OneHour

I talked to the four parents about their sons' action. I took the "courteous" route of allowing the parents to deal with their sons, but the handicap girl's mother went straight to the principal. The boys are now in lunch detention for seven days. CA_Scouter ... yes, I did get the same story from the four "victims" (for lack of better terms). It's not one side of the story ... it's four sides of the story. Granted that the accused have not had their days and their sides of the story told, but for three months of the same action and having my son and his friends told them to stop? It doesn't take a lot to rule it ... harrassment! When you are demanding that food be given before you leave the victims alone, that's either 1) bullying or 2) blackmailing. It turned out that they started to get physical with my son this past Monday. One of them started to poke and push him, trying to provoke him. ... I talked to one of the ASM who happened to be one of my very good friends about this. He indicated that he will talk to the SM to see if something can be worked into his SM Conference. This troop is one of the two troops in our area. Thanks, 1Hour

My son just told me that a boy from our brother troop was one of several boys who have been bullying my son and a couple of his friends (one of whom is handicap and is in a wheel chair). After talking to this girl's mother, it was confirmed that these boys have been taunting these kids and taking their food during lunch. From my son account, this has been going on for the last three months. My son can take care of himself (after all ... he does hold a 1st degree black belt in TKD), but the handicap girl is another story. It turned out that my son has been sticking up for her (a very proud moment for me when I hear this) and they turned on him. He has been holding back for the last three months. I only found out because my wife accidentally got it out of him! The girl's mother told me that this explains why sometimes she comes home hungry. As you see, it turns out that she has a special diet. What should one do? I will report the harassment incident to the school for the ones who are not in scout, but what about the boy who is scouting? I found out that this one boy who is scout is due up for his Scoutmaster Conference for his Life Scout. ... I hold a highest expectation for scouts who are eagle bound. The other troop's SM and ASMs are some of my very good friends (in and outside of scouting). ... such a dilemma!(This message has been edited by OneHour)

In our pack, we, too, have a pwd workshop day where we (the den leaders who have sons with competitive cars) taught all of the tips and tricks that we know of. We even provide the tools and lubricants. If the father/son team wants to know, we teach them. We send out these tips and tricks and a hoard of pwd urls that we found on the Internet that seem to help us. Results? Since we started this 4 years ago, every cub's car finished the race. Many carry our tips and tricks to a competitive level, ie. ... very minimal time separation between 1st and 20th place. Of course there will be those whose father/mother does not even want to help with their son's car. At the workshop, every year we and some of the cubs would build 4-10 cars from scratch on that day. By the time that a Tiger reaches Webelos, he and his parent (supposedly mostly by the cub) would have refined their skills in building the car ... and the competition is really at a high level. 1Hour

In our pack, the anual pack fee is about $40; however, at the rally night we pro-rated the fee through rechartering time in February (or 5 months worth). In addtion to registration and Boys Life, our pack pays for meeting place rental (local school cafeteria). Our charter org does not have large enough place to handle 100 scouts + parents. It also pays for pinewood derby kits as well as awards and advancement pins and badges. We have two fund-raisers to supplement the pack fees. This moneys go to pay pack campouts, pack activities such as bike rally, pinewood awards/trophies, B&G subsidies, Christmas parties, etc. with moneys left over, we pay the local magician or mad-scientist to come in and entertain the boys at one pack meeting. We also use the reserves to pay for pack t-shirt and charge the cub or parents at cost of the t-shirts. Overall, we have about $500 reserve to transfer to next year as seed moneys. If there is no fund-raisers, either 1) the pack fees go up or 2) we simply won't do a lot of what we had planned. So $40 is not bad. Again ... as mentioned above ... it depends! The treasurer and cc should be able to come up with the breakdown of the costs for the Pack as well as the revenue to offset the costs. Our Pack revisit our fee every year and adjust them up or down as necessary or needed. 1Hour

