ParkMan

Welcome to the forum @Legion6. The current version of the form was published in 2016. Lions was just a pilot at the time. It does include all the other den leader roles that were available, I'd just infer that it was due to the newness of the Lion program. I'd fill out the form and add my own checkbox for "Lion Den Leader" and submit it.

My recommendation - next time don't return the loops. Even in Cub Scouts we had a tackle box. That made it a lot easier to facilitate the last minute requests. In my mind, if a Cub Scout shows up at a pack meeting and says "look what I finished today", you try to find a way to award it.

I think that's two deep adult leadership in my book. Adult leadership is present to make sure that the correct things happen if something goes wrong. The adults can verify that basic precautions were taken, the boys know where they are going. Then they can wait at the end of the trail. If the boys don't arrive at the expected location, then you can take the appropriate steps.

That's what we do. We have plenty of each rank, merit badge, POR. A scout earns something or takes on a new POR - he gets it that night in front of the troop. The COH is for formally recognizing the boys, parent pins, and speeches.

And they still can - 100%. This is exactly why we need leaders like @qwazse & @Oldscout448. Yes, the mechanisms we use in scouting change - sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. But, the basic task has not - developing youth through Scouting. Scouting needs the experiences leaders to help guide the new leaders and adults so that good choices are made. On this issue - patrol activities. One could read that and have adults take over. Or, a season Scouter could read that and say "ok, we have to make sure we've got two deep adult leadership. So, let's come up with a way to have patrols plan and execute their own activities, but have a couple of adults nearby as a safety measure."

This is all coming from the line? Patrol Activities—A Scout patrol may participate in patrol activities. Two-deep adult leadership is required. If so, then I don't see how any of the things above are a problem. On a camping trip, the SM sits in his chair at camp while each patrol goes off on their own. That's not a patrol activity - it's a hike during a troop camping trip. I didn't see a line in G2SS that a patrol has to be supervised at all times. The G2SS just doesn't want patrols organizing their own activities without adults being present. Notice it says two deep leadership is required - not two deep supervision is required. If it really was 4 different patrol activities, I guess you just have to manage that. We have groups of scouts do things all the time. But, a couple of adults tag along. But this whole helicopter parent thing is different. The BSA certainly could do more to teach and explain how adults need to give the boys space. But, this one also lands on the shoulders of Scoutmasters & senior ASMs. They need to set the tone with the other adults.

Seems like a good teachable moment for adults. Articles in Scouting Magazine and posts in Bryan on Scouting. Pretend to talk about the rule change, but really talk about giving the buys space to employ the patrol method

The history on its creation is interesting. Leads me to think it's no longer needed. It could be replaced by a simpler statement that simply says we believe it is important to have a belief in a higher power. While I now understand it's historical context - I don't see the value in continuing to include such descriptive language.

If you're thinking patch - id talk with the council about a custom council patch. I've seen Wood Badge and other events have them - why not a units 75th anniversary. There are not many of those.

It's funny how council's do this different ways. Usage of our council's camps are still free. It's a nice benefit. FWIW - the OP's budget largely matches the personal spending in our troop too.

A quick addition... I also think a custom unit numeral or council patch would be very cool.

Usually I see some sort of celebration. A picnic or dinner where alumni are invited back. I love the idea of a custom necker from the event. Lots of events have patches - fewer have a special necker.

Our troop doesn't wear them- always a bit of a bummer to me. The big troops in two of the surrounding towns do. They both have custom neckers and look very sharp!

In my neck of the woods it's usually either -troop adults who get involved alongside the youth from the same troop - district volunteers who's kids have aged out, but keep helping. As a former district volunteer, we'd have been thrilled for a Cub adult to get involved and help out. If you're interested in getting involved- go for it!

I think this is a big part of it. The international association the GSUSA belongs to is WAGGGS- World Associatiins of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. I expect some legal work was done a long time ago to restrict usage of Girl Guides here in the USA. I do think the other part is that the leadership of the BSA meant what they said- that the current program of the BSA is equally applicable to girls. So, i think it follows through that they would look to use the same name for both programs to reinforce that concept.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36/30903 (a)Executive Board.— An executive board composed of citizens of the United States is the governing body of the corporation. So yes, the executive board is the governing body and can hire, fire, do whatever it needs to govern the BSA. Just because the board has never fired the CSE doesn't mean they would not. The professionals work for them.

