Oak Tree

The question that I have is one that would be really hard to get an answer to - what do the professionals do with all of the time that they put in? For the DE - I'm imagining it could be broken down into a few categories: - fundraising - working on district events (committee meeting, training, roundtable) - providing standard service to existing units (recharter, proof of insurance) - working to establish new units - fire-fighting with existing units (allegations of improper behavior, in-fighting, etc) The SE would presumably have a bunch of other items, too - personnel, finances, all kinds of things. Then there are all the other office personnel - Eagle registrar, receptionist, whoever rubber stamps the trip plans, prints the membership cards, does the finances, etc. I do feel like some of those things could be made more efficient, but that's true of most every organization everywhere. It does seem like there has to be some official professional person in place to handle a lot of those issues, but I swear, on the pack side, that the total value we've received from the council is pretty close to nothing. Still - there is some value in just having the official backdrop in place. The troop does have more touch points. If a district has maybe 50 units (25 packs, 25 troops), I can see that requiring something like one DE and one other support person (taking something like 10 districts with 10 other council personnel). If they average around $50K salaries, plus overhead for benefits, office space, computers, travel, etc, I could imagine that being around $75K per person. So that would be $150K per district, or an average of $3K per unit. If the average unit has around 30 youth, that would work out to around $100/youth. I guess that doesn't sound too unreasonable.

The theft had to be netted from 'unencumbered' funds. At least, the early part of it did. The last part could have been one big theft of summer camp funds or something, but as noted, this happened over a two year period. Unless the troop was saving up for something spectacular (their own building, maybe), I'd find it hard to justify keeping that much cash and not spending it on things that would benefit the program. Our pack and troop have managed to save some money up to the point of having maybe $5000-$10000 in unencumbered funds, but I don't think we'd ever go much beyond that.

I'm also amazed that "The troops new treasurer confirms that all of the embezzled funds have been repaid" - how does that happen? If you have a gambling problem bad enough that you embezzle $73K from the Scouts, how is it that you have enough money to pay that back? I think it would be good to have the treasurer show the actual bank account statement. We have the statement sent to the CO and they put it in the Scout mailbox, so we do have the opportunity to look at it, but I don't think that we always do. I think the difficulty with the BSA requiring a fiscal audit is that the program really belongs to the CO and there are lots of ways that they could set up the finances. Because the program belongs to the CO, it's not really the BSA's purview to do anything with managing unit finances.

"the BSA is a uniformed organization" Ha. This is a big part of the problem for those who insist that everyone should wear the full uniform. The BSA does not require a uniform for participation. You don't have to have a uniform to be an Eagle Scout. You don't have to have a uniform to go to summer camp. There's no rule on whether you should wear the uniform at troop meetings. At summer camp the great majority of Scouts all wear just the shirt. They all get fed at the dining hall regardless. If you were really a uniformed organization, the uniform would be required. You can't be a policeman on patrol if you're not in uniform. You have to wear a uniform in the military. You have to wear a uniform to work the register at McDonald's. You have to wear a uniform to play sports - the referee will not let you into the game without a legal uniform. The BSA pretends that it is a fully uniformed organization, just the way the drivers and police officers on the interstate pretend that the speed limit is 65mph.

Trainerlady, you just don't sound like you've got all that great a council going on here. Are you sure that you're not in the same place as Basementdweller? :-) We have 2 DE/DDs that are acting as ASMs for jambo. It seems crazy to me that anyone would be paid to be on jambo staff. Our council has a jambo committee that is entirely volunteers, and selects all the SMs/ASMs from the other volunteers. "He said maybe we should rethink how many people in the family should go if we couldn't help out the local program first. " Okay, that's the point I would have gone flat-out, ape-flippin' Bee-zerk. What an arrogant SOB. I'm with Twocub. I'm surprised you didn't hit somebody. It is not your job to "help out the local program." It's their job to help you. This behavior is not the norm in my council, and it is unacceptable in any council.

I'm voting for normal as well. We see most Scouts go in spurts like this. For awhile right at the beginning, they are into advancement. Then at some point they slow down and enjoy the fun. And then, at some point in the maturity curve, the advancement desire kicks in and they get really focused on that. Not every kid, not the same ages every time, but it's definitely a pattern. I wouldn't sweat it.

You've got to have a mission. Not to hijack the thread, but it kind of sounds like Venturing doesn't it? Yes, it does, to me at least, and obviously to some others too. I think that one of the biggest problems with attracting people to Venturing is that it doesn't have a clear "brand image". If you sign up for the local basketball league, you'll play basketball. If you sign up for Boy Scouts, you go camping. The church youth group has a certain niche. But what is Venturing?Venturing is a youth development program of the Boy Scouts of America for young men and women who are 14 years of age OR 13 years of age and have completed the eighth grade and under 21 years of age. Venturing's purpose is to provide positive experiences to help young people mature and to prepare them to become responsible and caring adults.Well, sign me right up. What kid wouldn't want to do that?