We got back 7:00 am on Sunday. Okay, so I didn't listen to the Houston's laidout plan. It took us 3 hours in the backroads from San Marcos to Houston. It was a nice drive at 4:00 am. It's funny to listen to all of the "Monday morning quarterbacks." All that they have to do is to look at the devastations at the small towns between Tx/LA border! If I can come home and say ... "that wasn't bad," then I am very lucky! I'd leave again if I had to. With me were the four most valuable things in my life, my wife and my three boys. My sincere prayers and very best wishes to all those who were affected by Rita or Katrina. 1Hour

After an all night drive, my family and I got to San Marcos, a 9 hours drive that should have only taken 2.5. For the most part, the exodus was very orderly. I would say that we average 5-10 mph on I10 all the way until I exited hwy 80. There were so many people stopped along the way because of tired, out of gas, or just got fed up. I talked to one of our scoutmasters, he and his family gave up and returned home after moving 2 miles in two hours. Whereever this thing lands, god speeds. 1Hour

To all of my fellow SHAC scouts and scouters, stay safe and best of luck through this disaster. Last night, we left Houston. We were averaging 5mph on I10 heading West. From the looks of things ... it doesn't look any better today. 1Hour

cc329 ... be careful ... don't fall into the bait or is that debate? Just don't go there. If you want to read his and everyone else's 2 cents on the subject, check out the Issues and Politics. Let's keep this subject to cub scouts, Merlyn. cc329 ... welcome, by the way.

Welcome happytot, 3 hours of campfire is a long time. 1/2 to 1 hour of campfire is better. After 1/2 hour, you will loose the youngest members of the family. After 1 hour, the cubs will loose interest. Any more than that, the rest of the pack will follow suit ... not to mention several trees that you will have to burn to sustain a 3 hour campfire. We have a large pack (~100 families, but usually we get about 60 families to participate in the campout). At the campfire, seat your audience to one side with a stage in front of them if you are planning to do skits. If you plan to sing only, then a circle is better. What do we do at our campfire? 1) First, we have a flag retirement ceremony about 15 minutes. 2) Each den picks one or two skits. If they don't come prepare, we provide one for them. Family can perform a skit as well. We have 10-12 dens, with 2 minutes a den, it took about 30 minutes. The dens practice their skits throughout the day. 3) We provide song sheets (the sillier ... the better, eg. Second Story Window, the Fast Food Song, God Bless My Underwear, etc...). We alternate between skits and songs. Skits seem to be the preferred entertainment once the boys get going! The songs take up about 15 minutes collectively. 4) 1-5 minutes of cubmaster minutes/ reflection. 5) Campfire ends Families/Dens can have their own campfire, providing that there is a fire ring at their campsite. If not, they are more than welcome to stay at the pack's campfire and cook s'mores and marshmellow. Be careful, a large campfire is not a good place to cook s'mores. The cubmaster and me (and eventually the other den leaders) usually have a pot of coffee or hot cocoa (craker barrel) going after the families have turned in (since the time that we camp, the weather is about 50 degrees). Great weather for fellowship amongst the adults beside a pile of dying ambers underneath clear, cool, starry sky... priceless. Have fun and good luck, 1Hour ps: make sure that you have two or three crazy, funny leaders or parent to mc the campfire. When the parents are having fun, the boys will too (vice versa).(This message has been edited by OneHour)

As posted in the Open Discussion thread, our pack did okay. We took in 32 boys which brings our pack size to 98. We average about 40 per year. It seems that CubmasterJerry indicated that his pack took a boat load. I'll let him detail that. 1Hour

My son's patrol changed their name last year from the Dragons to the Trademarks with the patrol patch TM I'm waiting for the Copyright patrol. They are thinking about it. One of young patrol also chose the Owl and called themselves Hooters. We, too, put a stop to that so they picked racoon, calling themselves the Bandits patrol.

