qwazse

POR (or lack thereof) may govern rank, but rank should not govern POR (or lack thereof). Likewise, we don't offer JASM to every 16+ y.o. Eagle. You have to be willing to stay part of the life of the troop. We may offer it to non-eagles.

Hey ALB, FWIW I'll be praying for you tonight. (Rumor has it that helps from time to time.) Not just because it's your kid or your pack. You said it was your church, so whatever decision they make will affect the ministry of your house of worship for years down the road. Pastor has to walk a fine line between helping people maintain their dignity and reading the writing on the wall.

I can believe that a guy would show up drunk with his kids. It happens. Definitely a have the DE step in on a organizational level and the pastor step in on a personal level. (Any pastor worth his salt has had to deal with drunks coming in the church door. Your house is an extention of the church.) And don't be surprised about folks willing to step in and help if their existing unit is sailing smoothly. Your willingness to be mentored and a desire to make something work provides an opportunity for a gifted leader to try something new.

Turns out that a regard for moral standards helps address the youth protection issue. There've been a number of times -- with my crew more than my troop -- when I've pointed out that "I'm not going to rattle off a bunch of rules. I know your religion. I expect you to live up to it on activities." So, yeah, I guess I play the morality card a little more explicitly with Venturers.

First, bless your families who participate. This must be a lot of fun for your boys. For my crew, I use Google spreadsheets, which allows me to create an online form for sign-ups. The basic data goes directly into the spreadsheet. I use this to collect general stuff (last name, how many can drive, what your paying for, etc...). PM me and I'll send you an example form. Second (since you don't have internet/power/computer whatever on site), whatever you use, stop online collection the week before. Print everything up on 3-hole paper, and have it in a binder for the trip. From there, work from paper. That way, I get a rough idea of numbers for a tour plan, and who owes me money and more detailed info (e.g. driver stuff, etc ...). I DO NOT gather personal info online. Refunds depend on the cost relative to participants. Some activities we get a group discount or there is a fixed fee per group, so cancellations can cause the budget to explode for the rest of the particiapnts. In those cases, no refund, the preson who cancelled is responsible for finding a replacement and they can get money (or not) from thier replacement. In other cases the only cost is food and fuel and we come in under budget, so we can refund cancellations. (Even for stupid reasons like "I thought my girlfriend was allowed to come but when her dad found out I'd be there he wouldn't let her go.")

Muslims believe in the resurrection ("So peace is on me the day I was born, the day that I die, and the day that I shall be raised up to life (again)!" The Koran quoting Jesus.) They don't believe it was subsequent to a shameful death on the cross. By their own admission, they are decidedly not Christian.

Assuming that the quarters are fairly close (i.e. shouting distance/thin walled), I think you've met Y.P. requirements with two adults. E.g., a lodge with four rooms: - one room is for the male youths - one room is for the female youths - one room is for the male adult - one room is for the female adult. If you've got two cabins some distance apart, then you need more adults. If you're on a 45' yacht anchored in the tropics, everyone is sleeping topside. (Unless a storm comes, then nobody's sleeping.) Extra adults just take up space. You just make sure the sex's are separated.

No "official" order. Some folks are generally used to things flowing in a certain way. I think the response was designed to be completed before the awards. Hopefully others can speak to that. As with most things, individual design often involves a little bit of compromise. I've observed that the good Masters of Ceremonies will barely stick to the script, so you want to make an effort not to pull them too far from their comfort zone.

dg98 - For our Crew with male/female members, this means 4 advisers on an overnight. 2 female and 2 male. If you interpret housing as literal "house", maybe! At most events we get by with 2 adults. The lady pitches by the girls' tent(s); the gentleman, by the boys' tent(s). Married chaperons can pitch somewhere between. Most cabins have a separate room for the adult, and that is usually enough to take care of the YP issue. We only worry about 2 male and 2 female adults if we are in a wilderness setting where rescue might require splitting the group. Or if the group size is really large. That said, anything you can do to encourage more adults on any activity increases the odds of finding your replacement! OGE, my venturers are still responsible for whatever paperwork needs to be managed.

BD Really?????? Honestly?????? Are WE that out of touch?????? It is here so you better embrace it or be left behind. Your scouts knows all about it. Sounds like a line from That Hideous Strength. I don't feel any obligation to embrace any technology that gives one the delusion that they are actually communicating when, in fact, they are not. (That said, I just rattled off an E-mail asking my Crew for the fourth time for responses for this weekend's activity.)

I wonder if Cub Scouts makes us lazy at recruiting? Our pack is very well run, graduates about 6 - 12 Webelos every year. This year they all crossed over to a different troop! Some folks on our committee were really wrankled because they thought we were "entitled" to those boys. Meanwhile, us ASM's noticed the boys who are sticking with the program were the ones recruited *by their friends* -- not the ones from our feeder pack. We encouraged folks to stop navel gazing and start knocking on doors. A couple of dads are putting together a recruiting program targeting school and church youth groups. Stay tuned.

A.M., looks like you guessed wrong. All of your issues are well within the purview of the registrar, and if he/she says "this is how the paperwork will be pushed," we should all fall in line. It helps us all do a better job. Generally it's when someone "reads into" the Eagle application some restriction that is not there, that a registrar should defer to another authority.

I personally discourage the use of elsectronic social media by younger scouts. I have not seen our crew's FB group improve communications at all, so I am not inclined to stretch the rules for younger scouts to make it work in our troop. Our time is better spent teaching youth to routinely check a troop website. The boys in my troop who do use FB created their accounts on their 13th birthday. My youngest son actually refused to set up an account the week before his 13th birthday. I inform parents of these norms, but try not to get into details. For some families, it is very important to have individual E-mails for their children. For other's it is very important to have one family E-mail until a kid starts applying for college. Finally, OwntheNight points out a very important facet of E-mail, it has a poor Reciever/Operator Characteristic. A message that goes out to a patrol does not impact all members equally. It's no replacement for regular meetings. So, I guess I tend to be pragmatic about this. It's kinda like that music download thing ... You get more mileage having an open discussion than you do playing detective, judge, and jury.

How can I explain this? If we were sitting at a campfire and I were to tell you that every word we said (less voice inflections or hand motions or any of that other things that let us now this is a "safe" conversation) would be recorded and maid available for review ... would you change what you would say? Probably at our age, the answer would be "no." We've been burned enough by saying or writing things in a way that got everyone we care about riled up that we've learned to be more constant in our choice of words. Younger adults ... not so much. Yet they treat their electronic devices as if they offered them the confidentiality that a cafe` table provides. That simply isn't the case.

Bought my leather hat in for $30 a few years ago. Made in China (which explains the price), but the best piece of headgear I've ever had. Suitable for backpacking. Wore it skiing once (before the helmet regs). Looks good on the street. (I get compliments from everyone -- working stiffs to village people.) Give's me something to tip as the ladies pass by. The cloth band on the inside is starting to fray, may cost more to get a new one sewn in than what I payed for the thing in the first place. Best wallets I get are from an Indian merchant. He sells them for about $5, and the last almost as long as the "men's store" wallet. THE SUPERACTIVITY that my youth ask to do year after year is a $50/person mid-week campout at a beach on Lake Erie. Just a couple of days. One boy specifically requested we schedule it before he has to report to boot camp. I feel bad because it looks like we won't be able to because my vacation days and my dimes our gonna be blown getting 1/3 of the crew on a sailboat in The Abacos Bahamas for a week. The kids who picked this sailing trip literally priced their friends out and -- thanks to college and family needs -- now they themselves can't go. Negative synergism and hard times are like that. I'm feeling a little like we bought that $600 purse when all we really needed was a bunch of $30 hats.

Twocub, the issue is not you giving a word of encouragement to your scout, or me texting my venturer which bus gets him from his school to the night's meeting place. Parents are generally aware that we do a lot of that "on the fly", and are grateful for it. The issue is a young ASM or crew advisor "just being a friend" by having repeated "deep conversations" with a youth and letting it happen over social media completely unaware of how it can be blown out of context. That casual conversation that would get completely forgotten at the campfire winds up logged somewhere for "the rest of the world" to judge. The co-advisor who is always in a sidebar with the same venturer of the opposite sex on every campout is going to hear from me (if the crew president doesn't get there first). Even an ASM can get coached in one direction or another if you're camping together. But that "hair on the back of your neck" kind of feeling is attenuated when much of the back-conversation happens in messages that you never see until a concerned parent is waving the call log in your face. So, yeah, training that says "never do this" is going to be ridiculous and unenforceable. Training that teaches folks the ideal use for each tool and what some boundaries *may* be, will better prepare us for the next big thing. Well it's getting about time for that weekly touch-base call to my crew president. For some reason, I feel like using the land line ...

