moosetracker

I just took on a new role at district level in Training.. At first I offered to be Training Chair (not knowing there was a hierachy of jobs on that committee, and none of them was filled. Later, I offered to be registrar of training records, because the data intrests me the most, and all the Training positions have been open for so long, I would be overwhelmed trying to Take it all on when I don't know anything.. I have gone to council training about the Training committee (I thought it to be open to anyone on training committee, but seemed more geared to the Training Chair.) But learned alot. Anyway, currently we have on training committee many trainers, but no one in Chair, Vice Chair, or the overseers of BoyScout, Cubscout, Venture program.. (and until I took it, no one as recorder.) been that way for over a year. Found out from one of the Trainers that 2 weeks ago we were to have an outdoor leader training. But no one organized it. I had a meeting with DE about training and found out we are supposably scheduled with training schedule for about 2 years out, and supposably he wants to INCREASE the number of trainings we have due to the new National rules that adults need to be trained by registration time, or don't get reregistered. We also talked about statics of data, he wanted analysis of trained verses untrained and if I get the data I could do this by units as well as over all... He talked about it being in Excel. Then when I took the training course it was run by the Training Chair for the council. She seemed to think I could only get data in sort of a paper format or on Adobe Acrobat. (Neither is data you can move into Excel.) Someone else named a software (sort of like TroopMaster) that is at the council level.. (Not wonderful, but I know that you can extract data out of TroopMaster into comma delimited. That can then go into excel.) Our District now has no Program chair, No committee chair, and now the DE was moved to another District (which was good for him and our district).. But, now no District Exec either.. We are now beeing overseen by whoever oversees the DE's, but I am sure he will be busy.. And we may get a DE with experience if the slide a dE from another district in, but I fear it may be someone brandy dandy new. When asking for data, I got little from the DE before he left. I would just like to know what to ask for, so whether I am talking to a new guy or someone with little time (because he has other duties and is just overseeing our district).. I would love to know exactly what I should be asking for from him. So what data can I get about my district regarding who is trained in what, and what adult leaders are registered at what positions?? And what is the best way to keep that data as up-to-date as possible, as unit leaders come and go, and leaders take on-line training, training out-of-council, as well as training in-council (provided we can get our program up and running again.)

Jeff,E V Augustine is correct, that you should have a list of merit badge counsilors from the district. In fact in order to have your scouts learn to work with many different people you should encourage them to look for counsilors outside the troop. That being said, once you get that list in hand your troop is in a perfect position to get the kids to do that if the MB is not offered from anyone in the troop. Some districts have well maintained lists, and some do not.. Ours is one with a poor list (hoping to change soon with new leadership in Advancement.) Hopefully your district has one well maintained, if so the boy should get a good counsilor on the first or second try of contacting someone. If not, prepare the scout that he may need to look at the list choose 3 or 4 withing close range of his house (town should be included on list).. And he may need to call a few to get a counsilor that is still doing the MB. (We use to make it a game with my son, he got more points the more counsilors it took for him to connect.. It was good for a laugh.) The boy MUST make the phone call to the counsilor.. (not should, MUST).. We try to get the counsilors to be polite to the parent who calls, and just inform them they will be happy to talk with the boy about the MB, when he calls.. But, some just hang up on the parents. (They should use the phone call from the parent to educate the parent that this is the boys responsibility.. Hanging up does nothing, except tell them you are rude.) Check your district web site for the name of your district Advancement chair. If not listed, You can call either the District Committee chair or District Executive to find out from them who to contact.

Has to? answer NO.. My son went through it a while back, and I know there was some things he needed to do to be an active member, and had to write something up to state why he felt he should become brotherhood. He should try to attend as many of the monthly meetings as possible, there may be something the OA is doing he could help out with, which he will find out about and help organize at those meetings. Our OA have helped with Hike-a-thons or camporees in our district.. There are other things he can do to show a willingness to be an active meeting, so nothing is a do or die event.

PS... This would be a good one to break off and put into a new thread of it's own.. I don't know how to do this, maybe someone else can.. Most people are not reading this thread anymore.