Hey Jerry, congratulations, with 60 new boys ... you are only short 3-5 leaders? I would imagine somewhere along the line of 10+. For our pack, we did okay this year. We picked up 32 boys. This will bring us back to 98 boys strong, down about 8 from our yearly average. The way that I understood, our whole District numbers are down as well. Good luck with the large pack. The growing pain will be there and so is the fun! 1Hour

Okay ... my apologies. Let's forget about history. Here is an inventory of what our troop has done: * PLC does the planning - check * solicit adult volunteers 4 ASMs and 2 parents to run and see that high adv is successful - check * brainstorming session - check (will have to do it for the high adv group) * support of committee - check * adult leaders not using G2SS to prevent outings - check * older scouts' involvement - to be determined (will have a sit down talk with them and the ASMs involved to determine path forward for the patrol/crew) * up and coming older scouts involvement - check (and they are yearning for the opportunities) * how to involve or integrate high adv patrol/crew into regular troop meeting - need advice * examples of what high adv events that were done by other troop especially in conjunction with troop campouts - need advice * adult leaders training: flat water canoeing - check trek safely - check cpr - check first aids - check climb on safely - check safety afloat - check safe swim defense - check risk mitigation - check topping out - needed whitewater training - needed Scouts training: flat water canoeing - check 90% cpr - check first aids - check safety afloat - check safe swim defense - check swimmer status -check 95% topping out - needed whitewater training - needed Let's look forward (as I told the adults in our troop) to creating a lasting high adv program that will keep older boys interested in scouting instead of dropping out or eagle-out. Anarchist, we have selected four ASMs to lead the high adv efforts. They are fathers of 4 up and coming 14 years old. They are very active in our troop. They will be sitting down with our older scouts to plan as you have indicated. Let me take back what I said and pretend that our adults don't know anything. Let's assume that they are trained with Scoutmaster Specifics and Outdoor Leader Skills Training (OLST); in addition, they have the above training. They also are very level headed and are 110% supporting boy-lead philosophy. Let's go from there. There are great suggestions so far, including Kudu's suggestion of using outfitters, not to circumvent G2SS but to provide them as an alternative. It will provide them with an opportunity to interact with an outfitter in the case where we may do Boundary Water later on. Many thanks again for your suggestions and inputs. Best 1Hour (This message has been edited by OneHour)

Thank you for the inputs thus far, but let's get back to my original requests of ... what has your troop done that worked for the older scouts. My request was not meant to incite a debate on the validity of G2SS or whether or not Safe Swim Defense or Safety Afloat is needed. The adults in our troops are very well versed in all of the training and guidelines to keep our boys safe. As for initiation, it's something that we don't condone in our troop any more. The fire jump stunt was put to rest right after my son and I joined the troop. Kudu presents some alternatives. So have others. It's still an opinion and what worked for his troop before. G2SS is not an obtacle. We use it as a training tool to teach our scouts how to plan a safe outing. Please remember one thing, our troop adult leaders are not spring chickens. 8 out of 9 scoutmasters are trained with most of the bsics training that BSA has, including all safety courses. Granted that the previous set of leaders may not follow G2SS or any other safety measures. Most of these fathers have since been replaced or moved on. We just want to see how other troops deal with the same problem. This is not new. This is an old problem that has no exact answer or formula. My request is for a brainstorm session. In a brainstorm session, there shouldn't be any criticisms or remarks on the suggestions. Now ... may we get back to the requested examples and suggestions? Many thanks in advance, 1Hour

anarchist and Bob, great stuffs, thanks. Others advices are greatly appreciated.

Bob, "Do you see the scouts as ready to go the next step in the program level because they have reached a certain age, or because they have obtained the knowledge and skills needed to take the next step?" The answer yes to both. There are boys who are ready to go the next step in the program level because they feel that they have reached a certain age. For example, 14 of the 13 years old could not go to Seabase this past summer because they were shy by one year. One stated, "I wish that I could be 14." This is great ... they are looking forward to it; however, they started to stop attending some of the troop campouts eventhough they were the ones who planned them (with assorted twist to them). Have they attained the knowledge and skills to go to the next level? You bet ya. They got canoeing training and mb. They got horsemanship. They various training that prepare themselves to go to that next level. Then why haven't we incorporated into the program? They didn't want to! This annual planning came out with most car-camping. The scoutmasters interjected exciting events such as pack and paddle, calvacade, backpacking, etc., but they planned otherwise, namely State Park campouts and we (adults) have to respect that. Even thinking about the possibities got me excited about high adv.

