Oak Tree

... ... ...thinking ... ... ...what would I really do if this happened?... ... ... ...hmmm ... ... OK, Twocubdad has talked me off the ledge. If I got this email, I think I'd just look at it bemusedly and think, "I'll go ahead and register my guy, but I bet he's going to get a lot of flak on this one." I might even forward it on to the Chapter Advisor and say "Bill, did you know about this? I'll be curious to see the responses. Seems like it might be overkill. I wonder if he'll get the response he hoped for. (and yes, I did register my OA Rep). - Oak"

>> He may say that he has the parent's agreement. Who knows? > Does that matter? Yes, in determining the seriousness of the offense, it does matter. The circumstances always matter. You are free to decide that you literally have to call your SE at any time when any leader ever ends up in any one-on-one situation with a Scout. We had one cold-weather camping trip where a Scout woke up in the middle of the night and threw up. We moved him into the tent with his dad and another adult. There's a youth protection violation. Call the SE. I actually think it would be prett

Here's the way I read it - We want a contact for each troop. If the troop isn't even willing to give us a contact, then they can't participate. I mean, there are additional requirements that aren't written down. Maybe it's that you must return certain emails, or talk to someone on the phone, or something. I think the rule is a ham-handed one and there are friendlier ways to do it, and maybe it's somehow more complicated than I realize, but sometimes I'm just amazed at how eager people are to pick fights over little things. What about this? The new OA Advisor decides the details

Let me give a big round of support for Eamonn. This forum is the only place many of these arguments happen. Sometimes I wish people here could get along as well as Scouters do in all of the in-person get-togethers I've ever been a part of. But other times I can think that this is just what the forum is - a place for lively debate. And really, it's pretty good here now. Back when I first starting reading the forum, the poster that Eamonn refers to, who shall not be named, was just awful. There were a significant number of posters who stopped participating just because of him. He

I agree that playing fast and loose with the rules can be one of many indicators you should pay attention to. I didn't mean to imply that you should ignore someone who does that. What I was trying to say was, I don't think that one incident like this is equivalent to "playing fast and loose with the rules." OGE could give us more examples of what he meant, but I'm guessing it was more than one time, it was more serious incidents, and the leader was clearly intentionally doing it. Even the unusual situations become easier to avoid if it becomes part of the unit's culture. Other parent

In the parent thread, Eagle92 said that custom patrol patches would "hurt the patrol if they have uniform inspections as part of events, like district and council camporees." Our district has never had uniform inspections at a camporee. We don't always go to the council camporees, but I don't ever remember seeing one there, either. Nor at summer camp, nor from a unit commissioner. The only inspections we've ever had have been done within the unit. Is it common for there to be uniform inspections at events in other places?

The story that OGE posts is terrible. May that never happen to any of our units. But still, as a result of that, am I going to call the SE to report that Scoutfish is violating youth protection guidelines by driving his nephew to the meeting? I'm still going to come down on the side of good judgment here. The story said "the boy visited Ritter at his former home in Palmyra Township, Pike County, and slept over Ritters house on several occasions." As Beavah says, that's where the abuse usually takes place. I'm not sure I'd say that this leader is playing fast and loose with the rules

There is little that is more miserable than camping in cold weather when you are not prepared for it. You'll find that attitudes on these things vary by troop. Most of our guys don't mind camping in a passing thunderstorm. On the other hand, if there are going to be unrelenting storms for the last six hours of the trip, I think we'd all be fine with just packing up early. I don't think Scouting has changed much at all in these areas, and certainly there is no national trend towards "hardening our boys up by teaching them to endure" - if anything, trends seem to be in the other dir

Jeez, I keep saying I'm happy with my professionals and yet... "tent platforms that are rotting and cots that collapse." Where do you think the money to repair and replace those items comes from? FOS. So keep your money, and see where that gets you. As far as I'm concerned, the council should price their camp so that they can provide tents and cots as part of the standard fee. Heck, we go out of council for summer camp. I don't think that council's people should be donating money for the cots that we use. your Cubs never got to shoot archery or BB guns? This is a long stor

I encourage custom patrol patches, but we always have them fit the standard circle. I would not want to dampen the guys' enthusiasm, though. Were they told they could do any shape or size that they wanted? How much larger are we talking? Is it a different shape? How long would you expect these patrol patches would be around (do you change patrol names every six months, or every six decades)? I'd go back to the TwoCub Doctrine: Pride and Enthusiasm trump uniform rules and guidelines.

