Gone

Was she forced by council to staff Jambo? If so, then that's crap to take her vacation and charge her the fee. Otherwise, if she volunteered to staff Jambo, the fee and the vacation days make sense.

Good things those cops don't go to India often. The Holi celebration might actually have them draw their guns.

Well we have to do that with Internet Advancement now....if we want the free ranks. Thanks to TM that's a simply file to import. Thanks to technical people, the various systems can export data for import in to BSA systems. If BSA starts to get preachy on what we can/can't buy it will be yet another "change" they are trying to force on units. I don't think they have the time or inclination to push something like this.

How much does staff have to pay? I thought our council price was bad, I cannot imagine giving up ten days of vacation time and still have to PAY to staff an event. EDIT: Found the answer here. So $975 for a council member, to which my council adds another $1500 in transport and other fees that are not optional. Between $425-$875 to volunteer to be staff? Use some of that STEM money to cut the costs of people doing you a favor, BSA!! No thanks. We're going here instead.

Forced? Who would force you? BSA has enough problems.

Ours is working fine. We found that if everyone who has TM did not update their software the problem remained. All fixed now. Has been since about two weeks after it happened.

Calling @@Stosh!

Troop Program Resources? Troop Program Features gives the PLC the meeting and event planning tools. I believe they reference the doc above for games and activities.

Test drove it for a while. No where near what Troopmaster coupled with the mytroop websites by SOAR can do. Better graphics than TM/SOAR but the functionality is weak. Would agree with your assessment.

Think you're being nice. You: "Hey BadWolf, I show you still owe dues. Can you pay?" Me: "I already did. I gave a check to the CM." You: "Okay. Thanks. I'll ask him for it. Would you have a copy of the check? The paper copy in the register you could send me? Check number?" Me: "Sure! I will send it to you when I get home." [Copy of the check is sent, review of bank statement says CM has it.] In our unit only the Treasurer can take money/checks. We've been told no SMs take ANY paperwork. Parents can't get stuff in on time and they can make the special trip to the Treasurer's house.

Someone has some "splainin" to do. You'd think a check was easy enough to find.

We follow a troop meeting plan which the boys develop. Typically there is an opening, a skill or activity, a game, announcements, SM minute and closing. The patrols have duties (set-up, clean-up, honor guard, running the game) which they do as a group. Our patrols are not age-based per se, so older and younger scouts are in the same patrol. Skills and activities are usually patrol-based, meaning the patrols work together. Games are usually patrol-based too. The idea is to build that esprit de corps and fellowship patrols need to be successful. Rarely do we break out in to "older" and "younger" groups. When we do end up doing that it is usually for skills instruction where the older scouts learn a more advanced skill and the younger guys learn the basics. Canoeing comes to mind. We don't do MBs. We may introduce an MB using a skill (e.g., cooking, first aid, pioneering, etc.) but we never run classes during meetings for MBs. That's one troop's approach. Hope that helps.

You clearly don't follow national politics. When Congressmen step up to speak on literally anything they usually preface their comments with, "I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks." That allows them to revise anything they say after the fact. Should see what some of our past presidents have done.

@@qwazse, et. al. My cousin lives near national. He's been in contact with the Interactive Digital folks at BSA. Here's what he sent me: The company doing this is called Inkling. They work with BSA on their print materials. Content will be available via an app from Inkling for Android and Apple. Access is user-based so end users will need an account. Accounts can be spread across platforms, so if you have an iPad and Galaxy phone you can access the content via the apps on those devices. Updates...minor updates...to content will be free. Major updates, such as the recent Cooking MB update, would need to be re-purchased. Sharing user accounts is a violation of the usage policy, just as using illegal online versions of the current content would be. A preview of the Cooking content is here. There is an update to the Beta content coming this week so expect more interactive features. Kindle PDF versions will be discontinued. Cannot share with the troop library, sorry. I *do* see some promise if the link above is the final product. But the usage restrictions and the proprietary platform seem a severe limitation!

I would agree @@qwazse. My negativity is that it obviously costs more than just producing the book itself. The book is already in electronic form. Converting that to a PDF file and encrypting it with DRM (digital rights management for those who don't know) and allowing a user-based license is MUCH easier and MUCH less expensive than the bells and whistles in these things. I downloaded one (Cooking) for the heck of it. Meh. Rather than build on the requirements and link in videos or expand the educational capabilities of this medium, it is the "interactive" equivalent of googling stuff and clicking links from those worksheets. Waste of $5. The editor notes says an update is coming. They would have been better off waiting to release this one until the Beta had been cleaned up.

