look at that as their "job". To do well in school. But overall, I believe their job is to learn how to get along in society, and to grow up to provide for themself and their family. School does some of this, but parents need to make sure other things happen to make sure they grow to accepting responsability and knowing they are not the center of the universe. This is graduale of course up to 5 they child should feel secure and in a way be the center of the universe. But then slowly you must pull them out of this belief. I do not believe in the current values that the child should never do any work. I do the family Life MB and I am surprised at how may scouts do not have to do anything at their home, usually Family Life is not done until Star or Life rank. By then they should have some responsibilty! We had our son cook one meal a week, help clean the house, help take the trash to the dump... etc. This was not something he did for the 3 months of a MB, but even when he was in first & second grade he would have duties like feeding the cats or something small. If they do not grow up to slowly take on responsibility, how will they be able to hold a job, or have their own family. They can not grow up totally only thinking and caring about themselves. So, that is what I always loved about scouts. They help the family instill in the boy the sense of caring about others, the sense of responsibilty, the ability to make decisions. Etc. But, like school, scouts only can go so far, if the parents to not reinforce some of this themselves in their home, on a daily basis.

Well, maybe I didn't have the right answer. But, I got the question raised back to the top of the list, where others had the answer for you.. I guess right or wrong, I was good for something.

What do you hold off to award at COH? We try to get them their rank patch as soon as they earn it. Then just give them the card & recognition at a COH. That way they can wear it on their uniforms, and feel they can officially start working toward the next rank. Holding that off somehow signals the boy he is not official, regardless of what you say. But merit badge patches and Camporee patches and the like are held off till the COH. Otherwise, they are being awarded nothing at COH, but blank cards. they don't need to feel that an MB is completed before they can earn the next MB. Our troop only wear the sash to parades and COH's. So the MB isn't on their uniform during a COH, they are presented it at the COH. Even the rank patch doesn't work so well trying to give it out when they earn it, because the scouts only seem to push to completion when they know a COH is just a week or two away. Our scouts for some reason need to have that last minute push. 1 or 2 months away, is plenty of time to work on it when you get around to it.

Our council had "just" changed due to the change of doing the posting of advancement & meritbadge on line by the troop. our parts state the same as yours do. 1)unit 2) scout 3) counsilor. But, until the change to on-line. the blue cards had to be stapled to the advancement forms, or counsil did not honor it. Didn't seem like they saved it. If we had problems with the counsil not recording something right, they could pull the advancement form from a file cabinet, but the blue cards were history. Our troop now still takes the two parts. The scouts portion is returned to him at the COH with the merit badge and some white/green card with the Name of the scout & the meritbadge on it. True, as long as we are using the card with the scout/name, MB.. Why do we need the scouts portion of the blue card? Answer. I don't know, I was never a part of the Advancement portion of the troop.. It is, what it is, what it is.

Jhankins - I am unsure how "official" this site is. But this "seems" like official rules. They list the age as 18.. Plus some training they must go through. http://www.pikespeakbsa.org/shootingsports/sop/Cub_Resident_Camp_Shooting_Sports_Range_Operation.pdf

Bacchus - our troop takes both the scouts and the council portions of the blue card. We were in 3 troops, all 3 did it the same way. One part went to council, the other part was returned to the scout with the Merit badge during the COH. It was priceless, the first time my young son had to turn over his first blue card. The first day in the troop they really scared him about if he lost a blue card he would have to repeat the course. Well once he earned the blue card he fought giving it up and trusting someone else with it. They promised if they lost it before it was returned to him, they would make it right. Our other troops made sure that scouts who lost blue cards got credit for them one way or another. Normally the loss was that council did not record it. We kept good records of what was turned into council.

Ok, I did get some of that at a council meeting that outlined it. I have looked at some of the plans, they aren't bad. I know some of the dens did advancement but figured out what they wanted to do based on the leaders skills & intrests for teaching it. In some ways this will make the planning easer for the den leader. In others it will stretch your skills to have to lead something you don't feel comfortable in. Other dens though were working the older plan where all advancement was done at home, and they just did fun stuff. It will be a big change for them. Did they talk more on how you are to make a pack meeting fun with the theme of loyal or trustworthy? They just touched upon the subject at our meeting. You were left with the feeling of "How do you make this interesting and exciting?" Next week we have our Council Kick-off.. Anyone can go and you have booths on alot of items and some classes. They are holding the new Cub program in three seprate sessions. I plan to go to that. I am hoping they explain the pack meeting themes better. But, if you have some inside knowledge, please share.

OH FOO.. I did not know there was a webinar. I missed it. I am soooooooo... bummed. Is the new delivery program the EDGE, or is it the fact that you now work through a specific guide each week, rather then figure out what you want to do on your own. Or is it something else.