Eamonn, you are correct 14 is not an older scout; however, in their eyes, they are. Most of High Adventure programs required that the minimum age be 14. So that's where they set their rites of passage (sort of say). That's not what I'm after. I'm looking for examples of how other troops older scouts involved in the troop. I and my fellow scouters understand completely the philosophy and the process that we need to take the boys through ... so the milk crate is not really needed. Although, it is appreciated. As you put it the best,"Don't try and reinvent the wheel. Look for ways of making it better." I'm looking for those ways to make it better. I need examples to show them. Okay ... "how to sell them" ... How? "PLCs have to be fun." I'm reading ... please advise. ... being an engineer ... I never want to reinvent the wheel. I always look for the shortest path between two points. So, please let me have the best practices, go-bys, lessons-learned, whatever you can share. I just don't want to be sent back to the books and being told read between the lines ... it's in there or go take more philosophical classes. We have tried it and it's not working ... that's is why I ask. I could keep my mouth shut and allow the troop to go as normal and stand a great chance of losing scouts. That's a problem with milk crate, it's great for newbies or those who don't subscribe to what has been prescribed, but it doesn't help with folks who merely look for advice. Many thanks in advance, 1Hour ps: Eamonn, I do appreciate and respect yours and certain milk create standup's BSA knowledge and experience.

That's the problem. They can't tell me. Here are some that we didn't band them, but advise them that either they find ways to satisfy G2SS or they should consider another event: - Laser Zone - Tubing (also without PFDs) - White water rafting (untrained nor planned) - Canoeing on moving water (w/o prior training or planning) - Jump over open campfire (apparent it was done before my time with the troop to 'initiate' new scouts) These are just the ones that I assumed. Pressing the question to one of them. All that he could come up with is tubing! There are games that we recommend that they should not play often and should make different rules or have some concerns for younger scouts: dodgeball and British Bulldog. The problem stems from the fact that these boys were spoon-fed and did not know how to plan. They just show up and go. They also resented that 20+ Webelos came in three years ago and ruined their troop! I'm more concern with my son and his group of new "older scouts." They started to show interests in High Adv outings. They are better than the previous group. They have begun to learn how to plan and run the troop. 1Hour(This message has been edited by OneHour)

Here is the situation. Currently, we have about 12 "older scouts" who came from the time when our troop was 95% adult-run, which allows them to do things that would go against G2SS guidelines. These boys complained that the new scoutmasters do not allow them to have fun any more. On the contrary, the PLC decides the events we ask various G2SS guideline questions. They elected not to do some of the events. The problem is that these guys don't show up to plan and if they do, they don't show up for the events ... and of course at BOR ... they complain. When they do show up at troop meetings, they set bad examples in terms of uniform, in terms of respect for younger SPL, in terms of keeping to the planned agenda. They simply gather in a small group and do as they wish. The SPL tries to get them involve and so do we. Again, they complain that they don't get to do anything fun, but they can't tell exact what is it that they want, except for ... it's not the same as it used to be. Last year, several of the leaders got together to put on a high adventure program for them. Their aim was to do Philmont or Double H. Well, they got in Double H. They planned. They practiced and they went. After that you don't see them any more only recently, when several of them showed back up to finish their eagles projects. Yes they did complete all of their requirements (with possibly the Scout Spirit ... but that's another debate for another time). One of them suggested that the older scouts should get together to go camping as they used to do. By the way jr56, they don't want to teach younger scouts (one exact statement is ... all that our troop does is to concentrate on the younger boys. We don't want to teach them all the time). They all don't. We only ask the troop guides and the intructors to assist when the troop meeting calls for a trail to first class skill. Running the troop? They are not interested in that either ... they don't want to attend JLT or give it a try. All that they want to do is to go camping and they can't even attend those. One thing leads to another, we found ourselves trying to understand how to put together High Adv program to keep them interested. But, foremost, we have about 15 boys who are about to reach the magic 14 years old plateau. My question is how do we, as a troop and of course the usual ... boy plan, lead, and execute ... a program that will integrate high adv into the regular troop program. I'm looking examples. For example, one troop told me that they would have a hike and the younger scouts and two adult leaders would stop at 5 miles mark or longer; however, the older boys would carry their backpack loaded and do 10+ miles. One troop has canoe training for the younger boys and the older boys would contribute first and then continue on with their pack and paddle further down the river. etc ... I'm looking for ideas that I could give to the boys as they plan. I'm looking for examples of troop meeting that has regular tfc and high adv. I'm looking for ways to involve older scouts yet allowing them to serve as troop guides or instructors. We will have about 3-4 adult leaders lined up to assist with the high adventure programs. Thanks, 1Hour(This message has been edited by OneHour)