Haven't heard anything like that in our council. Basementdweller, it's just hard to tell on the basis of anecdotes how widespread the problem is. We have a pretty small sampling here on the forum. I do think that it's ridiculous to tell people to pay a Friends of Scouting fee in order to volunteer. If you just want to increase the price for the activity, then just increase the price. This just seems like an ill-considered ploy to tick off all of your volunteers. Part of the problem with the model is that councils aren't allowed to charge an annual fee. I'd personally be much happier if they did charge a fee and just laid off everyone who spends most of their time fund-raising. I think the annual fee would be a lot smaller than what they quote now ($150 in our council).

The rule that infoscouter quotes says that the badges can only be "used by members who qualify". So I do get why it would be unethical to try to pass yourself off as an Eagle when you aren't one, or to wear badges that you aren't entitled to. What I don't get is why it would be unethical for patch traders to buy and sell patches. So if I have a bunch of patches and wanted to sell them, why would that be a problem? (Not that I have ever tried selling anything on eBay, but I do have a fair collection of patches.)

If the people obtained the items legally, why shouldn't they be able to sell them? Did they sign a document somewhere promising not to? Is there even a BSA rule against purchasing them on the open market? Is there a rule against selling them? I guess I don't see the problem.

I realize that there are a lot of differences between the programs, but when it comes down to philosophy, how many actual differences are there? Boy Scouts won't accepts gays or atheists, GSUSA will. Girl Scouts has some type of support for Planned Parenthood. Is that it? Quite honestly, if you look at the aims and methods of BSA, it all sounds like good mom and apple pie stuff. There's nothing dealing with homosexuality anywhere. There is a reference to God, but it's not like the BSA is all that focused on this point - the normal Scouting program just doesn't require much at all in the way of religion. And it's just a very odd religion that says both the Christian and Muslim beliefs are ok, but atheism is not. Neither Christian nor Muslim leaders would make that claim, I don't think. My experience with the youth of today is that being gay is no big deal to them. The BSA is going to have to change on this point sooner or later, but it may very well be a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of thing. Membership is going to take a hit in either direction. I don't think the BSA will change its view on God any time soon, even though in practice I'm sure there are many Scouts who just mouth the words. For most of the BSA, I suspect there is a big don't-ask-don't-tell de facto policy in place. There is very little middle ground - many organizations have essentially been forced onto one side or another of this fence. I'd love to just deal with outdoor skills and mentoring kids - which is what I do in practice, but I'd like to do it without the political backdrop. I just looked at the Campfire USA web site, and I can't figure out what it is that they do. They use an "outcome rich curriculum" and groups "choose from a variety of fun and educational activities and projects." You've got to have a mission. I suppose there is still a little bit of middle ground. The youth sports leagues don't seem to be too political. Nobody slams the door on a soccer player because of national issues. I'd like to see Scouting more like that. The clear thing about Scouting that attracts people is the outdoors. That's the mission I'd like to see emphasized.

I'm also saying "It depends." My observations about all of the crews I've seen that thrive is that they have a pretty active adult leader who has a vision for the crew and keeps it focused. So how much? As much as you want/need.

Well, that would be a real test for those who believe in "boy-led". Would you let the youth elect the SM? I think I'd like that option - at least it would give me the opportunity to consider stepping down every six months.

Our pack put our unit name on one of the customizable patches from the BSA. It looked pretty good and wasn't too hard or too expensive. Boys were proud of earning them. They were earned for any trip where the temperature got under 32 at any point. That was just right for us. The troop doesn't currently have anything equivalent. Below freezing is too easy for a Boy Scout - and below zero is something that is really hard for us to ever find - we've only had one trip like that in our history.

Someone has to be responsible for running the meetings where things get decided. Someone has to be in charge of troop meetings: decide on when to start, when to end, when to switch activities. If the SM is doing that, then maybe you don't need an SPL. But it's essential that in any given situation someone is perceived to be the leader. We make that the SPL as much as we can. We've never had a time when no one wanted to run. We've tried to provide a few more perks to the SPL to make his job a little bit more fun, but not a power trip. I would have an SPL for our troop even if we were down to two patrols. I could see treating one of the two patrol leaders as the senior of the two, I suppose, but I think my choice would be to always have an SPL.

I'll also point out that this statistic can be a bit misleading. The average tenure of a volunteer counting all volunteers in the history of an organization is not the same thing as the average tenure of a volunteer at some particular point in time. For example, if an organization lasted 10 years, and had one volunteer who served all ten, two volunteers who did consecutive 5 year terms, five volunteers who did consecutive two-year terms, and ten volunteers who did consecutive one-year terms, you can see the difference. The average (mean) of all 18 volunteers is 2 years 3 months. The median is 1 year. At any point in time, though, there are four volunteers serving, who serve for 1, 2, 5, and 10 years - the average of those four numbers is 4.5 years. This also gets complicated by the fact that on average, a volunteer is only half-way through his tenure - so if an organization averaged 20 months tenure, you'd average catching any particular volunteer at 10 months. But at any point in time, given the way the distribution tends to look, you'd find the organization would have a higher average than that at virtually every point in time. So is 20 months too short? Probably not. Would longer be better? Yes. Do everything you can to make sure the adults have fun too.