It is weird the scout went to the Council or Eagle board(district) for approval of a project without SM signature and knowing the SM did not approve told boy to bypass SM approval.. this right there seems weird. It would have been best at that time the boy find a different project.. But that being the case, Scout should have been prepared for SM not to sign off on project at the end of it. And District/council should be prepared to bypass SM decision and award scout the Eagle award.. But, it seems at that stage the District/council should have been trying to teach the boy how to work with others, and guided him to figure out how to alter the project to gain SM approval, or how to give up on an idea and come around to a different project. This is like The council/district (whoever) guiding the boy into teaching the boy that it is ok when he gets to college and does a report on something the teacher did not want.. Or it will be ok to not pay attention to your employors veiwpoint and do what you want to in your job.. This to me is not the right lesson they should have been teaching him.. (I do hope he did not go to his Eagle board and lie and tell them the SM just forgot to sign but the project was approved. If he did, he will not get Eagle..).. If the Council or Board told him to be rebellious and do what he wanted, then they should support him and give him his Eagle.. But if I were SM, I would have been pissed, at the message they were sending this scout. To override the SM at the end of the journey when all through the journey the SM gave you no reason to think you were having issues, that's one thing. The SM should have be more verbal thoughout the journey while there was time for the scout to change. To override the SM at the beginning of a project when he has stated he does not approve of project, that is just weird.. The SM gave verbal knowledge that this was an issue he would not support.. He carried through on his beliefs. Scout & Council should have foreseen it, and respect it..

This scout had (I think) less then a month b4 his 18th birthday when this started. It took about a year, so he was 19 (maybe 20) when he got it.. But there are many other points that the virdict can be overturned.. district, council etc before it goes to national.. Since he is now 18 hopefully he turned in his paperwork (minus signature of SM & CC) to council and started the appeal before he turned 18.. I think I have read on this board that even if he did not, as long as his project & requirements were completed by 18 he can appeal (but not sure).. Good luck to him.

I agree the advancement should be a means of getting the scout to learn to interact with different people. But I disagree with the council who thinks the enforcement should be made at the EBOR. I also disagree this is the time/place to double check qualification of the MB counsilors. This is something that the troop committee should be making their own policy to acheive, BEFORE the MB is started by the youth. Once the MB is completed it's too late, Once the scout is up at his EBOR it's too late. What if young scout took MB with Mr. SoAndSo the first year he was in scouting, and Mr. SoAndSo then stops being a MB counsilor on the subject the next month.. Trying to find Mr. SOandSo on the MB counselor list for the subject 5 years later while this scout is standing at his EBOR, he should not be there.. (unless you are our district who leaves you on forever, but that's a different subject.) The checking of this is time taken away from the board getting to know the scout. His charactor, his ambitions, what he learned from being in the scouting program, What he learned from his Eagle project... etc.. This is what is the important function of the EBOR.. Not using that time to look over what is now too late to correct anyway. Anyway the checking of if MB counsilor is on approved list should come from the Advancement Coordinator checking the list of MB counsilors.. The proper procedure to find the MB counsilor should be a policy of checks and balances created by your troop committee and tweaked over the years until you get a policy that works well for you.. (then redone years later when it becomes outdated, based on changes at counsel.) BTW are we the only troop who uses the Advancement Coordinators? Others when mentioning who helps the scout find their MB counsilors seem to say the SM does it.. Doesn't your SM have enough to worry about during a troop meeting? Our council just went to a system where the Advancement Coordinator (Maybe it's everyone elses SM???) does not do a paper advancement report and turn in a part of the blue card stub to council.. Instead they send it through the internet, and when they do they cut out the middle man of someone at council having to update their system.. Each troop is responsible for updateing their own advancement records. This is great for reducing errors, but this means the troops must take more responsibilty to check out validity of the MB counsilors there scouts are going to be using. And yes, we have on summer camp that has done away with blue cards. I see our other camp going that way soon too. (They just have made summer camp payment & registration electronic.. So they are taking the same path as the other camp... I am sure it won't be long before the blue cards are history for most camps.

Well.. I did not say a couple of girls.. I said angels.. Beside having to defend my gender, most parents who have raised both genders will tell you a teenage girl is much more difficult to live with at this stage then a teenage boy..

The "must bring all blue cards to an EBOR" to me does seem like a unique policy. (And not very good.) What if scout has lost a few blue cards along the way.. (Gets card & patch at COH, puts in pocket, goes through wash..) If your district's policy is that if the scout looses his blue card (regardless of it being logged and cataloged at the council office) He must retake the MB over again, you are creating a policy that requires scouts to do more then what is required to obtain Eagle.. Our son was very careful with his blue cards, having started in a troop that had this type of blue card policy.. His friend was lucky enough to keep track of his blue cards long enough to complete the MB (Luckily we were in a troop that didn't require them, nor did the council/districe EBOR..) Bothe earned Eagle, because there isn't a policy that they scout needs to retain thier Blue cards.. Now our troop does stress that it is an excellent idea for each scout to keep them. We do a check of the council records every year or two.. there is always one or two MB not recorded.. Most times they were retrieved through a copy of the paperwork sent into council.. But once or twice, we had to ask the scout for his blue card.. (Hopefully now this is electronically filed by each troop, we will not see this problem in the future.) If no council record, no paperwork sent to council, no bluecard from scout, and the MB counsilor does not remember the scout or keep his Bluecard copy.. Well then, this should be the only time the scout would need to repeat a MB (even if some people "know" he got it.).. And maybe some of you might be able to argue about why even then the scout should not redo the MB.. Something like a scout is honest and should be taken at their word.. But, sometimes I have a hard time with how far I can take that arguement. Anyway I digress.. Due to this, the EBOR is not the place to flunk a scout for not having kept track of all of his blue cards.

Yep, the obligation to the lab partner, should swing those that felt the choice of camp out was good, due to obligations to the patrol/troop, to the agreement the scout did wrong this time. If not you just lean towards just scouts over schoolwork regardless of reasons. That said.. And noting that I agree with you scout was wrong.. It seems your child is now in the stage of listening to himself, more then parents.. You can fuss & fume and lecture and punish.. But, in the end you just have to have faith that buried below that teenage (pre-teen??) rebellion the values you instilled in him when he did listen are there somewhere. They will resurface sometime.. (so long as you don't strangle him before they have a chance to).. You say you have two older.. Were you blessed with two angels? Is your third making up for it by being three times worse then the other two?

We had a high adventure to Seabase, this was something which had a limit to the amount of people going. When first planned all the adults, and boys that would be of age to go, wanted to go. But it was a two year organization and planning, and fundraiser. The SM was originally a definate, then the other position of Adult leader was for an ASM, but the who was not decided two years before the date. We held off, and did not know if it would be a name drawn out of a hat, or who was most helpful with helping the scouts on fundraisers. Well by the time it came close to time, the whole thing was turned around, we came close to not makeing quota for the trip!! Boys were dropping last minute, the adult helping most with fundraising didn't want to go (but would, if needed to make the quota.).. SM had changed and new SM did not want to go. We didn't have two adults over 21.. It ended up that we had one parent who got neccessary training to be able to go, and my husband who is trained but not SM or ASM. For boys we ended up calling boys who use to be in the troop and got 2 boys to reregister into the troop in order to go on the trip. I guess my advice is that if it is a ways off, make a loose plan, but be ready to alter those plans as the time gets near.

I knew a troop that had one of these.. Made lots of money too.. There was an annual very popular fair. They only opened up the vending of food/beverages to non-profit groups. I don't know how they did it, but for I think about $3,000 this troop lent Hooters their trailer (and I don't know what other shady passing of papers to sign up for vending at the fair).. So Hooters got to sell their beer in their normal selling style in a trailer that read boldly Troop _____.. Well it was a large fair in a large city.. Other troops / district / Council members went to it. I was surprised they got off with just getting their butts chewed off. So, there is an idea on how to make the trailer turn a profit for your troop or Pack.. Should you be so bold.. Any takers?

