Oak Tree

Yes, that's exactly how I understand it. Note - we had decided not to use TroopMaster Web for now, so I'm not speaking from current experience, but it looks like you've got it right. When I looked at using it for our troop, I wasn't looking at all of the benefits that you are. Mostly I just wanted to give an ASM the ability to access our current data from a Linux or Mac, and the extra hassle wasn't worth it. But for all of the things you want, it sounds like it's a good fit. [Disclaimer - while I'm generally quite happy with TroopMaster, I'm not associated with it in any way other

>>"I guess we can just take the donations directly."

Twocubdad, I'll happily cut you as much slack as you'd like. You might be a carpenter, but I would never call you dumb. So think of it this way - whichever version of TroopMaster you use, somewhere the master data has to sit. It can be on an individual's machine, or it can be on a TroopMaster server. TroopMaster has two different servers - a web server, or an ftp server. If you use TroopMaster Web, they use the model that the main data is kept on the administrator's machine, and the data that people can look at is on the web server, but the administrator can sync up the web

I also noticed the absence of any statement about when the clock started on these awards. I'm going to presume that it counts all of a Scout's activity. Now, Cub Scout camping is under the auspices of the BSA (as are any other activities done as a Cub Scout). So presumably this award counts all of a Scout's Cub Scouting history as well. That was true for the National Camping Award that this replaces. The National Camping Award was very clear on this point. It had a start date. It had a statement about what camping counted. It would be nice to have that clarification for the replacem

We had a similar question arise. For auditability purposes, our CO thinks they should be able to account for all the money that goes through them. The fact is, though, that they don't have an easy way to show what happened to the money that they gave to the pack. Yes, they can come ask the pack treasurer, but they could not easily just pull up the records for the pack the way that they can pull up all of the expenditures/receipts for all of the other units of the church (e.g., choir, women's group). And yes, we could run all money through the CO the same way that the other groups do, but the C

I've looked into using TroopMaster Web and tried it out during their beta. I think the idea is great, but there is one giant flaw in the implementation from my perspective. They set it up as a separate database from TroopMaster.Net. So while I'd like to give people some easy access to the data, I don't want to stop using the full version of TroopMaster myself or for any other leader who likes the functionality. Yes, you can run both TroopMaster Web and TroopMaster.Net - but you have to manually sync up the data from one to the other - you would not necessarily all be seeing the same

I agree that we are a Bureaucratically Supervised Assocation. I've had leaders call the G2SS the "Guide to No Fun". We can offer all kinds of activities, but I think the prohibition on so many activities leads people to think of Scouts as being for basic activities only. If we want to keep the kids' interest as they grow older, it would be nice to be able to offer some of those prohibited activities, and saying "you can do it as a non-Scout group" doesn't really help with the image. The funny thing is, there are other activities that are undoubtedly more dangerous than the ones

If you google "custom license plate" you'll get a number of hits, including Build A Sign. I've found the biggest difference in these companies is often the price for a very small number of items. Note that in order to use a BSA logo, you'd legally have to use a BSA-certified provider, and who knows which of these would qualify as that. I'm a big fan of zazzle.com, but despite the fact that they have 45 customizable products, they don't yet list license plates. They do have pet clothing, ornaments, key chains, coasters, shoes, and legal postage stamps, along with the standard t-shirt

Maybe it's a Y2K11 bug.

Labor unions can and do sponsor Scout units. They also have an award for union members who have done significant volunteering for the BSA. In that award, they specifically say that one of the criteria is "Forming Scouting units, especially those to be operated by local unions or other labor groups." (http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Media/Relationships/GeorgeMeanyAward.aspx) This link from 2007 shows labor organization chartering 142 units. (http://www.praypub.org/pdf_docs/BSA_Membership_Report_2007.pdf)

Actually, as I re-read the requirement, I'm less certain of the answer I just gave. I was presuming that Buffalo Skipper's quote applied to all of the camping. However, the phrasing is actually this: 4.Complete 25 days and nights of campingincluding six consecutive days (five nights) of resident camping, approved and under the auspices and standards of the Boy Scouts of America My interpretation is that it is saying that the long term camping has to be done under the auspices of the BSA. I do not interpret this as saying that all of the camping has to be done that way. That phr

If you and your son go camping, you are not doing it under the auspices of the Boy Scouts of America. You aren't following the Guide to Safe Scouting, etc. You are just on a family camping trip.

i.e. Cary, NC ban on sheath knives Eagle92, in the spirit of the forum, can you show a reference to your statement? I do not believe that Cary has any such ban. You aren't allowed to have them in town parks, but then again, you can't camp in town parks, either. Note that in all of North Carolina it is illegal to carry a "bowie knife" on educational property.

