Basementdweller

thx moose.....Well I have spent a bunch of money on more training, Presented programs to other Packs and troops. and spent much time doing district level type presentations. The District got a new Chair and he cleaned house......The old boy club is gone. So I am left looking at some empty district positions and wonder if I have enough heart and energy to get involved in that political world. The boys and program are the most important thing to me.....I worry about losing my way if I get involved at the district level and forgetting the reason for being in the position.

Nope ASM. The SM in our troop hands the boy a list of councilors to call. There were no merit badge councilor for our district so I called council and got a list for the council and gave it to my boys to find one.

hmmmm, I believe the scout book also suggests it being put in first aid kits.

Well it is irrelevant....the Pack committee did not want to link it to the Pack checking account or bother to setup another account. the issue is dead for our group.

it is not my place to contact them, it is up to the boys to contact the councilor..... My son and a few others from the troop decided to work on the merit badge. He made the calls, I am stuck driving an hour to the the councilor that would see them......more than a couple said no.

We use google docs to track our ISA accounts, pretty simple, it is a shared document for the entire pack leadership, is accessible to anyone with a blackberry, iphone or android based phone in a mobile environment. google allows you to share with read only or edit writes.....I am not sure about an audit trail.

Ya know you can debate all you want........But quite simply the game of life made some very competitive scouters look very bad and who they really are. Being lied to by scouters....sure it is just a game, but can you honestly ever trust them again?????? No. There are 6 adult scouters I trust, three outside my immediate home units and none of them are professional staff.

I am amazed, we have not been permitted to cook over camp fires in years at our scout camps. We are not permitted to collect fire wood on them, and we are not permitted to transport fire wood by state law, emeral ash borer. now there is another new bug so even though our entire state is in the emeral quarantine zone, the new bug does not permit us to transport county to county again. Cooking on camp stoves is no biggy and probably easier.

rjscouter.....but more importantly why do you need to find the requirements to be a merit badge councilor????? I would get either the council or districts merit badge councilor list, I am fairly certain there will be a qualified councilor on the list and most have access to a swimming pool to do the check out. I would like to discourage being a troop only merit badge instructor, what good is that??? Our district had a bunch of Rifle shooting councilors, but they are troop only...very unscoutlike.

I dreaded standing at that field....they took 15 minutes of crap and strung it out for an hour. Awarding and recognizing every member of the staff over and over again, giggling at inside jokes and antics. I took days off of work for this?????? Reflecting on this thread, I had been working my ticket prior to attending wood badge, as seattle pointed out. I already understood selflessness, giving, politics of working with adults and youth. I am now irked as I find out the Tickets that got approved. Date night with the wife???? lose 10 pounds???? increase popcorn sales???? Attend roundtable???? Create annual troop calendar???? take the boys camping???? Go camping with the girl scouts?????? Attend a LNT workshop???? Help at district camporee???? We had one participant finish their ticket in just a couple of months????? Really???? My TG returned my ticket for a couple of items he said were too, easy and my ticket was supposed to take an entire year to complete. Well, It has been a year and I have one item left and it is in progress. My scrap book and documentation are all together except for the last item and I hope to meet with my ticket councilor between christmas and new years to get it signed off and arrange for my beading ceremony.

I took it in 1974 and we were beavers. One patrol, there were only 6 of us. the SM kinda snookered me into it.......one of these deals, hey base, ya want to go to Brown Sea, the troop will pay for it and you like camping. huh yes Mr. Carter, I would love to. I had a great time, really enjoyed my patrol.

For a long time scouter NO. For a cub parent or leader with no scouting sure. I found it a complete waste of time. I took NYLT training as a youth and it was called Brown Sea. I was not entertained by the stuffed animals and antics of the staff during the course. the hours standing at gillwell listening to both verse of the announcement song over and over again.

Glad everyone is ok.......I was thinking about you guys when I woke up this morning.

alcohol based germ killer. Very flammable, the better one's are 60% gelled alcohol. not very expensive but very flammable. With every first aid kit having some and it being used regularly on troop camp outs it is a problem if he sneaks it away and burns it up every chance he gets.

Nothing I have done in the past has resulted in a positive learning experience when dealing with a scout who has done wrong. I am trying to improve..... I am frustrated with the situation. Mom and scout don't have any money, they were fishing with borrowed fishing poles. Oh the CC will not allow us making his attending the intervention program a prerequisite for camping with the troop. It would be singling him out. CC suggested we have the entire troop attend the program. (This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

had a bit to think about what ya said OGE....... Discipline in scouting has always mystified me. Had a kid damage a tent, told him and mom he needed to pay to replace it so he never came back.....joined another troop instead. Had a kid and dad take candy bars for a fund raiser never saw them again. Had a kid damage another scouts pinewood derby car???? ban him from the race....... Had kids steal my pocket knives, fire starting kit, magnesium blocks, lighters and on and on. I usually get the stuff back......so you talk to them about living the scout oath and law, what else ya gonna do??????? Call the law???? talk with mom and dad? ban him from outings or events???? Heck I suggested holding up advancement once and was told not to use it as discipline...... If it was my son, after the corporal punishment was over the various groundings would begin. So what are appropriate penalties for theft.....or starting fires, porn on a campout, ect.