I think it's awesome how you did this. Incorporate your "rainbinator" somehow (different color for each day?), and your program will never be forgotten. Beyond this syllabus, I think you will need to prepare a "lead a horse to water" minute lecture for the SM orientation. Let them know what (if anything) they can expect to get from you at the end of the week. As far as first aid kits, the few of our kids who don't have them already always raid the troop supplies. We figure it's better that they have a few bandages handy than we account for every dime. I'm sure the trading post would be happy to accommodate them as well. And that's the point about the trail to first class. We want to raise up boys who walk their own path. So, just like the cooking rotation, some things are their responsibility. Now if you do see a boy who's poorly resourced, you should free to act scouter to scout as you fit. Don't let anyone pull that "if you do it for one, you'll have to for all" rubbish. But chances are a simple word to the SM "Johnny needs X or Y" will do for most needs.

What twocub said. More importantly, listen to your boys now that the race is over. What do they say? Do they want to try again next year? Are they trying to build a similar track for racing their cars at home? If so, then you probably want to volunteer to help work on that track and rules/regs for next year. That will also mean talking to other packs in your district to find out how they operate. For what it's worth, that software is a hassle. A necessary evil, but a pain nonetheless.

Thanks for the legwork Oak Tree! Next time I see a practicing homosexual kid, I'll show him the door along with those promiscuous heterosexuals. Bart, love it! But, I was thinking of some seriously rugged leprechauns in a a treasure laden canoe shooting some whitewater through a rainbow caused by the mist. Anyway, I think a revamped service patch (more color, not less) and a snazzier website will get them more traction than a name change.

Ea, I agree that our registrar deserves props. I did lock horns with her once over an advancement issue, but she did me the courtesy of bringing other folks in on the conversation and a call went to National and back in that same hour. Multiply my issues times the thousands of scouters in council, and I can't imagine a day when her agenda isn't derailed by one crisis or another coming through the door! That said, I can imagine a variety of scenarios where someone like OGE would like a voice of reason from outside council. But, I bet that "voice of reason" will first ask, "Have you talked to your SE about this?" Brace yourself OGE.

Because some stat methods I was researching last week brought up stuff by economists ... 1. Devise an algorithm for managing credit default swaps. a. Write complicated equations to make sure it looks like you know what you're doing. b. Analyze some "hard data" using those equations. c. Report your analysis in writing. Make sure that for each sentence describing likely risks, there are two describing potential yields. d. Tell your counselor the importance of disclaimers like "Past yields do not necessarily indicate future performance." Explain the proper small font size. I feel dirty just thinking about it. Gotta shower.

RSchiff, right on about that separation of work clothes. Son #1 started his first week at the mill. Got assigned jacket and overalls that he promptly tossed in with his last load of stuff from college. It all came out smelling like a coke oven! Reminded me of grandpa coming home at the end of his shift.

I guess it's just more motivation for a crew to design their own uniform.

Never counted. But, really, I think cub leaders endure so much more than the rest of us! Bless the lot o' yinz. And if knots keep you in the game, let's make you a few more.

NJ - don't need a source to say it isn't there. Read the youth application. There's no declaration of sexual preference principle. I'm around enough "rule spouters" to know if it existed. (The side of my head would feel the book being thrown at me.) There are other threads that discuss the "hows and whys" of this stance. EA - I don't think the council president mispoke at all. The guy's a lawyer. Misspeaking in front of reporters is bad for business. (Not to say that council reps never botch it royally from time to time.) The reporter never indicates that she directly confronted the guy about "stances against gays and atheists". (She wouldn't tell us that she didn't, that would be bad for business.) And, even if she did, his statement as quoted correctly represents BSA policy. And the OP wasn't interested in the name change. (Which I agree is a major waste of time -- just tweak the logo with a more masculine rainbow.) He was trying to convince us that a rule should be struck from the books by finding a prominent individual who was playing fast-and-loose with it.