Basementdweller

It is easier for most familys to take their kids to soccer practice and sit in the car and listen to the radio a couple nights a week than scouting. where you will be asked to do things. Like have in depth hard conversations with your family. I spent a lot of time chasing lost scouts. I will make a phone call or two, but that is it. I stopped knocking on doors and sicing the boys on them at school. I will concentrate my efforts on the boys who want to be active.

Ok I will drop the fishing derby....... It is an all or nothing shot for this event. Eagle....the parents in our Pack generally are more poorly behaved than their scouts....The current abuse from kicked out dad.....he has called council, got a call from the DE, and the minister at the church and is generally raising a ruckus. I have a meeting with the COR and IH after work.... You are correct that 80% of the parents are great it is the 20% who are well @#$%*. The ones who are jerks over shadow the helpful ones. The first image I see when reflecting on the pinewood is this 300 lb guy screaming in my face.. when it should be the boy with the scout made car winning.

The knocking on doors sounds like the plan. A hand shake and look in the eyes usually works. I will break the jobs into what I believe is required and let them know they don't have to follow it, but It will have a description of what is expected. I will do exactly that. It shows my resolution to changing the culture of this group.

Being from a poor area of town I deal with a lot of single moms alpha females I call them. A number of them are man haters, just that simple. The way the treat me and the SM is pretty sad, I can only imagine what their home lives are like. But mom brings them to scouts cause they need a male influence in their lives. I will say that most of what we view as problems with todays young men are caused by US men. Divorce followed by abandonment....How many scouts do you know have never met dad, I can think of about 6 I know of for sure. How many only see dad once a month or twice a month??? How about all of the single moms who bring home a dad for a night???? How many boys have experienced multiple divorces? I believe it all falls back to the end of the traditional family.....Blended family's can be a mess. Step dads who are not allowed to discipline step son or daughter, seen this and it is a mess..... I have seen some really great blended families, but they are not the norm.

This happens all the time..... I always have a couple of big cabin tents in the trailer.....the men sleep in the tents and the ladies and female sibs would have the other room. or the other solution divide the adult room with a blanket. No big deal. Sounds like a real jerk your dealing with. Funny thing in a year or two he will not be allowed to register unless he is trained.

Spun from the other thread I will say the pinewood derby had it's high points for me.....the car that won was built by a boy in foster care, he did it himself and has been running around the church on the carpet since january. It was decorated with sharpie's and I think he used only sandpaper to shape it. It was ugly for sure, but it was scout made and I couldn't have been happier for him. Sweet justice, especially compared with some of the custom built machines. It puts a smile on my face, even now as I type it. The webelos built fires a couple of weeks ago.....the joy and determination they showed when they succeeded. the pictures shown me of the bird houses we built a couple of years ago that actually got hung in trees and are occupied now. A couple of boys want to do the lizard hike again.....we were hiking a local natural area and ran into more lizards than I had ever seen before. The boys went crazy.....chasing them and enjoying them.....it was a time for sure Fishing derbys are fun too, again most of the boys have never fished before....and I enjoy hearing the shouts and screams of the first one. In the end it is worth it, but the parents flat out ruin it. Scouting would be fantastic if you could exclude the parents.

As many of you are aware of my perpetual struggle for volunteers...... I fired the first shot two nights ago...... Our Pack has a Graduation Camp out....I have sent out an email to the Pack with Families assigned specific tasks and a request for response. I have also sent it snail mail and I will have a copy of the weekends events and assignments to hand out at mondays den meetings. At the bottom the expectation is very clear that it is no longer a one man show and if the families don't help the event will change to a BBQ and fishing thing at a local park. Zero response from the email I might add, not even from the Pack leadership. So other than ultimatum how do you recruit volunteers???

Well shot off an email with Job assignments for the vaunted graduation camp out. If I don't get any feedback I will just cancel it. I remember an adult scouter in tears at a council event.....he was missing his son's play at school.......It left an impression. So many sacrifice so much........ How many thank you's did I get? two, one from the church janitor for cleaning up and taking out the trash and one from the COR who said it was the best race ever.(This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

fair enough assessment....Lisa

The expectations for the day were very clearly set.....An event flyer was giving to each youth with the car kit at the christmas party, and again at the January Pack meeting and again at the car building clinic that were held every other saturday and Wednsday since January 1st. Asking for snacks and help for set up and tear down help, the derby rules and schedule. In a nutshell, this is the feeder Pack for one of the oldest Troops in our district....the troop had withered to 4 boys, we have it back up 20 and the Pack went from 6 to 45 active youth and a sibs den. My first year we crossed zero into the troop, last year 3 this year 10. My reason for staying is entirely to save the troop.

acco Explain to me how woodbadge would have had any impact on what happened. Zero....... This all happened prerace.....I am pretty sure what happened now....he was damaging his sons competitors cars, by bending the axles or misalignment them, The den leader slapped his hand when he tried to grab another car. He slapped her a crossed the face in return. Law enforcement is not involved. Called the two agencys that service our area and nothing It all boils down to a lack of volunteers.......My right hand mans older son had a wrestling tournament so he wasn't there.....the CC and wife disappeared on a get away weekend. ???????? The parent who was kicked out left a profanity laced message on my answering machine the other night. The Den leader isn't answering my calls still....... The IH and COR are not happy with me....I have a meeting with the two of them friday after work. Do me a favor and fire me.......I am evidently too stupid to walk away.

I forgot to mention... Despite asking for clean up help, the wife kids and I tore down the track, vacumned the floor and set the room backup by ourselves. We asked for dessert donations from the parents and the only thing we had was the pinewood cake and gallon jugs of juice I had bought. of course everyone complained about that too. Not enough food and I should have planned better...... big sigh. Remember my son crossed over last year......Might be time to resign and let them figure it out.... (This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

Well it was pre-race. Something happened between a dad handling cars on the impound table after being told to stop.....how it blew up to hitting or slapping her I will never know. I am guessing she may have slapped his hand as he tried to pick up cars that did not belong to him. The dad is very competitive to the point he stood at the tech table to watch the weigh ins and the cars get run thru the tech box. One of the parents said that he believed that this dad was bending axles while handling the cars......I don't know that for sure, but the accusation was made. I did not hear this till after the event and the boys were running their cars on the carpet. so no way to look for damage. I have heard so many versions of what happen I wonder if it even happened. I spoke with the den leader involved and she resigned and quit pulled her scout completely. I stopped by her house last night, she won't answer my phone calls, emails, txts or her door. I never got her side of the story. The parent gave me an earful and called me everything in the book......Funny, I wasn't even in the room. His version was she hit/slapped him first. It would be out of character for her. It will be interesting to see how many boys show up at the next den meeting. I have not heard from Law enforcement, so I don't know for sure...... It falls back to not enough leaders........had a male been at the table and told him to quit Dad was told he was no longer welcome at Pack events, son, wife and sibs are dad is not. Crap like this makes me ask why????

Well, I didn't see it. but had a parent hit one of our den leaders, disagreement over the pinewood and the way it was run......Thankfully blows weren't traded, but it happened in front of the boys. I understand law enforcement has gotten involved.... I was in the kitchen and missed the whole thing. Suggestions???? Ban the parent????

It is simply the new good old boys club displacing the old good old boys club......pretty simple if you ask me. The Jambo requirement is simply a way to force active scouters to do it......of course you could take the course and not bother with the ticket....

Do away with them. Put them in direct youth contact positions. I am wondering out loud........I wonder what the ratio is of direct contact adults to those who have no or very little youth contact

KEY 3 = Lazy self important people who award themselves and their cronies at the district awards banquet.

In our district the SB is all about bootlickers and a..kissers. Yes there is a check list for earning a silver beaver. FOS presenter Camporee Chair District committee District Eagle board presenter at Roundtable butt kissery Card holding member of the good old boys Club. No use for it...... I understand there are people who deserve it.....not in my neck of the woods.

yep Too much wasted time, considering I have to drive an hour to get their. Upcoming council and district events, upcoming training, with associated flyers Solid Boy scout program Solid cub program.... If your going to just read directly out of the book, just send me the PDF in email. I don't need your cookies and you can't make coffee to save your life. The last two round table Guard members put on slide shows about their deployment to Iraq and the other Afghanistan.......I respect what they did, but not interested.....sorry.(This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

I remember being hung upside down while mom pinned my bobcat too my shirt. I remember my grandfather giving me a cub scout knife for my birth day....I still have it. I remember my dad and I destroying the oven during the father son cake bake and winning with a cake that was more charcoal under the frosting. I remember all of my blue and golds....first as a wolf walking across the school stage and drinking punch. I remember as a bear at the blue and gold being assigned as a greeter and handing out programs. I remember as a webelo, being greeted by the scout master of the troop I was going to join. No cross over then either. He shook my hand and handed me a book and introduced me to the other Boy scouts. It was at the blue and gold......

Have a troop in our district dad SM signed every single requirement for every rank and every single merit badge for his sons eagle.......the kid eagled at 14. That is skating I also think double dipping is at least lacing up the skates.(This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

Oh to answer the question....... Zero degree of interaction is perfectly fine for me. Serve NO purpose in my opinion.

I am not opposed to doing uniform inspections. The UC comes in the door unannounced and starts roaming around the CO until confronted by one of the Den leaders.....He introduced himself, my response was "since when? and how's come I wasn't notified?" We are poor, most of the boys don't have uniforms, we buy them from thrift stores and we buy the returns from the scout shop....... he should have looked around and noticed that of 60 boys maybe 30 have uniforms. Please, you want to make my life more difficult. I hinted to eliza instead of spending $300 on a klondike sled the money could be better spent uniforming my Pack.

Well let me see........ 15 minutes going around the room introducing ourselves again.....then the regional school rivlarys 15 minutes of the roundtable staff yucking around about inside jokes and stuff the rest of us have no idea whats so funny half an hour break for coffee. break into cub and bs specific.....the commisioner reads directly from the roundtable commisioners book for the next half an hour,... then cookie break more yucking around then go home. Helpful info at roundtable would be nice.

I have seen eagle factorys......the ones that proudly proclaim on their troop trailers "Where Eagles soar". Followed by a list of boys who followed that troops 12 step program. Son and I visited one during his webelo year, more for my curiosity than anything. It was in a rich suburb. Very nice Scout Building on The CO property. Garage for the troop trailer, heated and air conditioned storage for troop gear. 7 pm rolled around the patrols marked in lead by an ASM for the opening. SM lead the opening had announcements, they broke up into their groups for their merit badge classes. It was just like school at night. The SM was bragging their average age for eagle was 14 years 10 months, I dawned on me and I looked around, there were no 17-18 year old scouts, far as that goes no one over 16 far as I could tell. Near as I could tell attendance equaled completion. Every ounce of energy was focused on advancement. Camp out focused on advancement......Eagle or die mentality. Son's comment was they weren't playing any games and he didn't want to sit in the meetings. We did not pick that one obviously. In this troop I believe a boy could merely attend the troop meetings and a few camp outs and recieve his eagle. At the time they were working on the Hiking merit badge, all of the hikes had been scheduled with locations, gear list and time tables. how are the boys supposed to do it. If the troop is active enough, I believe the boy should almost be able to attain eagle with some personal effort, but it isn't like climbing a mountain and it shouldn't happen by 14. I believe the BSA should make the minium age for Eagle 15 or 16 either thru direct rules or requirements that make it impossible to do at 13 or 14. Nothing would make me happier or prouder than my son getting his eagle at 18......I believe it shows a richer scouting career.