I'm with qwazse on this one - the last thing a Scoutmaster wants is some type of "gotcha" mentality among the parents where they are going to report to the CC every time they notice the SM doing something in a gray area. It may be that a couple of cars were traveling together and the SM doesn't feel that there is any YPT violation in that situation. Just ask him about it. Your troop sounds quite active and reasonably on top of things, and your past posts show you've been happy with the SM's judgment before. Quite honestly, the risk of anything bad happening in this scenario is pretty mini

Yes, I would view this as a violation of the youth protection requirements for no one-on-one situations - it is a situation we try to avoid. I did have it come up once though that there were only two of us going in one direction, and as we're good friends with the family, I checked with the mom and she agreed that we'd just treat it like "friends of the family" for the drive. So if the Scout's parents already know about it and are ok with it, I wouldn't sweat it much. If there were more people available, then it would be good to set a good example and go by the book, and I wouldn't like t

Why not just go on the site and register someone? If you have someone who wants to participate in OA, make them the OA rep. Am I missing something? Why would this be hard?

I guess I'd ask myself, "What good do I think will come from my mentioning this again?" Is he likely to realize the error of his ways and repent? I'm guessing not. What you need to do is get yourself invited as the guest speaker at a pack meeting, where you can talk about the contribution that disabled veterans have made to the country. Talk about how your husband was so happy to have a son, and when you look at a father and his son (and here you point to or look at the scout leader in question), you're reminded of how your husband looked at his own son. You see all these kids and the wa

Our committee meetings happen during a troop meeting, so the SPL has other things to do to occupy his time. I would think that mostly he would find it boring. Driver reimbursement policy, merit badge counselor recruiting, when to schedule the Friends of Scouting pitch - I really don't think he's missing much.

> Ummmm. I wonder how THAT happened! I don't think it was the council professionals whipping up some JavaScript. I know National does stuff. We also pay dues to National. The question asked at the beginning of the thread was what DEs and SEs do.

Lisa's description of Frank is great. That's the kind of thing that resonates with me. Even if the DE is spending his time with weaker units, helping them, I can understand that. All I can say to you is no man or unit is an island but it sounds to me that's what you view yourself as and believe me you are in the minority. I wouldn't call us an island. More like we're steering our own fairly standard ship (units). Things are going well, we don't need the Coast Guard (professionals), even though it's nice to know they are out there if we need them. Like it or not you and your uni

no training, no camps, no scout supplies for your unit, no one to get your unit registered and re chartered, no facilities for unit, district or council functions, no one to trouble shoot unit problems beyond the scope of the UC, etc So, as a Cub Scout leader - most training is on-line; we have no need for the camps although we did make some very sporadic use of them; registering and chartering is (or should be) on-line; never used any council facilities for unit functions and the district functions like roundtable and training are always at churches; never had any problems that needed at

We've gone with the "no shelves" route for now. When we go on a bike trip, we can fill the trailer with bikes hanging from the ceiling. When we go to summer camp, we fill it with trunks. For most other trips, we pack it with our patrol boxes on the bottom layer and put personal gear on top. It's not as efficient for any one particular function, but it does serve a whole bunch of functions.

I clicked on the map for the Burlington, Iowa classes. It gives me a point on the map of Wilmington, NC. It's a slightly different spot in downtown Wilmington from where the Wilmington classes are held. It appears to be at 218 N. Third St, which is the address for the Des Moines Red Cross chapter in Burlington. Looks like it's just a bad location for the Des Moines chapter. Imagine if you were from there and trying to find a class. You'd never think to search in Wilmington, NC.

I just tried the same web search you did (more or less, I guess), and I got six courses in Wilmington, NC and nine courses in Burlington, IA (Iowa). I searched on all CPR/AED classes. It's hard to explain any database that will return Iowa and North Carolina on a 25 mile radius of a zip code search. Have you received a new zip code at any point? Our zip code got updated a few years back and it took a long time before all the web sites could be relied upon to do the search correctly.

Ok, looking back on your first post, you say "The numbers are not correct" - but when I call the phone number, I get the answering machine for the American Red Cross.

The phone number listed at http://capefearredcross.org/ContactUs.aspx works. You can always try the old-fashioned way and talk to a real person :-)

I think you'd have to know someone pretty well before such a suggestion would be received very well. Especially if I were to make such a suggestion out of the blue. If a parent was coming to me in such a way as to say 'I'm at the end of my rope and I don't know what to do' then maybe I would make a suggestion like that. People usually aren't quite so forthcoming with their problems. I did know one guy well enough to talk about it, but he was already getting counseling. I don't think it's beyond reason to imagine that I might suggest it to someone at some point...or that it's somehow

You were hoping for a magic bullet? Just emphasize the law and all of sudden they'll follow it? Give them guidance and understanding and continuous positive reinforcement of good behaviors (with some incentives that actually matter to them). Invest time. Do your best as a parent or leader, and still things won't always work out in the end. There are times when very opposite kids come out of the same family. I don't think the law is to be used as a club to get people to obey, no. I think of the law as aspirational.