Oak Tree

click23, you're right. Not sure how I missed the Sea Scout Training award. The link on that page to the progress form, though, goes to the Skipper's Key progress form, so there's no apparent progress form for the training award. And I find the requirements for the training award to be surprisingly light when compared with the other three similar training awards. But nevertheless, it's an honest award and I'll add it to the list. I'll wait to see if I get any more corrections before I repost the entire set.

"this is the soccer-mom approach" Ok, my turn to practice speaking up. I know Lisa is completely able to defend herself, but I don't think she should have to. This type of stereotyping of other forum members is not ideal. The attitude that you're referring to is certainly not limited to "soccer moms". It was a dad in my troop. Lisa even qualified the statement pretty appropriately, saying that it was one of a relatively few issues she'd take to the CO. Presumably there are some issues that you yourself might go to the CO about, aren't there? the time to speak up is the instant it happens. Lisa also said she would go to the CO only "if the SM and CC were unresponsive." So I'm presuming that she was indeed thinking of speaking up the instant it happened. running to your "Daddy" is apt to get you blamed as well Yeah, not coming across as sexist at all here... :-) stirring up things that had died down Again, her assumption appeared to be that it was a continuing issue that had not "died down." if you feel a need to put the happy-face onto your rebuke you might consider a few classes at Toastmasters. This too comes across as a little bit condescending. You may not have meant it this way at all, but the whole posting comes across as a bit sexist. Can I ask you to re-read your post from a woman's point of view and see how you might view it?

Welcome to the forums! The myths of Scouting are many, and oft-repeated. There are lots of places to go to see what is officially true (depending on the topic), but there is typically no place to go see what is *not* true. Your best bet is indeed, as scoutldr says, to ask people to show you where the policy is stated. The hard part, especially for a new leader, though, is to even know enough to know what to question. You can't question every single statement made by your IOLS instructor, presumably. Still, whenever you hear a sweeping statement that sounds like it might be questionable, you can ask. A lot of these will revolve around the G2SS, and those should be easily resolved. Other references can be a bit more obscure, but someone on the forum probably knows :-) On your specific topics, axes aren't even mentioned in the G2SS (this surprised me). Clearly the handbook should rule this one. From a boy's perspective, the handbook is *the* guide. For item 2, I think you are fine, and I would absolutely support you. The unit commissioner absolutely should not be interfering. He could be a helpful reference, but he's not in the chain of command. The rule from the G2SS is "Two registered adult leaders, or one registered leader and a parent of a participating Scout or other adult, one of whom must be at least 21 years of age or older, are required for all trips or outings. There are a few instances, such as patrol activities, when no adult leadership is required." I personally find it hard to interpret the second sentence in light of the first one. Also, they don't define "outing". Are a group of Scouts going on a hike participating in an independent outing? Or are they just doing a piece of a larger trip? What if you are on a trip with three leaders and the troop decides to split in 2 for an entire day and do separate activities? Is that ok? I would say that by the letter of the law, it is. Whether it's a good idea is a separate question. So, #1, ask your UC to show you the policy. #2, use your judgement. #3, tell your UC that you are going to use your judgement and it's not his call. #4, learn, read, get trained, ask around, do whatever you can to enhance your ability to use good judgement.

With churches, it seems to vary a lot by denomination and by church. LDS, for example, chooses their leaders from within the church. Our pack and troop have always been led by a member of the church, but the pastor indicated he'd be happy to consider others if there was no good person from the church available. A lot of it depends on how the church views their purpose in chartering the unit in the first place. Some see themselves as offering up meeting space for community organizations. In this case, they may not care at all whether the unit leader is a member. Others view it as more of an outreach program, with a tighter link to the CO. My experience is that there is a correlation between the conservative/liberal position of the church, and how likely they are to want the unit leader to be a member. I don't think there should be any real problem in not being a member of the CO. But you don't want to feel entirely like an outsider. Take AlFansome's advice, and get closer to the CO.

