Basementdweller

not bsa policy to go to a council camp. The policy is an approved camp. You can do this easily. I cannot find the blasted form, But if you took baloo it was in the manual. If memory serves me your pack family camps 2 times a year so your bears will camp 6 times a year. We have had this discussion before and you can ignore me again. I think it is a bad idea to treat cub scout like boy scouts. Camping is a tool to assist teaching the scouting program. What happens when you burn the cubs out on car camping at the church???? You will probably loose most of them. Your den leaders are thinking short term, they need to park their egos and follow the program as provided by national. Our Pack Family camps twice a year.....one halloween camp out and the next a spring graduation camp out. the webelos go on two camp outs with the troop, plus the webelos council event, so they could camp 5 times the webelo year, plus summer camp. Not saying this is better, just the way we provide our program(This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

OH NO the uniform police Hey I like the Participant neckercheif better than that funky tan one. I will probably wear it.

We have a partial refund policy, first is one the campsite is reserved 50% only once the food is bought no refund. Period. Most people understand this.

Relax and have fun. Hopefully you are in a patrol with a good bunch of scouters. If anyone ever comes at me with a ruler and attempts measures my patch placement is going to need a Proctologist to get the ruler back.

Well, first it is his Den to lead. As a cub master I keep my nose out of the Dens as much as I can. as long as the attendance is consistent, boys and parents are happy and they are advancing who cares, as long as, he is following the youth protection guidelines that is. So what if he doesn't come to leader meetings, I have one gal who bowls during the committee meeting time. We changed the night, guess what she now bowls that night, no biggy. The boys in her den are happy and they all advanced last year. We reverted back to the original night which as better for everyone else.

Just curious as to what you think you are lacking??????? I print a roster then simply check off who is going by underlining the name and putting a number beside the scout designating how many are coming and when paid a PD goes beside that. Day of the event I have the Parent sign in the family members on two rosters the day of the event, one for me and one for the camp master. With that I can file for a tour permit, set a menu and shopping list.

Your chapter is in much better shape than ours. we only have two ceremony teams and one dance team. I have requested participation from them a number of times with no luck, busy or it was a school night. I was told that it would be a 150 mile round trip for them to visit us and put on the ceremony. NO was the answer.

Gary Wow, That is asking a lot from your OA lodge Ceremony team. They could conceivably be at every pack meeting for 6 months just for your Pack. I am not sure how many packs you have in your council but we have more than 100. So what you ask is an impossibility and incredibly selfish. Schedule your cross over a year in advance, just like you do for the rest of your program. Gives the young men something to shoot for. They miss the crossover, by all means give them the career arrow. A nice in house ceremony. But asking the OA ceremony team to possibly drive 100 miles round trip, on a school night for 1 Cub scout that cannot wait for the scheduled crossover/AOL or missed it is over the top ridiculous . Believe it or not these teenage young men have lives other than scouting, jobs, girl friends, troops and families. Not trying to be mean, just giving you something to think about before you make requests that in my opinion are out of line from the OA(This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

I am not affiliated with this company. But is should work for a mere $15. The app is just excel spreadsheets http://www.dataviz.com/products/documentstogo/iphone/ I would recommend a web based tracking program instead of using cub trax. scout tracks and even Pack master has a web base advancement tracking package, now granted it is not free, If you have ever lost, damaged or blown up your packs Advancement software then you appreciate the on line back up and the fact the den leaders can enter their own advancement, making it easier on you.

scoutlass, Your situation seems almost identical to ours. Under prior leadership we had a christmas tree lot that paid for everything. In looking at the previous budget is was in the Neighborhood of $300 per scout including day camp. Well two years ago they lost 1/2 the trees to theft and we lost our tails, end of free ride and christmas tree lot. We are collecting the national recharter of $27 per scout before Nov 1st and the other $75 in either popcorn fundraising, or wreath sales. SO you have a per scout budget of $150 a head?? How do you raise money to met that amount?? Do you simply set a dollar amount and fund raise till it is met???? I am curious. We looked at setting a fund raising amount based on our budget and it was $$6,000 which means even with $10k of popcorn sales we would still need $8k of wreath sales to make it work. So how do you deal with the poor families and requests for assistance?????

Scoutfish "So anyways, we have $40.00 dues at begining of year. $15.00 for BSA $3.00 for BSA insurance $22.00 for pack ( equipment, awards, pins, beltloops, rank patches, etc)" I am confused by the amount you charge......for us national gets $1.25 per month and $1 for boys life a month. So that is $27 even before anything else. Do you charge for the pinewood derby cars? do you charge for the B&G? Pack tshirt? We include all of that in our program fee. I was member of a Pack that nickle and dimed you to death. The only thing that is not included in the program fee is the family camp outs. Two a year and the cost depends on the location.

