Oak Tree

I wish the policy was that each elective could only be done once. The same for belt loops. Our pack only counts them once and provides them once, anyway. As for the parent who reports a ton of achievements, we've had to deal with that, too. It got so that other parents would just roll their eyes. But because the parent is the official approver of the awards, you pretty much have to take their word for it. One thing that we did was to say that extraordinary claims required additional discussion, because we wanted to be able to tell any parents that asked that we'd looked into it. So we'd actually go over the requirements and ask them when they'd completed them, and what they did for them. We did have some boys who would get on a kick and want to work on a bunch - and it was great to reward those. But I agree with you - 15 belt loops in one month by a Tiger is not likely to be correct. Especially if one is impossible. I'd sit down and have a conversation with the parent. By the way, 20 families is awfully big. Our pack would split that into 3 dens. But I'd recommend two dens at a minimum. Oak Tree

Sure, count it as soon as they are active as Webelos. If a month goes by and they do no activities, that month doesn't count. But again, why would you want to? Is it a race? We normally have friendly conversations with the parents that we try to structure the year so that boys can receive their Webelos badges at the Blue and Gold in February. We've never had a parent tell us that they want their son to be special and get his ahead of the rest. Maybe we've just been lucky, but I'm sure some of it is the way we set expectations. Oak Tree

I think this sounds like a great idea. While the unit commissioner does sound similar, it's not the same thing really. I've gone looking for patches like this, but didn't find any. I think the 50+ patch minimum is a common requirement from embroiderers. And would it end up actually looking the same? I'd be happy to buy 2 or 3 from you on principle (or even 5), but I don't think that's really going to help you much with the cost. And I don't have the same situation where there's someone I really want to honor the way you do. Oak Tree

I read Hunt's question to be "How could this be a reasonable claim under the ADA that has any chance of being successful?" I would guess that they would claim the troop is a place of public accomodation. It would seem like a private club is by definition not public, but I'm sure there are gray areas. Oak Tree

I vote with Fuzzy, too. The Scoutmaster has latitude to decide what service projects he will approve, and what the definition of a service project is. Requiring it to benefit someone other than the BSA seems entirely reasonable - and doing it without compensation would seem to me to be a base requirement. Oak Tree

We usually have the boys start their den meetings by reciting the promise and the motto. Most of the boys are very capable of learning them, especially with enough repetition, and are able to say them entirely solo. You could just take the parents' word that the boy has learned them, but my experience is that the boys are proud to show that they've learned them, and that actually expecting them to do their best and memorize them works out well. I think every Tiger in our pack has said the promise and law at a den meeting. Granted, it will be a bit earlier in the year this time, but that's where I'd start. I still think they'll be able to do it. Oak Tree

It's entirely up to you to decide how strictly to interpret the requirements. I'd lean toward counting it, if it were up to me. When in doubt, I try to discern the intent of the award, and I'd say the intent of this award is to encourage packs to schedule events at dispersed times throughout the summer. It looks like you're doing that. By the same token, I would not count day camp or resident camp. That's not really a "pack" activity, the pack didn't schedule it and doesn't run it. Our pack often schedules two events per month in the summer. So we wouldn't need to worry about the exact definition if one of the dates moved. But then there's the discussion about what the exact requirements are for an individual when there are more than three events in the summer. Strictly speaking, though, the letter of the law on the award is pretty clear. A pack activity in June, one in July, and one in August. Oak Tree

Can you hurry up and buy the trailer, and remove that as an issue? Does the CO even know about your troop checking account? If you have several thousand dollars saved up for a trailer, it seems like you ought to be able to go ahead and get one - depending, of course, on how nice of a trailer you're looking for. Oak Tree P.S. Your idea of doing service projects in line with the Lions sounds good to me.

