Oak Tree

You can just go ahead and see how NC would let you title it. I'm not sure how legal liability would attach to something that's not an official legal entity, but I think the lawyers could figure it out. Typically trailers are covered by homeowners coverage when parked and by auto policies when being towed. Where are you going to park it? You could just title it in that person's name. That's what our units did. It all depends on what you're concerned about, and how much stuff you store in the trailer. We don't store equipment in the trailer, so we're not worried about that.

Sure, themes are great. Use them if you've got 'em, BALOO-trained or not. We didn't always have "themes" for a whole campout, but we might do part of our campout on one topic or another. Mini-themes, or sub-themes.

In general I don't really care how other units use the program, be they tweaks outside the program or tweaks within the program or even tweaks to the program. It is consistently impressive to me how many people here get so upset about the way other units are running. I do like to hear about how other units work so that I can if there's anything useful I can pick up. I'm never happy to hear about really crazy unjust application of various rules or opinions. In my troop's day to day life, I don't think it really matters. It does have some little effect in how it affects my troop - maybe in terms of setting expectations for Eagle, or when a whole bunch of Scouts disappear from the camporee because they don't camp on Sunday. One effect that I do care about is in terms of national policy setting - when the LDS church decides that all of BSA should do something, that can affect me. And for the most part, I don't even care about that - all of the different constituencies are free to voice their own opinion. I would prefer not to have this obvious split between LDS units and non-LDS units. But hey, I'd prefer a great many things and I can't get worked up over this.

"They also have a 2 page behavior contract that they require a scout to sign before going to summer camp." Jamboree also had a similar contract. RD, if you could stop by National and tell them they aren't following the program, maybe that would help.

There are places in BSA literature where it talks about why you should file a tour permit. It lists a number of good reasons, but it does not list insurance. The real place to look would be on the actual insurance policy. The closest I can find on scouting.org is "This coverage provides primary general liability coverage for registered volunteer Scouters with respect to claims arising out of an official Scouting activity" - no mention of "if guidelines are followed" or "if tour permits are filed" or "if uniforms are worn". It points out that something is not an official Scouting activity if it is on the list of unauthorized activities in the G2SS. Other than that, it appears to cover everything except for criminal and intentional acts. It does not, however, indicate how to determine when something is an "official Scouting activity".

I'm with Mike F and Twocubdad. I don't see anything wrong with reminding a Scout about what the duties are for the position, and in particular, spelling out how that plays out in a particular troop. There are lots of things that are troop-specific. We tried these, but my experience was that the conversation had to be happening for these to be meaningful. If there is no conversation, there will be no follow-up on the expected job responsibilities, so the written descriptions don't help all that much. If the conversation does happen, the written description can be some help - so I do like the idea, but only as an aid to the conversations that are the essential part of teaching the Scout the job.

I agree with Scoutfish that there is a surprising dearth of canoe rental facilities in NC. I do know there is one company in Goldsboro that will rent them for trips on the Neuse, but it's just very different from up north where canoe rentals are an everyday occurrence. At jamboree, they had a Wenonah Champlain as their demo for the canoeing merit badge, on loan from Northern Tier. Theirs was Kevlar, but unless you are doing a lot of portaging, I'd recommend going with the Tuf-weave version. I've had the opportunity to paddle the Champlain, and it is big and very stable (and I've been in some canoes that were pretty tippy, too - I know what you mean about wanting to eject you - I'm just a tad over your height and weight). Great for hauling a bunch of camping equipment down river. It's also long, so it moves fairly quickly through the water. That may be a bit out of your price range, though. If you can get a chance to try different canoes, by all means, do so. Sometimes stores will have "Lake Days" or something like that where you can go try out different items that they have. That's a good thing to take advantage of. The best canoe for you will also depend on what type of water you plan to canoe in, how much gear you want to haul, how maneuverable you'd like it to be versus how much you would like for it to hold a straight line, etc. Wenonah makes over thirty different canoes, just to give you an idea of how much variation there is.

I completely agree that the uniform is not required for insurance. I also don't believe that a tour permit is required for insurance. My question would be this. For BSA insurance to cover you, it would have to be a Scouting event. How do you show that something was a Scouting event? Well, in a large well-organized troop you have various points of evidence - annual calendar, emails to troop list, using troop equipment, various planning meetings, and probably a tour permit and traveling in uniform. Also, the fact that the boys don't have any other organization in common so what else could it be? However, what if you are in a troop of 8 boys, no troop equipment, and a very ad hoc planning process? The Scoutmaster, two of his sons, and two other kids (who are friends from Scouts, school, church, and basketball) decide at one troop meeting to go off camping that weekend. Is it a Scouting event? What makes it a Scouting event?

At National Jamboree, came across a guy who said he had earned 37 knots. He said he didn't think it was tasteful to display all the knots, so he normally just wore the 10 that were most meaningful to him. I'm amused to ponder where he might fit in on the continuum described on this thread.

Many troops appeared to require it. Ours did not. Race officials told me that the expected turn out was approximately 80% of the attendees.

I'll try to make it, too. My first time around, though, so I'm not a good one to set the time/place.

Greaves - I think those statements you reference are among those that were recently updated to make more sense. It used to be the way LIBob describes, and it seemed ridiculous to take some of the rules literally. The new wording is much improved. Still, there is always a place for judgment as to which rules apply where. I do think that there is value to understanding failures so that you can work to avoid them. You'd want to make sure you had the detailed analysis, though.

rkfrance postulates a whole set of reasons - it's very difficult to tease these apart, but it would be very interesting to see some real statistical analysis. Do the 3G issues really have an impact? (Really just one of the G's appears to be a big issue.) If so, I'd presume there would be a red state/blue state difference in the statistics. Eagledad - it may be that the next generation is accepting of the program, but I can certainly see that some portion of the population is turned off by the position and constant controversy. What are the membership numbers in Massachusetts, and what are they like in Texas? I'm in a relatively conservative part of the country - and I believe Scouting is growing here, but so is our TAY number - I don't know how the percentage is changing. One interesting thing we've seen is that a number of Indian families have joined our troop - I would not have immediately identified them as good candidates, but they seem very interested in associating their kids with the things that Scouting provides.