I need your ideas, lessons learned, processes, or what you have that work to incorporate and revitalize older scouts in the troop. Our older scouts are not interested in "regular troop" program. High Adventure attempts fizzled out last year after a trip to Double H, namely because there was no adult sponsor. Now, we have a group of 13-14 boys who are reaching the 14 years old and wanting to do more. How does your troop incorporate high ad elements into campouts, outings, troop meetings, etc, ... while allowing them to be part of the troop? Lesson learned, troop annual plans, troop meeting plan, etc.. By the way, BSA literatures only mention about them ... not what was implemented or how to implement it. Many thanks, 1Hour

When all else failed, here is the instruction from national: http://www.scouting.org/media/katrina/index.html and at least from our Council: http://www.samhoustonbsa.org/Home/Events1/KatrinaVictims/ Sam Houston Area Council states specifically: "4. Do not accept cash donations but rather refer anyone wanting to give a cash donation to the United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast at www.uwtgc.org or by calling 211." Hope that helps. 1Hour

Hey scoutldr, is it okay if a buddhist join in? Got my money committed to Red Cross on Wednesday. I'm about to commit a few more dollars pooling with 10 of my best friends from high school to reach $10,000 where his company will match dollar for dollar.(This message has been edited by OneHour)

Just as EagleInKY's pack did, we have a set of "pack prizes" in addition to the cheesy Council's prizes. We set aside 30% of the proceeds to pay for these prizes. These prizes came from the Scout Shop. We have one grand prize, X-Box or Game Cube. In order for a cub to be able to enter the drawing, he has to sell $xx of popcorn. For every $xx that he sold, he'd get one entry into the drawing. The more that he sells the more chances that he would win. For a pack of about 100-120 boys we usually sell about $6000 or about $2000 of proceeds of which $1400 goes to the war chest and the rest for the boys pack prizes. If you pack account is low, then it sounds as if you all will need to revisit your pack dues and expenditure or a possibility of other fundraiser. Applying for other fundraiser is not out of the question either. Our pack has three fundraisers, popcorn, Council's Scout Fair ticket sells, and pack's Cake Auction where each boy/parent bake a cake and auction it off at the pack meeting. The boys really get a kick out of participating in a live auction (and a silent one too). We would have a local auctioneer to come in to do the auction! It's a hit. We usually collect about $600-$800 for the night. We give out trophies and awards for different categories. Good luck, 1Hour ps: I almost forgot. The Den that sold the most popcorn gets an icecream nightout with the cubmaster at the local icecream shop.(This message has been edited by OneHour)

I had a talk with our DE about fund-raising and asking for donations. He indicated that as long as the scouts provide a service in return. Car wash is a service with the proceeds go to the Red Cross or the likes. Soliciting food donations and bring them to the Red Cross or Food Bank is a service. Helping at the shelter is a service. B-bqueue cookout and charge for the plate is a service ... This morning several of our troop went door-to-door to collect can food. After three hours, we had 3 trunks full of can goods. We took it to our CO, the Church, that opened up its door two days ago to host several families from NO. We stayed and help to sort the clothings, food, and other necessities. When in doubts, ask your DE and as suggested as Red Cross to see what your troop can do to help.

I guess that I could relate to their plight and situation. Let's just say that I have been there and done that ... I was a refugee 30 years ago. The feeling is wonderful having stood on both sides, the receiving and now the giving. 1Hour