Well, it is hard to say if THESE are the future of education. Remember the handbook they put out on Apple? Wasn't even a searchable PDF. Total waste of $$$. They don't even give you a sample to see what it is like. Who needs to pay $4.99 for an animated cover page? I'd like to see a scout with the Animation MB (as useless as that is) animate the MB pamphlets. For me they are better off just making the pamphlets available in universal PDF format that is searchable and allows notes and highlighting. That's cheap, easy and could be done for less than the paper copy. Move more volume at a lower price, better product. This is money incorrectly spent IMHO. When units are dying we don't need to see them painting the Titanic.

My cousin tells me in his district they put on the Radio MB every June...for 200+ Scouts at a time. One five hour session and the MB is completed. Freshman Bio 100 at A&M has a better student-teacher ratio than that.

BSA announces online, interactive MB pamphlets. See the poll. Good idea or waste of resources?

When MB colleges have MBCs signing off on requirements they are attesting to as having been completed -- but not validating these requirements were completed -- and signing off on Eagle-required MBs, then the fault is not with the unit but with the MBC and the college. We've discussed such cases in our unit with the scout and used the remedies outlined in the GTA. Half the time the scout has come clean and re-worked the badge. The other half of the time the parents took it to council and we were instructed to award the badge. In those cases we gave the badge and suggested that our unit might not be a good fit for that scout. Years later we see that scout announcing his Eagle project; usually something that a First Class scout could do with his eyes closed and not worthy of an Eagle project. Unit approves, district approves (both are Eagle mills) and the kid makes Eagle....but I'll bet the farm that, while the scout "earned" it, he has none of the skills an Eagle should have. I'll end with this: Our Eagles know their core skills. There's a reason we hard test them on important MBs like first aid, orienteering, etc.; we don't want our scouts to end up like this Eagle. Good training and good choices can become habit, just like poor choices and poor training can.

On prerequisites, many of these MBCs will sign off on requirements that were supposed to be done at home without testing or reviewing if they had been completed. I had several scouts take the Cooking MB at a "college". They had the whole badge signed off in one day. They were simply asked if they had planned a menu or cooked the meals required. They said yes. While they had helped on camp outs they had not done the detail required by the requirements. Had the MBC taken the time he would have found that out. Instead he merely took 40 seconds with each scout, asked them if they completed all the requirements and then signed off. I've seen this at every MB college. There's no control. No real review. It's sign and go. Hiding behind "a scout is trustworthy" does not help. Most of these kids want to be trustworthy but they may not interpret the requirements the way they should; that's what an MBC is for. If they simply sign without testing they violate the role they've signed up for. That's why our guys don't do MC colleges.

Our units supports our Packs who do this. The problem is the timing they pick....it is usually right when sports teams at that age do their summer pre-camp. Poor timing. When moved to another time they had nearly 100% of the top units helping.

Right, that's a admin setting. If they wanted to change it they could.

No one is saying be a hard nose, but you also don't let people willy nilly submit receipts. There should be a very clear set of reimbursable expenses outline for leaders and adults. There should be no mystery as to the process. You seem to be addressing a lost receipt. The best way to do that is take a photo of it as you get it. Everyone has smart phones these days, so that should be a no brainer. If someone loses their receipt you might be able to show a bank statement unless you used cash. Again, properly training folks on how to manage expenses can save all this headache. The only time that happens in our unit is large purchases approved by the TC using the unit debit card (other thread). Nice and easy.

@@TAHAWK I can say that in my area we've developed self-sufficient units simply because of the lack of a good district model. The units became "power units" our of necessity, rather than out of want. When the district tried to insert themselves they found deaf ears. What is alarming is that my scouter friends are telling me their districts are going this route lately, so I am not so sure that the "powerhouse" units are on the decline. Many I know are going that route simple because it is easier to keep their unit successful.

Check to see if you have weather radio coverage. Often an antenna run up a tree (grounded) will work well in getting reception. http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/coverage/county_coverage.html Also a map: