Oak Tree

That sounds like a reasonable way to run things. Our pack never did spring recruiting just because the timing was so odd. There is not normally an official "Bobcat den", but it could make sense for the new people to be together until they earn Bobcat by the kick-off meeting. If you had more functioning dens and den leaders, you could just put the new Cub Scouts into their age-appropriate den. That's what our pack would have done. Either way could work.

lots of insulation all over. This was the biggest noticeable thing after the storms passed. I'm working on the theory that the tornado sucked up all the insulation from a Lowe's Home Improvement and carried it aloft, battered it to pieces, and dropped slimy balls of insulation of varying sizes at ten-yard intervals across miles and miles of towns. Unlike hurricanes or ice storms, which produce wide-spread damage with trees and power lines down everywhere, the tornadoes had a much more limited area of destruction (albeit even more destructive), and the real emblem of the tornadoes for the rest of us was the insulation. My son said it was the grossest thing he'd ever touched. It looked and felt like a phlegm-covered hairball mixed with bright yellow pine pollen. Once they started drying out, they'd expand by a factor of ten or so and look much more like what you'd expect insulation to look like.

That's good advice from 5yearscouter. It would be much easier for you if you just joined another pack. Is there no one else in this pack who shares a vision of a good working pack for their own son? If not, I'd say you'd be much happier with a group who has already figured out at least some semblance of how to get leaders signed up. But if you do decide to give it one more shot, I would do as 5yearscouter suggests - make it a rule that one parent must volunteer for something. You need a den leader at each age group. If you do not have a den leader, those boys unfortunately can't be signed up (said in your most sorrowful voice.) I'd start with the den leader positions - if you have those filled, the pack will actually run. The CC can be important, but I wouldn't let it bother you much - as a Cubmaster and leader you're clearly in charge and the CC is there to support you. You might not get much support, but the problem right now is that there's no one who would give you any support. The ESL parents wouldn't have to fill out an application as long as they'd be willing to help out in some way. I'd also agree with the suggestion about the church - who in the church wanted to restart the pack? Do they know how it's going? Can they help out in any way? I'd make the youth pastor the new COR and get him to pressure the old COR to be the new CC. You need more help, and if you can't find it by the start of the next school year, you should find a good pack. Cub Scouting should be fun. For you as well as the boys. Find a place where it can be good for both of you.

We've never had a problem with the logistics of the election, or any complication with the voting rules. For the last few years we've been voting in January or February before the new Scouts cross over. I'm not aware of any Scouts abstaining from any of the elections, but there could have been. The election team takes a head count to see how many Scouts we have there to vote. Then they ask us how many active Scouts we have. We hand out the ballots. The Scouts vote and give them back. The election team and Scoutmaster go to a back room and count the ballots (B) and how many votes (V) each Scout got. For each Scout, if V>0.5B then he is elected. Not too complicated. (Note, for the number of active Scouts, the election team would be willing to accept a number lower than our registered number in order to account for Scouts who just aren't showing up any more, or who have moved - but I think we've always had more than half of our registered number.)

We'd have to see how people felt about it, but my first instinct would be that we wouldn't change our plans because of the gas cost. Like Knot Head, we charge each Scout about 4 cents per mile, and that would go up to 6 cents per mile. So for a 100 mile trip, that would be an extra $2.00 per Scout. Even for a 300-mile trip that would be an extra $6.00 per Scout. I think people would mostly swing that without worry.

I think the closest one got to our house was about five miles away. Pretty ominous looking skies around that time. It's some serious damage but it's contained to a very precise path around here.

Is national supply operating in the red? If not, they must be doing decent business selling items that people want, need or desire. According to the 2009 national report (the 2010 report will be issued in May), supply division numbers were: Revenue: $143,333,000 Cost of Sales and Expenses: $114,380,000 Net money to BSA Kitty: $ 28,953,000 It was roughly $19M income in 2008 and $29M in 2009. With around 2.8 million members, that means they made about $10 per member on average in 2009.

Somehow a bunch of other companies sell stuff like this - take a look at any family magazine and check out the ads. I'm with Twocub - I'm pretty sure they're making money at this. The excess inventory is accounted for in their business plan. People complain that Supply sells too much overpriced stuff, and then they complain that Supply is going to have to sell it all at a loss. So are they making too much money, or too little? Do any of us actually know how it would compare to some similar retail operation? This just seems like an odd thing to complain about, I guess. I'm trying to understand what the real concern is. I can understand if the complaint is that the uniform is too expensive, or low quality, because those are things you pretty much have to buy. But the people buying these presumably know what they are getting. The organization is presumably making money doing it (and supply division does show a profit that gets put into the BSA kitty). So some consumers are getting something that they want, and BSA is getting something that it wants. I don't think BSA is entirely like the other organizations listed above (YMCA and BGCA). They do both put on programs for kids, but the YMCA has a lot of members who pay standard fees for membership (hundreds of dollars a year), and they have way more paid staff than Boy Scouts. BCGA is funded much more by donations - they look to funded by a lot of large corporate donations, and they also have a lot of paid staff - 51,000 (this program appears to be most similar to the BSA's Scoutreach program). In both of these cases the program is typically being delivered by paid staff. BSA, much more than those programs, depends on volunteers to deliver the program to the youth. I guess Girl Scouts would be the most similar program. I do see you can buy a Juliette Gordon Low cameo pin for $40. I can't imagine the materials for that are costing them virtually anything. You can buy a Precious Moments figurine for $50. You can also get a sterling silver pin for $85.00. The BSA is very much a membership organization and it looks to build a lot of life-long loyalty among the adults associated with it. So I'm thinking there are other organizations that are similar in that regard. The National Rifle Association might be one. And yes, when I look at their site, they have a lot of ways to give them money. Collectible knives for $80, $200, $375. Charlton Heston coin for $50. Zippo lighter for $50. Belt buckle for $100. The Republican Party has a $40 Christmas ornament, or a $400 Reagan inauguration photo. Campfire USA has a brooch for $57.00, a "CUSTOM FLAME SYMBOL CENTENNIAL NECKLACE" for $63.00, a lapel pin for $90. National Public Radio offers a Car Talk CD set for $105, a Limited Edition Peter Max songbook for $199.99, and if you want the iSongbook option, it's $400. The Smithsonian offers pendants for $85 and $195, an "amethyst jewelry set" for $350, and a Wright Flyer replica for $210. National Wildlife Federation offers a Pine Cone Oil Lamp for $80. If you want to complain about people who are gouging their customers, let's talk about how HP sells ink for their printers, or how Apple sells $10 worth of components for $400. But I don't have to buy those either.

Pack, Going back to your response to me where you stated that good educational opportunities are available in the current system if you work to find them - that's something that we have found to be true in our family. I don't want to say that the public schools are "broken". There are many good teachers and there are a lot of good courses available. I'm very skeptical about data that shows how our country compares to other countries - although perhaps some statisticians have done a good job in making sure that it's the same relevant part of the population that's being tested. For all I know, the better schools may be just as good here as anywhere else. But I also don't think it's OK that some people get their requests rejected by the system for arbitrary reasons. The food system doesn't work that way - you don't get told "We've allocated all of the blackberries to Middletown, so you'll have to eat blueberries." And those people don't get told "Blackberries are good food too, you can make some really delightful things with them." So even though I'm not going so far as to say the system is broken, I'll definitely allow that there are some aspects that could be made better, and competition is a great way to induce people to work hard to do that. As for your latest stats - they're good to know, and I don't know that I see the value of contracts, but that data in general is very open to the "correlation does not imply causation" argument. Schools in the south share all kinds of common styles, and it's very difficult to know which of those things might cause the historical poor performance. North Carolina has been rapidly moving up the ranks of the schools over the past couple of decades. I remember arriving here and hearing about how they were setting aggressive goals of getting to average (and yes, those were aggressive goals). Looks like the state is almost there from your stats. The funny thing is, I don't think that NC really adopted much reform at all that has made any difference. What they did get was an absolute overwhelming flood of educated northern immigrants. Parental education level is a pretty good predictor of success in school. NC SAT scores were about 38 points below the national average just 15 years ago (combined math+reading). The gap was down to 10 in 2008. (and NC has a higher participation rate than average). Wake County, which has all the same rules as the rest of NC, scores well above the national average. It also has higher average income than the state as a whole, and more educated parents, both of which are very strong predictors of academic success. So yes, our schools are not bad, we do have IEPs and charter schools and private schools and home schooling options (home schooling requires a trivial amount of government interaction in NC). And as a country, we do still seem to be pretty competitive (way more immigrants than emigrants). Still, that doesn't mean we can't all look around and see things that could be better and come up with suggestions on how to make it happen.

Twocub, I happen to be in exactly the same position as you. This year's crossover Scouts and their families are the first ones that didn't know my as Cubmaster (unless they had an older brother in the pack). I agree that parents would like some evidence the Scoutmaster knows what he's doing. In any well-established troop there is almost certainly someone around who has some experience. But an 18 year old could easily have more experience than any parent in a small and/or new troop. Your argument is a good one for why an experienced adult would *usually* be a better choice - but why do we need to preclude choosing the 18 year old if everyone involved agrees that he's the better choice? Are we afraid that a bunch of troops are going to put an 18 year old in charge, have him make bad decisions, and have the troop fall apart? Do we really think that troops won't try to select the best Scoutmaster for the job? Or that they will be swayed by his youth and enthusiasm? Maybe we should go back to having state legislatures select our senators, too, because people can't really be trusted to do this well on their own. I too am missing what the actual argument is here. I see lots of things about why it would *normally* be better to select an older adult, but I don't see an argument about why it would *always* be better to have someone with more experience. Some people argue that the Scoutmaster should have a couple of years on the oldest Scouts. I don't concede this, but even if it were true, is it that hard to imagine troops with a bunch of young guys who want an 20-year-old Scoutmaster? He could easily have five years on the oldest Scout. Essentially, you have to argue why you know better than the CO who would be the best Scoutmaster. You are somehow, in their best interests, stopping them from shooting themselves in the foot (feet?) Right now, I'll bet there are troops out there who have an Acting Scoutmaster who is under 21. Someone has agreed to be the official figurehead Scoutmaster, but leaves the running of the troop to the Acting Scoutmaster. If there's a troop who really wants a young Scoutmaster, they're already doing it. Changing the official rule won't even change much in the way of troop operation, but somehow we're hell-bent on keeping it. I don't get it either.

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they are probably trying to figure out the best way to make money, just as any business would do. I don't see what the big deal is - if you don't like it, don't buy it. I don't want the BSA trying to design outdoor equipment - and I think they are doing a much better job of offering actual name brand high quality camping items. The YMCA does have at least some items....http://dallas.ymcastorefront.com/pc-531-32-blue-1gb-mp3-player.aspx as do the Boys and Girls Clubs (specifically listed under 'fundraising') http://www.bgccnp.com/fundraising-2011/merchandise And I doubt I'm finding the really fancy stuff that they use to recognize their top volunteers.

We save the bridge for crossing over to Boy Scouts. We've done different ceremonies for the earlier ranks, but one of them was to create a long winding path with blue masking tape, and put up signs along the way with the great big badges that you can buy at the Scout store. Then each of the younger groups would get to walk the path all the way up to their sign, and only those joining Boy Scouts were able to cross the bridge. We had actual Boy Scouts standing on the other side, so it just wouldn't work as symbolism for the bridge to be used for other things. We weren't graduating them - we always did that at an informal end-of-year get-together in June. So we didn't need to have other bridge options, but I guess you could always use some smaller bridges between the ranks if you like the symbolism and wanted to do all the graduations at the same time. Most groups don't have this issue, because crossover is most commonly in February or March, and the rank graduation is more typically in May or June.

Another problem with charter schools becoming the main steam: Statistics and track records. I support free market all the way, but education should not be a part of it if it is education for all. What about the kid who just doesn't advance at the same rate as anybody else? he gets dumped of put intyo a rediculously simple program to improve his scores. THose scores are the calling card, and therefor the "how awesome we are" rating of those schools. I'm not sure how you can say you support free market all the way but not for education for everyone. [side point - Beavah is right - families who attend charter schools go for free.] Now, you do raise an interesting point here. In order for the market to work freely, you need a few things. - The ability for new producers to enter the market. (open a new school) - The ability to compare products against one another. - The ability for producers to increase their supply (enlarge their schools) - Some incentive for the consumer to choose one product over another. - Some incentive for the producer to get more consumers. Right now we are limited in the ability to create charter schools in NC. Parents do have the ability to compare schools from one to another. Some important aspects they can see up front - how far is the school from their home, how big are the classes, what are the subjects offered, who are the teachers? They can also get some idea of the student body by looking at test scores and a list of how many students go on to which colleges. The thing that is very hard to get a real handle on is how well the school actually does at educating students. You're right - the number of students who score above minimum is a pretty terrible way to measure this. The thing I'd like to see most would be data on how students do based on their aptitude for learning and their initial grade level. So people at the 90th percentile on aptitude tests and starting at a tenth grade performance level typically gain 1.2 years of grade level performance - or something like that. Even then you'd have to decide if that's really the key data point you want. There are certainly other variables that would play into this - what percentage of the schools juniors are working a job; how many of them come from intact families; how many of them grew up in a house full of books; etc. Doing a statistically meaningful analysis of school performance is difficult. But that can be true for lots of products. Which green beans are safest? healthiest? produced in an environmentally friendly fashion? Still, we let the market decide. The government might decide to make it easier to compare things. Each car has to post the MPG. Each school could be required to provide certain data. I think that the education system clearly has the first four characteristics on my list - it's easy enough to open a new school (once it's legal to do so), we have some data to compare schools, schools can expand, parents have a very strong incentive for choosing good schools (so much that people routinely pay more money for their house so that their kids can attend a particular school. I know multiple instances of people renting an apartment just to establish a new temporary residence so their child can attend a school in another zone.) The big question for me is what the incentive is for the charter schools to do a good job. One part of it is that if they stop attracting students, the school will be forced to close. We usually like incentives that aren't entirely on/off like that - if a school is doing reasonably well, what incentive is there for a teacher to do a better job? And that's the problem with the public schools today too - what is their incentive to do a better job? They have even less incentive than the charter schools. In normal markets there is usually some type of monetary incentive. Do better, sell more product, make more money. It's not clear how that could be applied to charter schools. Well, I can think of a variety of ways, but it's not clear how accepted or practical they might be. One way would be to let charter schools charge an extra fee. Then they can compete on price, and you could offer some bonus-sharing for the teachers at a school that can attract families who are willing to pay extra. Right now I would be happy if their only incentive was to be able to stay open. Charter schools would at least offer a much wider variety of educational options and the bad ones would fail and close. You'd have to figure out how the lottey system worked, and you do still need a school of last resort. My mom was a teacher and she always asked how a charter school system would deal with the special education kids. Quite honestly, I'd expect that schools would open up to cater to them and those schools would be happy to take the federal money. But it is possible that there would be cases where there just isn't enough of a market for some niche demographic, or some remote rural school district. So there would still have to be a government option or something. I know this would open things up for other societal effects - but that's another facet of the discussion that can wait for another time.

if indeed no one does what the text literally says, there is unlikely to be much incentive to change the text or even clarify it. It would essentially be an acceptance by BSA of one more aspect of 'closet' local option in practice. Yep. I know that, I get your point, and you're right. But I personally don't want the hassle of being the one to call in repeated youth protection violations on my unit in order to push for a clarification in the text. I'll let Blancmarge do it. Hard to see the upside in doing that myself...big hassle for me, minor benefit for people who read the text (assuming that it even does get clarified), and no change in the way things are actually handled. Reasonable people adapt to the world around them. Unreasonable people expect the world to adapt to them. Therefore all progress is made by unreasonable people. Feel free to step up and make the progress - I think it's a wide open opportunity.

the Scoutmaster needs to have a couple years on the oldest youth members of the troop. So then a Venturing Advisor would have to be 24? Same with an OA Chapter Advisor?

Technically, no. Invoking Chinese or Soviet comparisons are not examples of Godwin's Law. "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." So it's pretty much the question of who used the term Nazi or Hitler first. Now, this thread is not really a good example of Godwin's Law, because Nazi-like is normally used to refer to your opponent's argument, not your own. Still, Beavah did not mention Germany, or Hitler, or Nazis, or the Gestapo - you kind of expanded on his reference. I'll grant you that it's a similar thing - calling your opponent a communist Soviet. And while I personally do see the direct similarity, it's of a different order of magnitude with different consequences, and so probably does fall under the general umbrella of lessening credibility through an extreme analogy. My take - Beavah is working hard to come up with an interpetation of the text that would actually make sense in a practical way. I don't think the text does make sense, but I'm still going with his interpretation of how to handle the situation. I feel like this discussion has become almost absurd. I don't know of anyone in real life who would do what the text literally says.

Pack, We have some of what you say. NC does have charter schools, but there is currently a cap of 100 statewide. I can't imagine any meaningful justification for this cap. Republicans are newly in charge of the state legislature and are now working to repeal the cap. http://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/story/9401994/ As for choice of schools, there is a little bit, but not a lot. There are a few reasons why they might grant a request - the easiest one is if you're wanting to transfer from a crowded school to a less crowded one (but this is often equivalent to asking to transfer from a better school to a worse one). You can also transfer if you actually move, if your parent is employed at a school, if you have a serious disability, or if the school offers some classes you can't get at your own school (and those classes aren't already full). Essentially, they tell you where you're going, and then you have 10 days to try to change it. "Applications for transfer that would contravene the intent of the Board of Educations current Growth Management Plan will be denied." What I'd like to see would be some type of lottery application process for all of the schools for anyone in the county. As it is now, we get all kinds of stories - two siblings who are sent to different high schools and are denied transfers, families where one kid is on a traditional schedule and another is on a year-round schedule, etc.

Scoutfish, the written description doesn't give away the location, but if you look at the video, it's pretty clear that they aren't in North Carolina, unless there is some tropical part of NC that I'm unfamiliar with. I do think I hear a mosquito on one of them.

I have a tent like this from early in my Cub days. It does have the advantage of being roomy inside. Disadvantages: heavy, takes time and people to set up and tear down, not all that rain-proof, takes up a lot of ground. Now I only ever use the smaller tents. Pants on and off is exactly how you describe. For the shirts, I just throw on the t-shirt in the tent, and put on the Scout shirt and do any tucking in outside. Also, I have a knee mat where I crawl into the tent. It all comes down to what tradeoffs there are and which attributes you value the most. Might also have something to do with the unit culture. What do all of the other adults use?

I would definitely get rid of NCLB. As for the department, I have so little contact with it that I don't really care. From the description that Calico gives, it sounds like it could be merged in with some other department (education might be considered a Human Service, I guess). It won't be, because no one wants to be known as the anti-education President. I don't really think it matters much, since it won't happen, and even if it did, the functions that it performs would just get moved somewhere else. Now, I'm a big fan of market forces and freedom of choice. I think that would be the best step we could take towards improving our schools. Even little steps in that direction are good. Let students choose which public school they attend. Let there be charter schools. Telling people they have to attend School X because they live in Area Y sounds like something straight out of Soviet planning. "You all will buy your food from the Giant Eagle on Jackson because you live near it." It seems like the provision of food is an even more basic requirement than education. How can we leave that provisioning to market forces?

Perhaps you could randomly hit keys and provide us with the complete works of Shakespeare.

In our district, it seems to go something like this: - hold meeting for unit kernels - pass out information on popcorn to units - show up at roundtable to talk about popcorn - send email to units that don't have a kernel. Ask them about it. - call units that don't have a kernel yet. Ask them about it. - send more emails to units that don't have a kernel yet. - get popcorn sales data from all units - if you're doing show and sell, you'll have to do it twice - locate a place to store your popcorn. This seems like the biggest issue in our district. - send out emails asking for a warehouse to store and distribute popcorn - send out emails begging for a warehouse to store and distribute popcorn - send out emails desperately pleading for a warehouse to store and distribute popcorn - coordinate day at warehouse - coordinate with other district popcorn kernels in trying to dump extra popcorn - store extra popcorn in garage - show up at roundtable and try to unload extra popcorn

Indeed. And that's the same thing I'd do if they charged theft in the simpler case. You do raise an interesting point, and I don't claim to know the answer as to the official limits of my responsibility as a Scout leader. I do know that I expect to be able to demand that Scouts turn over items to me in various situations. That's how I read the requirement - to say that you should demand the Scout turns it over, not that you should physically wrest it from his hands. I'm not too worried about it - as long as I'm using reasonable judgment, I don't think the cops are going to be the problem. I don't know what someone acting in loco parentis could do that I can't do. Or even from the actual parents. I mean, sure, they can use corporal punishment and I can't. They can send their kid to boarding school and I can't. They can change their kid's medication, and I'm not going to do that. But I can demand that the boy changes his clothes, or takes a shower, or put away his iPod. I believe that I could search through a Scout's possessions. I can't recall any time that a Scout openly defied any request that I made of him, and obviously there are limits to how I could deal with that.

Good luck next Thursday. My only advice, and I'm sure you already know this, is to make sure that you've got your plan fairly well thought out. You know what you're going to say, and you know what outcome you want. You can adjust as the conversation moves on, but for difficult meetings like this, I've found it's no fun to try to come up with all of the right words on the fly. Now, about this... Adopt me. You are one of the most refreshing new posters to this forum in awhile. You are confident and open and you write with the kind of descriptive phrasing that gives us a pretty good sense of what you're going through. You don't get defensive when people make suggestions. Your questions are those that any new leader might ask, and have garnered lots of good responses. Plus you're funny. So...I'm not sure exactly what it might mean, but I'd be happy to adopt you.

AnnLaurelB, What you said above about presenting at a pack meeting is what I tell anyone who gets up in front of the pack for most items. "You aren't 'telling the parents about the logistics of the Pinewood Derby', you are 'getting the Cub Scouts excited about the Pinewood Derby.'" You aren't 'explaining how popcorn sales work', you are 'getting the boys excited about selling popcorn.' But for FOS, you're really talking to the adults. There's nothing for the kids to do here - they don't donate the money, and I really don't think it would go well to try to get the kids to pester their moms and dads on this one - "But mom, he said that if we have this patch, it will be proof that we like Scouting and everyone will know that I'm an extra good Scout!" Well, even if you don't go to that extreme, you can still see how parents wouldn't like a solicitation directed at their kids. I think I would do some things in the direction of keeping the Cubs involved. Throw in questions for them from time to time - "How many of you have been camping?" or have some numbers for a drawing - "Can number 22 come help me show off these patches?" or "Stand up if your den leader has a trained patch on." Maybe tell a little story about someone who needed help from the council and got it. So yeah, it would be good if the kids get that Scouting is fun and we should support the council. But ignoring the parents completely...I don't think I'd go that way [see, Twocub? almost always agree...] Then again, I also probably wouldn't try to bore the parents, or annoy the parents, or speak in a slow monotone.