Ok Eagle..... I don't have a clue about district and higher stuff......In my book they are all pretty worthless. So clue a fellow in on their pecking order SE head of council DE District Customer support guy District committee Activities, membership, training and?????? If it were my wife he was messing with, we would settle this in a pretty unscoutlike manner.(This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

I have the an MSR I am pretty sure it is the sweet water. I am satisfied....but I am looking at getting one of the gravity filters....Lighter and next to zero work. But with that said MSR recommends also using a chemical with their filter to kill viruses. Far as managing heavy metals and farm run off, don't drink from a river..... Look for seeps, streams or springs. I am not that crazy about pond water either. We backpack in area with strip mines occasionally and the water is rotten, we have to carry a weekends worth of water each and occasionally we have cached water at a road crossings relatively near by. I am also interested to hear how one deals with fertilizer run off.....(This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

OGE we were fishing the boys were in and out of my tackle box getting bobbers and hooks, young man took the lighter and string with out my seeing him do it. same outing had a pump bottle of hand sanitizer he set on fire, he took that off the picknick table right after lunc, found the still warm remains on my trip to the outhouse. He did not own up to it till his younger brother ratted him out. It was at that time he gave me back the lighter and we found the spool of fishing line. He is older sibling of a cub scout, this was a cub scout event. The box of matches was on a troop outing, they boys couldn't light their stove because they could not find matches. (This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

nearly a debate on faith, spirituality and church going. Yes, leave it to the parents.

Our Pack was completely broke and I purchased the belt loops out of my own pocket the last two den meetings. I will tell you that if the scout and parents do not have some sort of buy into the program they are not interested enough to attend. Pure scholarship boys never make it a year. Been there done that. Our Pack and Troop requirement for assistance is you must make an effort and that assistance will never exceed 50% of fee or cost. the year we instituted our Pack Program fee, I arranged 15 days worth of store front sales. We had a couple of scouts who didn't do it and mom and dad wrote a check for the fee. Who cares it is their choice. But they paid their portion of the cost to operate the Pack. Get over the guilt of requiring the fee, how fair is it for a couple of boys to sell their hearts out and pay for the entire Pack program for the entire year. Our Pack finances are as follows. 100% of the fundraising goes into an Individual Scout account for each scout.....from that account the scout can pay his recharter fee, program fee and any other scout related activity, including the Pack Program fee. The Pack created a budget and figured out the cost to put on our program from the financial records for the last three years. The Pack committee needs to figure out what will be included in the program fee. We include a pack t shirt, pinewood derby car and trophies, recharter fee, den dues, Blue and gold banquet and advancement, amazingly our boys each recieve $30 worth of belt loops and patches every year. Our program fee is $107 with recharter. So what do you need to do? Create scout accounts and associated policy Figure out what the pack will provide figure out what it will cost. Create the hand outs and have a Parents meeting regarding the changes. Stick to your guns and be prepared to issue bills asking for payment for those who do not.

Sounds like a case of harassment for sure.....I would call the council office and speak with the DE and the SE about it. He will be gone pretty quick I bet.

Curious.....you obviously drank the Flavor-aid when you wrote that answer. Our council is for ever soliciting for office supplies. In a district committee meeting last week our Training chair was racked over the cool because he did not raise any money and meet his financial goals for the district. He was supposed to have raised $2000 for providing training for volunteers. I walked over to the district training chair after the meeting and told him I would have never took that from that short timed punk (DE), I would have got up and walked out, leaving him to figure training out. Gee scouting volunteers as a revenue stream what a novel idea. Our district provides NOTHING for training. I have run YP and cub leader training a couple of times, the volunteers make their own hand outs and I bought the training cards. My CO provided the building. So for $10 a head the council made $350 for doing nothing. In courses I have taken in district, you are expected to purchase the manual before you attend. Popcorn is being delivered to donated warehouse space in donated beer trucks, our popcorn kick off is in Free church space. Curious, I would be mad they wasted money on renting a movie theater....How are the condition of your camps?????? I wonder is your council in a rich suburban area?????? I am becoming really disillusioned with the financial expectation. Don't get me started on the districts day camp profits.

Well when we created scout accounts and instituted Program fees to cover the pack expenses we went from selling $1000 in popcorn to $11000 in on year. Most of the boys sold enough to cover the recharter, pack program fee and pay for summer camp. Our average sales went from $40 to nearly $400. Yes it works and motivates. Just sayin.

loves to the point that he took all of the matches out of the patrol boxes and lit every single one... Loves to the point he burned up a quart bottle of hand sanitizer on a fishing outing when he was supposed to have been using the restroom. Loves to the point he took the lighter out of my tackle box and fishing string and was burning it up. The boy has an issue and I am worried for the safety of those around him. We are backpacking this weekend, and I am making sure he does not have access to the fuel or stoves. The diversion program is a good idea. I called this morning and the department has one.