moosetracker

When JLT was around, the district ran the JLT, the troop sent there boy leaders to it. Then they dropped it. The troop was clueless on how to run a JLT For a woodbadge ticket, I picked up an instruction book on JLT, organized it and we ran it once for my ticket.. Later someone reran it. But the 2nd time around, some boys had alredy gone through the excercises so it did not have as great an effect. (Obviously though if we only ran it twice, we didn't do it as often as we should have. TLT I read through it, and I'm sure that if presented well, it is not as boring as it looks. But, our troop will probably never do it.. (I'm committee, so really I can gently encourage, but really not initiate.. I was at a training and someone brought up TLT, blah, blah,.. I said "Great, if you know how to run one.. I fear my troop doesn't".. He gave me a great idea, but I was wondering if other people had ideas how to get the SM & ASM's confident enough to run one. He suggested we ask a troop that knows how to run one to have their SPL & other youth leaders, come over and help us organize us and help us run our first one.. Are there other idea's.. The more choices I have to offer the Unit Leaders the more apt we might get a winner. The one problem with the above suggestion is our troop is experiencing our boys jumping to other troops, due to the fact our SM is not that great.. So the Leaders fear intermingling with other troops fearing more boys will jump.. This would definatly show their boys at their best as a "boy lead program".. I can see where other will jump.. But, to continue to run a poor program, and just play games to try to keep boys from jumping is not good either.. (This troop was excellent, one of the top units while my son was in it. But it is in the downward cycle. Luckily my son has made Eagle, and is looking to jump himself to a better troop.. My husband is really the only one trying to stay on to see one more boy he likes make it to eagle, and is trying to make the expirence better for him. But, he now has to force himself to go to meetings. I will give any of your ideas to him to give to the troop, I left out of boredom about 6 months back.)

That sounds more accurate, thanks..

How about Forestry and Pulp and paper -- Life cycle of a tree MB Astronomy & Space Exploration -- StarTrek the BSA generation MB

We have 2 camps in our council both do their MB's differently and certain scouts love one and hate the other (some prefering camp 1, some prefering camp 2).. Camp one I think is typical.. You can do up to 3 MB's your own choice out of the list of what they offer. The scout chooses the individual MB's. When my son started going it seemed that the camp gave out MB's regardless of it the scout did pre-req's or not.. My son was always prepared, and worked hard, but other scouts got the MB without doing all the req's which was hard to explain to my son.. It mid-way turned into having scouts go home with partials, which I was happy to see. The rest of the day was for troop activities and you had a maga list of choices to go through.. So the troops (or patrols) had time together.. My son liked this camp the best. Camp two, was suppose to be more geared toward the patrol.. Each patrol chose 5 MB's to do together as a group. You worked on one MB a day. At your campsite your troop would do the cooking (no cafeteria).. Few MB's were ever completed. And each year, my son would be in a diff. patrol where there were enough young scouts needing the basic MB's where the older scouts were split over some fun electives.. The young scouts won, and my son was repeating swimming, First aid, etc over & over again.. My son did not care for this one. It got to the point if the troop chose the camp he did not care for, we would sign our son up for provisional at the camp he liked, or other camps in neighboring states so he got different expirences. He just refused to go to that camp.. the expirience for patrol bonding only went so far. I agree with my son, if you are doing MB's it should not be a group event, where everyone in the group must do the same MB together. It should be something that personally interests the individual scout. Also the camp should limit the amount of MB's and have plenty of time for fun activities, or for just relaxing and enjoying camp life.

That short? I would have thought at least 1 yard. That would mean only about 100 feet would do fine for the whole troop.. I tried looking for it on web sites and although they explain how to make it, they don't say the length of the cord.

My husband bought a brimmed hat for himself, but it didn't fit right. my son stole it, and we found him a different hat band. For some reason that hat band made all the difference, he can be standing with seasoned scouts who comment on the hat and is shocked it is a BS hat. My son has worn it every where since about 14 years old.. It defines him, and if he leaves the house without it, he feels naked.. My husband still loves that hat, but now just wears baseball caps. He does not want to copy our son's "signature".. Maybe after our son moves out of the house and is in a different troop/district/council.. Still he will have to find a different hat band, so that it's looks different from our son's "signature" hat..

