Oak Tree

In the parent thread, MarkS mentioned that it's ok to pin one badge of office on top of another one, temporarily. Does anyone know if there's an actual reference for this? I haven't heard of it, and I haven't seen it done. On the other hand, I can't find any reference pro or con in the Insignia Guide. (I don't see any reference to wearing two sets of shoulder loops at the same time, either, though, and I'm pretty sure most people would view that as incorrect.) It would seem to be that it wouldn't be technically correct to wear one badge pinned on top of another, but I'll take arguments either way. It seems like the more common solution to holding multiple offices is to use Velcro and swap the patches. I've noticed that a lot of the time this ends up not looking all that great either. Oak Tree

Our Scout store goes through a lot of product, so they're able to carry quite a bit of inventory. They usually have about 95% of the items I need in stock. They do sometimes run out of popular items, which is frustrating. But then they usually have them on back-order, and it seems like it's a national supply problem when they can't get something. I've never gone there and have them not have advancement cards or patches. That would seem inexcusable. At the same time, I'll try to buy things ahead of time, especially if our pack is working on some obscure award. The store understandably doesn't always stock 50 of every possible item. Oak Tree

I likewise don't put information into my profile. Primarily because I wouldn't want to post things that clearly identified other people around me, on the off chance that they might read some post about how they were being an idiot (although thus far I haven't posted much about personal actions of other adults in our units). But also I did it because I didn't want to have a bunch of anonymous people gang up on me if they found my unit website and found something to criticize. Now, we don't go sod-surfing, but I'm sure people could find something they didn't like. So I actually understand Mike's comments in the other thread. It's one thing to comment on generic situations anonymously, but when you pick out one specifically identified troop and write very strong words against it, I can see why he'd like you to identify yourself. Oak Tree

The Trained strip is only authorized for wear with the position for which you are trained. So yes, you're right that if you become an Assistant Scoutmaster, but are not fully trained for the position, then technically you should not be wearing the Trained strip. Or you can just say "The heck with it, I'm going to be trained soon, and there's no point in taking off the badge just so I can sew it back on again later." Oak Tree

The requirements have certainly varied a lot over the years. I have a 1949 Scout handbook (Handbook for Boys). The requirements listed there do not have any time requirement for Tenderfoot, Second Class, or First Class (there was no Scout rank), and then 3 months for Star, 3 months for Life, and 6 months for Eagle. So presumably it could be done in under 13 months. On the other hand, in the 1977 Scout Handbook, there were time requirements for Tenderfoot, Second Class, and First Class as well, so it went 2 months, 3 months, 3 months, 4 months, 6 months, 6 months, for a total of 24 months. Today's total of 17 months is neither the shortest nor the longest. There are many other differences in the programs. The 1949 book, while containing a recognizable Scouting program, differs in many, many ways from today's book. Oak Tree

Yep, me too. There was a period of time a little while back where things were quite slow, and then a new server was added, and things sped up immensely. But now things seemed to have slowed down again. Oak Tree

What Kaji describes is technically against the guidelines, although I can't say that I have a big issue with it. What FScouter describes is exactly in line with the guidelines. It is explicitly one of the purposes of the Board of Review to determine if all of the requirements have actually been met. I think of it as a separation of powers issue, as a way to keep the Scoutmaster honest. We always quiz the boys on their accomplishments. "How did it go when you cooked for the patrol? Which trip was that on? Who else from the patrol was there? How did you like being cook? What did you cook?" or "Who taught you the bowline? Do you like learning knots? Do you think they taught you well? Do you still remember how to do it?" or "Where did you pass the swim test? How did you know it was 100 yards?" Oak Tree

It's common practice for people in positions of authority to recuse themselves in matters in which they may appear to have a conflict of interest that could make them appear biased. I think hereajo did the right thing by recusing himself in this situation. But given that the troop appears to be a little bit wild, there should be plenty of other opportunities for the COR to step in and correct things. You certainly can override troop policy. The troop, in fact, promises to follow your policies. Oak Tree

I agree that selecting the best person for the job should be done by asking them in private, not by putting out a public call. When my last CC resigned, I considered the available candidates, asked the best one if he'd do the job, he agreed and then we took his name to the CO. So it was definitely the CM picking the CC, but the CO has the final say. Oak Tree

I agree with EagleInKY. It would be fine. I have seen overzealous Scouters interpret it such that two adults are required on each sub-group on an outing, but I don't see any support for that position in official documents. Oak Tree

No, you didn't misunderstand me. Our council store will just sell you a knot. They keep them behind the counter, so you have to ask for them, but they do not do any sort of check of your credentials. Even if they did check, someone who was willing to lie could pretty easily qualify for the knot anyway. Our council training records are not organized, so they couldn't check that, either. But I guess if we had really rigorous knot police, as vmpost does, it could get pretty hard to slide through. Which I'd be fine with. It does make it easier to pick up the knot once you've earned it, though. No paperwork, no trying to figure out who to turn it in to, etc. I'm sure if people really wanted the knots, they could find ways to buy them. I see a Tiger leader knot for sale on eBay right now. Oak Tree

"Are the boys worth your time?" Yes "Is the program worth your time?" Yes "If you answer "yes" to the last 2 questions, then taking the BSA training so that you can offer your boys the best possible BSA program SHOULD also be worth your time." *** This does not logically follow. It presumes that training helps you offer the best program, and there are many cases where this is not evident. Most of my best leaders agree to go to training, but they'd be my best leaders whether or not they went to training. (Beavah's type 2 from the 'different' thread). It's true that people would want training if they saw a lot of value, or heard good word-of-mouth reports. Instead, mostly what we get is 'I got about 30 minutes of value from an 8-hour course'. And that's from the ones that good-naturedly go ahead and sign up for the next class anyway. I sat through a recent class that was truly terrible, where I got 0 minutes of value. Should I recommend this class to others? Oak Tree

Our pack is now running around 70, but my first year as Cubmaster it was about half that size, and through some random chance, we had 100% retention. I say it's random chance, because even though we run a pretty good program, there's no possible way to expect to have no one drop out, no one move, etc. Since growing to around 70 boys, we've typically lost about 12 boys in a given year, so we have about 83% retention. (We'll always add a few new recruits, too, but that's not what I think we're talking about here. There's a difference between recruiting and retention.) But if we hit 30% losses in a given year, we'd take that as an indication that something was wrong somewhere in the program. Obviously, I'm not counting graduation here. In a stable pack program, roughly 20% of your boys would graduate each year, but that's expected. The real question is how many of the eligible boys sign up again. My experience is that retention problems are strongly clumped into problematic dens. My strong den leaders lose very few boys, but some of the weaker ones will lose half their den. Oak Tree

You can see the official requirements here: http://www.scouting.org/forms/34169/51.pdf They specifically say "assistant den leader". Now, you may decide that you do, in practice, have a de facto assistant den leader who just happens to be filling another official role as well. It's not like there are police watching over these knots - our council will just sell you one. It's more of an 'On my honor' kind of thing. I would say that technically you are not meeting the requirement. My pack's always had an assistant den leader per den, even when we only had three boys in a den. It's usually not too hard to get a parent to fill that role, given that the duties can be pretty minimal. But it also shouldn't be hard to do five of the other requirements. Oak Tree

In no case where a unit is connected with a church or other distinctively religious organization shall members of other denominations or faith be required, because of their membership in the unit, to take part in or observe a religious ceremony distinctly unique to that organization or church. - From the BSA Bylaws; see http://www.bsalegal.org/quot;dut-155.htm Our chartered organization does require that we hold a Sunday morning service whenever we are camping over the weekend. We have two options -either 1) go with a generic service with moral and ethical lessons, or 2) hold a more traditional church service, but make it optional. We have done both on different events. To be honest, I find it a bit awkward either way. Oak Tree

You're right about that. Allowing/encouraging bad behavior is clearly not a good difference. Oak Tree

A pack and a troop are separate units. They have the same number as a convenience, and they are both sponsored by the same CO, but they are still separate units. An adult is allowed to hold a position in multiple units. You may see it as "the whole organization", but it's really two different charters that get signed. And at any rate, I'd like to echo Eamonn, that this isn't probably the best way to approach the problem you're having. Quoting rules, even if you find one that he has bent, isn't likely to solve anything. You may not like the fact that he has so much control, but that could be true even if you were only dealing with one unit. I'd suggest sitting down and talking about it. If the CC and the COR and the IH are supportive of the SM, there's not much more you can do anyway. Oak Tree

We also give the boys/families the target of completing rank by Blue and Gold. Many do, but a number do not, and we'll present those in March, April, or May, whenever they earn them. We use the March pack meeting for AoL and crossover. Oak Tree

