Ohanadad

My problem in recruiting Den Chiefs is that our troop meets at the same day, same time but different location. That means Den Chiefs would have to miss their troop meeting which no boy wants to do. I could recruit a Den Chief from a different troop, but one of the advantages of having Den Chiefs is that as the cubs transitions to the troop, they have a friend already there. I have a good relationship with the SM and getting Den Chiefs from another troop would just feel weird. In our pack, most of the Den Leaders were moms. We had a few Dads, but not many. I think its because most of the Dads were sports coaches or helping out with teams so it left the Moms to do scouting.

It's been a year or more since the award came out. Does anyone know if anyone sucessfully completed the requirements for this award? My council's website doesn't even have an Alumni section much less alumni activities. Looking at the requirements, I immediately felt it would be mission impossible for me and the people who earn it are also the same ones who earned every merit badge avalible.

I heard a similar story. This leader was basically told she didn't fit the image of what they wanted in a GS troop leader (not sure in what way) and told she couldn't be a leader anymore. Luckily her daughter was the right age for Ventures so they decided to start up a crew. Now she and her daughter are some of our most active leaders. GSA's loss is BSA's gain.

Must be nice to have all those parents volunteering to choose from.... Anyway, I talked it over with my District Chair and he loved the idea. While we were talking we came up with a plan to also offer the volunteers to be merit badge counselors as a way to ease them back into scouting. The have a lot of skills and expertise that could be leveraged. Who knows maybe this could be the start of a MB clinic at the base.

Our Web DL is a mom of a scout that crossed over. She saw first hand what he went through. I heard he wasn't ready for camping or other activities without the parents right there to help out or to do the task. She became the Web DL and made sure the boys (including her younger son) started to ween off their parents and get used to the idea of doing things for themselves. She had a hard time keeping some of the parents from jumping in when the boys first started to struggle, but I think their going in the right direction. I need to see how things go after this group crosses over next year to see if she's successful.

What are your thoughts on having adults who do not have kids of their own volunteer as CS leaders? This stems from a discussion I had with another leader. I wanted to go to a community service group (the local base's officer council) and invite them to volunteer with the CS packs in the district. The council has a large population of former boy scouts, but most of them do not have kids yet (we're talking about 22-27 year olds). The other leader didn't like the idea as he said it was weird to have leaders who did not boys in the program. I had a feeling he was talking about possible attracting pedophiles. Would it be a better idea for them to volunteer in Boy Scout troops? I know the LDS church appoints/assign adults to serve as CS leaders, but that seems to be the accepted norm for those packs. What about the rest of you?

Forget Badge Magic. I used it on my son's and my uniform. After a while, the council strip started to come up at the corners. Later, we moved to a new council and had to change out the council strip, pack numbers, den numbers, etc. What a mess. Even the dry cleaners said they couldn't get all of the residue off. I had to work at it with goo off and a stiff brush. As for sewing on patches, instead of straight needles, I use looped tape on the back to hold the patches in position while I sew them on. Once I get about half way done, I remove the tape and finish sewing the patch on. I used to use needles, but for some reason they alwasy moved or bunched up. As for teaching Tigers to sew patches...wow. Hopefully they have the dexterity to sew the patches. I still sometimes poke my fingers with the needle. You may want to start with an easier project (e.g. leather wallet where they "sew" the leather cord through the holes on the edge, etc.) If you start some thing too hard, it'll frustrate them (and the parents).

I've attended RTs in 3 different districts. In my humble opinion, the best was where we had a short common session for anouncements that pertained to the all and then seperate for CS, BS, and Ventures. At the CS section, it was focused on what's coming up (pop corn sales, PWD races, B&G banquet, etc.) and how the different units did it. It gave us heads up of upcoming activities and how to prepare for it. It was great to get a reminder to think ahead and tips from other units. The worse was one where each RT meeting was like a pack meeting to include games, cheers, and snacks. It's a waste of my time and if I needed to learn how to run a pack meeting, I can always download the pack new delivery method plans. I think the best thing is to get in touch with the CMs/SMs/CAs/CCs of all the units and see what they would like to see at RTs. Who knows, maybe they do want games and cheers.

I've seen this in two different packs. The son of the CM/DL is the worst behaved kid. I think it's because no one corrects his behavior because they don't want to offend the CM/DL so the kid feels entitled to cause trouble. The worse thing is that the other scouts start to follow is behavior so meeting are total chaos. I talked to another parent and they felt it wasn't their place to give unasked for parenting advise. Another said that in a similar situation, the leader got upset and quit leaving them without a CM. Anyone else see this? Any advise?

I met a guy at Pow Wow/UoS who had a ton of stuff on his shirt. We're talking powder horn, rows of knots, WB beads/necker, Philmont belt, etc. I asked him why he wore all the stuff and he said that it starts conversations and gives him an opportunity to promote the different programs that BSA offers for scouts and scouters. This lead a great talk about Powder Horn training which I'm trying to attend at the next opportunity. If he hadn't worn all the stuff, I would have missed out on learning more about scouting opportunities.

We moved to a new pack and they wear the pack T-shirt most of the time except for B&G and other special meetings. After being in for a year, I'm moving up to CM and want to change the uniform policy, but it looks like an uphill battle as most of the leaders and parents like the T-shirt policy. Any ideas?

I too want to get a sewn on name tag also for the same reasons as the OP mentioned. I found the local embroidery shop can do my first and last name and FDL for about $12. I think I'm going with white letters on black fabric and the same size font to match the nametag. I saw another guy at RT match the BSA strip (red on tan) and it looked like an interpreter strip.