Glad I ran into this post. We were thinking of this for our troop, but could not come up with the right cord. I will pass this on. Can anyone give me the approx. length per woggle so we can estimate how much to order.

I have been in troops where there is no follow through on the events. This to me is worse then not doing anything. It is breaking promises made to the boys. That's being a great role model. (NOT that I am condoning troops that do not do outings either, this is just worse IMO)

Well then, my son and other scouts could do it.. We have a few trained scouts. My son did both, he feels the Red Cross was the hardest, except the last part of the BSA Lifeguard.. My son took his at a camp other then the normal summer camp for our troop. I think there should have been some adult with extra training overseeing, but it was run all by boys under 21 who were camp counselors. And just BSA Lifeguard trained. The end test was that they pretended to be drowning and it was more then the Red cross practiced drowning.. They basically fought off the rescuer to the point of almost drowning most of them.. Those that did not pass the test failed.. Only my son and one other scout (who had also taken Red Cross b4 BSA), passed that section.. All the other scouts failed. I might be an over protective mother on the issue, but I was not happy when it was relayed to me.. Red Cross taught how to save better, so these two boys were the only ones with the skill to advert the harsh test. Without an adult leader, It just had the sound of a type of hazing..

Interesting, we will need to look into if our camp allows this. My husband is Red Cross swim instructer & Red Cross lifeguard.. He definatly could do the tests, and it would save ALOT of time for check-in.. But, since I have never heard of it at our camp, I am unsure if they would accept it.

For popcorn sales, we had a something that worked.. But, with alot of debate in the committee.. I will tell you the what we did first, then tell you the two main arguements against. You may already do this, but left the detail out. We would set a cap like you did say $250, After they make that, then the money they make the profit was for them to put in their accounts for summer camp, or events or purchases at the scout store. When this was the policy we had the best results.. Other committees wouldn't want to do that, they would do the $250 cap, then do an 80 for scout /20% for unit.. Another 50/50.. It seemed when the unit took more of the percentage after the cap was met, the more the scouts did not meet the base, but they did get something from those who went over, so I don't know which was more profitable for the unit. Another thing we did while a pack was take the 10 top sellers of popcorn to the YMCA rock wall (I don't know if Guide to safe scouting would cause this to be a no-no now. But you could think of something else that is a great priviledge for the 10 top sellers. The arguements against giving the scouts the profit after they made the cap were 1) The scout should be learning to do for others, not for themselves.. 2) The troop would make less because of they would loose the extra profit from those who over sold (but we found getting more to make the cap was more profitable then keeping the extra profit of those who over sold.) We did debate and even agree to the parents paying for the amount they did not raise.. But, except for getting as far as telling them this would be expected, when the time came to collect, everyone whimped out, so it was just an idle threat. Oh not popcorn, but a great fundraiser for out Pack was that we did a parent/son (preferably father if there was one).. Bake off at the Blue and Gold. After the blue and gold banquet there were not deserts to eat.. But the bake goods were raffled off, for your dessert.. There would first be a compition of "most artistic", "looks Delicious", "most unique" etc.. So that the bake-off produced more then chocolate chip cookies.. Then you raffle off the baked goods.. Our high bid war was always for a father/son team that made homemade beef-jerky, that would go up to $50 or more. It was fun and profitable

dg98adams, Our committee went through some turmoil over the Advancement Coordinator. The position per BSA is committee, but they really have the same amount of contact, and must know as much as any ASM in order to do the job. My husband does that job. They came up with this "He is a committee member with a vote, who works under the SM when doing the Advancement job." (He also does Troop master although the two jobs are tied together) He is also the trained one that can do the swimming & BSA lifeguard, for the troop and others in the district. The outdoor coordinator also straddles the line. Those 2 jobs get all the priviledges of both camps. I did summer camp organization (not attending, just organizing) I did not see it as that much involvement with the scouts.. Some, but most was public announcements. Then chasing the parents for the med-forms.

Eagle92.. Our the count of the ASM's are in sink with the Patrol, but except for special occasions, they are not assigned to a patrol.. It is just a guide to have ASM's per count of boys, and gives the SM a way to not choose someone for ASM due to "having his quota" rather then having to say "because I don't like you" or whatever reason that would be not so nice. Also you would have liked our group.. Like I said my son is more Committee then ASM, and respected.. We have a boy who is 21, the boys of our troop want to make him SM.. Not all, but some of us are backing these boys up, suggesting we give him a strong adult guide.. So it would almost be like the Ventures run their crew. So, the adults of our troop think highly of our young adults. We know how the boys will follow them. The young adult we would like to see as SM was elected time and again as SPL due to the respect the boys would give to him, he just has an energetic and "born leadership" personality. When he was young, he was the reason we chose this troop to enroll in. The way he worked with my son at the age or 14 or 15 was just amazing.

I guess since I was the poster that started this spin-off, I will elaborate a bit. Yes we have 1 ASM per patrol... Or rather 1 over 21 ASM per patrol, and those ASM's are had picked.. If someone is under 21 they can not be on the committee and must be ASM.. We have currently 4 of those my son being one of those, and prefers being committee so he is "unofficially" on the commitee doing the outdoor coordinators job and has the right to vote "our committee ruled to give him that priviledge since he was performing this job". 2 boys who are great ASM's and 1 that just IS... because... (This might be why you have college boys as ASM's although they are not around much).. Because there are limits on these young ASM (at least one person over 21 must be on an outing).. We do not eliminate the number of over 21 ASM's due to the number of under 21 ASM's.. That said our committee (if trained the same as an ASM) can go on outings just as any SM or ASM can, and the SM will expect them to provide the same amount of guidence as an ASM would. The ASM's report to the SM.. Our SM wants A) trained ASM B) wants newly crossed-over parents not to be in the ASM position until they loose the cub scout mentality, and understand the goals of boy scouting. C) Does not want an ASM that is going to act like the SM and upstage his authority.. This policy weeds out potential headaches for our SM.. Currently we just had a crossover and some parents who are assuming they can just elect themselves into the ASM role, they will be told they are welcome on the committee but not into ASM unless trained & chosen by the SM.. We have one mother who just crossed over who was the Pack Master, and is upstaging the SM currently.. She is being nicely "dealt" with..

>>In fact, he normally doesn't even come on outings (only comes to meetings sporatically), but tends to make most Committee Meetings.

I am not sure what is different, but the intent is the same, to reward the hard work of a unit leader that goes above & beyond.. And that is a great thing.. One of our leaders got this award, the letter the SPL wrote to earn him this award was read to the troop at a "Court of Honor", I was really moved by the time and thought this young scout took in writing this letter.. It showed a great deal of respect and admiration for the SM, and I think that letter was worth more to the SM then the award, (although the award didn't hurt either)..

So the hatchet is offically buried.. I'm am glad BadenP. I sincerely offer you my virtual hand in friendship. You did not hurt my feeling.. I know I hurt yours with my original response. I truely and sincerly tried to appoligize. I was just surprised you were not accepting a sincere appology, so had to figure out another way to calm you down. Friendships are forged under stranger circumstances..

And here I thought BadenP & I had a special, one-of-a-kind sort relationship.. Baden, I'm hurt!! You've been "puttin' people in their place" long before me. Yep I woke the grizzly bear up out of his sleep.. I just need to hug him a bit until he settles back down.

That is a wonderful story. Thanks for sharing. It is definately what scouting is all about. You should be proud of your group also for taking the time to go out of your way to recognize these scouts.

Oh - Sorry I did not see this sooner! Lisabob - thanks for the support, but I met Baden earlier this week on the boards. I unfortunately had come back from a very angry and hostile district council meeting and was very aggressive myself.. I took some of that aggression on on Baden.. I did a appologize, but Baden wants to continue the banter.. Baden - To truth, I really do enjoy the banter, but you need to learn how to ruffle my feathers a little more subtly, with humor, or just has play devils advocate. And don't attack other boarders who try to come to my rescue.. It is just as rude as what I did to you that first night. You don't want them to start following you around on the board in the same fashion.. You want them to find humor in the banter and not take up arms at you. Baden's been trying to sterotype me in other posts, as well as this one.. I'm suppose to be "reliving my youth through scouts and totin lots of knots etc.. etc..".. Well he hasn't got it right yet, but it's a funny image. So I may be way off with my image of Baden.. But if you look up top on this website for the picture of the gruff guy by the name of "Bill".. That's who I picture when talking to Baden.. One of those scouters who is just a lovable, but grumpy stubborn old coot, that although he is full of lots of bluster, everybody loves him anyway.. He is probably all marshmellow fluff on the inside.. Tone things do a smidge Baden.. But look forward to our next meeting.

AvidSM, Thank-you, I think you summed up very eloquently what I got out of this whole thread. If your worried about my very last comment don't be.. Baden was just trying to ruffle my feathers, I like to reciprocate..

You could be right.. I know I kept my eye on this troop though I had left it.. I heard that it finally "had" to find a charter org rep.. and I heard that the SM was finally kicked out of scouting for using the BSA program to run his own "Build-a-better-scout" program that went against alot of the Youth-protection rules.. So Council could have been trying to address complaints by adding a CO, before coming in to assess the situation themselves. Or Council could have forced them to add a CO after they found out what had been happening in this unit unchecked for years.. I just know when I mention the "self-chartered" troop to others in District & council (without any of the other particulars), they always raised their eyebrows and told me that it was illegal. And I knew this troop was forced to change. But, I never went to look it up the policy in writing.. Thanks for the information.. But, I myself would never join a troop without an involved CO.

qwaze - you then had a good Venture Crew that worked with the troop. The venture crew came in and just tried to steal the boys out.. This set the troop up in arms, and ready to fight. I know many Venture crews who work successfully with the neighboring troops, or hold their meetings during troop time, and are basically an arm of the troop. But rather then starting the Venture crew working with the troop, they started it working against the troop, and basically started a war. When they found themselves loosing the war, they then wanted to work with the troop, but the troop were now not in the mood to listen. As I said.. It WAS truely sad. I have nothing against a Venture crew, but they have to work with their neighboring troops, or try to stand on their own. I know one guy who has a Venturing crew for Ballroom dancing.. It works for him, but you know he isn't trying to steal his crew members from the troops. He is one that wishes to stand alone.

Eeewww.. Self-chartering.. And they have been able to stay that way since the beginning of time? A district I belonged to turned a blind eye to one troop that self-chartered. Then made them find a true CO.. So in reality self-chartering isn't really allowed in the BSA rulebook. There are many many units who CO's aren't involved and they may as well be self-chartered.. But, in my opinion an active COR can help a unit tremendously.. If for no other reason to keep the two branches the SM & ASM group and the committee.. From either trying to dominate the other, and to respect the needs of the other group.. This goes a long way in assuring the Adults "play nice".. I was in a unit self-chartered, a unit with an uninvolved CO, and in a unit with a very involved COR.. When you see what the involvement can do to the dynamics of the unit, you learn to appreciate them.

Twocubdad - Thanks, it is definately a brew-ha-ha I am getting into. But the reason I want in right now is to help my career.. I am a programmer / analyst and have just trained on new software that can pull together data from a multitude of different databases and other places like excel, text files etc. Then combine them and create data analysis and data-mining.. It is exciting because until recently only maga-sized companies could afford to build them. Now they are accessable to any company.. It is the wave of the future. I am all trained up, but my company is not to the point that I can utilize it. The district has it's data stored all over the place and would love to organize and do analysis on it. I need this type of data to practice on.. We are both mutually excited about the possibilities. If it were not for the fact that this is what I need to move foreward professionally, I would be thinking twice about this. If I don't need to be Training Chair and can just concentrate on what I really want to do in the training position that will be great. I still don't know how I can be the only person in the Training group and not have everything involving training dumped on me anyway..