Spun this from the Belt loop discussion. We had a young man earn 25 belt loops our first year in the program and with his hiking, event and rank advancement patches we had $70 in rank advancement and awards for this one scout. He is an outlyer, there were have a dozen in the $50's. With that said we did very poorly fund raising last year and beat up our savings account last year. So we determined the cost of our program, with recharter, tshirt, pinewood, Blue and gold it was right at $100. We investigated Weekly dues.....too much time collecting and tracking. We investigated parents just writing a check for the amount. We would lose a bunch of scouts, judged unacceptable. We investigated the Bulk pack fund raising, everyone sells and dumps the money into the Pack general fund. Unacceptable results. In the past we have had as few as 10% of the youth carry the entire pack. Again unacceptable. We investigated mandatory $300 minimum popcorn sales. again we would lose scouts. On and on....it was a year process. Our solution was all of the money fun raised goes into each scouts account. The money in the account can be used for camps, uniforms, books and program fee. We are an inner city Pack and what we have found is we lose the free loaders. The boys who never fund raised, camped, came to the weekend pack outings. Our responsibility, is to make sure we offer three fund raising opportunities a year, Popcorn Christmas wreaths and spring flowers. The spring flower bulbs generally pays for summer camp. So how do you handle dead beat parents and scouts who always have their hand out and refuse to participate in fund raising? I have told the story before about the mom filling out a camper ship application in the front seat of her new expedition, all made up, with freshly manicured nails, while talking on her blackberry. hmmmm. pet peeve I suppose.

He had a trained Patch on his shirt sleeve. So he was trained Got absolutely nothing to do with Clic's. I see these folks once a month maybe, so I don't even really know them, we were ALL chatting while sitting at a couple of card folding tables just when the meeting broke into Scouts and Cubs. Young man could have joined in and chatted instead of spouting off. So no good old boy thing going on, so get over it. For the record, they changed the meeting Day and Location for the LDS contingent. Not hate'n just say'n. Of course now it interferes with things going on at my church. Cough cough, Our Pack is larger than the entire LDS head count in the District. (This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

How he delivers his program is of no worry to me? I was amazed at his intolerance and contempt. I am used to going to round table and enjoying the scouters company and chewing the fat at whats going on. Hearing about trips and outings and getting ideas for our organization. Who cares?????

I am curious, Why would a doctor write a the boy can't swim excuse?????? The dumbest thing I have ever heard. a 1 mile hike????? that would take what 20 minutes if he is slow???? Buy the kid some swimming lessons. We had a 1st year scout telling me how the swim test was so easy and he shouldn't have to take it cause it was so easy, you guessed it he didn't pass.

Gotta a chuckle at Roundtable last week. We were talking about Fall Recruiting and getting 6 year old 1st grade tigers. A Very Young Cubmaster from a LDS Pack came over and told us we had no idea what we were talking about a 6 year old couldn't possibly be a cub scout. I ask him, Since I have no clue what I am doing what age are boys allowed to join Cub Scouts. He responded 8 and no wonder my pack was so big ignoring the rules. hmmmm, Later on I got in trouble with the same CM when we were talking about first year Webelos crossing over at 10 1/2. You guessed it I was wrong again. According to him Webelos cannot join boy scouts till 12. I understand there are differences in the way the program is provided, I was surprised how intolerant and condescending his tone was with the group of us. His exiting comment was that we shouldn't be leaders since we didn't understand the program. WOW

If you have never had the program before, I will tell you the first year is very expensive, our first year we averaged about $30 per scout on belt loops. Multiply that by 40 boys. $1200 wow. We buy the belt loops, We award them only once We limit it to 5 per pack meeting. We have some parents abuse the system and say their sons earned them all in a few weeks. We council them Webelos and Bears can earn belt loops so I don't know what the big deal is.

just like on the ground you use foam pads and layers of insulation.

I seen dad bully him, name calling and what not. The young man has no bruising and does not act timid around dad, at summer camp in the pool no surprise bruises. The boy is well fed, in clean cloths and plays sports, so his father bullying him may just be a parenting style. I don't agree and not my style. Dad isn't beating him. the rest is a judgment call about mental abuse, I am not going to call children services because he is calling the other boys in the den fat, stupid, ignorant and using his size to intimidate them. My concern is this young man is Bullying the other boys in the den. Just looking for some ideas that may help

Gotta chuckle got this months issue of scouter and low and behold an article on Bullying. What have you done that is successful? I am pretty sure Dad is bullying him, I am not sure how to approach the situation. I approach dad, I will probably loose him.

Well, It seems I have a bully in the bunch this year. Looking for some suggestions or programs to help me set this man on the right track. Does BSA have some literature I can go over with den and talk to the entire den about bullying. Maybe some skits or short storys. Suggestions please.(This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

Living in the inner city. $10 carmel corn is hard to sell. I am almost embarrassed to have the boys go door to door. $18 for microwave???????? I think the exec's that make these decisions are really out of touch. While I appreciate that the profit from $20 sale is greater than a $5 sale, it is much tougher to sell $20 than $5. In previous years we have netted more money in donations while trying to sell popcorn than actual popcorn sales. They don't have $18 for popcorn but believe in the scouting program enough to donate a few dollars.

That is a really cool idea. I like it an may borrow it.

my entire current web I den will be receiving the AOL in a Cross over ceremony in April, followed by an cross over ceremony to the Troop. Day camp followed by resident camp make webelos colors very full

I find myself asking the same questions. Then I see The hate being spewed by Glen Beck and his like and feel scouting has never been needed more. Sports are easier for a parent to talk about and explain. There are clear winners and losers and there is always someone to blame if the team fails. Blame the ref, the small kid on team, the coach, the ball, the sun or the weather. It isn't your sons fault they failed. Scouting makes parents answer the hard questions about themselves and the way they live. The will end up having live changing conversations with their sons and daughters. More than uncomfortable for the Internet Twitter generation.