Yeah - you or I cannot fore the professionals. But, we volunteers are represented by the national executive board. I believe they are just about all volunteers. They certainly can fire the CSE. Most of them are pretty serious people. I'm sure they'd fire the CSE if they lost confidence in him.

I think you found part of nationals new growth strategy. Make it hard for small packs so that they will be incentiveized to recruit more.

I think you're right about the fatigue. My son went through a very active pack and generally had good den leaders. I remember looking at the den roster in his Webelos year and thinking about how few of the boys that started in Tiger's made it to the end of Webelos. Sure, there were more that joined along the way - so he had a good graduating den. But, in terms of those boys that started 4.5 years earlier - many had left. I remembered that all the boys that left did so in a trickle. A couple after the Tiger year, a couple after the Wolf year, etc. It was always stuff like - "he decided he wanted to do Karate instead Cub Scouts."

Then it was a management failure that they didn't leverage you better. Again, I see this more as a specific management failure than as an indictment of management in general. Good leadership will promote people based on real success - not faux metrics. Yes, while it is important to achieve results, it's how you achieve the results that matters. And some of the best companies succeed because they have a strong team leading them. It's not business guys vs. program guys. It's a team of people with different strengths working together. I honestly don't really care which role has the top and don't think it matters who has the final decision so long as the person making the final decision knows how to leverage a team to make it happen. A program guy who can't leverage the business guy is no better than a business guy who can't leverage the program guy. My general point though is that the while it's easy to say "fire the suits" and hire a great outdoorsman to run things, I think that's too simplistic. We see this line of thought a lot - but I suspect it doesn't really work all that often. It takes a lot of managerial skill to get from an idea in the boardroom to hiring the right person in the National Supply division. Getting the right hires, or getting the hires we have to do the right thing, is more than just having a guy at the top who makes good choices.

I wouldn't mind hard for Eagle projects. I too have seen plenty of pretty easy Eagle projects. What i'd wish for is an approval process that was concise. If it requires a meeting, it requires a meeting. But - the whole thing ought to be thought out enough that it can be done inside of a month. Drip, drip, drip for an approval process only serves to frustrate a youth.

I'll admit - I don't dislike JTE. JTE is simply a Management By Objective tool. In essence, a troop JTE is encouraging us to do: - have a budget - recruit new members - retain your current members - encourage Webelos to cross over - encourage Boys to advance - hold monthly camping trips - go to summer camp - do service projects - use the patrol method - proactively recruit adults to help - get your leaders trained None of these things are crazy. When I see troops that get less than Gold, it's because they're not trying on some of these general things. "What, I actually need to recruit new scouts?" "You mean a troop really has to go to summer camp?" My only knock on JTE is that it can be tough to assign owners. The Scoutmaster gets about 40% of them. Would be good to be able to assign individual items to different adults leaders.

A good manager would put people in roles in which they can be effective. The fact that your boss in the supply division was making decisions for which she did not have the proper experience is a red flag. She clearly should have known her limitations and either hired someone who could advise her or should have delegated those decisions to someone else. That's the real problem in the BSA - bad management choices. If that's what's going on, the BSA needs to correct that mistake and hire better managers. I still believe strongly that having a Chief Program Officer (or Chief Scout) would be a phenomenal thing. It's what we essentially do in a Boy Scout troop now. You've got a business guy (Troop CC) who organizes all the operational functions. You've got a program guy (Scoutmaster) who leads the program. That generally works well when both people are doing their job.

I'd still think about putting it in someplace like DC or NYC. In theory many Scouts eventually get to Philmont. But, a collection there is like preaching to the choir. You want to leverage the collection to expose it to more people - put it someplace where there are more people.

I hear this from the Webelos leaders that cross over into our troop. They all want to wait until after the B&G. Mid to late March is typical here too. When I was a Cubmaster, I did the same. As a Troop CC, I'd recommend thinking about this differently. One of the best ways to get a new Boy Scout off to a good start is to get him to go on a couple of camping trips and then to Summer Camp. When a Scout crosses at the end of March he's lucky to have 8 meeting a before summer. That's not a lot of time to get integrated into a troop and ready for Summer Camp. If it were up to me, I'd have all crossovers in February.