We have some politically pretty conservative leaders in our troop. We do have one liberal who has a quiet confidence in his position and gets along very well with everyone. I can see how a liberal might feel outnumbered, though. Still, the conversation that you relate would never happen in our troop. Or if a new guy started such a conversation, I'd quickly have a word with him. I've had someone from my corporate diversity team me that she expected people in the southern U.S. to be intolerant. Well, thanks for stereotyping us all right there. I think that many people engage in inappropriate us-vs-them prejudices, a lot of them subconsciously. It's true of both liberals and conservatives. It can take time to change the culture, but it will change. I'd start off with less confrontational statements. "You know, I worked with a lot of black people in my last job, and they weren't anything like what you're describing." or "My next door neighbor is/was black and he's a great guy, so it's just hard for me to see the humor in that last joke." or "I'm a teacher and we have black kids in class. It's hard to imagine repeating this in front of them. I can't see much point in directly insulting them."

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to be the uniform police here. It's more of an academic exercise to see what all is officially possible. I agree it can take awhile for the literature to catch up, but it shouldn't take any time for the application form to catch up. That was created the same time the award was. They could have just included one line in there about wearing the Venturing device on the appropriate color. That said, I'd have no real issue with people wearing the following devices, since they all seem to be in line with the award that's been received: Venturing device on the appropriate color(s) of the Venturing Leadership Award A device on the Community Organization knot indicating which organization presented the award Crossed palms on the Honor Medal knot (hey, if you earned this, more power to you) A Cub Scout device on the religious knot for an award received when you were in 3rd grade (e.g., Aleph) A Varsity or Sea Scout device on the youth religious knot for the God and Life award, if you were actually registered as a Varsity Scout or Sea Scout when you received the award A device on the New Unit Organizer Award for the first unit you organized (according to the application, you're supposed to wear a device for the second one and on, which is contrary to all of the other knots) More than 3 devices on the New Unit Organizer Award if you have organized more than 3 units

Ok, here's what we have for devices. Eagle knot - Up to eight total devices Silver Palm(s), Gold Palm(s), Bronze Palm(s) - up to 7 devices representing up to 95 merit badges beyond Eagle (rough limit as the merit badges are changing regularly). Could never wear all three types of devices at once. Distinguished Eagle Eagle Scout NESA Life Membership Award - upgrade of above knot, same devices Award of Merit Venturing device - specifically mentioned in the Insignia Guide Boy Scout device - knot is mentioned, device would fit the pattern of Scouter's Key and Scouter's Training award Varsity device - ditto Scouter's Key Could wear one each of the following (up to the possible 7) Boy Scout device - Scoutmaster's Key Varsity device - Coach's Key Venturing device - Advisor's Key Sea Scout device - Skipper's Key (http://seascout.org/for_leaders/form_sk_key.pdf) Commissioner - Commissioner's Key District Committee - District Committee's Key Cub Scout device - can't be earned any longer, but can be worn if earned prior to 1988 Scouter's Training Award Boy Scout device Varsity device Venturing device - surprisingly, there is no separate Sea Scout training award. I guess Seabadge makes up for it. Commissioner - roundtable commissioner (http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34169-60.pdf) Youth Religious Award: Up to four devices may be worn Cub Scout device - God and Me, Maccabee, etc. Webelos device - God and Family, Parvuli Dei, Faith in God, Light of the World, Aleph, etc. Oddly enough, these do not have consistent years. God and Family is grades 4 and 5 only, while Aleph is grades 3-5. That means that a Bear could earn the Webelos device. Boy Scout device Venturing device - Venturer or older Boy Scout or Varsity Scout. This means you can earn the Venturing device without being a Venturer. As written in the insignia guide, Sea Scouts would have to use the Venturing device. James E West Fellowship Award 1910 Society Founders Circle William Boyce Unit Award - Can wear up to three devices per the award application (http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/04-515.pdf), including one or more of each of the following: Cub Scout - For organizing a pack Boy Scout - For organizing a troop Varsity - For organizing a team Venturing - For organizing a crew Sea Scouting - For organizing a ship. Note that the Sea Scouting device is not specifically listed in the application, and it would technically be correct to wear a Venturing device since a ship is a specialized crew. However, the organizer of a ship would probably want to wear the Sea Scouting device, and it would seem to be correct to do so. Philmont Training Center Master Track Award PTC device - for completing the 3rd track. I could find no official reference that showed any other devices. I found several pictures of the crossed palms on the Honor Medal. This appears to be unofficial, and I did find one council web site that specifically listed it as incorrect. The award form for the Venturing Leadership Award does not mention the device, nor can I find it listed in the Insignia Guide or Venturing manual. Does anyone have an official reference for this practice? One web site stated that the Boy Scouts Relationship Division has approved a Masonic device for wear on the Community Organization Award. I could find no other reference to this, though. I show 15 unique devices, with currently a max of 31 of them available to be currently earned and worn on the 9 different knots. So if you're feeling like weighing down your shirt, have at it.