Oh I forgot the urban legends around the Eagle project. 1) Your project must be at least 100 hours. In fact the workbook states "No minimum number of hours is required.".. This may be a rule of thumb for those approving the project in the first place to see if the project will offer enough substance to show the scouts leadership qualities. But, if the project is completed with less then 100 hours it does not make the project invalid. (Ex. a scout has a gardening project that has turning over and enriching the soil. His proposal is to do so by hand which he estimates to be 200 hours. After the project is approved, he gets offers of rototillers or better yet, a bobcat.. Work takes less then 100 hours, but the project is done exactly as promised, maybe even a little better then promised.) The project is valid. I was shocked when one of our scouts stated his eagle project was under 100 hours and someone on the eagle board questioned it's merits. Luckily the head of the Eagle board went to the project (though he was not from the troop) and stated it was worth merit regardless of the time.) So even people on the eagle board get this confused. 2) You must have a fundraiser in your Eagle project. You don't, but again our EBOR members do like to see it. There are statements in the workbook of what limitations are on a fundraiser if you do one. But nothing that states you must have a fundraiser built into the project.

Most un-true BSA rules, if you trace them back are simply troop policy, that with good intent was created by a committee long ago, most of that committee got replaced and the rules were carried on by the new people with the belief they were BSA, not committee policy. And yes a committee can add to the policies of the BSA, to amend gaps, they just can't remove BSA rules. The ability to add to rules to fix problems in your troop is a good thing. (Who signs off on Merit Badges is just one committee rule). It's not good the line of committee/BSA rules gets hazy but it happens. A bad reason that false BSA rules happen, is by someone who wants to impart his own control on a troop, so makes his own rules and states to the troop leadership that it is BSA rules. Shame on those who are troop leaders and have not taken time to be trained, or if trained, but never heard the rule, does not question it. When my boy crossed over from cub to Boy scout we were in just a troop. And I was untrained. We moved to a different troop before a complete year was up. By the time I was trained I needed extra training to remove all the "false" BSA rules. Here are some of the BSA rules I had to un-learn. 1) A boy can not make Eagle rank unless he has served 6 months as SPL. The SM gets to approve what boys can run as SPL before the election. (The SM, wanted to make sure anyone he thought was unworthy of Eagle rank never got the position). 2) The Board of review had to be a hard and gruelling test of what the scout knows. You can flunk the scout if he does not know enough. (It was rare to be passed on the first board, one boy was flunked 5 times. Again those boys who were thought to be unworthy had a much more difficult board.) We were told this got them ready for the EBOR which was brutal. 3) If the Scout lost his blue card, he had to do the meritbadge over from scratch. (Did not matter if the meritbadge was logged into counsil correctly, or if the counselor had his copy. If the scout lost his card, he had to redo the meritbadge.) There were others, but it was a long time ago. These were the ones I remembered. It took a lot of retraining for my husband & I to see the merit of not making a BOR difficult. Now my husband is the District Advancement Chair... Good thing he got retrained! I had to laugh last week when he stated his disbeif over hearing that there were troop in our district that made the BOR very difficult.. I had to remind him we were of the same belief due to the first troop we joined, and that when we were truely trained that was something we thought the troop had right and the BSA were being too soft about. It brought home the fact that this was a problem, and something he would have difficulty re-educating the troops that practiced this belief so that they would see the error of their ways.

It's a rare parent who can be that objective as to treat their child the same as every other child. Half of us will make things harder on our child, the other half will make it easier. Neither is a good thing. I thought I was tougher.. (I ripped his 3 month family life duty roster down and made him start over if he slacked off for a week twice). But, my son did not complain about me being harder on him. so maybe I was not as tough as I thought. He definatly complained that his dad was harder on him.