I like my DE a lot. He's a great guy, and appears to work hard. But there's virtually nothing for him to do with our pack. I'm sure he'd be willing to help if we needed some help, but our pack is pretty much self-sufficient. I'm not actually advocating raising dues to meet the $125 or $239 level. For one thing, if we actually paid that much money, then council would have plenty and could cut out all the fund-raisers' salaries, and then the fees, ironically, would drop. For another, I'm only advocating that people pay for the value they actually get. E.g. I don't see anything wrong with charging a fee to use the camp. So here's the rhetorical question: If the council's budget is balanced, then what's the problem? In some combination or other (dues and donations) people are paying for what they see as value. So why do we care what it averages out to? My answer to that would be that I don't really feel all that comfortable doing a FOS presentation and asking people to donate to council when I don't see what value we actually get for that money. From Eamonn's posts, I'm just guessing that he doesn't like the soliciting either. It's a little hard to say exactly what value we're getting...I'm sure there's some value to having professionals in place just to give the organization some structure. But it sure feels to me like there's a lot of inefficiency in the system, too. Oak Tree

I haven't seen the 2006 Insignia Guide yet, but the 2003-2005 guide lists the nameplate as a universal insignia on page 38. I believe it's 100% legal. Oak Tree

I'd be ok with a patrol doing it on their own time. For everyone (and it seems to be unanimous) who says we shouldn't do MBs at troop meetings: What do you do if the PLC decides that they want to do merit badges during the troop meeting? Do you overrule them? Oak Tree

I'm willing to give my council the benefit of the doubt and say that no one is intentionally ripping us off. But I do think that there are a bunch of people whose job is to fund-raise their own salary, and it's not clear how that benefits anyone. I know we don't get much value from the council, but that money is going somewhere. It would be interesting to see an actual breakdown of where all the employees' time was going. Is it 40% fund-raising, 20% paperwork, 20% camp maintenance, 10% starting new units, 10% recruiting? Or what? Do they spend time setting up training? Fixing BB-guns? Setting up camporees? Running a web-site? If we looked at all the time spent, we (or someone) could decide whether we were really getting bang for the buck (value for money) for that activity. I'm sure there will always be donors available for worthy causes. Harvard still gets donors even though it already has $25 billion. I think there will always be people who are willing to donate for a new building at camp, especially if they get naming rights. But I do think that most of our programs should be cash-flow neutral - they should charge whatever it costs. People around here will pay $125 to have their kids play lacrosse for a season. So I think they'd pay for Scouting as long as they were seeing the value. Oak Tree

Jerry, If the unit is having difficulty retaining boys, then I'd agree that they have a problem. But I do know that not all units want to recruit a lot of boys. It would be interesting to know if a number of families try it and drop out, and if so, what are the reasons they give? As for how the Blue and Gold is planned, I have to agree with Beavah and Lisa'bob (who are two of my favorite recent additions to the forum). There are lots of ways to plan it. Our pack has a Blue and Gold chairperson on the committee. And the Cubmaster helps with the program pieces. Sure, you want some basic guidelines for running a pack, but I believe that enthusiastic leaders are the #1 predictor of a pack's success. Much more so, than, say, training. So if you can get some enthusiastic leaders into different positions, go for it. Oak Tree

And to answer your other questions: Should a council consider maximum limits on unit sizes? I don't think so. While each unit can set their own max, I don't see any reason to stop a CO from running a 200-boy unit if they want to. I guess National could decide that the patrol method and boy leadership really can't effectively extend beyond some number (e.g. 120, or 64, or whatever.) But most units are pretty much self-limiting anyway. Do the big units hinder your recruitment, do you care? When we were small we didn't have any problem recruiting at the pack level. Our troop, and most troops around here, get most of their boys from their feeder pack, so there's really not much problem at the troop level, either. I think small units can actually have a recruiting advantage, because some people prefer smaller groups. Oak Tree

When our pack grew from the 30s up to 70, we ran into a number of limits. Some of the campgrounds we had used were no longer big enough. We had to move our Blue and Gold to another location. We had to change the way we ran the Pinewood Derby. Our pack meetings had to become more structured. Not all of these are really 'limits', but it did change the way we had to do things. We've gotten fairly good at running the larger pack (I say 'larger', even though I recognize we're nowhere near 132). I don't know of any greater opportunities, really. The small pack could pretty much do everything the larger one does. One thing that does change is that there are more volunteers, so we probably do more activities than we did before. It's easier to dig up a parade coordinator, a ball game coordinator, a camping coordinator, etc, all in the same year. My boys liked the smaller pack better. They felt like they knew everyone. And it's the same thing in the troop; they'd prefer it not get too large, either. But you do experience some natural growth when you run a good program, and it would be hard to put a low limit on the size of the unit. Still, I liked the pack at about 40 and the troop at about 25. Oak Tree