The highest dues listed here are $135. However, I've seen dues from $250 - $500, where the troop would use the money to pay for most all trip expenses throughout the year. This would have the effect of having the less active Scouts subsidize the more active ones, and would probably lean towards a self-selection factor of having only "more active" Scouts in the troop. It's an interesting approach. Note: most of these troops do have policies that the dues should not stop anyone from joining and will subsidize the less-well-off.

Who determines if a boy can be a den chief for all of his POR's? The Scoutmaster has to agree with all position appointments. From scouting.org: Cub Scout Den Chief: Selected by the senior patrol leader and Scoutmaster, Varsity Scout Coach, or Venturing Advisor at the request of the Cubmaster. Approved by the Cubmaster and pack committee for recommendation to the den leader. If he serves in the position, it has to count. The requirement is (scouting.org) 4.While a Life Scout, serve actively for a period of 6 months in one or more of the following positions of responsibility: Boy Scout Troop [...] den chief [...] I don't see how you could possibly argue that the boy is not fulfilling the requirement if he is, in fact, a den chief. Does a boy ever have to do Troop leadership? Where does it say he cannot be a den chief for his POR for star life and eagle? The simple answer is "no" and "nowhere". But den chief is in fact a troop leadership position, so you could say that yes, he has to do troop leadership, and den chief is one way to do it. If the boy goes AWOL for 6 month prior to getting Eagle whose responsibility is it to maintain regular contact with the SM? The boy? The SM? The SM. From scouting.org: The unit leaders are responsible for maintaining contact with the Scout on a regular basis. If you do not fire the boy from his POR does that mean he did it good enough to be advanced? Officially, yes. Again, from scouting.org: unit leaders must ensure that he is fulfilling the obligations of his assigned leadership position. If he is not, then they should remove the Scout from that position. You might argue that there's a wee bit of wiggle room in that last phrasing, but everyone seems to agree that it will be interpreted such that the Scout gets credit unless he has been removed from office. Still, you don't have to sign the form. You can tell him he didn't do it well enough in your opinion and you expect more. You can even ask him if he thought he did it well enough - but you should have a clear set of expectations that were given to him up front and were reiterated to him on occasion. If he and/or his parents appeal, they can win. But you do control what you do, and they can't force you to sign. I personally have decided to think of it like work. If you do your job, they pay you. If you do it badly, they still pay you. Only if they fire you do they stop paying you. They never come to you and say, "John, you didn't do the job well enough for the past two weeks, so I'm not going to sign your paycheck."

It will heavily depend on how many and which trips the Scout goes on. Dues: $50 Summer Camp: $250 13 other activities: $500 (I'd guess we average closer to $40 per outing, rather than the $20 that seems more common. We're in line with resqman and Mafaking, apparently). This fee includes food, gas, camping fees, activities, etc. Essentially all the costs of a given trip are distributed over those who go. Total: $800 (but no Scouts will actually do all 14 activities). Our fundraisers cover equipment, awards, training fees, and other behind-the-scenes troop expenses. The actual cost to families has to include uniforms, gear, and some cost of driving the Scouts around town (if you live 5 miles away, and go to 50 meetings a year - that's what? About $50?) Uniform cost per year, amortized, must be around $50 (with lots of variation). Gear varies wildly.

Did you have to sign a non-compete agreement when you first joined the troop? In many businesses, you would have to do that, and that agreement would cover items like this, which would almost certainly be the property of the employer, and could not be used to compete against the employer if your employment with them ceased. IANAL, but I'm guessing that you didn't sign such a document, and that therefore there is no restriction on what you could legally do with the list of names. Check out http://www.lawserver.com/law/articles/non-competition-agreements-in-indiana for an example discussion.

