Oak Tree

NHawk52, I think your observations are pretty accurate. It will be tough to do a pack meeting in that environment. I was a Cubmaster, and I wouldn't have tried to do it. Den meetings, or special event dates, can be good for activities like this. I might be willing to do one pack meeting a year in a different environment and hold over most of the awards, but I don't think this event would be special enough to count. And I agree, martial artsexcept judo, aikido, and Tai Chi, are not authorized activities. It's not completely clear from your posting that they'd actually be doing the martial arts, but let's assume that they'd get involved in some demo activity. Even if they didn't get involved, it is still a little bit odd due to the apparent philosophical conflict (the Guide to Safe Scouting doesn't actually say why the activity is unauthorized). But I still think you need to take a deep breath and ask yourself whether you want to come into the pack and start telling them that they are doing things wrong. If you're venting on this forum as an outlet so that you can be pleasant and supporting in the pack, then fine, vent away all you want here. But if you're steeling yourself to take on the pack leadership, then I'd urge you to think about whether that will really help. Oak Tree P.S. GW - I searched for a prohibition on driving practice laps, but oddly enough, it's not documented that way. Still, drivers have to be at least 18 unless they are driving to or from certain events, and I'm pretty sure a racetrack doesn't fit into that. But maybe the older Venturers could drive practice laps, as long as it wasn't for speed. :-)

Two mentors seems to be the most common in our troop. But we've also had three. Definitely not out-of-line.

I thought it was 3 years for the Key (Scoutmaster, Coach, Advisor, Skipper) and 2 years for the Leaders Training award (Boy Scouts, Varsity, Venturing, Sea Scouts). The form that you posted surprised me with the three years requirement for the training award. All the Venturing forms seem to go with the two years requirement. (And the other award like this - the Award of Merit - is 18 months for Scoutmaster, Coach, Advisor, or Skipper, I believe).

I realize it's tongue-in-cheek to ask whether NASCAR is allowed, but here's the citation anyway: All motorized speed events, including motorcycles, boats, drag racing, demolition derbies, and related events, are not authorized activities for any program level Always nice to see that little extra jab thrown in on a posting. (Wait, is that too self-referential? Was that comment on a jab a jab in and of itself?)

I'm with you Gern, I don't think I could sleep in a hammock. I've slept in an MSR Hubba, a very similar tent to the REI Quarter Dome 1, in that they are both coffin-shaped and all mesh. It's a little bit tight, but good for taking your own tent backpacking. The Hubba has a different pole arrangement - I'm not sure it makes a lot of difference in practice - and it also has a slightly larger vestibule. Anyway, I liked it, my kids use it regularly, and I'd recommend it. And I assume the Quarter Dome T1 would perform similarly. I've been looking at getting myself a new one-man tent, and I was looking at the Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo. It has no tent poles - just uses a hiking pole. http://www.sixmoondesigns.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=36 It's more spacious and it's lighter, and since I use hiking poles anyway, I figure it's worth trying. Anyone else have experience with solo tents?

Or you could post on the forum and ask for a friendly person to mail you a couple. Our council will just sell them to you. We've had this discussion before, about knots in general. Some councils will sell them with no documentation at all, others expect you to be able to demonstrate that you've earned them. Even if you earned the Webelos Award in 1960, it seems entirely possible that you've lost the required documentation. Of all the knots in the shop, this is the one where I would be least likely to ask for documentation.

When my son started in Cub Scouts, the pack was new. As in, completely new. Only the Cubmaster had any experience at all. The den leaders at every level were "completely untrained and inexperienced." We found that being a den leader wasn't rocket science. Being enthusiastic, good with kids, and able to read the handbook were pretty much the only requirements. I'd suggest you support your den leader the best you can and see what happens. Some den leaders are always better than others. I've had new first time den leaders be far more effective than those with more training and more experience. It's always easy, coming in, to see what's wrong. Packs are run by volunteers. People have personalities, philosophies, personal demands on their time, etc. You can look around and ask yourself, is my son better off for being here, or not? Personally, I like the idea of Cub Scouts having fun. In fact, that's part of the Cub Scout leaders mantra - KISMIF - Keep It Simple, Make It Fun. People have their own idea of where they should be on the continuum between strict order on one side and open chaos and doing whatever you want on the other.

Can I agree with everyone? We do not ask the SPL to attend the committee meeting. Not sure why I'd want to try to bore my SPL to death. There's no secrets there, nor anything I'd not want him to hear, but I don't see much benefit, either. Different troops might have different styles, and I'd say it's fine to have the SPL attend, if you want to run it that way. I agree that the committee meeting is normally open to all parents, but I do think the committee is perfectly welcome to go into closed session. I do not believe the committee meeting is part of "the Scouting program" that must be open to observation, any more than the council meetings where they discuss hiring and firing personnel. My understanding of that rule is that anything involving the Scouts is part of the Scouting program, and that the way I see the spirit of that rule - to make sure that kids are always safe. As for fundraisers, you can find some long discussions about that on these forums. Our troop splits some of it among the boys for some fundraisers, and for others will put all the money into the troop treasury.

I find the one week of summer camp an interesting requirement. We definitely want to encourage the boys to go - and if a boy is not going to summer camp, is he really an honor camper? I think there is a good sense of fairness to having the adults meet the same requirements as the boys. If we were to follow exactly the same requirements, then we'd require a vote on each eligible adult, and more than one could make it in. But having the boys vote on the adults would potentially leave some adults pretty unhappy. And I don't know that having the registered adults vote on each other would be much better. If we let the committee nominate however many that they thought were worthy, I think there would be a lot of pressure to nominate all eligible adults. So the limitation on one adult per troop (of under 50 boys), I see as a way to encourage the committee to only nominate the most worthy candidates. And yes, if you have lots of worthy candidates, this can seem unfair. But there are limitations on how fair a process like this can be, given the diversity present in the BSA. Some troops have many great leaders. Others have few. It is hard to come up with a system that could meaningfully distinguish.

Ah, I see where you're coming from now. I haven't heard anything similar in my district, but I suppose it's possible. Still, when I go look at the current requirements (2008 requirements book) and look at the national web site, I see no indication that Scout is now a rank. There are any number of places where they could have worded it that way, but they seem to go out of their way to avoid calling Scout a rank. I did find this page where they seem to inadventently include Scout as a rank, but I doubt that it would be considered actual evidence. http://www.scouting.org/media/identity/3.aspx

You only need a Baloo trained leader for a pack campout. It's not required for a den campout, and it's not required for a Boy Scout campout. You're clear. When you think about it, the goal of Baloo training is to 1) make sure that you have some familiarity with camping, and 2) to make sure you plan age appropriate things. Neither of these goals would be advanced by requiring the dens to supply Baloo trained people.

Lisa, I'm looking at the 2006 printing of the Advancement Committee Guide Policies and Procedures. The quote from there is "There shall be the following ranks in Boy Scouting: Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, Life, and Eagle." Now, please note that it kills me not to support you in a disagreement with Bob, but it doesn't look like Scout is officially a rank. Not that it is at all apparent what that means... If Scout is not a rank, but is just a patch that you earn by completing some requirements, including a Scoutmaster conference, then it's not clear to me what the distinction is. It looks like a duck, it sounds like a duck, but I guess it's just a coot. The ACG P&P is, of course, correct, except as has been pointed out recently, whenever it is wrong. But I think it's right on this one. Maybe there's a new edition since 2006. It's hard to keep up with all the literature. I don't know that there's much of a philosophical disagreement here. I never really thought that much about it. The book says that the boy will receive the Boy Scout badge, so we give it to him. The book also says, "with the approval of the Scoutmaster", so I'm ok with your troop's tradition of having the Scoutmaster check out that the new boys know the requirements before getting the badge.

I'm going to stick with the seamless argument. The Scout award is a Boy Scout award, given to someone who joins Boy Scouts if they already have the Arrow of Light. It's just like setting your starting pay rate in a job - if you come in with more experience, you can start at a higher band. At least, that's how I think of it. It's not a Cub Scout award, so it can't be given by a den leader. At our crossover pack meeting, the boys typically earn Arrow of Light and have that presented by the Cubmaster. Then, later in the meeting, the boys will cross the bridge. When they get to the Boy Scout side of the bridge, we give them all shoulder loops, a handbook, and for those who earned the Arrow of Light, the Scout rank. I like the 'seamless' idea and I think it works pretty well for those boys who earn the AOL. Where it doesn't work so well is for boys who don't complete it. If they are already 11, they can join the troop, but they do have a blank spot on their shirt until they complete the Scout requirements. This is the same for boys who join later in the year, not out of Cub Scouts. I wish there was some patch you got just for joining. I've had a couple boys who have gone months without finishing those up ("no, my parents haven't gotten around to doing that exercise with me yet"). But where there's a great big gaping hole in the Scout continuum is for boys who don't earn the AOL but who aren't yet 11. They are supposed to wait until they complete fifth grade or turn 11 before they can join the troop. So for two or three months, they sit there in Scouting No-man's land, too old for Cub Scouts (and with no den left), but too young for Boy Scouts. I find this period to be just ridiculous. I think that many troops will take the boys anyway, on the theory of what's best for the boy. Our troop will take boys after crossover.