She complains regularly about the irresponsible parents that send their kids out in this with no hat or gloves and a light jacket, seeing the kids turning blue and shivering uncontrollably at the bus stop, often while the parent sits in a car with the engine running. This is one area where I tend to take the side of the "irresponsible parent". It depends on the age of the kid, of course, but by and I large I figure it's up to the kids to dress themselves. I wouldn't say the parent is "sending their kids out", but that the kids are choosing to go out dressed that way. Anyway, I'd think t

Is someone being punished?

Our troop earned around 21 of these, from 11 for Carpetry down to 2 for Pathfinding. One Scout earned all four, one Scout earned two, and the other 15 were earned by Scouts who earned only that one.

The program is complicated. If the leader does some things to simplify it, good for him. Some years we used the beads, some years we didn't. The boys did not seem to care. They paid a lot more attention to belt loops. They do want to get their rank, but they didn't seem to pay much attention to the progress toward it. This is a pretty minor issue. If you're going to war over this, you're undoubtedly going to find lots of other things to complain about as well. Have you asked the den leader if you could help him out and take care of this part of the program? If you did, and he said no

Basementdweller: "Soooo, is limiting the number of merit badges that a scout can get from a merit badge councilor adding to the requirements??????/ " Umm, no. The Scoutmaster is told to give the Scout the name of a counselor. Nothing is said about what criteria he may or may not use in order to provide that name. No slippery slope here from what I see. I see a little bit of the other side of the slippery slope - making everything too legalistic. Every adult behaving badly is a "youth protection" issue. Every time someone tells a Scout what a requirement means, they are "adding to th

I got to the page by googling Sea Scouts site:scouting.org. That is, granted, not necessarily the way the general public is going to think to look for Sea Scout ships. It can be done, but it doesn't look like this is the intended way to get such a list. It looks like it's a leftover page. The right answer is going to be to get Sea Scout ships included on beascout.org.

I think that adults clearly have the right to ban things if they want to. There are always ramifications, but some things being banned are often just a basic framework for how the program is going to operate. I have no problem with many of the things here being banned. We did rethink our cell phone ban, and we aren't electronics police, either. If you listen to an iPod in your tent with earphones, why should we care? However, adults set a lot of the tone of any program. With a solid PLC and a well-developed program, with some tradition and some responsible boys, you can pretty much d

It's Here's a beautiful sampling of prose from scouting.org. For more infomration[sic] about the Sea Scouts, including how to join or start a Sea Scout ship in your area, please contact your local council service center. Sea Scouts learn to maintain and operate then[sic] vessel, courses are taught with the ship by our own officers. Seems like this was cut and pasted from some ship's website. This page (http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Venturing/venturinglocator.aspx) is actually better, although it wasn't working at all under IE for me. But under Safari, it gav

I'm not sure how you could justify taking Cubs or Webelos on a winter camping trip to for the purpose of simply earning a patch, Heck, we don't go camping simply to earn a patch. We go camping because we have great fun. We sleep in tents, we hang out around a fire, we eat good camp food, we hike through the woods, we see interesting things and we have great stories to tell. Sure, we get a patch. But we'd go camping whether there was a patch or not. I know my personal liability insurance does not cover such an undertaking. How do you know that? Can you post the wording from your

A lot of it depends on who's going and how prepared they are. A Webelos den can be much more prepared, on average, than a whole pack. Also, you can make it fun - the kids in our pack seem to be constantly hoping it will get below 32 degrees so that they can get the award. A day where it gets down to 28 at night and up to 60 during the day is not that bad of a day. My kids have camped on many a polar bear camping trip, and except for the first one, way back early in our Scouting days when we were really unprepared, they haven't had a problem. They want to go again. Here's the key: keep

Skeptic, I have no idea what the conditions are. I don't believe there is any danger of Philmont being sold. One reason it hasn't been marketed is that I suspect that they had more customers than they could handle for the longest time. They have rules that you can't come two years in a row. There are *lots* of things that they could do before they'd sell it. That said, conditions can't really prevent it from being sold. Let's imagine that the Scouts had been only granted an easement to use the property, and if they stopped using it, it would revert back to the family. Let's ima

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