I'm with Beavah on this one, Calico. Seems like you might be a wee bit aggressive here. Here's the official policy from the web: Question: For the Star, Life, and Eagle Scout ranks, how is "Be active in your troop and patrol" defined? Answer:A Scout is considered to be active in his unit if: He is registered in his unit (registration fees are current). He has not been dismissed from his unit for disciplinary reasons. He is engaged by his unit leadership on a regular basis (Scoutmaster conference, informs the Scout of upcoming unit activities, through personal contact, and so on). The unit leaders are responsible for maintaining contact with the Scout on a regular basis. The Scout is not required to attend any certain percentage of activities or outings. However, unit leaders must ensure that he is fulfilling the obligations of his assigned leadership position. If he is not, then they should remove the Scout from that position. So to be official, I would say, "For two months in the summer, Scouts will not be engaged by unit leadership on a regular basis. Officially, Scouts will not be fulfilling the obligations of their leadership positions, so we will remove the Scouts from those positions for those two months. Positions of responsibility will be reinstated (or re-elected) when we begin meeting again in the fall." But I don't think you need to be all that technical about it. Most people get the idea if you just state it up front. (This message has been edited by Oak Tree)

The ones that I've seen as least likely to cause problems are services that are not really "worship" services, but more like thoughtful meditations on life, ethics, morals. What do the twelve points of the Scout Law really mean? Sort of a character development lesson. Look to the ant, thou sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, which, having no guide, overseer or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep" so shall thy poverty come as a marauder, and thy want as an armed man. Just one of my favorites :-) Another good one for teen-aged boys is "As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly." Those fit right in with the items "A Scout is hard-working" and "A Scout is wise." Well, I'm half-joking here. You can find more constructive items on-line. There are examples all over.

Of the 48 knots listed, the most that you could currently officially earn and wear would be 40. Of the other eight: One looks to be unofficial (Antarctica). Six are obsolete (#s 1, 2, 32, 41, 42, 43). One is an upgrade (#45). How many of these 40 knots can be worn with devices? Officially, that is?

I think that one thing is you have to be consistent about it. The more experienced leaders model the training, and reinforce the message. The committee tracks training on a regular basis. The council course schedule is sent out periodically. You increase your training goals on your quality unit form. People come back and talk about the classes they took. You recognize at a court of honor the leaders who got trained in the last quarter. The leaders who are trained wear the Trained strip. The unit has a unit trainer who tracks and records all of the data in Troopmaster. Once you get to the point where you have 100% of (some set of leaders) trained, you celebrate it, and make sure the new people to that group know about it. Etc. It can't just be that once a year an email is sent to all the leaders telling them to get trained. It's something much more ingrained into the behavior of the adults.

I have a pretty long torso, and I haven't had any problems. But to each his own.

As long as you tell the boys ahead of time that you aren't counting the summer months, I think you're doing fine. Our troop meets all summer, the same as the rest of the year. The pack has sporadic meetings, but at least one per month, so we give the den chiefs credit as well.

If I were to try to split a troop, I'd follow the model that a lot of churches use when they create a daughter church. Identify who the new leader will be, let people know that he'll be starting a daughter troop, see which boys (or parents) might be interested in moving to a new, small troop that they can help shape from the start. Let the new troop have its own personality, maybe go camping in places that a large troop couldn't go. And if there were a few people who wanted a new small troop, this would be fine. Otherwise I wouldn't necessarily pick any limit to a troop size. The biggest, 100+ boys troops in our district seem to operate pretty effectively.

Our troop doesn't attend many camporees. The PLC votes to leave it off the annual plan, and the adults are just as happy not to go, too. We've done a few in the past - but they tend to be crowded, not entirely well-organized, and a bit more restrictive than a normal campout. I think everyone in our troop just looks at it and thinks "We have more fun on our other campouts. Why go to the camporee?"

