qwazse

Oh, but the little fiefdoms! What would people do without them?

You need a better lodge flap!!! Don't get me wrong, I think the OA should have business at every roundtable. At the very least, the chief should be asking scouters if things are going well with elections, ordeals, signing up for conclaves, etc ... Make sure scouters ask their boys what they like about the program. Lodge reps should knock on the door of every troop that doesn't show up at roundtable. They should host a cracker barrel or social hour at camporees where every arrowman wears their sash. If they are serving as arrowmen, wear the sash. Dirty it up a little. Then, when they regroup with their unit or patrol, the sash gets stowed for the rest of the weekend. Just like at summer camp, the boys only wear them for call-out night (which happens to be our visitor night). I'm not going to stop a boy from stowing his sash on his belt at a troop CoH, but if he has it on his shoulder I'm going to expect some O/A business to be conducted. That's the way we roll, and nearly every boy in our troop wants to be elected (the younger FC scouts sometimes ask to wait a year). Some boys are quite active. Their enthusiasm with or without the sash is a top sell.

We get as low as 20% and as high as 90%. Scheduling conflicts with sports and exams are the primary challenges. Sometimes we're intentional about that. 50% attendance gets us at about 9 scouts, which is ideal for most backpacking trips. It gets the boys who aren't into NAND or sports up and moving.

Our "library" is a couple of carry cases that we keep in a back room at the meeting place. It's available to the boys if the librarian is absent. It holds MB pamphlets and other reference material. I see absolutely no problem with filing the MB councils list on a shelf where every boy has access. Since the ideal way to teach a skill includes referencing, SM should coach the scout in looking up counselors and once the boy finds the page for a particular badge, SM identifies the counselors the boys should call. Boy then copies the contact info while SM is filling out the blue card. Boy returns list to library and checks out a MB pamphlet. He is then ready do start his journey on his own time. What you don't want is parents with unfettered access to that list. As it is, parents constantly ask me who is MBC for what. Even after hearing my "I don't know, but I'm sure mr SM will find the right counselor for your boy" for the umpteenth time, they keep asking.

MT: We all know that foxes bat at low fruit first! Hey Snappy: I'm starting to get the feeling that your pack is competing with my crew. How about sending some $$ our way? The IH and COR need to get on the same page. Just to warn you that swapping CORs does not always work out. Doing it behind closed doors makes it miserable for folks. And, if everyone can accept the fact that badgering from a crazy scouter can bring out the worst in every one, maybe a little cool-down time is all that anyone needs. Bottom line: although things seem to be going downhill fast. Change one variable at a time, if at all possible.

Where does the SM keep the list? With the troop librarian, of course! The POR description doesn't say the librarian gives out contact info anymore than it says he is expected to recite the requirements in each MB pamphlet! He just makes sure the list is someplace where the key adults can find it.

If I had a dime for the things that need "all the help they can get." Our lodge seems to be doing quite well for itself. They have a full page in our council's newsletter, while other districts, including Venturing, have had articles about their program intentionally rejected. (There is a reference in the middle of the rag to the web page URL for district calendars.) Still, I think their success is mostly due to the enthusiasm of the youth members. Anyway, our boys do not wear OA sashes at troop CoH's. That's what lodge flaps are for. If there is a portion of a meeting devoted to lodge business, they can put their sashes on at the time. When they are not wearing it, might they "carry" it on their belt for convenience? That way, it is available for those district/unit meetings in which a portion is lodge business. Otherwise it is neatly folded and at the ready on their person. Does the guide offer any other way to keep the sash when not being worn?

I'm feeling Fred's pain. We're just getting one or two boys because our CO's pack is feeding another troop. But none of our boys are members of the CO, so maybe they are feeling a little pain too. Maybe if we made a public display of boys sing for stuff they lost, we would attract those Webelos.