We had this going on in our troop. It was not realize until the parents tried to sneak MB's through without the proper processing set up by the troop. Until then the troop did not realize what was happening, but this threw a magnifing glass on them. All the boys merit badges were done by Mom.. We made new troop policy that the parents could not be the MB counsilor, unless the scout has special permission from the SM (if SM son, it needed to be the Advancement coordinator). Few were allowed. I did family life with my son because for the most part, the MB is done at home for the family. I alway do this MB requestion one of the parents to be with us during the starting discussion of the MB, because they need to be involved. My husband did home Repairs for similar reason. The projects were all done around the house, the parent is going to be relied on to be the scouts guide while he is doing the MB. Part of the learning process of Merit badges is to teach the scouts to work with and be comfortable calling and asking advice of different people. People who they are not familure with. In fact we encourage they find MB counsilors outside the troop if possible, so they meet new people. The scout losses this learning process by only working with his parents. Might as well stay in cub scouts.

Engineer61 - I understand your frustration. I am also hearing the different views of everyone that has written back to you. Boy what a variating range of views.. With my son I have hit everyone. Frustration with him not doing homework assignments I half remember an incident. Though I have forgotten exactly the reasoning around the whole thing. But it was something about him not writing a report and I do think there was a lie involved (though I think you are dealing with a child not volunteering info since you didn't ask, directly before walking out the door if all homework was done.. Mine was a lie..) Anyway the punishment was that my son had to write me 1 report a week for a month.. The teacher when she heard about it freaked out that I was too strict a parent.. (hmmmm.. sound like this board huh?) Yet during the grades of 6 and 7 the school work flipped from what I thought was too little (some rule of no more then 1 hour of homework, and rarely did he get that.) To all of a sudden the school was assigning what I thought was Too much homework. The kid came home and worked daily to 11 or 12 at night.. The weekends were filled with homework also (it was the start of the "no child left behind" I had a feeling that had something to do with this. But, sorry you can't correct your mistake of the last 5 years by forcing the kid to overwork. I went to the school to complain that this was ridiculous.. This was burning him out. (So I also hear what others are saying about too much pressure and homework now.) You know what values you are trying to instill in him. You know how much the patrol relied or did not rely on him. You know what and why a teacher would assign such a major assignment without giving the student sufficient time to work it into time management, but instead force him to cancel all his plans for it.. But, if your child is in middle grade.. Look at all these varating opinions on this board. If none of us can be of one mind as to the right appoach to the problem. Then your son can also go down a different path of viewpoint then what you see. This is part of growing up. Unfortunately you can instill your goals and values in your child. But his mind is his own. He will come to different viewpoints then you from time to time. Then theres that point in time, where all his viewpoints will seem in total difference of opinion then you. Good luck when that times come, because when it does. This homework problem will become a small distant memory.. and you can relay to someone else.. I sort of remember when... But can't remember what the whole thing was about.. (like me now.) Because Dad, your headaches have only just begun.. Fasten your seatbelt..

Two camps my son would do two weeks. Camp 1.. 1) you were given times to show up, and told to come in one out of two routes in.. (They wanted to stagger your arrival times, and would do one route 1 week the other the next to try to not irratate the town residents too much.) 2) Backpack your stuff up to your campsite, meet with parents to get last minute items like photo money out of the way) 3) Then you had a list of where you were suppose to be when.. From a list of a) camp photos (no one else mentioned that! no one else does photos?) b) swim tests c) tour (which we usually never get to because this is what we chuck cause everything takes longer then alloted) d) med forms (which they go over with a fine tooth comb.. They have to be irritatingly perfect) 4) Parents go home. Other camp.. 1) Have closed gates. Everyone gathers outside the gate and everyone troops in at the same time when the gate swings open. 2) Everyone bring foottrucks that they usually put on wagons or two wheel dollies.. 3) everyone to campsite.. Money thing they have photo money, pizza night money etc. 4) Wait in campsite for someone from camp to come in and give the official "talk" 5) No scheduled list.. Go where you want when you think the line is decent. 1) photos 2) Swim test 3) med forms (these guys are easy, or maybe the other camp has weeded out the problems) 4) No tour. Parents go home.