Basementdweller, nothing to appoligize for. You were lashing out at people you see as hurting your boys. The normal Papa bear response. Hurting boys is not just physical or mental. But, you can hurt the boys in our program by not doing your best to make their program the best it can be. Our district isn't top notch and purring pretty. But those who work there work hard. It is just the lack of numbers that allow us to run well. But, sounds like your district have people who will stand in the way of someone trying to give your district boys a good program. That is hurting your boys. You have every reason to cuss them out all your want. Because you are standing up for your boys when you do so. From what I remember from other post of yours it sounds like your boys don't have alot to begin with. If I am not mistaken they are from poor and broken homes, and I believe inner city (?yes?).. Well if true, these boys deserve the best boy scout program they can get. They don't have much else in their lives. Shame on anyone who would put breaks on anyone trying to do so. So if you don't cuss those guys out enough, I will do it for you.

True, I can see it can not be done inside the system. But it could be done outside once you have pulled the data out to excel or comma delimited or what not. I am either getting my data sent to me in Excel, or there is now talk of getting me ADMS which can read in the info out of myBSA, then I will pull the needed data into Excel or comma delimited. Either way once the data is out of the software, You can match MBC with YPT through their registration # or their name if MBC list will not offer the BSA ID #. The YPT card is fine if you become a registered Boy Scout leader before signing on to be a MBC. But if you sign on to be a MBC first, you must first apply to get your ID number, then you can take the YPT.. So I don't see how those people can get trained before applying.

Just seems like different perspectives based on different districts/councils is all this is. Sounds like BrentAllen has a district that does alot due to their district volunteers, and Basementdweller does not. My district is in disarray, but I could still see handing out awards to the hardworkers who try. At least we don't have voleenters that try hard, there is just not enough of them. So rewarding them for putting in the effort when it would be easier to throw in the towel, seems deserving. Basementdweller, your efforts would be so loved by our district. In fact, due to the lack of district volunteers we ask the units to take turns hosting the events so they can continue to happen, then just help where we can. That said, do I agree with all those who get the awards. No, like has been said before, there isn't enough publicity about them, and people get the award because they were nominated. There could be 10 others more deserving but no one nominated them. This is more the case though at the unit level, there are units that just don't know about the awards, or that nomination comes from them, not someone with a crystal ball who is looking in on each unit leader and knows who to pick. I am just starting getting involved in district as my son has aged out. I was never a GOB in the unit, and wont be in district either. I am too quiet. But, I will roll up my sleeves and pitch in where I can. That's good enough for me.

Oooh I know the YPT is something my husband does want to start pushing to the MBC's. I know they get a number like any other registered Leader and can take the training. You are right though, they may be in their with a number but, there is nothing that will state they are MBC. They will either be listed as Unit leader or Unit committee, or be listed as a district member. This would be something that will need to be pulled together by matching up your MBC list with a list of those with YPT, in order to figure out what MBC's have not gotten YPT trained.

I think my old district ran the camporees, chuckwagons, and hike-a-thons. We had one guy that was just dynamite with ideas and he seemed always in the center of things. The themes were fantastic, but they were always hosted at the same place. Our current distict has units or the OA run them. Our troop has hosted a Spring Camporee, Klondike and a hike-a-thon over the last 8 years. This is fine people come up with different sites to host it at and different themes. But, it would be nice if at least the council took care of things like ordering the port-a-potties and Water buffalos, check-in etc.. The underwear stuff. That way the units can just concentrate on organizing the fun. I think it would encourage the smaller units to attempt it. I could see if you are a UC and at the camporee with your own troop, taking time to pay a visit to the units you oversee during the off hours. At the events that are only for the day and the units are on the move all day, the units would seem to much in motion for any significant time to "visit".

Just for curiosity. How do you plan to use it.. I asked just recently about it myself.. Going into Excel. From Excel I can get my SQL to pull it into SQL tables. Husband is in Advancement for the district. I am in Training. Husband needs a easy way to update merit badge list. Then the other data we want to do all sorts of statistical analysis. And we want to get an easy way to compare the periodic data we get from Council with our records, in order to flag what is new from them, and in order to flag what is new from us and also what is old, but they simply did not key it in correctly. I am told that Council is not that great with the keying for the Adult training. We have seen a few key errors for the boys, but they are more diligent with that. It is more the Adults they are sloppy with. Just wondering if you had any other nifty ideas for pulling it off in data file, rather then the simple hardcoded report, most everyone else is dealing with.

Well I am not a UC, but I did not take that line the way you obviously did. To my point of view it all depends on the purpose. If it is to get help for the unit to improve them that is not snitching (At least not in my opinion.) Although maybe as UC I would think about first discussing it with key Unit personnel, and offering the services of someone from council.) Then go and seek the help. You want to know that the help would be welcomed. It sounds like in your mind you see the UC going off to tell the council how bad your unit stinks in order for them to snicker about it.. Or figure out how to get rid of the unit. Since the value of their job rests in the strength and number of their units, that would be self defeating.