Short does have a point. So much of this is above the boys, they can't go there, so don't worry about it. When they are old enough to have an FB account and find out what's been said about their pack, they will hopefully have positive memories of you to offset anything that was typed. If you think your COR is ignoring the facts, you need to sit with both him and the IH in the same room. Remind them both of the number of smiles from "four footers" that you saw at the last meeting. Make it clear that at the end of the day, *that* is how you would like to be measured. If anyone is actually doing work in your unit (i.e., serving not just telling folks how things should be done), get their opinion. If they say something is important, do it. Everyone else gets back burner status -- no matter how many E-mails they write!

We could talk handbook and end the conversation, but truth is there is a lot of picking and choosing to what gets applied. For our troop: 1. Meetings are one hour consisting of a) flags, pledge, oath, law; b) announcements; c) theme/training: usually broken into ability groups/patrols, boys may work on requirements or schedule SMCs or BORs if time allows, d) sign up for events, e) circle up ans SM minute, f) clean up. 2. Involvement means stay registered, show up at meetings, camp with us. Leaders are expected to give advance notice of their absences and make arrangements for them. The boys are each other's worst critics, so we try to foster accountability at that level. Bean-counting committee members are largely ignored. 3. Leaders are assigned tasks in accordance with their position, and if we think they need them, mentors. The natural ability of the leaders dictates to a degree what our troop does. If the boys don't step up, many events wont happen. (E.g., we may camp, but not back-country, if the boys skip shake-downs.) We work pretty hard at keeping parents off their backs. We try to get the boys to reflect on what worked or didn't -- what they'd change. With 18 youth on the roster, this is a pretty informal process. When we had numbers in the 40s, we used sign-in sheets, etc ... It depends on the SM.

Fishman, I meet weekly with a Christian who's dad was a strident atheist. Based on what I've learned from him, let me suggest that your son is in the "too early to tell" stages. He has to grow into his faith just as you have yours. Take whatever compromises den leaders come up with. Let him enjoy the program. As he matures encourage him not to take vows he doesn't believe in. Stay honest with yourself as well. As you can see there are a lot of scouters willing to stretch for the both of you. Some of them are doing so out of their belief in God and what they feel would be expected of them at the core of their religion. Then, like the rest of us, bite your nails and hope the kid does right and maybe inspires something in you as well.

He started out with just one, but our proclivity for apples led to a need for more specific guidelines!

One thing that you can do while waiting to ask your SM or CC how you could best serve your unit, is to create an account with scouting.org and take the online Youth Protection course. Membership applications for adults need proof that you've completed it anyway. Once you've found your old or been given a new memberid number, you can log on to scouting.org and match it with your online account. This will give you access to a bucket load of other courses you may take.

The real advantage of dumping the time requirements, IMHO, is that the scout can focus on complete skill efficiency. So, for example, if a boy wants to nail down knots and lashings, he can spend his first few months doing just that. He doesn't have to think that for two months he only has to do tenderfoot requirements -- some of which may bore him. He can ace everything from the square knot to the square lashing. Then for a camp gadget, he can lash together a lounge chair and read up on first aid or aquatics safety. Another advantage: suppose a boy joins at age 15 and has some of these skills down already. (This happens to boys who never bother with the EDGE method and simply learn skills the more efficient way: by reading a book and practicing on their own.) He can simply knock off a rank or two by his first camping trip with the troop, and be on his way to holding responsibilities more suited to his maturity.

There are stock patrol patches maintained by the scout shop, and there are a bunch of online sites that market unique ones. There is also a blank patrol patch. We've encouraged the boys to consider them all. If you have a parent with the craft materials, the more you produce by hand, IMHO, the better. If there is a site to register your squads' designs, consider doing so. (It may make for patch-trading fun down the road.) Contrary to some of the above posters, I advise: DO NOT ASK HQ for a policy. If they have publicly offered something, then avail yourself of it. If you ask for a rule, someone will make it, and a bunch of folks will be miserable thanks to you. You don't want that. I think it's very wise of you to ask what BS and GS do and improvise from there.