Your husband and your son are right. Take their advice. Remove the volunteer. Then have a parents meeting and let them know people will need to step up for the pack to continue. Then leave it up to them.

Whenever anyone wants to make a donation to our troop, we have them write the check to the church with the notation "For Boy Scout Troop" on the memo line. That way the donor gets automatic tax reports from the church.

It will depend on the level of the river. After heavy rains, the Neuse can move pretty quickly. Other times, fairly slow. River level has been dropping over the past few days: http://epec.saw.usace.army.mil/dsslneu2.txt I'd guess the current is maybe 1.0 to 1.5 mph. I can easily paddle upstream in a two-man canoe even if I'm the only one paddling. I'd estimate for younger Scouts that they could paddle 2 mph. There's not too much in the way of places to stop, but you could pull out at a boat ramp for lunch. I'm with nldscout - I'd think that 12-15 miles would be a good day trip. That would be about 5 hours of paddling. I've done 25 miles in a day - it's definitely doable, but you want the trip to be fun, and not have to get to the point where you feel like a forced march to get to the end. It'll depend a lot on how skilled your Scouts are. You have to plan according to how fast your slowest canoe will go.

So, is there going to be a big scouter.com get together at the jamboree? Will Scouter Terry have a booth where we can all come in and sit down around computers and post notes to each other on the web? We'd all have to have special little nametags. Mine would say "Oak Tree". I'd only wear it while in the scouter.com booth - would hate to confuse my troop. What I'd really like would be some glasses that would augment reality - so that as I'm walking around the jamboree, I'd see a little floating indicator over scouter.com people. I feel like I'm going to be walking right past a bunch of you without even knowing it.

Ditto what Twocubdad said (identical wording, actually). Maybe we should meet up? I think the fee depends on what you're trying to accomplish. The only reason to make it free, I think, would be if you viewed it as an advertisement. But I can't really see that - so recouping some of the costs seems entirely reasonable.

I think I'll firmly stake out the wishy-washy middle ground on this one. I agree with everything Eamonn says. There are certain things I'm just not going to do. But there are lots of adults in the unit. We'll work to find someone who will. We've never yet been unable to come up with one or two. So yes, as an adult, I may have to do some things that aren't my first preference. I remind people that they are there so that all the kids can be served, not just their own sons. It's going to be different in different units, eh? Small units with few leaders need to make sure that their leaders can go on the trips. My unit has lots of adults to choose from. A different ASM leads every trip. I'm the SM and I don't go on every trip, sometimes due to Scouting conflicts (training, other son in the pack, etc), sometimes due to family or work conflicts, sometimes, like Eamonn, just because the upcoming trip isn't my cup of tea, and sometimes because life is just too busy and I need a weekend to catch up on other things, spend time with my wife, whatever. If the troop committee/COH were to institute a requirement that the SM try to attend virtually all outings, I would step down. I think it's a great ideal if someone can make the time, but sometimes that just isn't going to work. I do have one ASM, who does not want to be SM, but who does go on most of the trips. That ensures some consistency across our outings. I think Scouting works best when it's fun for the adults. If we're there because we want to be, and not because we feel like we have to be, then it's a better experience for everyone.

Depends on who's doing the asking. If it's anyone but the Scoutmaster, I'd say that the Scoutmaster would determine what counts in that he/she would decide whether this is a "real patrol leader" or not and what the associated time period would be. If the Scoutmaster is asking me how I'd recommend that he structure it, I think I'd say that it would be better to make it black and white for the Scouts - either you are a patrol leader or you are not, and that having it be something that comes and goes is not helpful. A patrol leader has continuous duties associated with many things, so I would not say that a temporary patrol leader would count. It might count as "a Scoutmaster-assigned leadership project to help the troop," but I wouldn't call it a patrol leader.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for parents to set some expectations on what might be required in order to use a given resource. Requiring the Automotive Maintenance merit badge in order to get to use a car seems like an entirely reasonable deal. ---- On the other topic, I'm not aware of any place where it says that an Eagle has to be self-motivated.

We use TroopLedger, the companion program to TroopMaster. I don't know much about the details, but our treasurer seems happy enough with it. It lets him do everything he wants to.

the BSA, unlike the Vatican, isn't sitting on a huge fortune From the articles on this trial, the lawyers state that the BSA has $633 million in investments. This may or may not be "huge", but it's enough that they can pay these damages just out of this year's expected interest income. But yes, hundreds of these lawsuits would be a problem.

scoutmomma, I'd be curious to see a written reference to the "hour of his birth" requirement. How would council even know what the hour of a Scout's birth is? Ask your contact to show you the requirement - always the safest policy when someone describes what seems like a very odd rule. I don't think I've ever seen any official rule that dealt with the hour of someone's birth. Regulations always deal with the date of birth.

It's certainly something I've noticed over time, too - there are quite a number of recurring questions. The ones you list are like essay questions, but there are also a number of recurring policy questions. I don't know if an FAQ would be heavily used or not - people can currently search the forum but it's clear that many do not. Perhaps if it were well-organized, it might cut down on some of the repetition. Even if the FAQ just pointed to threads on the topic that had a variety of good answers, that might be useful. I think the bigger question is whether Scouter.com wants to add this feature.