ScoutMaster52.. I know of the letters from Pres.. & congressmen and stuff.. (BTW, if you haven't seen it yet. Obama's is very unimpressive) But... "Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs???" There's a story behind that somewhere.. You can't leave us hanging!

You don't want to get the cubscout crossover any later then March. We had one group finish up and cross over sometime in May.. Our Troop had a time of it trying to figure out summer camp with them. (were they going or not, health forms etc.) Parents did not want to make up their minds until they felt they & their child were comfortable in the troop. But, there was little time to get the cub scouts and parents use to the troop before summer break. Camp registration went in very late for these guys. Only half went. And they boys were very nervous and unsure of themselves (more so then most new scouts) during that summer camping trip. You need to give them time to get acclamated to the troop before summer break. The same Weblos leader this year brought in another group of cross-over scouts. He crossed them over mid-March this time. Don't know if he just knew what he was doing better and got better timing, or he learned his lesson.

Oh, I believe it.. I've got heartaches of my own.. But that is why I said it would be best for you to combine.. Yep, I understand where you are coming from. I was just offering a suggestion, on if they don't combine you.. How maybe you could still give the boys a decent program. Yes, what may be obvious to us, is not obvious to the powers on high.. WHY? Who knows what lurks in the minds of the "Good ole Boys"!!! (It sounded like a perfect opportunity to combine without having to fire a DE, if you were without a DE for a while.. But, who knows what money they are collecting from what statistic they have of umpteen Districts on the map.. Or whatever else they see that we don't see.)

Horizon - Explain the challenge coin?.. Is this challenging someone else in the troop to complete their Eagle?.. I have heard of something along this line with brothers, where the brother passes down a hat, of neckerchief or something, and challenges the younger brother. My son didn't have a brother. This could be interesting.

Abel - If they do combine your district that may be best for you to get things done. But if not, there must be other districts too small & struggling, seeing the Council Exec split you into little groups when you did not have the growth to be split. Therefore maybe you can find a neighboring district who is not doing things due to this, or doing the events but with a great struggle, and ask that if your twoo district can come up with a way to make sure the work is equally distributed (ie.. your are not just asking for a free ride).. That the two districts could combine your efforts. We don't do it often, but we have combined camporees before.. Maybe you can do so more then us, due to need rather then our resons which is for a change of pace, and a way to get to know our neighbors.

Never thought of the retiring of the flag as that expensive. (I am talking the Troops American Flag, not the Troops Troop flag.. Maybe that's the confusion.) We may someday have a glicth should any Eagles want to have a co-ceremony..We get an average of two Eagles a year, with some years 1 and some 3. I think of the Frame for the Eagle certificate with second pin as the expensive item, and that is what we present as the Troops "gift" where the expense for retireing the flag is not even thought of. It just is a nice part of the ceremony and it assures us the troop will never have a ratty looking flag.. We have the parents plan the Eagle ceremony, although we will have a group of parents who have had Eagles come over and work with the parents to help them with the timeline and where to find info on different ceremonies, and how to pull parts & pieces from ceremonies to make it your own. Do any of you have a person or group that organize it for the Eagle and their family? I thought that would be nice too, because some parents are over whelmed, even with the help. But we do get a variety of ceremonies our way, so it is alway interesting to see the differences.. They are always held in different places (none of our Eagles yet want's it held where the week to week meeting takes place). Different speakers, variety of other items, Like either the 100 scouts.. or poetry, or the boys of each rank standing near their rank and running the Eagle up the ladder etc..

Just got back from an eagle ceremony for someone from our troop. Got me to thinking about our traditions, and was wondering about some of yours.. Our troop: 1) Has a Plaque in the hall of our charter organaization with the name of Eagle and the year they became an eagle since the troop was founded (1930) 2) Retires the troop flag and hands it to the Eagle scout. 3) Gives the Eagle scout the frame for the Eagle certificate with the spot that displays the Eagle pin and a second pin for the frame. 4) Creates a slide show with music showing the scout in pictures from when he was a tiger scout (or whenever he started) through to his eagle project. This is presented at the ceremony then the scout gets to keep the slide show. Does your troop have anything they do as tradition?