This discussion happened awhile back - http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=92084. I guess I'd need to see the wording in the current printing in order to see if anything has changed. My default answer would be yes, if the boy earns the Arrow of Light, he gets the Scout badge.

Unless you are dealing in high volumes of this, where you want to ensure fair treatment and have multiple people making decisions, then I don't think that you really want a policy written down in too much detail. I'd agree with treating each case individually. Our policy is also that no boy should be denied an opportunity to participate due to finances.

When I was at Philmont, one of the staffers told me this was an urban legend. Might be a kind of fun idea, but it's not official.

Yes, absolutely, without reservation I would say that meets the requirement. It specifically says "one or more", and the only reasonable interpretation of that requirement is that you can use multiple positions to make up the six months. The only other way I can see to possibly parse that sentence would be to say that it means you could serve six months in one position and possibly six months in another position. But there would be no reason to write that is as a requirement.

I've been canoeing recently, and I'm north of you. But I'm pretty sure our water was above 20 degrees. On flat water on a nice day this time of year, I wouldn't think twice about doing what you're thinking of, I'd go right ahead. I would definitely have everyone wear life jackets, but really, I doubt that these other worst case scenarios are likely to materialize. Our kids had a great time on the river.

Our pack does this as well. We use a safety pin, so the expense isn't an issue. We're asking the parent to sew on the patch, I think it's ok to ask the Scout to actually do something nice. Cub Scouts should be doing something nice to their parents' satisfaction on a pretty regular basis, anyway. I think of it more as an encouragement to do a good turn daily, and I don't really see it as adding to the requirements.

Gunny, There are actually two separate requirements. The conference is not pass/fail, but the Scout spirit one is. They have separate sign-offs in the book. For shorthand, many people talk about these two requirements as one combined requirement, which it generally is in practice. I'm fine with talking about them as one, but there is a tendency on the this forum towards encouraging fairly precise terminology. I would say that "attitude", while not appearing explicitly in the Scout spirit requirement, is clearly there. A Scout is to be friendly, courteous, and kind. These are often what people mean when they talk about attitude. I'd say that a board needs to be able to ascertain if a Scout has met the requirements. They can determine that they are unable to do that based on the Scouts responses, and I think it would be fair to tell the Scout - "You need to come back to the board and explain in more detail how you completed requirements X, Y, and Z." I think it would also be ok to tell the Scout, "We have determined that you have not met the Scout spirit requirement. In order to meet that requirement, you would need to do A, B, and C." I support the idea that a board can hold to reasonable standards.

kahits, you probably made the right choice. As an observation, I think crew camping does count. It's certainly under the auspices of the Boy Scouts of America.

I am not aware of any general restrictions on reusing activities to count for multiple requirements. I do think it generally makes sense to use different things for Pets and Dog Care, for example, but I don't know that it's a requirement. There are a few specific examples where it is indeed documented that you may not double-dip (e.g. Hiking merit badge). I would say that almost always the Camping merit badge will count the camping nights used towards First Class. As Ed says, it's at the discretion of the counselor, but I'd have a hard reason seeing why not to count these.

Outdoor Action is specifically a Princeton group. They've produced a great book for leading backpacking treks, titled The Backpacker's Field Manual. But most every university that I've seen has some type of outdoor club for people who enjoy doing this type of activity.

You may have been ineligible if you didn't meet the camping requirement, but I don't think the fact that you were a 6-month newbie would be a disqualifier by itself. You could easily get in fifteen nights of camping, including a week of summer camp, during your first six months with the troop. Most people don't, and I wouldn't recommend it, but the right go-getter might do it.

Lisabob - Yes, I can imagine. And I'd guess his attitude didn't immediately improve, either. Or possibly his parent's, either - always a great thing to look forward to.