As long as you are enjoying it and are good at it. I felt like one year was too short for people to feel comfortable with it and learn how to do a good job. If I were to pick a number, I'd say three years would be good. In our pack, it's always been "until your son ages out".

I've decided that my biggest responsibility is coaching the other adult leaders to coach the boys.

I think that our units could pretty much exist in isolation, with just a way to order stuff from National. Obviously, we need the national organization - we need handbooks and requirement books and uniforms and badges. But do we need the council and the district? (And I have no idea what a "region" does.) The district and council camporees are nice things, but we don't need them. Summer camp is probably the biggest thing that a council does - I think it would be hard to replicate that experience on our own, and not having a summer camp would affect the program. The other things that the council and district do are mostly behind the scenes kind of things. A lot of it could be computerized - membership, policies, training. Some units really don't need council, I'm sure. I think you get something out of being "Boy Scouts" - parents know you're part of a larger organization, you get insurance, you get awards you can earn. But I don't know what the council organization itself adds to this. They do some troubleshooting, they are there to aid with organization in the background, but on a day-to-day basis, I know some units could survive without them. I think that they spend a lot of time on fundraising. They spend some time starting up new units.

We've never scheduled a completely empty weekend. Even if we are "just camping" we'll generally throw in some type of hike or activity to give the trip some focus. Some of our trips have a fair amount of free time - I do think the guys like hanging out with one another - but it's always in some context. Some trips are more packed. The troop does plan the schedule and the PLC helps guide the individual trips, so by some definition, we are doing what the boys want. Whether the boys themselves know what they really want, that's an open question.

We camp in tents at least twelve times a year, including December and January. It depends a little bit on how you count, since some months we might offer multiple options, and we do include a ski trip where we sleep in the cafeteria. We've done some caving trips which aren't literally in tents, but sleeping in a cave seems to meet the spirit of the requirement. And we did sleep on an aircraft carrier last year. We also sometimes do training days where we sleep in the church. But still, I'd say the assumption is that every month is a tent camping trip with just limited exceptions, and there are extra tent camping trips thrown in for good measure.

I wouldn't call the cops in any of these six cases. Sure, I can imagine situations where I'd call the cops. But if these cases are relatively isolated incidents and not part of some pattern of behavior that has persisted despite serious warnings, these can all be dealt with in a troop setting. That's not to say that there are no consequences for any of these actions - there would certainly be some, depending on the details (what do you really know, versus what did you hear about? etc).

We do not count anything that happens on the troop meeting night - even if we are doing something other than a "meeting". But pretty much anything that happens on another day would count. The only exception are the monthly PLC meetings - which are "meetings". We count service projects, Eagle projects, fundraisers, Scout Sunday, camping trips, day trips, patrol hikes, swim checks. We don't count merit badge days because those are generally not a troop or patrol activity.

I don't think there's any possible way that BSA would want to own the units. First off, they really don't want the liability. Beyond that, the chartered organizations really do a lot of the work for them of managing the units. You are right, the CO does have a lot of authority over the unit. However, over time, each CO decides how it's going to operate its unit. It may be as an absentee landlord, or it may be deeply connected. It is relatively rare for one to switch mid-stream. Sometimes when that happens, as it did with one troop I know around here, the troop decides to leave and join a new CO (not exact from a technical perspective, but in practice that's what happened.) Is there a danger that every group will have its own unit and they'll all be small? I don't think that's the main reason that there are a bunch of small units. That might be the reason that the LDS has a bunch of small units, but most other people will join a Scout troop without regard for who the CO is. They initially join most often because of location and meeting nights. I think that the CO model is one reason why the BSA has such a hard time with standards and keeping things organized, but I think it has been a pretty successful model for them. It's better than the Soviet model of command and control. No one at council gets to decide where a new troop needs to be, or who should be the leaders, or what the troop should focus on. It turns out that people at the top don't always have a great ability to predict exactly what the people on the ground want.

Take some deep breaths, and step back. What if a boy just wants to work on a merit badge by himself and go to the SM after the fact? That's not how it's supposed to work. The boy goes to the Scoutmaster to get the name of a counselor, before beginning work on the project. That's the actual rule. The Scoutmaster can decide who can be counselors, and they often will not allow parents to do it for their own kids. But it is his job to give your son someone's name who will do it. But again, you're way ahead of yourself here. Your son doesn't need to work on any merit badges for awhile. See if there's some other thing you can do as a volunteer to help the troop.