Drop the cigs and drop the fat. You only have so much time with your kids, and you don't want to spend it waiting at the trail head. I'm sorry if that doesn't sound politically correct, but I'm not talking about dropping any old "weight." I could shed 30 pounds of fat, and that would translate into being able to carry some awesome gear in my pack, hiking some "weightier hills", not worry about mud-weight from bogging, etc ... Burn fat. If you shed 30 pounds of muscle in some screwball fad diet, that does your unit no good. Restore lungs. It really stunk for a couple of dads when I had to resort to "plan C" for our insertion into a wilderness recreation area and they realized that on day 2 the younger boys were not returning to base camp because the trail heads were still a mile uphill and the boys were hiking in another 2 miles beyond that! (Thank God the SM had that bariatric surgery and one other dad was fit.) It doesn't sound like much, trading in a lifetime of smokes for four miles through rocks and bogs and a night in the middle of nowhere. But, when that night is a chance to watch your boy grow and lead, it could mean the world to you. One of those dads has since sworn off smoking.

C21's is a by-the-book roundtable. We would all do well to read the following http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34342.pdf. Don't let the venturing label turn you off. Frankly RTs should be something that would attract some older youth. Also, geography matters. We are 20 minutes away from our meeting place. How distant is th farthest unit from the center of your district?

Nice to hear another troop Luther taking "bad kids."

Nor our unit, but or council Venturing district is trying to teleconference as much as possible. Attendance has not increased, but some of save gas and have more time to write in these forums.

I was a cub parent, and I want to again thank the lot of you for taking on all of those positions that would have just driven me nuts. (I had much more fun teaching tigers how to fuse rope and play British Bulldog.)

Whatever they got the best deal on at the time! Our camps have gone exclusively to compound bows. In terms of specs, they usuallly have something with a 25 -35 pound draw. (Or that much of a hold for the compounds.) What would be insanely cool is a camp that raises their own stand of yew, and your week at camp would involve conserving it, harvesting the wood, planing the branches (I don't think regs for tools prevent that.), and finishing the bows for the camp. This would need a camp director with a requirements-be-damned approach, but it would be saying something if a scout was only allowed to complete the teas at camp using bows made the previous year. (The actual fashioning of the bows could be part of the camp's high adventure program.)

I started on this forum because I had a lot of questions about being a crew advisor. I consider myself to be a by-the-book kind of guy, but folks were accusing me of being divisive. Following these threads helped me to iron out sore subjects in my head before "bumping into the issue" in face to face conversation. But for me, I can think of two: - requiring adults on parol overnight outings - that unfounded teaching method our boys have to mimic to advance.

If it's to haul a massive canopy so that the boys can stretch hammocks three high between each pair of posts, maybe. Otherwise, luxury.

Chris, here's how to "amp it up" once the boy gets his dead eye ... We had a cabin on a big lake. We got a five gal sealed container, tied a chain and anchors to the bottom, taped a vertical stick (light weight, balsa) nailed a crossbar to the top, hung cans from the ends of the crossbar. Floated about 100 feet out. Shot from shore, had a blast!!! Speaking of blasts: mini water bottles, little vinegar, little Baggie, backing soda. Add ingriedients in proper order. Seal bottle. Shake. Aim shoot. (warn your neighbors first.)

The information on the web represents current standards. You would have to check the references of each to see if one was updated after the other. A lot of it also depends on how used your boys are to open ocean activities, their level of discipline, how closely the boat captains work together, and your general comfort level with things. You get a half-dozen captains who each have a different favorite location miles apart, then you're gonna want every adult on top of things and trained to the max. You get a good flotilla of captains who coordinate their trips, keep the radio on, and keep you in the loop, then more of your adults can just be along for the ride. You got a disciplined and skilled patrol of older boys? I don't see a problem with them spending the day on a boat to themselves if one of your adults is going to be in a boat nearby. By the way, this is just me talking. Not representing council or district. The last thing I'd ever do is ask them for a rule on something. I read the guidelines and apply common sense and a good bit of judgement.