It's more restrictive. You can be disqualified if you don't meet either standard. For people my height, I think it would be common for people who just fit within the weight limit to be over on the body fat percentage. The weight limit appears to make allowance for people who have a lot of muscle. If you don't have a lot of muscle, though, you could easily be more than 25% body fat but still weigh less than the limit. It's certainly a bit subjective here. I don't think most physicals typically calculate body fat percentage, and it can be hard to get exactly the same reading from time to time.

I agree with most of what John-in-KC says, except for the 'cannot delegate' part. Depending on how big the troop gets, sometimes the Scoutmaster is almost forced to delegate some of these pieces. The Scoutmaster is definitely the program guy. And he certainly sets the tone for the troop. The ASMs definitely work for him - and it is hard to delegate the supervision of the other adults, although some very large troops might have smaller teams of ASMs with a team lead for each grouping. Wood Badge has an ASM for Program, and so do some of the larger troops. The SM can delegate quite a bit to this ASM. But I would say that essentially, the SM's job is to make sure that the program is functioning effectively. There are lots of ways to accomplish this, but the SM has to keep a watchful eye over all aspects of the program and gently counsel the SPL, or the PLC, or particular Scouts, or ASMs (and sometimes committee members, too, although that's not officially part of his/her duties).

My experience with honor societies is that they do very much the same thing that is referred to here - they say that they have a subjective evaluation, but in practice at the schools I've been at, it's just everyone whose grades are above a certain cutoff. So in that sense, I'd say that Eagle is almost exactly like the National Honor Society. We pay lip service to having the honorees be "someone special, well above the minimums" but we award the recognition to (almost) everyone who meets the minimums. I say "almost" because I recognize that a kid can do something egregious to get himself disqualified from either group, but barring that, I think he'll be in.

Technically, they don't. But to borrow a phrase from Beavah (and I'm sure I've heard this somewhere before), it sounds like an argument about angels and pinheads. Could be I'm the pinhead, not so sure about that. In practice, the troop can decide to give out the award. They can also hand out 50-miler awards without using the official application form, or historic trail awards, or lots of other things, I'm sure. It turns out troops can even award merit badges when the counselors are not actually registered with the council. We try to do the paperwork - but at some point you just decide that there are other more important things in life, and there's only so many things to fix. It's just a piece of cloth on a uniform...if you've done the requirements, you can wear the award in good conscience as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, I think you need to be careful that you don't say things that sound totally fake to the kids. If you say that real men don't curse, you're just setting yourself up for being perceived as out-of-touch ("My dad curses. Isn't he a real man?" "General Patton cursed. Wasn't he a real man?" Etc.) Some real men do curse, sometimes. The adults have to lead by example, and you have to let it be known what the standards are and you need to be consistent. I'd just let the Scouts know that cursing violates your standards. Most Scouts already know that it violates polite society standards - I wouldn't think that they'd actually argue with you. As to why society doesn't want to hear that kind of talk...seems like that's a long subject. But some people don't like it - either for religious reasons, or because they don't like their conversations sprinkled with images of people copulating. Can they control themselves in school? I doubt that one speech is going to fix the problem, but you do need to let them know that you know it's going on, you don't approve, and you'd like their help in fixing the problem. If you keep hearing reports about this, well, "We'll just have to have Mrs. Hinkerbacker come along and sit with you all around the campfire. Or maybe I could check with Mrs. Dinglejammer and see if she has a baby monitor that we could borrow."

Contact the NYLT Course Director and see what he/she has in mind to meet the Scoutmaster Key requirement. I did. She had no idea and thought it was probably a typo in either the award requirements or the NYLT syllabus. The first point in the Scout Law would seem to preclude the option of just buying the knot and sewing it on your shirt. I didn't quite say "just buy the knot". I said that you could evaluate the requirements and decide whether the adult has completed them satisfactorilly, and if so, *then* buy the knot. That's what we do for most all awards...could do it for this too. problem with that is that the awards now need to be entered into SCOUTNET. Well, they don't really need to be entered into SCOUTNET. Might be handy for some things, although I'm not sure what. But yes, it would be cleaner to get the district to handle it. In practice, I gave the assignment to my committee chair and asked him to deal with the district. I expect that they will approve it as completed with a variation on that particular requirement, but we'll see.