I sit on quite a few BoRs. I generally follow up on any negative feedback by discussing it with the SM and CC, and we consider whether any adjustments need to be made. We don't have a usual way for the SM to give the BoR any information ahead of time - but I do talk to the SM regularly and am generally aware of what concerns he has for the boys. There would be no turf battle over sharing information - we all seem to honestly be in it "for the good of the boys", as cliched as that sounds. And perhaps more relevantly, we all seem to have a reasonably close definition of what that means. We don't really view the BoR as a time to pursue behavioral issues. It's not listed as one of the three purposes in the book, and I don't know that it would really be all that effective. But I can imagine that we might discuss it if it was brought up by the boy, or recommended by the SM that we do so. Oak Tree

Boy oh boy, that does sound like a no-win situation for you. If it weren't for the money/equipment issues, I'd certainly suggest moving. It doesn't sound like you're getting any benefit at all from having them as CO. But if you want to try to salvage the relationship, I agree that all of your ideas are good things to try. I don't know whether it would really be practical in your case, but I think that getting to know the men and actually befriending them would win a lot of good feelings. Ideally some parent from the troop would even join the group. I don't know whether you'd personally really want to join that group. In our area, almost all of our units are sponsored by churches. It's very handy to have people from the unit who are members of the church. Some units don't, and that often seems to lead to problems. I guess at a minimum, I'd try to sit down with the group, or one or two key members of the group, and really talk to them about what they hope to accomplish by sponsoring the troop. And then, depending on what their goals are, you can work together to try to come up with a plan that helps reach those goals. Oak Tree

Clearly that council had to do something. So this is good. Still, with advancing technology, I wonder how long it will be before all kids are expected to have tracking devices on them at all times. It would certainly make things a bit easier on parents and leaders. But I wonder about what effect there is in having that kind of Big Brother environment. Oak Tree

Let me also concur. We've had lots of boys join in 4th grade, and they've done fine. Since the Webelos program is a continuous program for 4th and 5th grades, 4th grade is actually a very convenient time to start. We've had boys succeed when starting in 5th grade, too, but the record there is more mixed. Oak Tree

I'll go along with the 'no absolutes' suggestion. It's very helpful to hear stories of how people had to deal with different situations - but in the end, you're going to have to use your judgement. I had a boy who was so homesick that he appeared to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown. We did try to call his home - and although we got their answering machine, just making that call seemed to calm him down considerably. It was as if he realized he wasn't cut off from the rest of the world, and things would be ok. He was fine from then on. It was an amazing transformation, actually, and it's hard to imagine how any other solution could have worked out any better. Oak Tree

We certainly never have required two adult partners for twins. If the family has any other children, that could be a pretty burdensome requirement. While two adult partners might be ideal for some activities, it's generally not a problem to have one parent there for the two boys. And it would seem to meet most of the goals of having an adult partner around. Oak Tree

I will likewise agree with Hunt. The counselor does not have the authority to disallow family camping, although he/she can put some boundaries around what "camping" means. But you can't completely redefine the word. Why would you want to, anyway? It seems like encouraging family camping is a good thing. Hunt, you should at least count the beach camping for your 100 night patch, in my opinion. Oak Tree

I wish there more posts like this one. I suppose we don't normally post the ordinary everyday fun we have, since there isn't much of a question, or even a story, to be related. But I'm inspired. I think I may go take a hike. Oak Tree

Ah, Michelle, it's not so much that you just happened to pick a particularly wormy can. It's more the case that every question is a potential can of worms. For the sake of staying on-topic, I'll say that I agree with Trevorum - if the council issued the CSP, go ahead and wear it. Oak Tree

ScoutNut, I agree with your interpretation of the rules. My question is, what makes you think that jrodriguez2 wants to take his wolf den camping? From his post, I would take it to mean that he wants to do a pack campout. Now, you may be right - I'm just wondering how you got there. And I also agree that BALOO does not have some other LOE option. The Guide is pretty clear on that, too. I'm actually a little unclear on the disagreement between you and mbeyke. I don't know why he thinks he's correcting you, since I don't see any actual disagreement between your primary positions. And so consequently, I don't understand why you're insisting that tiger, wolf, and bear dens can't do camping - that's what he (she?) said, too. Maybe I'm just not seeing all the posts... That would be a weird bug. Oak Tree

Twocubdad, Long-time-no-see. Nice to see you back. There is a separate chapter in the G2SS about winter camping (chapter 13), but it is just recommendations on how to be safe. The more relevant point for this discussion comes from the appendix of age-appropriate activities, where it indicates that winter camping is appropriate for Boy Scouts and up. The current on-line version of that appendix doesn't have the paragraphs that say these are clearly just guidelines, and that units should use their own judgement in applying them. But that text does show up on council web sites (for example, http://www.quapawbsa.org/age-appropriate.htm ). Sometimes I wonder if the best example they could come up with was that it is probably ok to winter camp in Alaska. I mean, really? "We're used to the cold up here, so we like to take Cub Scouts out in 50 below weather as a weekend activity." I'd think that winter camping in Hawaii would be a better bet. But maybe they mean it would be more likely to be fine to take Cub Scouts camping in the snow in Alaska, depending on the judgement of the unit. I agree that Cub Scouts is about having fun. We have had a couple Webelos dens where the boys thought it would be really fun to camp in the cold (relatively speaking), and they were right. But they weren't toughing it out - they were enjoying it. Oak Tree

LongHaul, I hate to make it a habit of always agreeing with any one poster, but Beavah's right about the unit leader terminology. Here's the quote from the "Language of Scouting" glossary on the national web site (http://www.scouting.org/identity/los/los.jsp?typ=los&how=alfa&wat=U) unit leader The adult leader of a unit is a Cubmaster, Scoutmaster, Coach, Advisor, or Skipper. Oak Tree

Ed, I'm sorry, I don't think I understand your question. My post said (or at least was trying to say) that the Scout did not meet the Scout spirit requirement, and that the BOR could say that he did not. My other point was related to whether or not a Scoutmaster could "un-sign" a requirement. I would tend to say that you should not do so. But at no point did I intend to say that the behavior was acceptable. Oak Tree

I agree with MaScout's approach as well. One of my pet peeves is when people say "you can't add to the requirements" to mean that you're not allowed to use common sense in interpreting the requirement. You, as the counselor, are allowed to determine what the requirement means. You are also able to decide what you will accept as evidence that the requirement has been completed. I think that if the requirement is for the Scout to write a paper, you can ask him to discuss his paper with you as evidence that he actually wrote it. Asking for evidence is not adding to the requirement - it's just defining how you will determine whether the requirement has been completed. Oak Tree

Our experience was that the flying permit forms were incredibly confusing for an EAA event. But the EAA has tons of insurance *as the EAA*, so it doesn't really matter which pilots/planes are being used. We filled out the front of the form, left the back pretty much blank, and sent it off to council. As always, we heard nothing back from them. We do not need insurance amounts for people who are driving their own children. We only require it if you're going to drive someone else's children, and then it seems reasonable. Pretty much, the pack never needs it, but the troop always does. We file a tour permit for any overnight camping trips we take, but not for shorter day trips. Oak Tree

I think more technically the question would be, can you renege on signing the Scout spirit requirement, which is very typically signed off at the same time as the Scoutmaster conference. I'd say no. But one of the goals of the BOR is to insure that the requirements were actually completed. I think they could certainly conclude that the Scout spirit requirement was not, in fact, adequately completed, and they could indicate what the Scout would have to do in order to actually fulfill the requirement. And then the fun starts. Oak Tree

Other than lining up by patrol when the troop assembles at our campsite, we do nothing to maintain the patrol method while in camp. Just seems like it would be swimming against the current, given all the things Beavah points out about the camp structure. We'll use the patrol method in other times and places. Oak Tree